Change Your Brain Every Day - The Amen’s Simple Guidelines for Optimal Nutrition Pt. II

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen wrap up their discussion on nutrition from the Amen Clinics company-wide presentation. Here you will learn the final nutrition guidelines you can use to properly arm you against the weapons of mass destruction out there that try to destroy your health and well-being.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Hi, this is Tana Amen. This episode wraps up our series on nutrition from a company event we held here at Amen Clinics. This last episode concludes our

guidelines for everyday nutrition. Since it was a live recorded event, you may notice a change of audio quality. We will be back to our normal episodes next week. Hope you guys enjoy it. So this study is so interesting to me. When I was working with the guys at the Salvation Army who were trying to get well from addiction, and they were serving the worst foods, so that's why they wanted us to come. And I was talking to these guys about eating healthy.

They're like, but I already gave up like drugs. Like I need something, you know, they want caffeine, they want cigarettes, they want sugar. And so I'm like, really? Well, take a look at this step. And they got it immediately. Oreos, according to this study, which means sugar and processed fat, like trans fats, are not only as addictive as cocaine and morphine, but it showed that sugar was eight times more addictive. It affected the nucleus accumbens in the brain, that pleasure button you guys have been hearing about. It affected that eight times more strongly than cocaine and morphine. So if you are constantly pressing the same button that the drugs were pressing and you're trying to like learn how to be sober,

you're good. You can see where this is a problem and these guys just got it they just got it i mean i had the most amazing testimonials i think i've ever gotten were from that group of guys i have some of their pictures so sugar actually wears out the pleasure center in your brain like we talked last time you just want to be careful with it. And when they offered a group of mice cocaine and sugar, they took the sugar every time. When they gave them the cocaine first, they liked it. But when they gave them the option, they chose the sugar every time. So we're not a fan of these sugar substitutes

because they can mess with your microbiome. They also increase hemoglobin A1c, the allopathic especially, even though they're not increasing blood sugar. We're fans of stevia. It's actually been shown to kill the Lyme bacteria. And erythritol,

it's the one that tastes most like sugar that virtually has no calories. Monk fruit is another good one. Eat from the rainbow. So what we've been talking about, foods of many different colors, plants, lots and lots of plants, high fiber plants, low glycemic index, though. You're paying attention to that.

So medicine, feeding your probiotics. Right. And it's just so pretty when you make food that looks like this it's just appealing boost your antioxidants and helps keep your brain young but not artificially colored because people can actually have a negative response this is one of our patients used to get violent with red dye. I mean, there's so many reasons why kids have problems that just immediately going to Adderall is insane if you've never managed their diet.

Well, if you don't have this information, and you look at the increase in everything that's happening with society, and especially with our kids, and I have the information now, and I'm taking my daughter to school, and I'm watching parents, and they're late. They're running out of the grocery store that's across the street with donuts. And I'm like, and you're wondering why your kids are in trouble.

You know, you've got to start with that stuff and then see what happens. We're not on time medication. But at least do the part you know you can do. I have a quote in my new book from someone from the 14th century that said, if something can be treated with diet, you must do that first. Isn't that crazy? If something can be treated with diet,

you must do that first. Do you want to do this one? So this is Tana at the Spice Market in Istanbul. The Spice Market was so amazing. But herbs and spices, I mean, they really are that boost. You know, food is medicine. The herbs and spices

just give you that extra jolt. They give you that extra boost. And there's concentrated medicine, right? So the concentrated form of medicine, just like the curcumin that we have that helps decrease inflammation. It also helps to decrease the plaques in your brain associated with Alzheimer's disease

when it's confined with vitamin D. So all of this stuff is really important. Garlic and oregano boost blood flow to the brain. I don't know why I trip over that every time. Saffron, lots of studies showing that it's... I have saffron in my tea this morning. Yeah, I put it in my tea all the time. It's got anti-depressant effects. Rosemary, thyme, and sage,

