“Karen’s Noggin’ 🧠 Nuggets” #27 ~ October 10, 2022
THE POWER OF FOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN!
Drunk On Pancakes?
People can tell you that you should eat this food or that food and stay away from those foods because of this, that, and the other thing. But as someone with ADHD, until I understood and experienced the power of food, both positive and negative, would I truly realize how important food is for our brains. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider that what you eat affects your brain. We always hear about what foods affect our hearts, cholesterol, and all the many different diets that are out there. But how often does anyone talk about how food affects our brains? I heard a little information regarding ‘brain food’ but nothing in much detail.
An ADHD brain needs all the help it can get. An undiagnosed ADHD brain doesn’t even know what help it needs.
That all changed when I was rediagnosed with Inattentive ADHD last year and I started taking the right medicine, the right dosage, and taking it at the right time. I’m forever grateful to Laurie Dupar https://www.iactcenter.com/ to have those 3 ‘’right’ indicators as a reminder of what’s important for folks with ADHD. Right meds, right dosage & right time! Once those 3 things were in place, my brain was now awake to learn. Not only was my brain awake, but it was also very hungry. And my brain was hungry to learn as much as possible.
I started reading and listening to everything I could find on ADHD. It happened to be October 2021 and since October is ADHD Awareness Month, there was more information out there for me. In my digging to know more, I found someone who was teaching some great stuff about ADHD that changed my life. I found Alan P. Brown and https://addcrusher.com/ I watched the first video ‘Feed Your Brain’. Alan presented it in a way that made sense and I immediately applied the scientific evidence and researched-backed information he provided. Protein is power, sugar stinks, white carbs kill and Omega is mega. Wow…what a difference. I focused on eating protein-packed foods and cutting out sugar. I made sure I had a can of almonds in the main rooms of the house and my car. What a difference. I could tell I was able to stay focused and think more clearly. I also start each day with 30 grams of protein every morning which has worked wonders for me. No more Lucky Charms for breakfast for me. Yep, up until last year, I was still eating Lucky Charms! Yikes!
Once I learned to eat for my brain, it made a world of difference. I think before I eat…how is this going to affect my brain after I eat it? If I need a brain boost, I’ll take Alan’s suggestion and eat raw pumpkin seeds and dried apricots together! Boom! It helps to get my brain going. My regular ‘go-to’ for my best days are fresh fruits (grapes, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple), walnuts, granola, chia seeds, flax seeds, and Keifer probiotics. I love salads (with protein), and I snack on a variety of nuts and drink lots of water. If I feel like I have to have some sugar, I’ll wait until the end of the day when I don’t have to do a lot of heavy thinking and it will be something small. I don’t deprive myself but I also don’t indulge like I use to do. I eat for my brain now.
This lifestyle of high protein and omegas along with eliminating white carbs and sugar has helped me in so many ways. The positive power of food is a wake-up call for me. When I started my new food intake last year, it was a game-changer for me. After months of this new food style, I was at a restaurant that’s known for its breakfasts. I ordered the eggs and bacon and thought, I haven’t had pancakes in a while, maybe I’ll have them too. Boy, those pancakes were yummy going down, especially with the syrup that comes in those little bottles with the restaurant’s label on them. Yum Yum…until we are on the way home after dinner. What did they put in those pancakes, I wondered? Oh dear, I don’t feel so well. The feeling I was experiencing was a familiar feeling from my much younger years after a night out. Is it possible I was drunk on pancakes? When I got home, I knew I would not be of any use when it comes to my brain. I did have enough sense about me that I should drink lots of water and I did. While I sat in my recliner and was in a vegetative state, I thought to myself, what did I do? It took a good couple of hours for me to detox from those drunken’ pancakes!
Then I had a vision of a commercial from the 80s when there was a campaign on drug awareness. The commercial showed an egg in a frying pan sizzling away. The message was, this is your brain on drugs. My vision is similar but the message is, this is your brain on sugar and white carbs. That’s my best analogy of what happens to our brains when we eat the wrong foods.
As I’ve learned and I’m continuing to learn, food has power and it can go positive or negative for your brain. It’s just deciding if you want positive power or negative power! This message bears repeating, an ADHD brain needs all the help it can get. An undiagnosed ADHD brain doesn’t even know what help it needs.
There is more information out there for you to find on what foods are best for our brains. I encourage you to research and find out what works best for your brain! Hopefully, we can have more HAPPY BRAINS in this world!
For more information on this subject and/or if you would like to work with a Life Coach to work through some struggles or have someone beside you as you navigate this life, contact me at https://happybrainlifecoach.com/
Thank you for reading “Karen’s Noggin’ 🧠 Nuggets” #27 ~ October 10, 2022
