Change Your Brain Every Day - These Simple Food Rules to Dramatically Boost Focus & Productivity

Episode Date: November 20, 2018

One of the quickest and most effective ways to improve your quality of life is healthier eating. But what exactly does “healthier eating” consist of? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen dig into material from the new book Feel Better Fast and Make It Last to give you a list of simple food rules which, if followed, will transform your life and leave you feeling great.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. Thanks for being with us. We're talking about nutrition, food, and supplements. But I want to read another review for the podcast. Just found your podcast and learning from all the information you share. Love Tana's passion, such as when she was talking about people smoking weed. And thank you- You totally threw me under the bus, although.

For what you say to your daughter, life is not fair and this is what we do to be healthy. Enjoy how calm Dr. Raymond is. Can you get into more parenting tips to looking forward to more great shows? Who is that? It is from game and fun penguin. Ah, okay.

Well, thank you for that because he throws me under the bus now and then I need the support. We actually have parenting shows. You just totally ignored that. With Love and Logic, with Jim and Charles Fay. And we should probably get into some teenage stuff because we've got a lot of teenage stuff going on around us. We do. But today we're going to talk about food. Yeah, but when we- Get. We do. But today we're going to talk about...

Get your mind right. So we're going to just say this. We'll get to that because we have a lot happening around us at the moment. Not ours, but stuff. And so we'll talk about how we would handle it and how we are handling it and teaching our daughter to handle things with her friends. So we will get to that. And in Feel Better Fast and Make It Last,

there's a whole section on relationships and how to improve them. And the two things you do with Chloe that you've done for a long time is you're really good at active listening. So you give her lots of time. Time and you don't talk at her, you listen. And the reason she talks to you is you listen. And in her words. That is so important.

And in her words, mom gets it. So strategy number one and feel better fast under nutrition is you got to give yourself an attitude makeover. Your attitude or mindset may be the single most important factor in feeling better fast. So many people. So you heard us talk about the elimination diet last time, which is basically eliminate things that could potentially hurt you and eat things that serve your health. And there are thousands of those things.

But too often, and this came up last time, is when people go, oh, I can't have this, I can't have that, they really start to feel deprived. And then their four-year-old kicks in and has a temper tantrum and they give in to the four-year-old basically creating their own behavior disorder. So I want to, this is actually so appropriate for how we're opening this up. So I had lunch recently with, it's actually the mother of one of my daughter's friends. She called me and she said, of all things, I would really like some parenting advice because she has a teenager who is not quite as easy as my teenager. And, um, she wanted some parenting advice. She's, she's much, much younger mother than I am. So, um, so I said, you know, sure. I would love to have lunch with you. And so we were ordering lunch and, um, I was ordering what I was ordering a green drink and a

salad and whatever. And so we went to a place that serves some pretty healthy stuff. And she said, okay, she goes, what is that that you ordered? And she said, I'm going to have what she had, the drink. And so the first thing she said to me, and this is a woman who's very educated. She's very strong. And she's very psychologically savvy is the word I'd like to use. She reads a lot. She's very spiritual.

She's really, really a special kind of woman. And she said, and she's very spiritual. She's, um, she's really, really a special kind of woman. And, um, she said, but she, and she's from China and she said, you eat so healthy. And she's like, she goes, does that actually make a difference as far? And I said, well, in what way? I mean, it makes a difference in so many ways. Like in what way are you talking about? And she said, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Right. And she said, well, spiritually, why does that make it like spiritually speaking, does that make a difference? I said, of course it does. It makes a difference in your energy. So if you're talking about prayer or meditation or how you feel about the world around you or

how you feel about God or meditation or prayer and how you see things, it's going to make a difference. And it makes a difference in my energy and how I want to spend time with my daughter or my family or not. Like, and she's like, oh my gosh, she's like, but I don't want to eat that way. Okay. You don't have to want to, I'm just telling you that it makes a difference. Well, and if you pre-order the book, um, right now and go to feelbetterfast.com, they can download your brand new cookbook, The 10 Day Brain Boost. And what I have learned is there is no suffering in getting well. And God gave you a big brain for a reason. Well, and the thing I said to her is I said, so what do you want more?

It's really about what you want more. Well, and I love the food I eat. But think about the advertising slogans. Think about how they have brainwashed you to love bad food. So I'm loving it from McDonald's. Finger looking good. Have it your way. Open happiness from Coca-Cola.

You deserve a break today. They're great. Frosted flakes. And when you read the ingredients, these are not things that serve your health, that give you energy, that give you a memory, that give you good behavior. These are things that actually steal from your health. So it's like, what do you want? Of course I want to give in to all the impulses I have, but they could hurt you. And an adult mindset, or, you know, actually Chloe has it at 15,

she had it at 12, is does this help me or does it hurt me? And so you have to get your mind right. And both of us, as I alluded to, have been in bad relationships in the past and I'm not doing it anymore. And I'm damn sure not doing it with food. Right? So I only want to love food that loves me back. The reason our relationship works is because we're in a relationship. We love each other back.

