A Nutritionist’s Guide on What You Should Be Eating Every Day | Dr. Daniel Amen & Zoe Davis

[Music] so welcome back everybody this week we're gonna talk with our brain fit life coach Zoe Davis who's just amazing and she has a master's degree from Antioch University in Seattle has worked with people who have eating disorders but it's really more important to us she's our coach Raymond clinics especially on our online program brain fit life and I get to watch all the questions people ask on brain fit life and I just love how she answers them so anybody knows the Amen Clinics method really well is Zoey and Zoey and I did a very fun project with satori Capital in Dallas Texas where the whole company embraced brain health for a year and as part of it I lectured to them and all of them had individual appointments with Zoey and actually found that to be incredibly valuable to them and so this week's podcast we're gonna talk about food and mood food in your mind we're gonna talk about gut health and it's like you know why does psychiatric clinics care about gut health because it's completely connected to your brain and then we're gonna get super practical on what should you eat every day it's so welcome such a joy to be with you Zoey thank you it's great to be here so let's start by talking about dude what's your favorite story and working to name in clinics you actually work in our Walnut Creek clinic in Northern California but you have a lot of great contact with our folks online yeah gosh there's so many good stories I love working with folks who were really at the end of the rope in terms of feeling frustrated by lack of hell lack of feeling better and the model that we offer you know the biopsychosocial spiritual model really embraces someone's whole self right so when we start talking to to patients about how we can help them differently you know I it renews hope it renews a sense that there's something they can do and there is there's a lot and so you know lots of stories I can think of one off the top of my head of a woman who was really struggling with depression and anxiety she had been for much of her life and I'd been through every diet program you can go through because she struggled his weight as well and you know we started talking about nourishment on a really broad scale how can she feed her brain well so that her mood is better how can she feed her bodies of her weight you know moderates and and she really started to change her relationship with food she started to change her relationship with herself and really started dressing you know the the poor nutrition through her food but also through relationships that weren't serving her and she really started to transform and so her her body her weight started to come to a normal point she started to feel less depressed she started to feel more motivated and those kind of stories again where we're always going back to the whole person and really treating the whole person and seeing the whole person I think has so much value whether we're specifically in a nutrition visit or a coaching visit you know that's the mindset that we have and it really serves the whole person so I love those kind of stories and we're all of the pieces come together and someone begins to be able to transform because they're not just you know in a diet group or they're not just in a you know getting psychiatric medication for depression but they're looking at their whole life and we can really hone that space and help them to do to do transformative so I like that story it's why we do what we do right it's the stories that keep us motivated every day one of my favorite stories you know thinking about food and your mind is we saw a guy named Jeff who had been depressed for 30 years and even had ECT and three suicide attempts and and no one had ever talked to him about his diet yes like nuts but there's a brand new study out that I read on BBC that its medical doctors get virtually no training on nutrition which you know it seems like the pharmaceutical companies have hijacked medicine and you get a lot of pharmacology but the best pharmacology is actually FA our MPharm pharmacology from you know it's healthy food so Jeff came to see us and one of the things I often do is put people on an elimination diet it's like let's just get rid of things that are controversial that might hurt you so gluten dairy corn soy sugar and artificial dyes and preservatives and a lot of people get freaked out it's like oh there's nothing to eat and I'm like now there's 10,000 things Dean you know God gave you a big big brain for a reason stop back in like before [Laughter] yeah within three days he's better and it's amazing so three days he's better yeah and so we started to add things back one at a time and added back gluten not one thing happened he's still better yeah headed back dairy not one thing happened he's better yeah added back corn he said within 20 minutes he had the image of a gun in his mouth wanting to shoot himself yeah I've had a similar experience with with someone with corn as a trigger and the elimination diet I mean it it's fascinating I think you know when you're motivated you know because your symptoms are so bad or so impactful to your life which is a lot of what we see in the clinic you know people are motivated to do what it takes and emphasizing what you want to be eating as opposed to only what you want to you know get rid of can really help people to feel like there is a wide variety because Whole Foods there's tons of them right there's tons of different kinds of vegetables low sugar fruits healthy fats high-quality proteins I mean these are you know for the most part we've got access to that and so emphasizing you know what you can really be eating in a day to use food as medicine is they're really different you know frame of thinking for a lot of people because we think of standard American diet right it's it's all about taste and convenience and what's quick and