Episode #352: Foods to Eat for a Better MOOD!

Hmm. Hey, beautiful friends. Alright, are you ready to be healthier and happier? Because I think that you you already, if you clicked on this episode, I’m super excited about this. I had a lot of fun making the outline for this podcast and was like, oh my goodness, that’s cool. Oh my goodness, that’s really cool. So today, we’re going to talk about what foods you can eat to literally make yourself happier to get yourself in a better mood. And I think this is such a fun way to talk about and we’ve talked, we’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast previously, the fact that we are whole people that we are, you cannot isolate your mental health, from your physical health, from your spiritual health, all these things. And I know it’s kind of recent, maybe back I don’t know, in June or July where I talked about, you know, sometimes you really just need to, like take a nap, drink some water, have some protein, like, you might not be battling moral evils you might actually have, like actual human, like the human condition here, you just need to address and suddenly you’re not so short tempered, or you’re not so impatient. And I’m not downplaying how we obviously need to rely on Grace and how we need to pursue virtue and all of that, like, we need to be able to be a patient person, despite being hungry, and despite, you know, being tired and whatever, because we can’t just, you know, as a mom of a newborn be like, Well, I’m just gonna be mad and short with everybody today, because I didn’t sleep well, like, No, we can’t always just solve these things right away. But the more we know, the more we can set ourselves up for success and try to kind of, you know, help ourselves to be as healthy as we can, in all the departments that make it easier on ourselves, to choose the good to be happy to be joyful. Um, you know, it’s, we’re not all going to talk about screens or anything like that, but it’s like, if we were like, you know, go watch eight hours of TV shows in a row and then go try to feel energetic and, you know, be cheerful people and stuff, when usually how we’re gonna feel after watching eight hours of TV is lethargic, and lazy, and probably a little bit anxious and depressed. Like, I don’t know if that all happens right away. But still, like we’re not setting ourselves up for being the the best and most energetic version of ourselves. So today, we’re gonna talk about how we can set ourselves up for being the best, most cheerful version of ourselves. So I have 123 hormones that we’re going to talk about. I’ll give you a quick description of what they are according to different websites, and then share the foods that contain these hormones so we can, you know, get them. Alright, so first, we’re gonna start with serotonin. So this is according to healthline.com. Serotonin is linked to mood regulation and is a key factor in overall mental health. Low levels of serotonin can cause depression, anxiety, insomnia, and other mental health conditions. Again, I’m not talking all about other factors today, that also contribute to mental health conditions or the way we feel or anything that like that. I’m purely talking about foods here, because that’s obviously a big conversation that can go a lot of ways, but just foods so foods that can boost serotonin because again, we want to be high in it. So we don’t have any of those inclinations or feelings. Foods that are high in serotonin are number one eggs, and it said specifically the yolks of eggs, that’s where it is. So egg whites Does that count here, it’s got to be the whole egg, cheese, pineapples, salmon, nuts and seeds, and Turkey. All those are delicious. This just made me want to go. I have not had pineapple in a while and reading that. I’m like, Ooh, that sounds good. Like pregnant girl reading off a list of food. So those are all this is definitely one. I should make a cheat sheet on this at the time of recording. I’ve not done that yet. Maybe I’ll send out to my email list if I can get to doing that. If not, I have podcast transcriptions on my website, healthy calf moms that come under podcasts and you can kind of cruise through the transcriptions to jot these down if you’re driving or something and you want to know serotonin again is going to help you be in a better mood because it’s going to low serotonin would be the opposite make you feel anxious, depressed whatnot. So real quickly, again, those foods are eggs, cheese, pineapples, salmon, nuts and seeds in Turkey. So if you are working out you can do a Notes app on your phone. If you’re driving. Don’t write it down. Just if anything, email me later because I have this list at least typed up already before I record. All right, endorphins. So we talked about endorphins a lot usually in conjunction with working out because we know that we get them through workout that’s back to Legally Blonde. For those who have seen it. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy, happy people just don’t shoot their husbands was part of her argument. Anyways, according to bear blinds.com endorphins are the chemicals that make you naturally and ecstatically happy. They’re most you might want to not listen to this next sentence with kids in the car or around you, you might just want to skip me 30 seconds. They are most commonly released in your brain after exercise while eating delicious foods laughing or during slash after sex. Again, according to bureau blinds.com I did not write this list but those are the times that you are most likely to get endorphins so listen to that again if you need to skip ahead if you need to. Seriously natural ways to get endorphins they are what they are peptide hormones that are produced by the central nervous system. So foods to boost this if you’re not looking for those other natural ways you could look at it through foods this I did not know until I read this article. I really thought you know the other more physical methods were the primary like I knew laughing I knew exercise. I did not know this part about you know eating these specific foods. So cacao which is different than cocoa powder cacao, you’re usually gonna find more like the natural section of your grocery store. Cacao powder rock cow that’s a food to boost endorphins spicy foods are this is interesting. Why? Because of the I don’t know if I’m saying your right cat person, which makes your brain think it’s in pain. And then your brain releases endorphins and dopamine. So you literally are making yourself think you’re in pain by having like cayenne, or whatever spicy foods. But then your brain releases these hormones to compensate so kind of funny. Rhodiola is a big one in the like. I think it’s a mushroom, or it’s at least in mushrooms. I’ve heard of it before with what is that huge brand. Lion’s Mane is not the brand. That’s another supplement kind of thing. What is it? Four Sigmatic? Okay, I know does a lot with mushroom based supplements, and I’ve heard of Rhodiola a few of them. Some of you might be more well versed in what it is, but it is a nootropic and adaptogen that apparently has endorphins as well or promotes endorphins. To more under endorphins are ginseng, which we sometimes see actually in kind of diet things. I’ve seen that in different teas that are supposed to promote fat loss ginseng and vanilla bean. Okay. Last one, and that’s not an artificial flavorings vanilla bean. Okay, last hormone we’re talking about is dopamine. Now, according to very well mind.com Dopamine is a chemical messenger in your brain that governs motivation, movement, memory, mood, sleep, and behavior regulation. Wow. Okay. It is central to the brain’s reward system, it rewards you whenever you engage in a been beneficial behavior. And it motivates you to repeat the behavior. Very interesting. So if you get like I’ve, you know, you’ve probably heard this before you’re gonna dopamine hit from doing something hopefully good. And then it promotes you to want to do that again. So you get that dopamine hit. I think this can also work the other way, we get a dopamine hit from like, I’ve heard this in terms of social media like that. If you get a leg down a photo, you get a dopamine hit, and it kind of trains us to then want more likes and that kind of thing. But again, we’re just gonna look at the foods in a second, but it does say to this is again very well mind.com that low dopamine symptoms look like low libido, muscle stiffness, insomnia, lack of motivation, fatigue, inattention, apathy, and listlessness. Now, I’m going to say again, when I said the beginning episode, it’s not like we can just chalk all these things up to like, Oh, I know why I’m so unmotivated and, you know, apathetic toward life is because I wasn’t eating these foods, no almonds are not going to cure your problems. However, we can make it a lot easier on ourselves, to choose the good to want to get to be active, to be healthy to be taking in good foods. If we’re doing these things, like get these foods in your life, get the screens out of your life are limited in your life, like get out in nature, there’s steps we can take that are going to promote excitement and joint activity, the opposite of apathy and, you know, being unmotivated. So dopamine is made from the amino acid tyrosine and is found in protein rich foods. So good news, because I talk about eating high protein all the time that all of these are gonna get you protein, and they’re gonna get you dopamine. So double whammy. Now the list here of foods that boost dopamine are almonds, eggs, fish, chicken, yogurt and kefir. Now I noticed last two on there and then kind of did a deep dive down that that apparently like fermented foods are supposed to be higher and dopamine, which is why yogurt and kefir are on there. Have also shared about foods to boost your gut health. That was a long time ago in a previous episode. You could scroll back for that one. So fermented foods definitely are another like big double bang for your buck.

