Ever feel like you were hit by a truck after eating too much junk food? I think most of us are familiar with the "oh-man-I-shouldn't-have-eaten-that" feeling. But food doesn't just have a short-term impact on the way we feel. A deficient diet can lead to more chronic health problems like depression, emotional instability, and destructive behavior
Maybe you've had personal experience with this. I know I have. I can honestly say I became a different person after changing my diet--just from changing the way I eat.
I didn't have to take anti-depressants, birth control pills or go to countless therapy sessions. And I didn't have to do anything drastic like move to the beach or quit my job (in fact, I was able to start working more after improving my diet!). All I had to do was change the way I was feeding my body.
And food does more than just change our mood. It can also impact the dynamics of our relationships with others. I was just reading a great comment on Facebook this morning about a parent who was able to put an end to constant arguments with their daughter simply by getting her to stop eating junk food at her friend's house. Our relationships with our children, our spouses, our co-workers and pretty much anyone we meet is affected by our mood... and therefore by our food.
Watch this video from the Surf and Turf e-course to learn more about how food impacts your mood (check out the juicy bits with Julia Ross and Sally Fallon Morell!):
If you want to learn more about how what we eat impacts our mental (and physical) health, I highly recommend the following books. These are part of my personal information arsenal and helped me tremendously during my healing journey (you can read my reviews of these books and others here):
Everywhere we look there are advertisements for anti-depressants, stimulants and other substances that are supposed to help us feel better and more energized, but time and again these drugs prove to be ineffective and even harmful in the long run. Amino acid supplements, on the other hand, are an excellent alternative therapy for treating lack of energy and low moods.
Julia Ross talks extensively about amino acid therapy in her books The Diet Cureand The Mood Cure (read my review of The Mood Curehere). Supplementing with the right amino acids can boost deficient brain chemicals and make transitioning to a healthy lifestyle more achievable. It's not uncommon to have trouble kicking habits like using tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and eating processed sugar foods. Many times cravings for these substances can be linked to neurotransmitter deficiency. Fixing your diet and lifestyle are the best ways to correct such a deficiency, but let's face it: sometimes it feels impossible to make changes when our brain chemicals are off balance!
Amino acid therapy is generally very temporary if you are making other important changes in conjunction with the therapy. A few weeks or months is usually all it takes before doses can be tapered and eventually eliminated. I personally used amino acid therapy on and off for a period of about 12-18 months. Once I found which amino acids were most effective for me and got the dosage right, I discovered that changes were immediately noticeable. Today I no longer take regular doses of specific amino acids, though I do keep them around "just in case," though I rarely feel the need to use them.
Here are four amino acids that particularly work to improve energy and mood:
(All the dosages below are based on Julia's recommendations in her books, which I highly suggest reading before embarking on an amino acid therapy program. Remember it is always best to start with a small dose and increase as needed.)
Glutamine: L-glutamine supplements are among the most popular amino acid supplements for many reasons. They are useful for treating fatigue and depression. Glutamic acid, which is derived from glutamine, is essential for ideal brain function. During times of stress, your body uses up mass amounts of glutamine that can easily be replaced with a supplement of L-glutamine to keep you functioning at your best. Glutamine is also highly effective at fighting sugar and starch cravings. In addition, glutamine is also used to aid muscle recovery when taken before or after exercise. Suggested dosage is between 500-1,500 mg up to three times daily.
Phenylalanine: This is an essential amino acid which cannot be manufactured by the body. Phenylalanine is used to produce tyrosine (see below), and directly affects mood and energy. Phenylalanine supplements are used to treat fatigue, depression, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), problems with food cravings and overeating, and chronic pain. In supplemental form, you can use D-phenylalanine, L-phenylalanine, or DL-phenylalanine (DLPA). The first is especially useful in relieving pain, the second is also effective but slightly more stimulating, and the third is a combination of the first two forms. Start with 500 mg, one to three times daily, and gradually increase up to 1,000 mg three times daily as needed. Do not exceed 5,000 mg daily.
DLPA has been very helpful to me in the past. I've used it to help end coffee cravings (so has Ann Marie from Cheeseslave, you can read her post about quitting coffee here). It's also helped me recover from periods of emotional imbalance and depression. In my experience, DLPA has been surprisingly effective. I've only had to use it for short periods and the benefits seem to be long-lasting.
Tryptophan: This essential amino acid is a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is important for providing a feeling of calm and well-being. A deficiency of serotonin can result in depression, anxiety, insomnia, excessive anger and mood swings. Tryptophan supplements are quite effective, and act quickly to help produce optimal levels of serotonin. Take 500-1,000 mg up to three times per day. A bedtime dosage can be helpful for restful sleep.
