Dr. Amen's 10 Simple Food Rules to Guarantee a Healthier Life

happy Thursday eight nine ten depending on how you count of this pandemic which has been wild and crazy and I'm dr. Daniel Amon and I'm a psychiatrist so why am I gonna talk about food I think it was in the early 90s when I had an autistic patient and when the mother told me she cut out gluten and dairy and the next week he had 50 words I'm like whoa and I actually think one of my best gifts is I'm not arrogant and I love learning from my patients and that one encounter caused me to do research on the impact of food and mood food and focus food and anxiety and the research is breathtaking and when I rather help you heal with food or give you a drug that has side effects and I'm like not rather you heal with food now it's not a good business decision if I can change your diet and you don't need medication and you don't have to come back over and over again whoa that's not a good business decision I'm joking it's a wonderful business decision because when you get people well they're your best referral source and forever at Amen Clinics our patients have been our best referral source so in the end of mental illness out now you can get it excited about it it's been on the USA Today bestseller list and publisher weekly it's been on Amazon's bestseller list a lot there's a whole chapter people go I don't know if I like the title of this chapter food made insanely simple and ultimately it comes down does it serve your health or does it hurt your health so I'm gonna walk you through the 11 rules and see if it won't dramatically change what you choose and the reason for tonight's talk tonight is Khloe's night to cook our 16 year old chicken shwarma broccoli spectacular oh so proud of her and then I had a conversation today with one of my patients who has a really challenging child and I'm like we need to do an elimination we need to do an elimination diet and you know if they have a TD they're gonna have it three months from now and I know medicine is easy but I'm not opposed to medicine but we need to rule out this isn't a negative reaction to food and so we're gonna talk about that and so that just triggered in my mind I've been wanting to do this live chat for a long time because during a pandemic when you're at home and you have more time now is the time to get healthy I mean let's just be clear you likely have time they stay at home and I know in a lot of places it's been extended and even in places where it's not been extended people are extending it because they're concerned and so let's get to it rule number one only love foods that love you back I'm so over people going but I love cake and I love cookies and I love sugar well there are a lot of things I love that'll get me killed and have you ever been in a bad relationship I've been and a couple of bad relationships they were just not good for me or for the other person and now that I'm married to my best friend who I'm happy to be in a pandemic with her cuz she's awesome I'm not going back to being in bad relationships with people I'm 65 are you kidding no that's not okay with me and I'm for sure not going to be in a bad relationship with food or were things I drink I am NOT gonna be in love with things that hurt me when we first did the Daniel plan the big wonderful project I did with Pastor Rick Warren and Mark Hyman at Saddleback Church we gave a lecture and one of the pastors wives came to see me in my office and I'm drinking tea which I often do and she said would you put the tea down and you know in my mind I went why but you know I generally consider myself a reasonably nice person so I just put the tea down and she said I didn't want you to spit it at me and I'm like excuse me she said after I heard you lecture I told my husband I'd rather get Alzheimer's disease then give up sugar and I said to her I said did you date the bad boys in high school cuz you're obviously in a bad relationship now over time she was able to give up sugar brave will break up with sugar but the real weapons of mass destruction in the United States are highly processed pesticides sprayed high glycemic we'll talk about that low fiber food like substances that are destroying the health of America it's the food we're seeing it the food and put you at risk for obesity put your risk for diabetes for hypertension for immune system problems and did you know the fat on your belly takes healthy testosterone and turns it into unhealthy cancer-promoting forms of estrogen it's the food that increases your risk of getting seriously sick from Kovan 19 talked about that so principle number one love foods that love you back principle number two go for the highest quality calories you can find and not too many of them a lot of doctors are gonna tell you calories don't count they're insane of course they count now the quality of your calories matters just as much if not more so 800 calories of Twinkies you may lose weight for a short period of time but then you're gonna get inflamed sick and get cancer so the calories matter quality matters as much or more and if you're having trouble losing weight you need to weigh and measure what you eve at least for a month so that you begin to understand how much how many calories you're putting in your body we have I school course actually your high schoolers can take it online and get three college units of credit it's called brain thrive by twenty-five and one of our exercises is pick a