Biohacking Burnout by Decolonizing Your Plate
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Y’all, we’ve been lied to. The 2pm slump is not actually a thing. That’s the crash we feel after eating a lunch that doesn’t support our wellbeing.
I would argue that the most strategic, effective intervention to improving mental health is diet. Enter: nutritional psychiatry, a growing field recognizing the important role our diet plays in mental health.
This is an invitation to decolonize your plate.
Countries that adopt a western diet see skyrocketing diabetes, obesity, and other health problems. And I’m not sure what a “Mediterranean” diet is, the part of the Mediterranean I lived in ate only various combinations of bread, meat, and cheese and fried everything else. Instead, this is an invitation to experiment adding more veggies and fruit to your plate, in the tastiest and easiest way possible. (Cause that’s your business! ❤ Tabitha Brown)
Eating should be an enjoyable, pleasant experience. I’d like to invite you to experiment with what you eat towards that goal. Without thinking what foods are “good” or “bad,” consider which meals/ ingredients give you energy, which make you feel lethargic, and which change your bathroom experience. My hope is that you will fill your diet with fresh food you make yourself, drink more water, and yes – take a vitamin.
We are reclaiming the “nurture” in nutrition. By healing our relationship with food, we will heal the relationship with ourselves.
Food for thought:
Your gut comes in at a close second to your brain in the number of neurons. It’s lined with more than 100 million nerve cells, and it communicates with the brain via neurotransmitters and hormones.
95% of the serotonin in your body is produced in the gut
GABA, the neurotransmitter that helps us relax and de-stress, is also produced in the gut (especially from eating fermented foods)
The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve that travels from the brain stem, wrapping around the gut, and ending at the colon (it can be stimulated through deep breathing).
Alzheimer‘s, Parkinsons, are both linked to diet.
Your diet plays a huge role in how you feel, your mood, energy levels, and overall wellbeing. Let’s take a look a what to add and what to avoid to best biohack that urge to flop on the couch at the end of a stressful day.
What to avoid:
#1: Telling yourself you can’t enjoy the foods you love. Full stop.
Now, you have more bacterial cells in your body than human cells, the majority of which live in your gut. Let’s discuss how to make them happy.
An easy rule of thumb is avoid anything white: refined sugar, bleached wheat, white rice, salt, iceberg lettuce, and yes – dairy. Also anything packaged. I’m so sorry to tell you this but your body doesn’t recognize Takis as food. So your gut microbes attack it which leads to inflammation and can cause a whole host of other problems (check out Dr. Uma Naidoo’s book linked below).
A word on snacks. I’m sorry. Hear me out… There is a growing amount of research on the benefits of intermittent fasting on cognitive performance, energy, and reducing metabolic diseases (see here, here, here and here). Instead of fasting, I’d like to invite you to eat most of your calories during the daylight hours, and to reduce the number of snacks.
Trick your brain: instead of “avoiding” certain foods, try replacing them with something delicious that you enjoy. This mindset shift will ease the transition to foods that support your physical and mental health.
Let your standard be: Is this food nurturing my body – today and tomorrow? Does it feel good? Does it give me energy? Does my mind feel clear or cloudy?
What to add:
MORE WATER. Your body, like the earth, is made of 70% water. Even mild dehydration can lead to brain fog and depressed mood. We need around 2L of water per day. I know it seems like a lot, but I’m not joking. Rule of thumb: If your lips are dry, skip the chapstick. You’re probably dehydrated. If you find water boring or gross, try our teacher-hack of adding some frozen berries. They add light flavor to your water and last several refills. (NOTE: If you use lemon or citrus in your water, don’t use plastic. It will degrade the plastic and leech into your water).
Color. The fancy word “color” adds to your diet is called phytonutrients, with each color having a particular benefit. Salads, soups, stirfries, and smoothies are the easiest and quickest way to pack a lot of phytonutrients into your day.
Fermented foods. Increase good bacteria and GABA, the stress-relieving neurotransmitter. Curtido, chimichurri, sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kombucha, miso, pickles, and apple cider vinegar are great options. See below for my favorite recipe for curtido!
Tea. Try replacing coffee with strong tea. Coffee is a stimulant that can resemble anxiety in your body. Tea can improve memory and focus and reduces the release of cortisol, the stress hormone (from Amy Shah’s book, linked below)
Superfoods like chia seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, flaxseeds, black pepper, spirulina, and turmeric are packed with vitamins and minerals that your body needs to feel and work great. Add these to some overnight oats, a salad in a jar, or smoothies for an easy boost in energy. Or add some cinnamon to the terrible office coffee, trust me – this one is a game changer!