it's not thinking about how is this food actually going to nourish me how am I going to be fueled by this how am I going to either prevent symptoms or disease or how am I gonna heal from things that are going on currently and that's a real different way of thinking about it and for a lot of people just having that language of saying let's talk about how we can use food as medicine which is how I like to talk to speak about it it changes it for people because it's not you know it's not the way that we normally think about food we just don't and like you to your point exactly a medical school you're not necessarily taught how to tell people what to eat even if you're a GI specialist right it's not happening and when you think of the standard American diet so I always love the acronym for that sad it's associated with so many mental health problems from depression dementia attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and one of the things that got me really interested in is you know I think one of my big gifts is I listened to my patients and when they get better I at least think about it rather than dismiss it and so one of my patients told me her arthritis went away when I got when she got rid of NutraSweet or aspartate and at 35 I was 35 at the time I had arthritis my knees hurt my hands hurt and I'm like oh well I'm getting old and now that I'm 63 I'm like well that's sort of silly [Laughter] yeah and so I was drinking diet coke like it was my best friend you know at lunch I go through jack-in-the-box get a 32 ounce Diet Coke horrifying now that I think about it and so I stopped it and my arthritis went away and I'm like oh my god and then I'm like no so I would like test it and within 20 minutes my hands would start to hurt and so I'm like I'm paying attention to this and then one of my autistic kids his mom heard about an elimination diet and when she got rid of gluten and dairy he picked up a hundred new words in a month and so I'm like you know maybe I should pay attention to this absolutely it can be that powerful it really can and you think about you know not only what are you taking away but when you're replacing that with nutrient-dense foods you're you're getting all these nutrients that you probably weren't getting before in the standard American diet right I mean we're notorious notoriously low in some key vitamins right a man a vitamin D vitamin C you know we're not magnesium we're not getting these in the standard American diet so it's yes you're removing these toxins virtually yeah essentially and then you're also replacing them with these nutrient-dense so you know did the nutrients is dr. kid that you know one of our peers talks about you know these are not optional right these are these are nutrients that our brain requires for functioning right our body requires and so you know we're resilient we're able to get by for so long but eventually things start to break down more not getting what we need in our daily lives or food and it can it can be so powerful when you start to make those changes I've had a lot of aspartame stories so you just remind a lot of patients there I'm like let's get you off of that but let's and it's it everything and it's and now chewing gum for example they don't put the ingredients on the label and how they get away with that I'm not quite sure but it's virtually in everything that is processed so reading the label is critical and if and I would just say if it's not on the label don't if they don't put the ingredients on the label don't buy it right because that's a sign that's there's some trouble waiting absolutely something something's hidden yeah and getting you know getting people used to reading ingredients it's just a really great way to engage people with what they're putting into their bodies because it's again it's not something that a lot of people think about certainly certainly a lot of people do but we're slowly getting there to where people are starting to think oh does this matter if I you know take this in and is this impacting me over time and you know the other thing I think about is how as we get older you know hopefully getting older that we were accumulating all of these these things that we've eaten or not eaten throughout our lives so that it makes sense that you know there's going to be issues like dementia or cognitive decline or you know mood issues because we haven't been doing it so it's a cumulative over time her body has been able to compensate for a period maybe maybe not and then eventually gotta do something about it so so if somebody is struggling with dementia you know I think it's an emergency because the longer that goes on the less hope there is if someone's struggling with attentional problems brain fog pain depression what are some of the things you think they should start eliminating from their diet so so the big three that we talked about immediately are gluten sugar and dairy so because they're just known to be the most sort of obvious ones that people can have some benefit from removing and and that's hard to do for some people some people really you know resist doing it but when there's something like you said urgent that's going on there's a great motivation to do that so we talked about how to do that how do we how do we take those out and what do we eat instead and we really emphasize again what do we want to be eating what are we trying to eat more of yes we're removing these things but we're not taking away the variety because there's a lot of variety so often people notice the more immediate benefit from from those three things you can also as you mentioned earlier corn and soy and others another two that people tend to have a response to but but once you remove the sugar and the gluten and the dairy you've um you've eliminated so many processed foods right because they're in so many packaged foods they're in so many products and so when we just talk about trying to eat Whole Foods and emphasize Whole