That loves each other back. It has to be mutual. Right. That it's mutual. It's mutual respect. And you have written about this before, that neuroscientists have actually planned how to hijack. There's an entire science and there's a trade magazine talking about the science behind

this and how they hijack your brain. By hijacking your taste buds. So things like the vanishing caloric density or meltiness, sensory-specific satiety. Scientists are going after your taste buds, the perfect crunchiness, texture, aroma. They're going after every part. They're going after your taste buds. They're going after your visual.

Like, they do things to visually stimulate you. Auditory. They go after every single thing. It's crazy. Right. And we tell ourselves so many lies, like everything in moderation, which is your excuse to eat bad. Relax. We're all dying.

Why don't you have a little fun along the way? I'm just not encouraging it, right? I know I'm going to die. And for me, it's not about that. I mean, I've been sick. It's not about necessarily the number of years I have on the planet. It's about how I live while I'm here during those years. It's the quality. Right. You know how to make people live a long time.

I don't want to be on a ventilator. I don't want to be on dialysis. I see you nurse. You know how to live. But people also say, I can't afford to eat healthy. When the Harvard School of Public Health said eating healthy costs you an extra dollar 50 a day. So if you just. Cut out Starbucks, which is like four bucks a day. Right. So you're going to be ahead. I don't have time to eat healthy. The almond milk cappuccino I make you every morning in the middle of feeding the dog, feeding the cat takes about five minutes. Well, and your smoothies are your go-to fast food.

Right. It's a smoothie. It's like, come on. Why do you have to be so radical? It's because I radically love myself. So, quickly. Well, and I don't, I radically don't want to be sick again. Yeah, cancer sucks.

It sucks. And having it come back. Being depressed. Cancer sucks. It sucks. And having a depression three times sucks. All right, quickly food rules. Um, got to know the food rules. And these are the ones I talk about in the book, concentrating on brain smart calories.

So calories matter, but the quality of them matters more. So know how many calories you're eating a day, especially if you need to lose weight. Make water your beverage of choice because 80% of your brain is water. So drinking a lot of water. Don't go crazy with it. Right, and there's ways to make it interesting. So we write about that.

Small amounts of protein several times a day. Protein with each meal helps to balance your blood sugar. Key word on small. We're not talking high-protein diets. Well, for some people, like people who have ADD, And key word on small, it does not need, we're not talking high protein diets. So. Well, for some people, like people who have ADD, high protein diets can be really helpful for them because it stabilizes their blood sugar. But not at the expense of getting no vegetables. For people who have OCD, then that'll actually make them concentrate on the things that bother them.

But we still want you getting your fiber and your greens. That's why, you know, the Atkins diet, you know, I'm a fan of it for some things. Like people have seizure disorders. I'm not a fan of it in general because it's basically devoid of colorful fruits. Well, and sometimes initially to kickstart, you know, get someone like on track and then, but you got to start getting start getting that fiber and veggies.

You want to make friends with fat. So we are not fans of low-fat diets. There's actually a study from the Mayo Clinic. There's a lot of studies. People who had a fat-based diet had a 70% lower risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. People had a protein-based diet had a 21% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. People had a protein-based diet had a 21% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. And people who had a carbohydrate-based diet had a 400% increased risk of having Alzheimer's disease. Because usually if you have a carbohydrate-based diet, you're eating a lot of things that turn to sugar quickly.

So I got myself in trouble now, but after the election, we just had president Obama. He went and handed out donuts at, and I'm like, you know, the president that brought us beer summits is passing out donuts. I was like, not happy. And that's not a political statement. I'm like, come on. Obamacare should be about prevention, not let's make them sick. So, you know, the health care thing is just such a mess. So we're fans of carbohydrates, but they need to be healthy. What does that mean? High fiber, low glycemic, carbohydrates. So that means get rid of or limit bread, pasta, potato, rice, and sugar because they're all high glycemic,

raise your blood sugar, low in fiber, but colorful fruits and vegetables. And, you know, when you wrote the Omni Diet, you talked about 70% of a plate should be plant-based foods with lots of color and about 30% high-quality protein with a bunch of fat mixed in. So, let's see. What other rules? Avoid or eliminate things that could hurt you. Sugar, artificial sweeteners, gluten, soy, corn, dairy, and choose organic, toxin-free foods when you can. And you hate Costco, and I love Costco.

You just hate it. No, no. Costco's one of the few places I actually respect. But you don't like shopping. I don't like shopping. And I love shopping. I don't like shopping anywhere. But Costco's the one place I actually... Organic, clean food.

No, and if you've got a big family, you can't afford not to shop somewhere like that. Right. So... If I have to go shopping, they're a good place. Stay with us. We're going to talk about timing of meals. And we're going to start to talk about foods to choose. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com.

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