This article was prompted by the realization of how little is said about the effect of food on brain chemistry. Evidently the role of nutrition in this area is underestimated, which is completely baffling, because by combining foods skillfully you can fully control your energy level throughout the day while burning body fat at the same time!
The information below is not an interesting theory but a fact that has been confirmed in my own practice.
How well or badly we eat determines how our entire body functions. When we wake up in the morning, action awaits us, and to be, so to speak, in top form, we need to cooperate with our body (brain) by giving it the raw material it needs (read: food).
Our body produces certain chemical compounds, so-called neurotransmitters, whose job is to take part in relaying commands to the brain, which ultimately determines whether we feel energetic or tired. This process can be regulated by food to quite a large extent, because the human body is able to synthesize neurotransmitters from precursors obtained from food.
It is known, in fact, that two amino acids help control a person’s energy level: L-tyrosine and L-tryptophan. These very amino acids largely determine how we feel after a meal; the only question is which amino acid crosses the blood-brain barrier first.
If L-tyrosine reaches the brain before L-tryptophan, then with the help of vitamins B-3, B-5, B-6 and C and the minerals zinc, iron and copper, the wakefulness hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine are synthesized (these are called catecholamines, and they make it possible to use body fat for energy). They raise your energy level and help you fight stress (if you’re stressed, eat protein, not carbohydrates!), and as a result we feel active.
If L-tryptophan wins, then with the help of vitamins B-3 and B-6 the “feel-good hormone” serotonin is synthesized, which has a relaxing and even pain-relieving effect and helps prevent depression. Serotonin, incidentally, is in turn the precursor of melatonin, the hormone that controls the sleep-wake rhythm.
How can we influence the L-tyrosine/L-tryptophan race? Protein-rich foods (meat, fish, eggs) contain a lot of L-tyrosine and less L-tryptophan. The latter dominates in foods that are rich in starch and low in protein (all grain products!), and on top of that insulin helps L-tryptophan get into the brain. So the key to regulating your energy level is paying attention, above all, to the protein and carbohydrate content of each meal.
Although after a night’s rest people are more energetic in the first half of the day than in the second, you shouldn’t put the brakes on yourself by eating a lot of carbohydrates – the best breakfast is rich in protein and fat and low in carbohydrates, which ensures the brain is supplied with L-tyrosine and its helpers and gives us long-lasting, steady energy. This recommendation of course contradicts the general belief that in the morning we can afford, and need, plenty of carbohydrates. We can afford them, yes, but do we need them? Especially in today’s conditions, when breakfast isn’t followed by physical work that would use the carbohydrates for immediate energy and thereby head off a rise in blood sugar and insulin levels. Surely everyone has felt a marked drop in energy, even drowsiness, after a carbohydrate-rich meal, even though those same carbohydrates are supposed to give us plenty of energy. This comes down to the stimulation of serotonin production and the drop that follows the rise in blood sugar. Both are easily avoided through the composition of your food, so that you can achieve an energetic attitude and a clear head. The few carbohydrates we get from a fat- and protein-rich meal are entirely sufficient, because as a bonus we teach the body to burn body fat for energy along with dietary fat! A carbohydrate-rich breakfast sets the direction for the whole day – energy needs become directly dependent on carbohydrate availability! The brain also constantly craves something sweet. With a fat- and protein-rich breakfast, any need for sweets disappears over the course of the day! I recommend that everyone try it first-hand!
The significance of lunch is that it either gives you a fresh charge of energy or takes away what little is left. A carbohydrate-rich (especially starch-rich) meal then quickly takes us closer to dreamland, which would be wonderful if we could take a siesta (the Spanish are the lucky ones, since their eating habits match their work and daily routines). Unfortunately, what matters is not the protein content of the meal but its starch content – how much or how little of it you can allow yourself, everyone has to determine for themselves (as with breakfast, too).
A safe option is to eat protein (chicken, fish, turkey and red meat, which contains absolutely everything needed for L-tyrosine synthesis) together with non-starchy vegetables, fruit and/or berries, and to use plenty of cold-pressed olive oil in your salad.
Choose dinner on the same principle if you need to work, train or simply be active – eat protein and fats with low-carbohydrate food so that L-tyrosine can take effect in producing the necessary hormones.
But if it’s dinner after a day of work, chores and training, then finally a carbohydrate-rich (starchy) meal with protein and moderate fat is in its place, causing the body to produce serotonin, which helps us relax and restore spent energy reserves. Skinny-fat people can’t, for understandable reasons, allow themselves such indulgence, since their excess fat mass was built up by enjoying carbohydrates over a long period. Only an occasional starch-rich dinner is allowed, to keep the roof from blowing off.
But carbohydrates don’t only have a calming effect on the brain; they are also an important source of energy. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to consume fast carbohydrates before training? That would only do us a disservice, because the rapid rise in blood sugar they cause also triggers a high insulin surge, which quickly drops blood sugar again, and as a result we feel an energy slump. But the trouble doesn’t end there – high insulin levels inhibit glycogenolysis (the breakdown of glycogen into glucose) and lipolysis (fat burning). So the supply of energy to the muscles during training is hindered. To have enough energy, you must first of all not overconsume carbohydrates before training (a moderate amount of complex carbohydrates at lunchtime is OK), and second, you have to teach the body to use fats as an energy source (without energy from fats, it would not be possible to carry your day through to the evening on a low-carbohydrate breakfast and lunch!). There’s no need to worry about the large amount of carbohydrates burned because of high training intensity, since muscle and liver glycogen stores get topped up with the post-workout drink and a starch-rich dinner.
For a long, multi-hour (intense!) workout, taking simple carbohydrates and branched-chain amino acids during training is justified to prevent muscle catabolism. When glycogen stores aren’t depleted, amino acids are used for energy only to the extent of 5%, but once glycogen levels have dropped significantly, up to 3 times more. So it makes sense to head this process off. There’s no need to fear an insulin spike, because the muscles use the extra carbohydrates right away. If you use complex carbohydrates instead of simple ones, the result is gas. But what about simple carbohydrates as a source of L-tryptophan? There’s no problem here, because they contain no L-tryptophan.
Nutrient intake after training has been discussed at great length, and the consensus is that about 0.4-0.8 grams of fast carbohydrates and 0.4 grams of whey protein per kilogram of body weight in a 10% aqueous solution does a fine job of kick-starting the recovery processes. But it isn’t mandatory at all if we don’t train two times a day, or if an evening workout isn’t followed by a morning one! Since there’s no rush with recovery in that case, eating and drinking regular food gets us the same recovery, just a little later.
To sum up the above:
when you eat a meal high in protein and fat and free of starch, blood L-tyrosine rises, which raises L-tyrosine levels in the brain, and as a result wakefulness hormones are synthesized that act as a shot of energy. After a starch-rich meal (regardless of the amount of protein!), plenty of L-tryptophan reaches the brain with the blood, causing a significant rise in serotonin levels, and as a result a person feels drowsy and tired after breakfast and lunch, but relaxes well after dinner.
Unless it’s prolonged physical work, a long (endurance) training session or several intense training sessions in a day, fatigue comes not from the body but from the mind, because when the mind is tired, the body feels tired too. By regulating your nutrition, you can keep your energy level fully under control, and as a result any need for energy pills, energy drinks and fat burners falls away.
Author: Fred Antson
Come and work out! ArtGym
