If you’re trying to lose a few pounds of body fat or maintain your current weight, then it’s important to look after your serotonin levels every day to help prevent cravings and food binges.
Eat a diet sufficient in protein and especially tryptophan-rich foods, such as almonds, almond milk, almond butter, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, cashews and walnuts, which all contain over 50 milligrams of tryptophan in a quarter of a cup. Legumes such as lentils, beans and peas provide around 180 milligrams per cup.
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Eat some protein with every meal and snack throughout the day to help keep blood sugar levels stable and provide tryptophan to boost serotonin. A high-quality protein powder can also be helpful in boosting protein and tryptophan levels, and I use one in plenty of my recipes.
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Exercise regularly to boost your feel-good endorphins and serotonin levels and to oxygenate your body and brain. Physical activity also helps to burn body fat and encourage healthy food choices.
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Avoid stimulants that many lower serotonin levels, particularly recreational drugs and excessive alcohol. The high that they provide can be followed by lowered serotonin, which may last a few days as your brain and body recover and rebalance.
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Get sufficient sleep. Research consistently links insufficient sleep with low brain serotonin levels, which may trigger cravings for sugary and stodgy snacks.
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Track the pattern of what triggers food cravings and have a back-up plan in place. For many people, cravings for sugary, salty and fatty foods can arise in the evening time, particularly on winter nights. Try one of the many Eat Yourself Fit sweet treats and creamy smoothies to satisfy a sweet tooth.
The normal fluctuations in a woman’s hormones each month can greatly affect your mood, and there’s a close connection between your reproductive hormones and the various neurotransmitters you need to support a good mood.
It’s estimated that three out of every four women experience pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) to some extent, with symptoms including irritability, depression, crying spells, increased hunger, food cravings, headache, fluid retention, bloating and breast tenderness. Generally women will experience only a few of these symptoms, which can begin up to 14 days before a woman’s period and typically go away when it starts.
Interactions between your hormones and neurotransmitters (brain chemicals), plus stress and poor diet and food choices, are generally thought to trigger or worsen PMS. But there are certain steps you can take to ease the symptoms and boost your feel-good endorphins.
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EAT REGULAR MEALS AND SNACKS
Eating a small meal or snack every three to four hours really helps to keep blood sugar levels stable and boost energy levels throughout the day. It also stabilises your mood and helps to keep PMS-induced irritability at bay. Stopping every few hours to focus on how you feel and to eat something if you notice a drop in energy can help to keep emotions stable.
The best type of meal or snack to lift a PMS mood contains protein, fibre and healthy fats. Some of my favourites include veggie sticks with hummus, oatcakes with guacamole and fresh apple wedges or apple crisps with almond butter (see the recipe here).
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EAT MAGNESIUM-RICH FOODS
Magnesium is known as nature’s sedating nutrient for good reason, as it helps to calm a stressed-out nervous system, relax your muscles, regulate blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar levels, maintain nerve function and ease PMS.
Ever wonder why some women crave chocolate just before their period? Ounce for ounce, dark chocolate contains more magnesium than any other type of food. It’s an important mineral that research shows many adults may be deficient in. Everybody benefits from a magnesium-rich diet, but magnesium levels may fluctuate throughout a woman’s cycle, with higher levels of oestrogen or progesterone leading to lowered magnesium levels. A magnesium-rich diet can help relieve PMS-related symptoms, such as headaches, bloating, low blood sugar, dizziness, fluid retention and sugar cravings.
Chocolate in its raw and unprocessed form helps the most. The raw cacao powder that I use to create many of my desserts and sweet treats is loaded with essential minerals, including calcium, sulphur, zinc, iron, copper, potassium and manganese. It’s also full of antioxidant flavonoids to protect your cells from damage, a range of the B vitamins, protein and fibre.
Apart from chocolate, good food sources of magnesium include leafy green vegetables, almonds, cashews, avocado, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and buckwheat.
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INDULGE IN CHOCOLATE
Another key reason why women may crave chocolate at a certain time of the month is because levels of serotonin may decrease along with oestrogen and progesterone to trigger the start of your period. Without sufficient serotonin, you may crave sugary foods or stodgy carbs to quickly and naturally boost levels back up again.
Commercial chocolate generally isn’t a great option because it tends to be full of refined sugar, so I designed my SOS chocolate bark here to come to the rescue when only chocolate will do. It’s naturally sweetened to help boost serotonin without the subsequent energy crash that can happen with regular refined sugar.
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EAT FOODS RICH IN B VITAMINS
B vitamins, including thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), B3, B5, B6 and folic acid, are found in a large range of foods, including veggies, oats, quinoa, nuts, seeds, lentils and beans.
They’re essential for many biochemical reactions in your body, including energy production. As a water-soluble vitamin, you must eat enough in your food each day, and real food is generally a better idea than relying on supplements.
Vitamins B1 and B2 can be important for easing PMS. According to a US study published in the online edition of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, women with higher intakes of them in their diet had far fewer PMS symptoms.
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PRIORITISE OMEGA-3 FATS
Increasing your dietary intake of omega-3 fats can be effective in reducing PMS symptoms. According to the peer-reviewed journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine, omega-3 fats can help to lessen feelings of depression, nervousness, anxiety and lack of concentration. They may also reduce bloating, headache and breast tenderness due to their powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
Many people eating the typical Western diet consume too many omega-6 and omega-9 fats from vegetable oils, fried foods and animal protein foods, but not enough omega-3 fats. This may impact PMS, so rebalancing the fatty acids in your system is thought to offer relief.
As one of the most important physiological functions, sleep is of the highest value to your health, fitness and emotional well-being. Adults need at least seven to eight hours of snooze time per night, but many people fall short of that for a variety of reasons. Various chemicals and compounds found in foods and drinks can also have a powerful effect on your sleeping patterns.