Foods we're already a limiting dyes and artificial flavorings and artificial sweeteners all of these things that you just don't have to think about if there's not a label on it and you're just eating whole food then you've eliminated a lot of those other ones that we really have to get to at some point so I always talk to people about how do we start just eating only foods that you are in their original form as much as possible right so vegetables you know throughout the day how do we just have those as much as we can most people have I think the average American has like two cups a day maybe the vegetables white potato or corn or something right but we want to be getting more like six to nine cups a day so we can do that we just have to eat it more regularly throughout the day and that alone is going to benefit us hugely right if we're we're replacing that gluten that wheat that white flour product with more vegetables well we've upped our nutrient density immensely and we're getting more fiber you know we're getting more vitamins and minerals so we're we're eliminating something but we're really emphasizing the variety that were replacing it with so I have a fun story fun might not be the right word this guy came from Michigan no Minnesota to get scanned and and the scan was not very healthy and he said I want you to do one more scan on msg and I'd never heard him it is a problem at that time and it's about 15 years ago and I'm like why he said whenever I get msg I get violent and I've actually hurt my wife and I just want to know what it does to my brain and so we gave him a big slug of MSG and scanned him again and it deactivated his left temporal lobe it was so clear which is an area of the brain that's involved in violence and it was funny my interaction with him I said well you have two choices and I was sort of tongue-in-cheek for me I said you can stop the MSG or I can put you on neurontin an anticonvulsant and I can protect your temporal lobe and I'm fully expecting him to say okay it's a problem I just won't eat it he said you have to give me the medicine and I'm like wow and he said food companies often don't have to label that msg is there or they'll call it natural flavoring his hand and if I go out to dinner and I get msg if I lose my temper one more time my wife said she is divorcing me and if she divorces me I'll kill myself I'm like let me give you the medicine what about the medicine and told him to hold the msg if they don't have it at a certain level in food they don't have to put it in the ingredients and that's why eating Whole Foods as you mentioned is so important when it comes to your mental health and who would think that a food additive could actually cause a marital problem which then leads to suicide yeah isn't that crazy it's pretty amazing I mean it makes sense right I mean this is the chemistry of how we imbibe things and take food in and and then what happens what happens to us and the opposite can be true right I mean you you you saffron like the spice of good feeling right where you can eat it and feel you know this this happiness overwhelm you and there's there's research to back that up it's actually an antidepressant right so it's like food is medicine right it's that powerful and you know I think you always say it's medicine or poison right it's like it can go either way so getting people to even think about that and even make that connection can be really powerful you know I like talking with kids about that too you know it's like start making those connections when you eat something how does that make you feel and you start that young and you get that that language kind of going in the internal mind you know it really helps to steer you towards certain or away from under foods that you know are so poor and you know that's why we call this podcast the brain Warriors way because you're in a war for the health of your brain everywhere you go someone's trying to shove bad food down your throat absolutely say the real weapons of mass destruction are highly processed pesticides sprayed high glycemic low fiber food like substances stored in plastic containers that are destroying the health of America we we can do so much better so stay with us when we come back we're gonna talk about the gut brain connection who knew that I should have been paying attention more to the gut lectures when I decided I was gonna be a psychiatrist who knew stay with us [Music] you [Music] all right welcome back we are here with Zoe Davis therapist nutritionist she's really the coach at Amen Clinics when I have a patient that I want to help them with their diet I send them to Zoe Zoe is also the coach on brain fit life our online and mobile program you can learn about it at my brain fit life comm so Zoe you know in your training as someone who's interested in mental health and nutrition when did the gut become an obvious place for us to start work on working on yeah that's a good question for me personally I think it's been a long time coming I think I talked about how I grew up in a very strict ballet school and I saw in my sort of later years how people's lack of eating enough nutrients because that was strongly encouraged right and sort of the ballet world was contributing to depression anxiety and I didn't really think of it as I got seeing necessarily by I started thinking okay there's something to this nutrition and mental health you know connection so certainly later I started to realize that there had been a lot of studies done actually back you know early into the early 1900s where people were looking at nutrients and their benefit to mental health issues but it was sort of like thrown out and and not not strongly encouraged so learning about the gut is a second brain has been probably in the last five to ten years as its really been understood and makes common sense right that what we take in and it's absorbed or utilized well or whether we're not taking in enough really contributes