A request for help

I had someone take the Real Age test. Her Real Age test score said she was 78.6. Her actual age is 58. Here is some of her information which will give you a clue as to why her Real Age Results are what they are. She is 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 200 pounds. She has bipolar disorder, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.

This women has lots of issues which increase her age. She openly admits that food brings her pleasure and is really the only pleasure she gets. Why is that? If you are eating foods with lots of sugar or carbohydrates, the initial brain response is one of feeling good. Unfortunately, shortly there after you take a tumble in the feeling good score and now you feel bad again or worse than before you ate those sugary foods. This is like an addiction in that shortly after you eat the sugary foods, the bad feelings return and you go back after the sugar to feel better again. You can understand why weight goes up when this is what is happening to you.

You can increase the serotonin which is the feel good hormone by eating something like turkey which contains tryptophan. Tryptophan is what the body uses to make serotonin. This will also keep dopamine levels healthy as well. Balance here is the key.

Most of the time when we eat for "pleasure" we're not thinking about what we're eating we just are putting it into our mouths and go on our way. Take the time to really savor what it is that you are eating. Also, take some time to write down a list of things that you really love to do that are fun. The next time you feel like eating your way out of a problem, try doing one of the things on your list.

Other Ways to Increase Serotonin

Research has shown that simple exercise can increase Serotonin and a sense of feeling good. I know you don't necessarily want to go to the gym, but you can do some very simple exercises at home which will assist you in creating more serotonin in your brain. If you are interested in more information about this, please respond to this post and I will give you more information.

Another thing that can increase Serotonin is bright light. The world had less depression in it when most eveyone worked outside for a good portion of the day in the sun light. Why? Because the sun light blocks the production of melatonin by the pineal gland - you may remember that this is the hormone which tends to put us to sleep. It also uses tryptophan which we need to produce Serotonin. If the pineal gland is not using tryptophan to produce melatonin, then there is more tryptophan available to make Serotonin.

Creating Serotonin - What Should I Eat?

Since we know that tryptophan is the building block for serotonin, that would be the first thing we need to produce serotonin. Most of us are familiar with one source of tryptophan - turkey! We all get very relaxed and sleepy after that big Thanksgiving turkey dinner. This is related to the tryptophan in the turkey. In this case however, the tryptophan goes to the pineal gland and melatonin is produced which makes us sleepy. Not the serotonin we were hoping to produce.

This is a complex issue, because the amino acids in proteins can get in the way of the tryptophan and keep it from converting to Serotonin. To help you understand this, if you are depressed and your Serotonin levels are low, you will crave and eat simple carbohydrates like sugar and sweets. This gives you a short burst of Serotonin but it is not sustained and requires more within an hour or two at most. We all know what eating sugar or sweets every 1-2 hours will do to your waist line. Complex carbohydrates will raise Serotonin levels to a lesser extent because they contain protein amino acids which get in the way.

To clear the protein amino acids, you need to have foods which stimulate the production of insulin which will clear the proteins out of the way. Best foods for this are whole grain breads or raw fruits.

Feeling Good with Serotonin

More on Serotonin here. You may be aware of serotonin by the initials that are sometime used to refer to it's chemical structure. Serotonin is 5-HT. Many weight loss programs refer to having 5-HT in their product. One of the things that Serotonin does is to help regulate appetite. It's really not clear if this is a direct action or if by alleviating some depressive symptoms the individual actually eats less. Many individuals with depression eat more than usual and gain weight.

If you think about it, feeling good about yourself does not make you want to eat more. Not feeling good, can definitely make you want to eat more in the hopes that food will make you feel better.

So what can we eat to help promote serotonin production? More on this tomorrow.

Serotonin - Feel Good Hormone

Serotonin is what I refer to as our "feel good hormone." When we do not have enough serotonin, we tend toward depression. There are multiple research studies which link serotonin with depression and many of the newer drugs out for depression actually work directly on serotonin.

Serotonin is a hormone which is produced in our brains via a biochemical process which uses tryptophan. The actual process is not as important as understanding that if the process does not occur, there will not be enough serotonin in our brain to transmit information from one cell to the next. There are other problems that can occur regarding the receptor sites not being able to accept the serotonin to transmit information. In other words, you may produce enough but the receptor sites are not working. It's like connecting to the internet, if the phone line you want to use is not working(the receptor site), your computer (the serotonin) will not be able to connect to the internet to transmit information.

More tomorrow on Sserotonin

Benefits of Chocolate

Some of the benefits of raw chocolate or cacao are the high levels of antioxidant and magnesium content. Raw cacao is the highest food source of antioxidant. It is higher than green tea or red wine. How great is that. You can protect your cells by eating raw cacao!! So chocolate in it's raw form is good for you!

The high levels of magnesium contained in raw cacao supports heart health, relaxes muscles and eases menstrual cramping, increases flexibility, and improves brain function.

The greatest benefit here is cacao's effect on the brain. It actually assists the body in the production of brain chemicals like serotonin, phenylethylamine, theobromine, and tryptophan. These brain chemicals are responsible for making us feel less depressed, less stressed, and less anxious. Bottom line, these chemicals help increase our pleasure and I sometimes referred to these as the feel good chemcals.