Foods that make you glad, sad and hopping mad!

Keep grinning all day long….

Mix up a bowl of chopped fresh berries, sprinkled with seeds and nuts and top with a big dollop of natural yogurt and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a day filled with happiness and vitality. Add in a handful of oats soaked in apple juice and you have a winning formula, guaranteed to make your day sparkle.

Combining fruits with nuts gives you a range of nutrients including vitamin C, magnesium, B vitamins and essential fatty acids that your body uses to produce energy and balance your moods. The yogurt provides a great source of protein which we need to produce neurotransmitters - these are essential for brain function and keeping us happy.

Oats contain complex carbohydrates and provide lots of fibre too, which gives us a steady supply of energy throughout the day and keeps bloating at bay by aiding regular bowel movements. All in all, this nutrient packed combo gives us oodles of energy, a fully functioning brain and a flat stomach why wouldn’t that put a smile on your face?

Feeling down in the dumps?

Make spinach your best friend if life is getting you down! This nutrient rich veggie along with egg whites, sesame seeds, seaweed and poultry all contain an amino acid called tryptophan that helps the brain to make serotonin – the feel good hormone. Combining carbohydrates with tryptophan foods helps more tryptophan to get to the brain, so make sure your diet includes good quality carbohydrate sources like brown rice, quinoa, oats, wholegrain bread and pasta.

The neurotransmitters in our brain that send out happy messages rely on a good supply of essential fatty acids too. A diet rich in oily fish, walnuts, flaxseeds, sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds will keep your neurotransmitters buzzing! Eggs, soya, peanuts and liver contain other smart fats called phospholipids that surround and protect our neurotransmitters, enhancing mood and maintaining mental performance. Liver may not be everyone’s cup of tea but snacking daily on a boiled egg or a small handful of peanuts is easy to achieve and could make all the difference.

Controlling anger with food

Strictly speaking there isn’t a specific food, that will send you into a wild rage, but there are types of foods that can push you over the edge and make it harder for you to control temper tantrums. Irritability and mood swings can be triggered by changes in our blood sugar levels, so it’s best to avoid sugary foods in the form of refined products such as chocolate biscuits, cakes, fizzy drinks, sweets or white pasta/rice and bread as these can cause problems. These as well as stimulants such as alcohol and coffee will promote a rapid rise in blood sugar followed by surges of insulin as the body tries to regulate itself.

Unfortunately high levels of insulin lead to a dramatic drop in the amount of sugar in the blood and it is this constant yo-yoing that gives rise to mood swings and fatigue. Reaching for sweets and fizzy drinks when you’re feeling stressed and irritable is like a red rag to a bull!!

During stressful times our bodies use up a lot of vitamin C so instead of grabbing a coffee and a handful of biscuits eat some vitamin C rich foods instead. Oranges may seem the obvious fruits but you could also try papaya, peppers, broccoli, brussel sprouts and strawberries as these are particularly rich in vitamin C.

It’s also really important when feeling stressed and out of control that we eat nutrient dense foods as these help our adrenal glands to cope better with stress. Fresh fruit and vegetables, raw nuts and seeds and whole grains are all beneficial in restoring balance and control over circumstances that may be running away with you.

At busy times when you really think it’s going to be impossible to keep up good levels of vitamin C rich foods, make sure you take a well absorbed supplement like Altrient C. (Altrient C is the world’s first highly advanced gel nutritional supplement. It uses cutting-edge Liposomal Encapsulation Technology to ensure up to 98% absorption all the way to your cells, where great health begins.) Far better to support your diet than go completely without!

Knowledge is power. Making some simple changes to your diet can be an easy way to get your sparkle back!

Jacqueline Newson BSc (Hons) Nutritional Therapy

Abundance and Health 31.5.16.

Your Fitness Magazine - Foods and Moods