to how our brain is functioning just like it contributes to how the rest of our body is functioning right so this is a powerful thing I mean we are made up of more bacteria right then we are other human cells right so we've got trillions and trillions of bacteria in our gut and how they're impacting the way that we function whether we absorbing nutrients well whether we're getting sick whether it's staying well where their immune systems functioning whether neurotransmitters are being utilized well and absorbed it has everything to do with it right so it's just this the second brain that we've got housed you know in our GI tract and it's powerful we start to look at that in terms of how it changes the way that our brain functions and it's a it's a wonderful conversation to keep having because not a lot of people know about it so not one lecture in medical school about the gut brain connection for me not one lecture in my residency my psychiatric residency or my child adolescent psychiatry fellowship not one and it's it's not when you think as you said you have a hundred trillion bugs in your intestinal tract where you only have ten trillion cells in your whole body so you have ten times the number of bugs and they can be really good for you so they can be really helpful or they can be really hurtful and if you don't feed the bugs right they won't make neurotransmitters they won't make vitamins they won't digest your food they will cause this thing we call leaky gut where your gut lining becomes deteriorated and you start to absorb things you shouldn't absorb in your body and yeah and you start to become almost allergic to yourself right I mean I think that's that's the thing I remember a professor once said is try not to become allergic to yourself right it's like that idea of you start to react to things that maybe you could normally eat but if your intestinal intestinal lining is permeable you're gonna have problems well and what I love that term I'd never heard that before become allergic to yourself so that's what a mess is that multiple sclerosis it's what rheumatoid arthritis is it's what lupus is and a lot of rheumatologists or neurologists will try to drug the brain into submission without really going and what the root cause might be and that is often got health and so as I talk about brain health I always say brain health is three things you got to care about your brain so fall in love with your brain avoid anything that hurts it and do things that help it you just need to know the less well good health is sort of the same thing is you need to care about that tube that's 30 feet long and you need to care about its health its contents and you know what are the things you can do for it that help it one of the things you should stop doing that hurt it so we already began to talk about why you should love it and every people know intuitively I remember I went I used to get butterflies before I would speak in front of an audience and why right I mean I'm anxious in my mind how does that affect my gut well that's a big nerve called the vagus nerve that goes between your brain and your gut and so it's sending signals you're unhappy your gut will feel it I remember when I went through a period of grief 13 years ago now I lost somebody that Ida sterile II loved my GI tract was upset for six months it just wasn't working right and I think so many people who through grief they experienced gastric symptoms absolutely yeah and I think it's it's it's a great messenger I mean it's a communication tool like you were just talking about the vagus nerve but I mean we are more in touch with and we can feel what's going on in our gut where we can't feel what's going on in our brain right and so it's a great if we're willing to listen to it it's got a lot of information for us so you know people come in and they've got all kinds of issues constipation or IBS or you know just difficulty absorbing food or they're upset stomach a lot and and yeah as you pointed out you get into what's going on psychologically emotionally and there's almost always a connection and certainly we see the benefit of addressing those two things in concert right and again that speaks to sort of the nourishment overall it's like well okay yeah someone's going through grief or someone's got a lot of anxiety it's going to impact the way that they're able to even take in food and certainly the way that they're able to absorb it and and so looking at those two things together as always I think more beneficial and so few psychiatrists or therapists have any clue or any training on this but if you're struggling from anxiety depression abb and addiction it's so important to work on gut health and so let's teach people how to do that how do you take care of your gut so what are the things to do and what are the things to not do right so one of the key things to do is make sure that we're feeding the beneficial bacteria right so one of the ways that we can do that through our food is through eating a fiber rich diet right we've got to get the prebiotics and the food for the beneficial bacteria we've got to be eating high fiber so you know the the US population in general is like we're getting half of what we need in terms of fiber we really need you know 2030 grams a day or we're a little more like 10 15 right so so we've got to feed the bacteria and keep them keep the beneficial bacteria there to hold space so that we don't end up with the pathogenic bacteria taking over so that's number one we've got to make sure we're not taking in pesticides and even artificial sweeteners like sucralose that can act like an almost like an antibiotic right and kill off some of our beneficial bacteria we've got to be abstaining from taking too many antibiotics right I mean that's something in the medical field or just you know often doled out without a lot of thought as to the repercussions and I'm constantly fascinated by how many people are on antibiotics I had a