The takeaway from this episode, in my opinion is to focus on the good. We talked about this couple of episodes ago, like focus on the positives, not that I’m going to focus on the good eating the good. And not only you’re going to crowd out then the bad foods, because there’s just not as much room I actually also said don’t call them bad foods. So say the not so good foods, or that there’s sometimes foods, the more you focus on eating the really good for you foods and the always foods, the less you have room for the not so good. The sometimes foods right? But you’re also going to feel and look different. And you’re going to look back on the gradual changes, like we never noticed, we very rarely, I don’t know, I’ve never felt from Monday to Tuesday, but like, wow, I’m in such a good mood. And I also lost 20 pounds. And I also have clear skin and like, I have great energy, everything’s going great. It’s usually gradual changes that we look back and are like, wow, I know for me, like one example is when I’m really in a rut of eating higher processed foods, like even, you know, protein bars, which we think all but they’re high protein or this that, well, they’re still highly processed. A lot of the time, if I’m in the habit of having a highly processed protein bar every day, it seems very hard to switch that out and have an omelet. Little by little if I just switch that I’m like, Okay, I’m just gonna start with an omelet. I could still have a protein bar later in the day if I want. But I’m gonna do this for breakfast right now, or overnight oats or something. We look back six months later a year later, and like never the time I just couldn’t even stop eating protein bars every day. Like it seems almost silly. That, you know, that was us before because we’ve just made what seems like such slight changes since then. And maybe that snowballs other changes, like, once you do start the day with whole clean foods where everyone processed foods, it’s easier to keep choosing that throughout the day. So getting that snowball rolling. Alright, like I said, you could get this list over at the transcriptions on my website, or you can email me and I will send you this outline if you would like because it also has a citations on it. And if not, if none of those things, I just hope you have a great rest of your day. Next time we talk to each other. It’s gonna be November, which is crazy. So I would like to invite you to come join us in the chasing greatness group for November it’s going to be super fun. You get all the pre recorded workout videos, the workout plan, we also do live workouts together. We always have fun trainings and freebies in the Facebook community and really helpful to have that support, in my opinion through the holidays, to keep us you know, feeling good and motivated and all that jazz. Alright ladies, I hope you have a great rest of your day and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye

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