typical fast-food lunch that you get go on their website and find out how many calories are in it and so the average American male needs about 2200 calories to maintain their weight adult male of the average American female is about 1,800 calories a day to maintain their way a lot of the students found one meal they were having as many calories as they required in a whole day it was just insane what they discover so if you're having trouble losing weight calories matter I think of calories like money and I have plenty of money but I don't waste it it irritates me actually to waste it and this week you know many of you know my dad died last week and my mom is in charge my mom's an in charge so der person and when I hear talk about money she has plenty of money my dad was a really smart guy and as is she and when I just hear it's like she makes value-based decisions she makes value base decision she hates wasting money I hate wasting calories I want you to know what's in it it's like coming you wouldn't buy something if you didn't know the cost know how many calories and then ask yourself does it serve my health or does it hurt him do I love it I want you to eat amazing am i talked about the chicken shwarma tonight it was phenomenal delicious but it loved me back the turmeric that she had in a little bit of saffron the spice is perfect good for your brain we'll get two spices so I'm not kidding weigh measure write it down whenever I start gaining a few pounds because I have fat people in my family my dad used a when I said that I'm like I would I do my grandfather who I was named after who I adored I mean he was really my best friend growing up his overweight was a candy maker and he died from a heart attack that took him away from me way too early so I know I have obesity in my jeans but not why because I pay attention to it and if I stay around 1,800 2,000 calories a day and walk 10,000 steps and work out a couple of times a week I'm fine but when I start gaining a few pounds I start writing down everything I eat and I know how many calories are in it because you know we tend to eat the same things over time like a cup of frozen blueberries is 80 calories and I like that so I might have a couple of eggs 210 calories 80 calories for the blueberries late in the morning and that's like 300 calories I'm like oh just pay attention to it because if you don't pay attention to what you spend you're going to be bankrupt if you don't pay attention to the calories you put in your body your health is going to be bankrupt there was no bread for the shawarma for those of you are asking and somebody posted don't drink your calories so smart on average and 1980 Americans drank 225 calories a day but in 2018 on average they drank 450 calories a day that extra 225 calories a day just from what you drank puts an extra 23 pounds of fat a year on your body no wonder you're always on a diet I never drink calories ever take that back I have a little bun sweet and almond milk in the morning but it's 30 calories so I know I want you to know Peter Drucker at least they attributed said you can't change what you don't measure and this is very important to know how many calories juice diets no not a fan and for certain not a fan of fruit juice whenever you unwrap fruit sugar from its fiber source it actually turns toxic to your liver so I am I'd you know apple juice orange juice my dad was a grower for Sunkist no eat the orange I have an orange like once a day love oranges reminds me of my dad but I'm not drinking orange juice it's not good for you okay sort of beat the calorie thing to death but when I gain a few pounds write it down and that way I hold myself accountable because people develop something I call calorie amnesia well they just forgot about the jelly sandwich they made or they forgot about the four bytes of ice cream or the 12 chocolate-covered almonds they ate when you write it down you tend not to forget rule number three hydrate but don't drink your calories you your body is 70% water your brain is 80% water and if you are just dehydrated by 2% you get confused and you get clumsy and you're not as strong so regularly drinking water and I've tape my favorite is sparkling water I like it and I get stevia from sweet Leafs company no financial interest [Music] put in a couple of drops of chocolate stevia love it completely happy no calorie I'm a value spender and I bring the chocolate stevia with me when I go the not going to restaurants now but if I would with my grandkids and they love it so you know a little squirt the chocolate stevia and sparkling water and they're super happy and it's not a soda really with all the research out on sodas even diet sodas it's not good for you so in the book I have Eat This Not That and drink this water sparkling water water flavored with slices of fruit so you know go to Hawaii I'm hoping to and when you get to the hotel and the lobby you know they have oranges or pears or change rains or blueberries and it's like vacation water well you can do that at home simply easily and expensively I talked to you about sweet leaf coconut water herbal tea green tea black tea so not all stevia has an aftertaste I have found that sweet leaf doesn't my favorite sweetener we're gonna get to it and a little bit as erythritol now you have to make sure you don't get stomach issues with it but erythritol is awesome all right rule number four eat high quality protein at every meal because it helps to balance