Moods & Your Brain

By now, if you’ve been reading me for a while, you should know that your brain is the organ of your mental wellbeing. I’ve also shared with you that your brain needs certain foods to thrive, that is whole foods. However, what nutrients do we find in whole foods that our brain so desperately needs?

Throughout your journey towards better health, what you want to know is that your brain and body need clean protein and healthy fats to thrive. First things first, your brain is made of 60 to 70% fat, so fat is essential for proper brain function. Did you know that your brain consumes all by itself 20 to 25% of your total energy expenditure on a daily basis? This is a lot of energy for one single organ! This means it needs fuel, lots of quality fuel so it can function optimally.

So if it’s made mostly of fat, you need to be feeding it fats because this is its preferred source of fuel. However not any kind of fats. We need to learn how to feed our brain healthy fats. What I want you to always remember is that your brain needs healthy nutritious fats daily if you want it to work right. Examples of healthy fats are avocado, coconut, olives, fatty fish, raw nuts and seeds, including flaxseeds, grass-fed butter, just to name a few of my favorites. You can add to this lists oils that derive from avocados, coconut, nuts and seeds, like extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, fish oil and flaxseed oil.

Now our brain also needs protein. Why does out brain need protein so badly? Well let’s start by imagining what goes on in your brain every single day, during every second of the day. Every day, you have thousands of thoughts going through your mind. And every time you have a thought this activates billions of neurons. Billions! A neuron is a cell that has an electrical charge. Consequently, we are electrical beings! We are energetic beings! This thought in itself is absolutely amazing when you think of it.

When you take a closer look at a neuron, there are two components of the neuron that I want you to pay close attention to, these are the receptors and the messengers that travel from one neuron to the next. These messengers are what you call neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters are mostly made out of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, and the receptors are mostly made out of fatty acids, which are the building blocks of healthy fats. So to help you understand, every time you eat protein you are breaking it down into amino acids, and every time you eat healhty fats you are breaking it down into fatty acids. These amino acids and fatty acids are what we need to have healthy messengers and receptor site on our neurons. This means that the food that we eat on a daily basis plays a huge role in the health of our neurotransmitters and receptors, consequently a huge role in how efficient our messaging system will be. Aha, are you starting to see a connection?

What you also need to know is that these messengers are responsible for how we feel on a daily basis. If they are not balanced, it’s going to impact our moods and mental wellbeing.

We Need Clean Protein and Healthy Fats

So to summarize, for our brain to work right, we need to know:

• that our brain is made of 60 to 70% fat
• for this reason one of its preferred sources of fuel is fat
• that neuron receptor sites and neurotransmitters that travel between neurons are mostly made of fatty acids and amino acids
• which are the building blocks we get as a result of eating and breaking down healthy fats and clean protein daily

So to have a healthy brain, we need to be eating healthy fats and clean protein so we can provide it the building blocks it needs to work right on a daily basis. These building blocks allow you to have healthy receptor sites and a balanced production of neurotransmitters, all responsible for an efficient messaging system, your moods and mental wellbeing!

So there you have it my friends. You no longer need to fear fats, and you need to make more room for protein in your life, if you want to feel joy and balanced mentally every day of your life!