my favorite herbs for... I always feel like breaking out into a song with that, but you don't want me to do that. So, rosemary, thyme, and sage are my favorite herbs for cooking. They enhance memory. Ginger, cayenne, black pepper. I love putting ginger and cayenne in warm lemon water in the morning. It's are my favorite herbs for cooking. They enhance memory. Ginger, cayenne, black pepper. I love putting ginger and cayenne

in warm lemon water in the morning. It's like my favorite thing to do in the morning. And cinnamon boosts the tension. It is an aphrodisiac for men, so I'm a huge fan of it. Apparently that's why his mother

has so many children it. Okay. So these are not hard rules. It's just you want to be thinking. You also want to limit anything that's toxic. Right? We talk about brain health. It's basically three things. Brain envy, you got to care about it. Avoid anything that hurts and do

things that help it. Food is exactly the same way. You want to care about your body. You do it not because you should, but because you love yourself. Avoid anything that hurts you. Do things that help you. And unfortunately, like pizza is the worst, right? If you look on here. How many of you have actually had a chance to go through the Brain Warriors wake-up book? Just look through it. So I would suggest you

do that because when I was on this journey, one of the reasons I did those books, people often ask me, well, why did you do that? I mean, I'm a neurosurgical ICU nurse. It's not my thing. But then I took several hundred hours of metabolic medicine and it was really to get myself well. I was tired of doctors telling me, oh, you should just be grateful.

Maybe you should see a psychiatrist so you could learn how to deal with all the stuff that you have to take. Okay, so I'm smarter now. That is not how we met. She's not one of my patients. She is one of my projects. So I really went on this journey to figure out what part food plays, what part not just nutrition but overall lifestyle plays.

And that's when I put all that into the Omni Diet, and I thought, okay, people are still saying it's too hard. So they don't understand it's too hard, it's too expensive, I don't know how to do it. So that's what my favorite cookbook that I've done is Brain Warriors. It has the most snacks, the most desserts for kids if you want to get kids involved. But it's got the easiest recipes. It also has lots of vegan recipes. So I would just encourage you to just look at it.

Because even if you don't like the foods in there, it'll give you the guideline, it'll give you the template of how to do it. It's not as hard as it sounds. And we have hundreds of recipes. Healing ADD through food a lot because so many of our patients have such short attention spans. It's the same philosophy though. There are a lot of recipes that's only five ingredients. But so does

brainwashed way. I made sure I did the same thing. And so sugar and artificial sweeteners, we sort of covered that. Processed foods loaded with omega-6 fatty acids which are pro-inflammatory. Gluten, and the problem with gluten is in 100% of people, it increases leaky gut. So not everybody is celiac and seriously gluten sensitive. 7% of the population is.

But in 100% of us, it increases leaky gut also affects the brain though if you listen to dr perlmutter and the studies he quotes i mean he's like adamantly against the brain function because it screws up their gut um so victor is a patient of ours in new york and he came to see us after he'd failed multiple treatments for depression. He'd been depressed for 30 years, actually had ECT three times and his scan was not good. And he saw Erica, one of our great coaches, and she put him on an elimination diet. So elimination diet is basically you eliminate all this stuff and then you add them back one at a time. And after the elimination diet, he felt dramatically better.

And so they gave him gluten as a test. Nothing happened. Then they gave him dairy as a test, nothing happened. Then they gave him dairy as a test, nothing happened. And then they gave him corn. And he said within about 20 minutes, he had a vision of a gun in his mouth pulling the trigger. Think about that. All the money and all of the suffering, not only for him. All of us know this who work at Amen Clinics. It's just not him, right? It's his wife.

It's his children. It's his parents. Everybody around the person who suffers with depression suffers with depression. And so he broke up with corn. Right? And as opposed to some of my picks, oh, but I love it. Yeah, it's like, does it love you back? Get over it.

So from the Brain Warriors Way cookbook, I actually made Tana almond milk pumpkin spice, pumpkin pie spice cappuccino this morning. I do that every morning because she has manipulated me into doing it for her. It's also an act of love. Tana makes something called Tanana pancakes, high in fiber. There's no flour in this. Low carbohydrate. Tastes amazing. One of her smoothies.