your blood sugar protein is critical your protein is like your energy reserve and don't go crazy with it about the size of your palm two or three times a day four times a day if you have hypoglycemia if you've got these low blood sugar issues high quality protein so fish either sustainably farmed fish or wild fish lamb turkey chicken beef pork some beans nuts and a number of vegetables like broccoli and spinach are actually very high in protein back to hydration for a minute if you go to brainmd calm type in brain boost on the go I created that as a way for me to drink more water it's flavored with stevia and erythritol and berries and it has b6 b12 folate and theanine whenever I drag in the afternoon I drink one of the packets you know just started in water it's sort of like Crystal Light but it's got nothing bad in it and it tastes awesome alright protein we bring over a brainmd we also make an extremely clean protein powder with plant protein and mostly P protein but it's like two grams of sugar it doesn't have anything bad in it and it tastes awesome and it's hundred and twenty calories a scoop so you know what it is and then I might put in a cup of frozen blueberries at 80 calories pretty soon we're gonna come up with a Green's product it's actually green and red and purple product and that'll add another 30 calories but that gots breakfast starts you off with a bang so you want to limit low quality proteins like those raised with pesticides hormones antibiotics and you don't want to eat too much protein too much protein can actually make it hard for your kidneys to process it so again about the size of your palm two to four times a day to help balance your blood sugar thank you for the comments about my dad working all day I have written a poem for him I'm gonna do a live chat and I haven't decided when yeah the service is Sunday mostly by zoom and the poem really captures him and he fixed his food about five years ago when he went through a health problem all right rule number five eat and cook with high quality that does not make you fat sugar does fat helps you feel full and it's a she eights you and oh by the way sixty percent of the solid weight of your brain is fat when they took fat out of the American diet they caused a rash of obesity diabetes and heart disease because they replaced the fat with sugar and it was a political fight I'm not going to get into it but scientists from Harvard were paid fifty thousand dollars to write papers praising sugar demonising thought and it was just one of the biggest health mistakes in the history of our country you need fat low fat diets are bad for your brain now I'm not an advocate of very high cholesterol mine's always at 230 220 Infocom oh my that's over 200 it's like yeah longevity is associated with people who have it at about 230 cognitive function is about those who have it 230 but my HDL people think of good and bad cholesterol it's way more complicated than that my HDL is 90 and which is generally unheard of for most people and so the top number really you know what's the HDL and LDL but then with LDL you actually have to fractionated is it the innocuous kind or is it the toxic kind and mine is mostly the innocuous kind and at 65 even though I have heart disease in my family I have no evidence of heart disease so I'm pretty happy about that so you don't want super high cholesterol you also don't want low cholesterol and like nobody knows this that the studies and there many of them total cholesterol under 160 is associated with homicide suicide depression autism and death from all causes so if you're at a party virtually and someone tells you their total cholesterol is 128 because they're on a statin you want to be really nice to that person because you just don't know when they might go off so I am a fan a fad and so the healthiest fats avocados my dad was an avocado grower coconut butter coconut grass-fed beef bison and lamb nuts walnuts are associated with less depression olives had some for lunch organic free-range poultry and seafood anchovies artic char catfish king crab wild salmon sea bass and so on healthy oils avocado oil coconut oil macadamia nut oil olive oil but don't cook with olive oil because at high temperatures can turn rancid and unhealthy fats so eat this skipper limit that canola oil corn oil no vegetable oil industrial raised animal fat and dairy no processed meats no safflower oil soy and trans fats which are being banned because they're bad so what do we only love foods that love you back high-quality calories and not too many of them hydrate think of 8 to 10 glasses of water a day high quality protein healthy fat rule number 6 this is really important go for smart carbohydrates and get rid of the dumb carbohydrates smart colorful not artificially dye real colors because that means they're loaded with antioxidants with medicine and low glycemic and high in fiber so if you can just remember that for carbohydrates smart or dumb smart they're colorful by the nutrients naturally colorful low glycemic what that means is they don't quickly raise your blood sugar so that's actually the problem with sugar and bread and pasta and potatoes and rice now I have like a little bit of it so think of it like a condiment not like a meal because they quickly raise your blood sugar and then fiber fiber is so healthy healing to your gut it's really a prebiotic which means fiber is feeding the healthy gut bugs to strengthen your immunity and so