I was watching the end of a baseball game last week and after the game, they were interviewing a player about how he keeps in shape during the season. He was talking about how he needed to lay off the fried foods that he loved during the season because the foods adversely his energy level during the games. Professional athletes have been paying more attention to what they eat over the last 20 years because they know that if they are not in the peak physical shape, they will lose their paycheck. Gone are the days where “Refrigerator” Perry could eat anything he wanted and be a star football player for the Chicago Bears. Now, there is a lot more attention even during the off season on an athlete’s diet and exercise program because they see the relationship between their energy level and their pay check.

So what does this have to do with personal finance? We are not professional athletes, so is diet that important to our paycheck? Absolutely, we may not need to run 100 yards for a touchdown or 20 yards to make a diving catch for a baseball, yet how we perform during the day at work is as important to our paycheck as how an athlete performs on the field. However, many people do not think twice before eating a greasy hamburger with extra large fries that will hit the pit of their stomach during the afternoon making them want to take a nap.

We want to blame the long day at the office for not being able to concentrate after work on things that can improve our job outlook like reading the training materials our boss gave us 3 months ago instead of looking at what we eat. I know at my last job, my boss gave me a training binder for improving my consulting skills that he wanted me to read over and discuss with him. However, I never seemed to find the time or energy to read it because I was too tired at the end of the day to pick it up.

Over the last few months, I have also been noticing my energy levels. When I have ice cream or pie for dessert at lunch, I know that I will want to take a nap around 3 or 4 o’clock. And, because my son does not let me do that, I am dragging until 7 o’clock until the sugar fix has passed. When I do not exercise in the morning, I know that I am more irritable and lack energy to work on my writing projects than if I get in 2-3 workouts a week, even if it is just a walk around the block.

So it is important to look at when we are most productive during the day. For me it is in the morning after eating a health breakfast (cereal and juice). Yet, I tend to drag in the later afternoon especially after eating french fries. By seeing our patterns we can correlate to see how what we eats affects our productivity. Also, look we need to understand how if we increased your productivity either in the sluggish morning or afternoon, what it can give us. By being more productive, we may be able to avoid coming into work on the weekend (or stay late) and thus be away from our families less. Or by being more productive, we can get that next promotion. Or, we can work on an idea for a new business after we are done with work because we are more energized.

Thus, when we are looking at ways we can increase our financial abundance, we should look at what we eat and how we exercise. By watching what we eat not only can we cut back on our expenses that we spend on unhealthy snacks but also we can increase our performance at work which can have a direct link to the paycheck we receive (or do not receive if we were caught napping at our desk too many times).

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under Energy of Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.