patient recently who had been on antibiotics for 15 years just everyday and had never been told to take a probiotic and they're not been told to incorporate probiotic rich foods and not been told to incorporate fiber rich foods so you know those sort of basic things really make an impact on what's able to thrive in our gut and what's able to you know keep from thriving so prebiotics which fiber rich food probiotics which is you can take supplements in brainmd makes program biotics and we made that one specifically because there are a couple of studies showing that it helps support your mood and decrease anxiety probiotic foods it's a little bit of a double-edged sword because people think they eating yogurt and so they get Dannon yogurt off the grocery store shelf and it's loaded with artificial dyes and sure masks and it's like no I mean we're sort of not a fan of dairy anyways and it's sensitive but kimchi is loaded with healthy probiotics I don't like kimchi it just it's not for me but I love sauerkraut and sauerkraut is loaded with probiotics so feeding your gut healthy bacteria this is so important for and then if you've had things that destroyed your gut like antibiotics like chronic stress so chronic stress is a young person so I just saw someone yesterday who was molested physically emotionally sexually it changed her gut health and I just know that it decreases her guts ability to produce serotonin it makes it more likely she's gonna have leaky gut and so on so taking care of the emotional trauma with treatments like EMDR a specific psychotherapy for trauma can be really helpful but then you have to avoid things that hurt your gut and do things that help your gut and you mentioned probiotics the other thing I'm sorry you mentioned pesticides of course what a pesticides do they kill bugs and so that's why eating organic is really important when you can but the other thing people don't talk much about is alcohol and my wife is a nurse and Wyden nurses put alcohol on your skin before they give you a shot bacteria to kill the bugs and but yet we sort of have this idea that alcohol is a health food and then you should have two or three glasses of red wine a day and somehow that's good for you it's like sets little forest fires in the gut bacteria so I'm not a fan of it and a lot of people are almost shamed like if you don't drink you're not really a grown up I'm just not a fan I mean if you have one or two glasses a week it's probably not a problem in one or two glasses a day according to a study from Johns Hopkins you have a smaller brain and I would just say when it comes to the brain size really does matter it's the only organ in your body where size matters but it your brain counts you don't want to be shrinking your yeah and I think you you know you bring up a good point about sort of the habit of it right so that people are used to having alcohol with every social occasion you know just like they're used to having really you know junk food I mean there's that that sort of habit of that you know in in so many of our lives and I think questioning that and talking about how can you enjoy socializing without that or how else can you do that's health promoting that's an you know we're still able to enjoy each other's company I think that's you know it's inclusive right it's like you're addressing the fact that there's a social component to it but you're also like addressing the fact that you don't want to be hurting yourself in order to have that so in the going-away party in the clinic that you told me about it the brain I'm hoping they don't have candy and cake why do we celebrate with foods that hurt us yeah yeah I think it's just because that's what we have been doing and that is we haven't thought of it as hurting us right we've thought of it is oh that's just the recipe I've always made or that's what my mom's always done or that's what my grandmother did or whatever I don't think we stop to question it and and we don't stop to question what's the real meaning of the celebration and why would that be taken away if we just transferred the types of foods were eating or what we're drinking with it it really doesn't change the content of the connection right and I think we'll think that it does I mean Thanksgiving their birthdays in my house or I mean their celebrations but what things that serve us rather than things that hurt us alright when we come back we're gonna talk about what to do what you can eat day stay with us [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back so let's get really practical I am here with Coach Zoe Davis who is answered goodness hundreds maybe more questions on brain fit life you've been doing that for a long time now haven't you a couple years now yeah we have about fourteen thousand people in our community we want to create brain fit people that's our goal so what are options for breakfast let's let's start with the morning what are things that are nutrient-dense that taste great yeah so yeah my favorite my favorite meal of the day yeah my favorite in the morning is eggs with a lot of dark leafy greens so kale is my favorite I know a lot of people went at kale but I think when you make it right it's it's delicious so using you know whatever vegetables you like but lightly cooking them and then adding them to your eggs and and you can do that in lots of different ways I like you know asparagus and broccoli and onions and mushroom but always using a lot of fresh garlic and they usually use avocado oil if I'm going to put any oil in that's my favorite mess my favorite breakfast and and then you know other options that people really enjoy are like a protein smoothie so some sometimes people aren't hungry in the morning and they feel like they're in a rush they don't have time to cook eggs even though they're super fast to cook but smoothies are really a great option because you can put a lot of nutrient density in there you can use a high quality plant protein powder