when we think of antioxidant foods there's something called an or act value oxygen radical absorbance capacity it's like well how loaded is this food as medicine and at the top of the list or clothes and size love when tena cooks with cloves oregano sky-high rosemary cinnamon and my tribute to my dad I talk about you know my large family and how my dad and mom created with love and when I told my mom cinnamon was in natural aphrodisiac she hits her forehead and said that's why I have seven children he would never leave me alone being Lebanese the Lebanese cook with a lot of cinnamon loaded with antioxidants sage acai fruit cocoa powder parsley basil ginger root walnuts all of these actually have more antioxidants than blueberries and I love blueberries even broccoli has a lot of antioxidants so you can easily look at the glycemic index of any food you eat there's also something called glycemic load I talked about it in in the book but basically how quickly is this turn to sugar and bread rice pasta and potatoes are actually quicker to sugar in your bloodstream Venturer it's a little disturbing rule number seven use herbs and spices like medicine so the pharmacy at a r.m pharmacy is on the spice aisle in the store multiple studies show saffron has been found to be effective as an antidepressant and we have a new product I told you about called happy saffron at brainmd it's loaded with saffron curcumin and zinc so good for you in so many ways turmeric used in curry contains a chemical has been shown to decrease plaques in the brain thought to be responsible for Alzheimer's disease scientific evidence shows rosemary thyme and sage boost your memory cinnamon helps attention garlic and oregano boosts blood flow to the brain hot spicy taste of ginger cayenne black pepper boosts metabolism so you can use spices like medicine but you want to be able to pronounce them so that they're not natural flavors or artificial flavors rule number eight make your food as clean as possible so eliminate artificial sweeteners colors preservatives and foods and plastic containers which basically means we label principle number five I'm sorry number nine if you struggle with any brain health mental health or physical issues eliminate any potential allergens and I'm just like with the patient I talked the dad I talked to earlier today I want you for a couple of weeks to just try an elimination diet so eliminate gluten dairy porn soy artificial dyes and sweeteners and just do it for a couple of weeks also you know msg and and the stories are just incredible of people when they do that I had this one guy who was really depressed and in fact he'd had multiple suicide attempts and had ECT electric electroconvulsive therapy TMS and other therapy and nothing was working he tried like seventeen medications and I'm like well let's try an elimination diet see if there's an offending agent and he did and after just a couple of weeks he felt so much better and so we started adding back one thing at a time and we added back gluten nothing happened we added back dairy nothing happened I'll fine added back corn and what he said within 20 minutes of the corn he had a vision of a gun in his mouth pulling the trigger you have to break up with corn you might love corn but it hates you and so he broke up with corn Food Matters so there's 15 different names for sugar did you know that so when you're reading the label sugar molasses caramel color barley malt corn syrup corn syrup solids cane juice high fructose corn syrup honey sorbitol fructose cane juice crystals maltose fruit juice concentrate multo dextran and dextrose Wow artificial dyes I'm not a fan of the blue packet the yellow packet the pink packet they're not good for you and can lead to trouble gluten for just so many reasons you know not only as most of the wheat raised with roundup which is a pesticide I'm not a fan of pesticides because you have a microbiome of a hundred trillion bugs what a pesticides kill bugs so if you are eating those pesticides then it's not good for your microbiome so that's why eating organic when you can afford it is really important but gluten I mean some people have celiac and when you have it it's a disaster I mean it's a real disaster but about 7% of the population is gluten sensitive where they get things like brain fog and irritability and irritable bowel syndrome if you have any these physical or mental or emotional conditions get rid of it at least for a few weeks and see if you don't feel better the same with Gary actually seventy percent of the adult population actually after the age of five you can't process lactose and so and lactose is basically milk sugar and milk protein casein along with gluten when they go to your stomach mix with stomach acid and produce something called kc ohm orphans or gluteal morph ins that actually work in the heroin centers of your brain so when you say you love pizza you do like you love a drug and my mom's masterful cook and she makes great pizza and I remember I go over to holiday before I knew better and like I would need all day cuz I wanted to have eight slices of pizza now I'm like it's it's completely addictive and then when you add mother's love in there it's like out of control there's actually a section in the book on it is schizophrenia rare where grains are rare if grains like wheat or one of the causes of schizophrenia then it should be rare in societies where grains are rare in an article by dr. FC Dohan and