Vegetarians and vegans – we need to talk about protein. Look, I know it’s suuuper annoying when the first question people ask when they find out you’re veg* is, “bUt wHeRe dO yOu gEt yOuR pRoTeiN!?!?” It’s true that vegetarians have much better health outcomes – if we take care to have a varied diet and incorporate movement into our daily routines. While some studies have been contradictory, vegetarians do also tend to have poorer mental health, with higher rates of depression, and anxiety.
I’ve been a vegetarian (well, flexitarian) for more than 20 years and I can’t say that I’ve had a great diet for most of that time. When I committed to eating cleaner this year and packing my diet with everything listed here, what made the biggest difference was tracking my macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats). I noticed that I consistently had maybe 20% of the daily recommended value of protein. When I started adding protein powder to my smoothies, I noticed a HUGE change in my mood, energy levels, and general wellbeing.
I recommend that you find an app you like that makes it easy to track your macros and your vitamins and experiment. What ratios of macros and vitamins give you the most energy, mental clarity, and the best mood?
For all you meat-eaters – don’t forget that higher consumption of fruits and vegetables are associated with lower rates of depression 😛
For more info – check out:
I’m So Effing Tired by Amy Shah, MD (who also has a great insta presence)
This Is Your Brain on Food by Uma Naidoo, MD
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
Wheat Belly, William Davis, MD
How do I do this without living in the kitchen?
I hear you. The last thing I want to do is invite you to leave one job just to start another one. Here are a few tips to help you add more foods that will increase your energy and mental clarity in as little time as possible.
Meal prep. Find an app like Mealime that helps you plan serving sizes and simplifies your grocery run. Double the serving size for the number of people you’re feeding and make 2-3 meals once or twice per week so you’re not eating the same thing every day. Bowls are another great option. Add a scoop of your fav legumes to your fav grains with some shredded veggies and you’ve got a super easy and tasty meal. Protip: The secret sauce with bowls is, well… the sauce. My go-to 5-second lunch when I was a teacher was a salad, blue berries, carrots & hummus, mixed nuts, and my favorite French vinegarette (recipe below). It was super filling and kept me from having the 2:00pm slump. I “prepped” (read: separated into single-serving containers) on Sundays and enjoyed an extra 10-minutes of sleep every morning. Try overnight oats for a quick breakfast and a stacked salad that will leave you full without feeling fatigued.
Invest in an Instant Pot or slowcooker and make a Pinterest board of one-pot meals. Spend an afternoon chopping and prepping for the week, separate each recipe into gallon-freezer bags, and dump it into your cooker the day-of for a tasty, fresh meal that cooks itself and is ready when you get home.
Smoothies. This is by far the fastest, easiest way to pack your diet with fresh (or frozen!) fruits and veggies. To make smoothies even faster and easier, measure out the ingredients in sandwich bags and store them in the freezer for a literally 2-second meal. **This is meant to be a meal enhancement, not meal replacement**
Other considerations: Intermediate Level
Eat with the sun. Eating most of your calories during daylight hours will give your gut the break from digestion it needs while you sleep. The sun is also the ultimate source of energy on the planet. Eating as close to the sun as possible (as opposed to plants that have already been chewed), will help sustain your energy levels throughout the day and reclaim those evenings after an exhausting day of work.
Your body doesn’t process greens as well as other herbivores. Cows need four stomachs to help them process all the fiber (and Appa needs five!). But our ancestors discovered the secret to unlocking their nutrients and killing foodborne bacteria – oil and vinegar. A simple, homemade vinegarette helps your body process the fibers and extract the nutrients you need. My favorite recipe is one I learned from a French friend:
1 tsp of Dijon mustard, lightly salted and peppered
1 tsp of Balsalmic vinegar. Mix well.
1 tbsp of olive oil. Mix again
This is a single serving. If you’d like to scale, the ratio is 1:1 mustard and vinegar, 1:3 vinegar to oil
This adds the salt I crave from growing up in the south with a slight sweetness from the Balsalmic vinegar.
If you’re feeling creative…
Vegan/ vegetarian food doesn’t have to be boring. Check out some of my favorite vegetarian and vegan creators:
My fav curtido recipe
Toss everything in a pot and simmer for about 5-10 minutes, until the carrots have the type of crunch you like. Let cool and refrigerate over night. Keeps for about 3 weeks – if it lasts that long!
2-3 carrots, sliced
1/4 red or white onion, sliced
2 jalapeños or 1 jalapeño and 1 serrano
2 cloves garlic, smashed but left whole
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper
3/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