in you can use almond milk or coconut because you're liquid and then you can add all kinds of deliciousness and we have great recipes you know we're all and then tannaz cookbooks especially the brain Warriors way cookbook there's so many shake recipes and they taste awesome amazing yeah and you can hide for kids for example so you can hide the taste of kale or spinach B and for kids you can you can put you know you know vitamins in there you can put probiotics in there you can like you can totally you know muscle it up and have it be a really strong breakfast or our new bright minds powder which is you know so many people don't want to take capsules I don't want to take ten capsules in the morning you can take a scoop of the powder and put it in a shake and sort of hide the taste although it tastes reasonably okay yeah but that's often my go-to in the morning and we make a super clean super healthy protein powder one vanilla one chocolate and we do it just it's it's a way to say look it can taste great and be good for you yeah you just have to be thoughtful and that's a great you know for kids that's a great after after school you know small meal too because kids are always starving after school and you know they want something to taste good but you you know you don't want them to have any junk it's like that's a great way to have something you know really tasty slightly sweet and really nutritious for them as well yeah so it's funny parents give kids Oreos and a coke and then they expect them to concentrate right so they give them a sugar burst and what happens in your body is your pancreas then sees the sugar produces insulin and so you've got a sugar spike oh I feel great and then 30 minutes later it drops you and your brain is now mud and it's like come on get your homework done what's the matter with you don't you care why are you doing this to me which is nuts when it's the parents allowing it to happen to the child but just not being aware of it like not putting those two things together which is just it seems like we start talking about it seems like common sense I often have that conversation with people where it's like oh yeah that makes sense I didn't realize drinking coffee at 10 o'clock at night would make my sleep disturbed you know you're just not putting it together if you don't have those conversations you don't sometimes think about it so drinks in the morning that's interesting because and us you've alluded to this a couple of times is what people do is what they're going to do that the brain actually gets in a rut and so I you know so what's the healthy thing I can get it jack-in-the-box nothing except maybe ice tea probably works but I used to get a chicken fajita pita because it was 350 calories so it's calorie smart and healthier than most but the more I would allow myself to do it the more trouble I would have not doing it so whatever you allow yourself to do it builds tracks in the brain and so it makes it more likely to happen so you want to find things you love that love you back and do it over and over because I actually think it's okay to get into a routine most people are in a routine that's bad for them and so you know I usually cook eggs for 10 and Chloe in the morning and I'll have a cup of blueberries often throw some spinach in there as well for you know get my green stuff yeah the more you can find a routine you love that loves you back then you become a brain warrior absolutely and you make that new routine really accessible and doable and realistic right so often people say I don't have time to in the morning I'm not you know so that's why I have to have you know whatever is at work or what I grab at the drive-through whatever but if you have for instance I always talk to people about having some vegetables prepped and at eye level in the refrigerator so when you open the refrigerator there they are and all their colorful glory and they're ready to go so there's no excuse not to just throw them in with whatever you're eating it's a way to just make it that much easier so you know you're right I mean the routine really helps so when you go to the store come home prep some food so that there's no reason not to eat well it's it's the excuse of oh I I don't have time to or I'm rushing so I'm not going to cut up any veggies well if they're right there then it's easy to add them to whatever you're eating so what about so let me just and I think I've said it on the podcast before so this is how I tell Tana I love her every morning I make her a pumpkin spice almond milk cappuccino so half CAF coffee with unsweetened almond milk with pumpkin spice about a teaspoon of that with a little bit of chocolate stevia put it in a blender frost like crazy yeah top it with cinnamon that has a little bit of erythritol in its and it's it's just amazing she used to make it for me every morning and then she went away on a trip and I'm like well who's gonna make this she's like you have an MD I'm sure you can follow the directions it's how she taught me how to make it and now she's so sneaky cuz now I make it every morning and but you know it's like my way of saying I love you buy something you love that loves you back yes yeah so what about snacks yeah so yeah great so snacks always you know easy to carry with you is what people want to want so you know raw nuts and seeds I think are a great option I will again like preparation I'm always talking about preparation you know get a bunch of different kinds pumpkin seeds walnuts almonds you know sunflower seeds I just dump them all together mix them up maybe put a little bit of dehydrated coconut unsweetened in there and then when you've got it pre portion you can just take it with you for you know for your day then you've got a couple servings of really healthy fat along with some protein you know between meals that can be really simple and you know again I love the berries you know it sounds like you love blueberries as well and I'll do the