colleagues they tested this idea by examining the work of anthropologist on people who ate little or no grain only to overtly insane chronic skits effects were found among 65,000 people examined in the remote regions of Papua New Guinea I don't know seems interesting to me and then the book I talk about soy and corn and milk and how to do an elimination diet and if you just get Tanis cookbook the brain Warriors Way cookbook we can get on Amazon or brainmd every recipe there's like 125 recipes every recipe gluten free corn free dairy free soy free and obviously there's no artificial dyes and sweeteners all right rule number 10 intermittent fasting you can use to supercharge your brain so if you do not have hypoglycemia and I pretty much do intermittent fasting I try to do that every day where the last thing I eat it's around seven ish six or seven and I won't eat again until ten eleven or twelve the next day because intermittent fasting has been shown to help clean up some of the plaques in the brain thought to be associated with Alzheimer's disease it turns on a process called Auto Fuji which helps the brain take out the trash and so not only do you end up eating fewer calories it actually helps you maintain a healthy weight and is helpful for a number of other things as well I also don't want you eating within two or three hours of bedtime because it can negatively impact your sleep all right rule number eleven get a routine that serves your health rather than hurts it find 24 foods you love that love you back so I have a fun story I have a youngster in my life I dearly love who has Tourette's tic disorder and I'm like talking to his parents about elimination diet we should at least try it and he came to visit and when he got off the plane and he ran to me he's like I don't like any of the foods and I'm like none and he was with me for four days and I'm like so our job is to find 20 foods you love that love you back and we're now at 75 and when you get that negative mindset it's so hard to do the right thing but when you see that I only want to put Foods in my body that I love that love me back it's so much easier to do the right things we're all creatures of habit and basically you need like three breakfast --is you love that love you back maybe five lunches and ten dinners that's plenty of variety for most of us and so I only eat things that I enjoy that serve my health rather than hurt my health now I know we're not going to live forever and people go oh the quality but who who has more fun the healthy person or the unhealthy person it's not just about lifespan it's about health span and if you can eat in a way that serves your health and now is the time this pandemic person I know it's awful for many people and in many ways it's been awful for me now my parents get sick and then survive kovat and then have my dad died and you know the stress on our staff at RA Damon clinics one of our clinics is in downtown Manhattan yeah it's hard but life in general is hard and people go how I want to go back to normal and it's like I don't know I sort of like the much slower pace there are a lot of it that I like but one of the things I know you have odds are is you have more time and now is the time to get serious about your brain and about your body because your best defense against kovat 19 is your immune system it's not going to be a therapeutic although you know we pray for them you know REM des aver hydroxychloroquine whatever it is vaccine but that's not what's gonna save your life what's gonna save your life is your immune system so if you have type 2 diabetes that's an emergency you need to start eating really well now if you have obesity that's been shown to be one of the killers fork ovid 19 so let's get healthy and I don't want you to lose 50 pounds in three weeks I like it when my patients lose like the pound week and you know you can calculate it pretty much it takes an extra 3,500 calories above what you need to gain a pound which means you have to eat 3,500 calories less than you burn in order to lose a pound I mean like really not just water weight and so when I want to lose weight like only 1,500 calories and that means over about 10 days I'll have lost a pound you can do this you just got to get it in your mind that you love your brain for me when I published two studies that said as your weight goes up the size of your brain goes down what oh ho I don't want a smaller brain I'm going to lose this way and that's when I got super serious about you know dropping you know the extra twenty pounds I was carrying around I hope this was helpful to you if you liked it if it was rash and almost people say this is the most rational approach to getting to a healthy weight the end of mental illness it's out now and it's on audio or Kindle or you can get the book thank goodness Amazon starting to deliver books again and leave a comment question below if you really like this 10 and I have a course over at Eamon University called the brain warriors way it's 26 hours and but she and I go deep into all of these topics the microbiome and immunity and how to keep your memory right I think you'll really like it a lot Eamon University comm okay take care see you soon

Channel: AmenClinic

Views: 166,897

Rating: 4.8767314 out of 5

Keywords: Brain, Brain Health, Diet, Nutrition, Amen, Daniel Amen, Amen Clinics, Psychiatrist

Id: DZZcfld1-dQ

Length: 46min 53sec (2813 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2020