I love the sesame bars. There is no suffering in getting well. God gave you a big brain for a reason. And you already have bad habits. Right? You already have habits. You know, I usually do this for breakfast.

I do this for snacks. I do this for lunch. You just have to make some small tweaks and go, does my breakfast love me back? And if it doesn't love you back, you need therapy. You either need a new diet or you need therapy to understand

why you're in love with things that hurt you. I love those wings. Popcorn shrimp, but that's not with flour. Her lamb chops are to die for. But you live longer. Nutty butter cups from our Brain in Love. It's two ingredients. It's basically melt Brain in Love,

put them in these little cups, and put a little dab of cashew butter or almond butter in the middle. They taste like Reese's peanut butter cups, but nothing bad for you. I'm going to turn these into protein cups, protein butter cups, because we're talking about lean protein.

I'm going to figure out how to do it. So Dr. Rishi Sood, hopefully Rishi is listening. Actually, I think he lost more than 57 pounds now. He wrote to me in Tana. He said I was a hypocrite. I was telling people to get well, and I wasn't doing it myself. So he set goals, and he stuck to them. He read Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and the Omni Diet. And on Tana's page six, there's a grocery list

and he just completely changed his body. He's just in Peru and went 21,000 feet up a mountain. It's incredible. So what I like about what he said here, because this is what we tell people to do, he figured out the tool that works for him, right? So we want you to figure out a couple of tools that help you. For him, it was a grocery list. He didn't know what to buy. He just used the grocery list.

We've got that actually on my website. We have a grocery, we have a shopping list. TanaAmon.com is so good. You virtually have all of your recipes. Not all of them, but we have a lot. So, um, and, and, but, but just get a couple tools that help you put it together. And on the website, you can actually pick a recipe, click on it. It'll, it'll actually put your shopping list together for you so it's just find those tools that you need find the five recipes to get you started so the little tiny habit does this behavior love me back this is Laura Heiselman so she stopped Daniel for for actually a long time she was really

interested in all the brain health. But then Daniel basically told her, if you want to have a healthy brain, you have to get healthy. You have to lose weight. You have to start exercising, take care of yourself. And so he recommended that she take my omni diet course, because I'm going to teach you in the 12 week course for food and exercise and just lifestyle. And she lost over 50 pounds, lost her rosacea, her hot flashes, and all of a sudden her energy just went way up. And that's when she realized that she's the director of a chemical addiction recovery program. And she realized if we are not...

We're in the Salvation Army, which is one of the most unhealthy organizations I've ever been involved with. The level of obesity, diabetes is horrifying. And so she realized that they were not feeding them well, and if they didn't feed them well, they were actually inadvertently, unintentionally contributing to their illness. And so that's why we got involved, and that's the study I was showing you

earlier, it's these guys that I really helped through that. By her getting healthy, she got her family healthy. She just like got it and these are the guys. So what, I mean some of them lost 85 pounds. One guy, Thomas, this is him, he was like the gang squad broke his door down and some of these guys are given a court order to be there. They're not there because they want to be there. It's here or there. And so Thomas was one of those guys. And he was kind of a hardcore dude. But he just

got it somehow. He was really depressed in his words when he first started the program. He was depressed, foggy, gloomy, had no reason to live. And so failed his GED three times. Couldn't pass the GED. And this is actually not the, like, at the end he had lost 85 pounds. He actually lost a little more than that.

And he just was on fire. And he comes running up to me with his big pants, and he was like, he's giving me a hug, and he's like, I just, I cannot believe the difference. He passed his GED, and he just said, I've never had more energy. I just feel so focused. And so, you know my I just I'm not depressed I'm happy so it was just amazing and he ends his testimonial he wrote me a testimonial and he said my life was a mess and now it's a message I've been tested now I

had a testimony I was a victim and now I'm victorious I went through trials and now I am triumphant. And if he can do it, you can too. It's pretty amazing. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com.

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