You need sleep to help regulate your appetite hormones, with studies showing that not getting sufficient shut-eye may increase your daily calorie intake by up to 20%. This could cause weight gain in the long term.
NUTRIENTS FOR SLEEP
The right balance of nutrients is needed by your body to keep it working optimally throughout the night, as it heals the day’s cellular damage and resets your system.
Foods naturally rich in calcium and magnesium are good for encouraging sleep, as they help to relax your muscles. Try eating foods rich in both nutrients with your evening meal. Good sources include leafy green vegetables, broccoli, almonds, chickpeas, dried figs, cashews, sesame seeds, tahini, quinoa and kidney beans.
If you have trouble getting a decent night’s sleep, aim to avoid biscuits, chocolate, sweets and other refined sugar foods close to bedtime. They can raise your blood sugar levels, then the insulin response can cause a sudden dip in blood glucose. Your body responds by sending out a wave of adrenaline, which may wake you up with a sudden jolt in the middle of the night.
MELATONIN, YOUR SLEEP HORMONE
Do you ever feel increasingly sleepy earlier in the evenings as winter approaches? Your levels of the sleep hormone, melatonin, rise steadily as darkness falls each night.
Produced by the pineal gland in your brain, melatonin is made in particularly large quantities when you are young. As well as regulating your snooze patterns, melatonin is an extremely powerful antioxidant and even more effective than the A, C and E vitamins for neutralising the free radicals that can damage and age your cells prematurely. It’s also been shown to support your immune system.
When you wake up in the morning and it’s already daylight, the light hitting your retina triggers neurological signals that cause melatonin production to halt. That’s why it can be difficult to get out of bed when the alarm clock goes off on dark mornings!
Darkness and light are two key triggers for melatonin production, but various dietary and lifestyle factors can help to regulate your melatonin to ensure you get deep, good-quality sleep and wake up feeling refreshed.
Eating meals and snacks at regular intervals and not going too many hours without food will help to regulate your body’s routine and its melatonin levels. Eating heavy meals too late in the evening may interrupt your internal chemistry and affect sleep.
Get used to going to bed at a similar time each night and waking up at the same time each morning, and avoid napping during the day if you can. This will aid in regulating your circadian rhythm and cortisol production, which should be at its peak first thing in the morning to help kick start your day.
REDUCE CAFFEINE
If you have trouble settling down or sleeping, then it can really help to limit tea, coffee, excess chocolate, nicotine, caffeinated soft drinks and energy drinks, as caffeine remains in your system for up to 24 hours and keeps you feeling alert. Chamomile tea has a subtle sedative effect and is a natural relaxant before bed.
AVOID TYRAMINE FOODS
Foods containing the amino acid tyramine, including bacon, ham, sausage, chocolate, sugar, cheese and wine, are also best avoided close to bedtime as they have been shown to stimulate norepinephrine in your brain, which can act as a stimulant and keep you awake.
EXERCISE EARLIER IN THE DAY
Intense exercise too close to bedtime may actually delay melatonin production, energise you and keep you from getting to sleep. A good workout is a brilliant way to ensure you get a good night’s sleep, but it’s best done earlier in the day if possible. This means that you will feel full of energy for the day and encourage a natural balance of melatonin in your system.
TRYPTOPHAN FOODS
The amino acid tryptophan is needed along with vitamins B6, B12, folic acid and zinc to build serotonin and melatonin. A diet lacking any of these nutrients, or one that’s low in overall protein, may cause you sleep problems.
Eating a tryptophan-rich snack one or two hours before bedtime can really help to produce melatonin for peaceful sleep. Good options include a handful of raw nuts and blueberries, chopped apple with a teaspoon of hazelnut butter, sliced banana with a sprinkle of pumpkin and sunflower seeds or a cup of warm unsweetened almond milk with a pinch of cinnamon.
A positive mental attitude
Your body and brain are deeply interlinked. Harmony must be promoted throughout both, because a positive mental attitude as you grow and develop through life is very much at the foundation of vitality. When you’re feeling positive, strong, happy and resilient, you glow with health and contentment.
Of course, you can go through life eating and drinking what you please and avoiding exercise, but this may eventually start to break down your health and resilience to disease. Taking the time to look after the body that works so hard to keep you alive and well every single day hugely improves your quality of life, energy levels, long-term wellness, self-confidence and the love and time that you can give to your friends and family.
Just like your physical fitness, a positive mental attitude takes ongoing work and attention to stay healthy. Working hard to remain full of positivity and optimism throughout your life is so important and there is an ever-increasing body of scientific evidence that your regular thoughts, emotions and self-image very much contribute to your health and quality of life.
You can’t control much of what life throws at you and all of us will face our own challenges, but what you can control is how you respond to these challenges and your ongoing attitude. It’s how you respond to the many difficulties that you face that moulds your character and quality of life.
The failures, losses, broken hearts, hardships and sadness most of us will face frequently end up nourishing your happiness, achievements and empathy for others. Adopting a positive attitude will ensure that you’re happier, healthier and more successful in all areas of life. Don’t forget that like attracts like. Make yourself a magnet for happiness, joy, good health and success. I find that meditation, deep breathing and remembering to be grateful for all that makes you happy in life can really help to encourage a calm, positive mindset.
Setting positive goals is absolutely essential for creating an optimistic attitude and building your self-confidence. You must word your statement of intent to achieve these goals in positive language, and it can also be applied to getting healthy and fit: ‘I love to eat healthy fruit and vegetables and exercise every day’ is a much more positive statement than telling yourself ‘I must not eat sugar, junk food or bread and I am not allowed to skip the gym’. Of course you’re going to rebel against that. I know I would!