Tag: nutritional psychiatry

Food and Mood: The Final Foray

Christina BruniLeave a comment

I’m going to top myself in this blog entry. I make no pie-in-the-sky promises. I don’t sell a product. I don’t guarantee that you’ll lose 30 pounds in 30 days by following my rules.

However what I’ve been writing in here for years about the food we eat improving our mood has been verified by two M.D.s

Drew Ramsey, M.D. the author of Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety I found out is a psychiatrist in private practice. Long before I read his book I was eating the food he recommends: eggs, cod, cashews, bell peppers, salmon, shrimp, fermented dairy (yogurt) and mussels. (Italians love our mussels!)

The connection between food and mental health has been taken up by Georgia Ede, M.D. in her 2024 book Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind.

After watching a YouTube interview with this nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist I was astonished to find out I’d been doing what she recommended as well long before hearing her talk.

She recommended a ketogenic diet. Though I don’t eat meat I was surprised that all along I’d been eating the other foods in a ketogenic diet for years.

I have three eggs for breakfast. Seafood like shrimp, mussels, salmon, red snapper, flounder, and scallops for dinner. Organic chicken.

No grains at all. (I stopped eating grains 20 years ago before an expert like Ede told people not to.)

Dr. Edie told viewers to cut out refined sugars and refined fats. Like Dr. Lipman she’s no fan of vegetable oils or canola oil or seed oils. She rails against the modern-day scourge of eating processed food.

On this note the Mediterranean Diet is toast. Even the Nutritarian Diet doesn’t hold a candle to eating animal fat.

Watching the video unsettled me. It shocked me to find out that I’d been eating all the food you’re supposed to be eating.

Even smoothies got creamed by Dr. Ede. She is against this standard advice experts give people when they tell us what to eat.

Dr. Ede has had success using the ketogenic diet to treat patients not helped by traditional psychiatric medication. Some had been ill for years or even decades. After Dr. Ede prescribed a ketogenic diet in coordination with slowly lowering the doses of the traditional pills they had a miraculous recovery.

I’m no fan of taking Big Pharma pills for medical conditions that are caused by lifestyle choices. I say Take the Pill! if you need to take a pill to be well mentally physically or emotionally. By all means take the pill if it’s helping you be well.

The friend I watched the YouTube video with clarified that the psychiatric medication hasn’t been effective for a lot of people. Things got better when they went on the ketogenic diet. This is one of the few instances where I think alternative treatment should be considered. I think this because in my own life I’ve benefitted by eating ketogenic food.

I turned 60. I look and feel decades younger. The proof is in the fact that I exercise consistently and eat well. I hope by reading this blog entry you followers are energized and empowered to consider what you swallow: the lies being told as well as the Coca-Cola.

Now: I will always take the pill I’m taking. It strikes me that maybe this pill works precisely because my diet aids and abets the pill to be effective. You can’t outrun chowing down on candy bars and expect to be healthy.

The best thing is we don’t have to be rich or go broke to eat food that can improve our mood.

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Healthful Food Improves Mood

Christina BruniLeave a comment

I write about healthful eating in the spirit of motivating readers to feel good.

With so much stress in life it’s nice to know that simply changing what you eat can reduce anxiety and depression.

The benefits of healthful eating extend to a person’s mood not only their waistline.

A 2010 study “found that women who ate diets high in vegetables, fruit, fish and whole grains with moderate amounts of red meat were less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety disorders than those who followed a typical Western diet: processed foods, pizza, fast food, white flour and sugary sodas and other sweet beverages.”

This according to research by Felice Jacka, PhD reported on in the TIME magazine special edition The Science of Nutrition.

The role of nutrition in mental health has seen the trend in Nutritional Psychiatry to focus on how food impacts mood.

The ideal “diet” might be the Mediterranean diet: “rich in vegetables, salads, fruits and legumes–such as chickpeas, lentils and tofu; whole grains and raw nuts; fish and lean red meats; and healthy fats like olive oil.””

Step away from the 700-calorie frozen meals passed off as Lean or Smart.

Pick up a frying pan and saute vegetables instead.

I’m constantly baffled by the pseudo-healthful behaviors women engage in to try to lose weight.

Not once did I go on a “diet” and I lost 20 pounds and kept off the weight. I’m 55 and I weigh 115 pounds–the same as when I was 29.

Pick up a dumbbell. Put down the diet books. In the May issue of Harper’s Bazaar an article talked about weight loss: it’s not a “one-and-done” activity.

You need to keep up these healthy habits for the rest of your life. Not just while you’re trying to lose weight.

Again I’ll refer you to the books Atomic Habits and Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

Alas, nothing worth having comes without effort.

No one wants to hear that it will take permanent effort to maintain weight loss.

Yet my life experiences are the living proof: I lift weights 2x per week for 30 to 45 minutes in each session. And I cook my own healthful dinners 5x per week.

My father had Stage 3 colon cancer that spread to his liver.

This accounts for my commitment to healthful eating.

You can live to be 81 like my father did. Yet if you’re in ill health how will you be able to enjoy your long life?

More about my typical eating plan in coming blog entries. With a few of my favorite  recipes I like to cook for dinner.