Do you eat for brain health?
Or did you even know you CAN eat for optimal brain health?
What you put into your mouth influences all the systems in your body. If you eat well, your body will function well. If you eat crap, your body will feel and function like crap!
So back to our brain. Everybody wants a healthy brain but maybe not so many people treat their brain as the brain would like to 😉
In this post I will only talk about brain foods but obviously the brain needs other things too, apart from food.
The same principle applies as with muscles: you lose what you don’t use. So make sure to challenge your brain so it will develop new brain cells. Before it was said that we only have a certain amount of neurons and that the brain declines with age. But nowadays we know, although growing older, that with the right stimulance and of course optimum nutrition, we can create new cells and new pathways in the brain. It is called neuroplasticity. And the most wonderful thing about this is, that it also applies to certain brain injury.
Ok, let’s go back to the brain foods. Since our brain consists of almost 60% fat, it’s very important to get the right fats into the body for optimal health and wellbeing. We have been taught in the 1980’s that fat was bad for us but fortunately science has now shown that it’s just certain types of fats that are bad and not ALL of them. Please steer away from trans fat, that’s clearly the most evil kind and it is found in a lot of processed foods. Also some vegetable oils aren’t too healthy because they are extracted with chemical solvents. Therefore always use vegetable oils who are cold pressed and virgin.
The good fats for the brain you can find in:
- avocados (I just love my avocados and wouldn’t be able to live without them!)
- coconut oil (extra virgin, cold pressed)
- olive oil (extra virgen)
- fatty fish like salmon/sardines
- walnuts – the shape says it all! 🙂
- eggs (with yolks!)
Some other foods that are also very good for a healthy brain function are:
- blueberries
- broccoli
- green leafy vegetables
- turmeric
And I suppose a lot of people will like this one:
- dark chocolate – obviously without abusing 😉
I incorporate all of these foods into my eating schedule. Did I already tell you that I don’t like the word diet? Sounds just too much like restriction to me….
I hope you’re going to be a bit more conscious about your brain health from now on, if you weren’t already. And the above mentioned foods are going to help you with this.
Please replace all sugars and processed foods with these options and your brain will be grateful for it, your health in general will improve and you will notice you will have a much clearer mind!
With love and health,
Monique
PS: do you want to learn how to implement all this in your daily life, hop on a free session with me and we will figure it out.