Feeling rundown at the office? You might be eating wrong

If your productivity seems to be taking a nose dive — whether you’re having a hard time firing up your brain to generate ideas first thing in the morning or you continually feel sluggish and unmotivated after lunch — the first place you may want to look for answers is your plate.

Here are six common diet offenses that you’re probably committing on a weekly (if not daily) basis that are throwing a major wrench in your productivity game.

Skipping breakfast

Not only does skipping the first meal of the day set you up for weight gain and fatigue, but after a long night of fasting it leaves our blood sugar levels low, which means our body — including our brain — is running on an empty tank.

Research showed that not only eating breakfast, but eating a quality one, was key in boosting performance in school children. Those who ate a good breakfast (made up of dairy, cereal, fruit and bread) showed improved educational performance over those who ate unhealthy foods like chips and sweets. It’s also important to “eat a good source of protein at breakfast to stabilize blood-glucose levels throughout the day for steady energy to the body and brain,” Erin Palinski Wade, RD, CDE, author of Belly Fat Diet For Dummies told Everup.

Carb-loading at lunch

Chances are pretty high that when you need to grab something quick between meetings your go-to lunch is a major carb fest: Pizza with a thick, doughy crust, that massive burrito (on a large flour tortilla), a deli sandwich piled atop a huge baguette. But who hasn’t dove into one of these meals and then felt the foggy-brain creep up half an hour later, leaving you fighting the urge to take a nap right there on your keyboard?

Loading up on refined carbs may seem like the quickest way to fill your stomach and get back to your to-do list, but it’s going to negatively affect your mood and energy levels, grinding your productivity to a halt.

“The brain works best with about 25 grams of glucose circulating in the blood stream — about the amount found in a banana,” said Leigh Gibson, leading brain researcher. Low-glycemic carbohydrates — whole grains, fruits, vegetables and milk or yogurt — are where you will get a high-quality source of this much-needed glucose.

Or skipping lunch altogether

You may think keeping your ass in your desk chair and using your lunch hour to continue powering through your to-do list is the most productive decision you made all day. But you’d be wrong. We’ve already covered the effect that low blood sugar has on brain power. Taking the time to actually break from your work and refuel with a nutritious meal or snack can improve cognitive performance — the lack of consistent fuel can have the opposite effect, causing productivity to plummet.

“Avoid skipping meals and inconsistent eating patterns to prevent drops in blood glucose levels,” said Palinski-Wade. “The brain’s main source of energy is glucose, so you want to maintain steady blood-glucose levels throughout the day to perform at your peak. For this reason, eating every two to four hours should help to provide you with the energy you need to stay focused and alert.”

Taking too many trips to the coffee machine

A study published in in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology suggested that excessive caffeine intake can actually make you slack off. In a comparative study involving rats, naturally hardworking rats actually performed worse (indicating a decrease in productivity) after high caffeine intake.

And if you’re surpassing four cups per day (or 500 to 600 milligrams) the negative side effects may begin to outweigh the positive. According to the Mayo Clinic, side effects can include restlessness, irritability, nervousness and upset stomach — none of which put you in a place that’s conducive to producing stellar work. Plus, a study published in The Medical Journal of Australia found that just 50 milligrams of caffeine is enough to cause an increase in heart rate and agitation.

Not taking enough trips to the water cooler

Perhaps you should swap that afternoon coffee for a tall glass of water instead.

As a general rule of thumb, the USDA recommends that women consume 2.7 liters (or 91 ounces) and men consume 3.7 liters (or 125 ounces) of water daily from both beverages and foods. And since you most likely spend at least eight of your waking hours in a cubicle, that means you’re going to want to make a serious dent in that total during working hours. That glass of water not quite winning your vote next to the vending machine full of fizzy, sugary sodas? Here are some recipes to make it a little more appetizing.

Giving into mid-afternoon sugar cravings

While low-glycemic foods bolster our energy levels, high-glycemic foods (which includes pretty much all of your vending machine favorites) have the opposite effect. A handful of M&M’s or a leftover cupcake from a co-workers birthday may initially provide you with a boost that has you skipping back to your desk and diving into that PowerPoint, but the high is short-lived. Once your blood sugar crashes, you’ll be ready for a nap. And high blood sugar coupled with a cognitive task has been associated with elevated cortisol — a hormone known to impair memory in high doses, said Gibson.