same thing with berries because they you know they have great benefit blueberries blackberries raspberries I'll mix them up and then take those with me as well so having a little bit of healthy fat and protein it's a little bit a good carbohydrate in the in the fruit can be really simple other options are delicious or almond butter and celery or almond butter and Apple really easy if you've got it again already already ready to go in the morning that makes it so much easier to take and a big fan of raw veggies so I will bring raw veggies as well with some hummus or salsa along with the nuts and that's actually a really good pair as well guacamole - avocados are just amazing yeah I guess I should disclose my father is an avocado grower avocados all the time it's his way of saying he loves me you know every time I go over there to work out he send me sends me home with a bag of avocados so I just love that and they're so good for you yeah we used to think not but 60% of the solid weight of your brain is fat they call you a fat head say thank you it's a critical part of what should be in our diet absolutely yeah okay what about fruit yeah so we talked about berries and berries are good I have everyday one cup of frozen blueberries and I like frozen blueberries better than non frozen blueberries because it's sort of like candy it's you know I actually say it's God's candy and a cup of frozen blueberries is 70 calories so it's calorie smart it's loaded with fiber and color and so why is the color important it is you know they're phytochemicals or they're basically plant medicines right absolutely and blueberries specifically I mean they're just like a superfood I mean if there is such a thing that that would definitely be one of them and frozen I I don't know if you've heard this but the frozen actually are better digested because they they break a little bit in the in the freezing process is that is that something you've heard I have it yeah so I mean I don't usually eat them frozen but I think about that sometimes like I like I'm French but yeah I think you know a couple serve depending of course on what your goals are but a couple servings a day of really you know low sugar fruits especially the berries because you're eating the seeds as well and in berries that's great I think we're used to these like huge bananas are huge apples are huge oranges you know we don't need half of a watermelon player I show no fruit or pineapple but there's there's a difference we don't have time to talk about it today but glycemic index and glycemic load that absolutely talked about but you know apples oranges pears if you're gonna have a banana have it greener than brown and pairing it with the protein is gonna help that blood sugar response right so you're talking about the glycemic load so pairing it with a protein will slow that down so it's a good idea to always that's why I like to always eat fruit with protein or you know at least some nuts it's got some protein in it slow that down so you're not getting that spike and then drop right that's we all trying to avoid and then for for dinner and lunch you know I would just tell people think of a plate 70% should be plant-based foods 30% high quality protein and mix in of those numbers healthy fat but what about dessert you know I only have a few minutes left let's talk about what everybody gets unhappy about and so brainmd actually makes two chocolate bars they're so good raisin love which melts is amazing it's amazing and you just need a little piece it's like all you're needing is like if you just want a little sweetness have a little bit really enjoy it like savor it you know you don't mean even the whole bar you can just have a little piece and then brain enjoy which is our coconut chocolate bar which we do and it's it's symbolic there is no suffering I'm scared well yeah you just gotta use your brain and you can use that like you said melt it and then dip your little you know berries in it and you've got this like just luxurious dessert but I know Tana and you have some great recipes in there for cookies you know that are made with almond meal and I've used those at holidays people don't even notice the difference it's not you know it's not a loss by by eating well for sure although you know the difference is if I had an Oreo I would really want four or five of them oh sure I guess if I have one of tannaz cookies I'm happy one to it yeah the level of satisfaction way up well it's been just such a joy to be with you thank you for your work with him in clinics and with brain fit life and being a brain warrior with me I'm just so grateful for you and I know our community is well if you want to interact more with Zoe join brain fit life Zoe answers virtually all of the questions on our forum so anytime you ask a question usually you have an answer that day or the next day and it's either coming for me or Zoe and most commonly lately it's been Zoe so thank you so much my friend absolutely take good care thank you alright say hi to everybody in Walnut Creek for me use the code podcast tab to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at Amen Clinics comm or on our supplements at brainmd health com thank you for listening to the brain warriors way podcast go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the brain warriors way and the brain warriors way cookbook we give away every month

Channel: AmenClinics

Views: 144,579

Keywords: Brain, Brain Health, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, Dementia, Alzheimers, Diet, Nutrition, Amen, Daniel Amen, Amen Clinics, Psychiatrist, ADD, Mental Health, Podcast, Health Podcast, Health, Tana Amen, Zoe Davis, Brain Fit Life, Coach, Standard American Diet, Food, Elimination Diet, Gut Brain, Bacteria, Vagus Nerve, Probiotics, Pesticides, Antibiotics, Eating, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Id: WLtyCavAbdI

Length: 53min 12sec (3192 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018