Tyrosine: This amino acid is a precursor of adrenaline, dopamine and norepinephrine, which are important for maintaining a sense of well-being and energy, and also promote a healthy metabolism and nervous system. Tyrosine also works with iodine to promote thyroid health. Supplemental L-tyrosine is excellent for treating fatigue, low moods, depression, low sex drive and anxiety. Tyrosine and phenylalanine can be used in conjunction. Some people benefit more from one or the other; it’s important to work with both of them to find the right balance for your individual needs (I personally do much better on DLPA than tyrosine, though it took some experimenting to figure that out!). Dosage begins at 500 mg, one to three times daily. Increase dosage as needed, up to 2,000 mg three times daily.
Tips For Taking These Amino Acids
- Look for free-form amino acids in capsule or powder form to enhance absorption. Tablets are inferior because additives and binders make them more difficult to break down and utilize. Powder form is the most easily absorbed and will often have no additives at all.
- Take all amino acids between meals, at least twenty minutes before or ninety minutes after. This prevents these therapeutic aminos from competing for absorption with amino acids obtained from food.
- Stimulating aminos like tyrosine and phenylalanine compete with relaxing aminos like tryptophanTryptophan, on the other hand, can be used successfully for relaxation in the late afternoon, evening or bedtime.
Remember: Amino acid therapy should be used while working on improving dietary and lifestyle habits that could be draining your brain chemicals. Getting plenty of protein is an important part of stabilizing your energy and moods. Learn more about getting enough protein here.
People like to argue about macronutrients. It has to be one of the favorite hobbies of the health-conscious. How much fat? How many carbs? How much protein?
Plenty of people like to pretend there's a "magic" macronutrient composition that is right for everyone, but in my experience oversimplification leads only to frustration and could even result in metabolic damage.
Having said that, many people feel they need a guide to achieve optimum wellness. We like to see things in numbers. It helps give us a target to shoot for so we feel like we're meeting our nutritional goals.
Talk to ten different people and you'll probably hear ten difference recommendations for protein intake. I've heard everything from less than twenty grams a day all the way up to two grams per pound of body weight (whoa! that's a lot of chicken). I personally feel most people are going to fall between those numbers. But where in between? First let's briefly explore the importance of this nutrient:
Why Do We Need Protein?
In The Mood Cure, Julia Ross explains that protein contains the building blocks that make up our entire bodies--our muscles, our bones, our organs and even the brain chemicals that make us feel happy, emotionally stable and energetic. According to Julia, adequate protein intake is essential to our emotional and physical health. Dr. Diana Schwarzbein makes puts similar emphasis on protein in her books. Reading those books has helped to shape my personal views on protein intake and its importance in the modern diet.
So How Much Protein Do We Really Need?
I'd like to say there was a blanket answer for protein requirements, but there's not. People do well on varying amounts of protein, just like the other macronutrients. But since it helps to have a guide, here's a few ways to look at it:
Julie Ross recommends 20-30 grams of protein three times a day. I think this is a reasonable figure for most people and will provide plenty of protein without too much fuss over it. However, it's a little unspecific when it comes to activity level, body weight, etc.
Another standard method for computing protein needs is simply eating 1 gram of protein per kilogram of weight. Notice this is kilograms, not pounds. To get your weight in kilograms, divide your weight by 2.2. (So if you weigh 150 that would be about 68 kilograms.) This is slightly more tailored, since at least it takes into account your size. But I find it errs on the low side, at least for what makes my individual body happy.
One more method (and what I personally use at this time) is 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. This seems to work well for me. I like it because going by lean mass is even more specific than weight. Two people can be the exact same weight but have strikingly different amounts of lean body mass. Likewise, men tend to have more lean body mass than women, and generally someone who does regular resistance training will have more than someone who doesn't. So this method caters to all of those factors. It is also a little more complicated, because it involves figuring out your body composition within some level of accuracy. So tomorrow I'm going to continue this post by explaining how to do just that! Stay tuned...
Remember:As important as it is to eat enough protein, it's even more important to choose the right protein. High quality dairy, eggs, legumes, seafood and meat are among the top sources. Avoid soy like the plague: it's an anti-food.
This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist!
(read my review of The Mood Cure 
They are useful for treating fatigue and depression. Glutamic acid, which is derived from glutamine, is essential for ideal brain function. During times of stress, your body uses up mass amounts of glutamine that can easily be replaced with a supplement of L-glutamine to keep you functioning at your best. Glutamine is also highly effective at fighting sugar and starch cravings. In addition, glutamine is also used to aid muscle recovery when taken before or after 
Tyrosine: This amino acid is a precursor of adrenaline, dopamine and norepinephrine, which are important for maintaining a sense of well-being and energy, and also promote a healthy metabolism and nervous system. Tyrosine also works with iodine to promote thyroid health. Supplemental L-tyrosine is excellent for treating fatigue, low moods, depression, low sex drive and anxiety. Tyrosine and phenylalanine can be used in conjunction. Some people benefit more from one or the other; it’s important to work with both of them to find the right balance for your individual needs (I personally do much better on DLPA than tyrosine, though it took some experimenting to figure that out!). Dosage begins at 500 mg, one to three times daily. Increase 
