Mental Health has become one of the most important topics to cover in recent years. Compared to the past, speaking out about mental health issues has become normalised. Mental health issues are something that everyone is susceptible to. Having a healthy diet and eating good foods can influence your moods. This means what you eat affects how you feel.
Nutrition for Mental Health
There have been many links shown between food and mood. This has been shown in studies showing a strong link between your brain and your gastrointestinal tract. The bacteria within are able to create substances such as dopamine and serotonin, both of which are able to a significant boost to get you out of a low mood. Eating healthier food helps to produce good bacteria by producing mood boosters. Whilst eating unhealthy and junk food creates substances to put you back into a low mood.
Foods That Help Mental Health
Fibre
Plant-based foods are rich in fibre and help to absorb glucose. This decreases the chance of sugar crashes. A sugar crash can make you feel fatigued, anxious and dizzy. Eating foods high in fibre can prevent this.
Protein
Amino acids are used to regulate your mood. Proteins are an excellent source of amino acids and can help to pull you out of that low mood. This means eating foods like chicken, fish, eggs and cheese.
Iron
Iron is needed to make you feel energised. Without it you’ll start to feel tired and lethargic. Feeling like this can have a huge toll on your mental wellbeing, which can lead to further issues. Therefore eating foods like red meat, fish or beans can help to alleviate this.
Folate
Folate is a natural producer of dopamine. Eating foods such as leafy greens, lentils or cantaloupes will increase the amount of folate you’re taking in. This will help boost your mood while avoiding a crash typically associated with sugars.
Fermented foods
Fermented foods help to promote healthy bacteria to grow within your gut. Things like kimchi or kombucha can help to encourage these bacteria to flourish and will increase your mood overall.
How We Can Help
Nutrition for mental health is an incredibly important thing to be mindful of. There are numerous ways food and mood are connected. By following a specific diet you can help to increase your mood overall. Dieting with foods that help mental health can make a big change in your life. Here at VitaProHealth, we can help you to improve your mood with a variety of products. From products to increase healthy gut bacteria, to supplements to assist in your dieting, we’re the best supplier of nutrition for mental health.
There are currently hundreds of different diets you can go on to slim down for special occasions or if you want to lose some weight. Recently, there has been a huge influx of people starting intermittent fasting diets, rather than trying conventional dieting to lose their ideal amount of weight. However, what exactly is the difference between them? Does one offer you more benefits than the other does?
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is currently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends. There are many different reasons why someone would decide to choose to do intermittent fasting. These are to lose weight, improve their health and change up their lifestyles.
How exactly is it done?
Intermittent fasting is the alternating cycles of fasting and eating. Unlike other diets, e.g. some conventional diets, intermittent fasting does not tell you which foods to eat but tells you when you can eat them. If you were to look at your day, you ‘fast’ every day while you sleep. This simply extended that fast for a longer period.
There are different forms of intermittent fasting you can do. The most popular form is known as the 16/8 method. This is when you are fasting for 16 hours every day and restricting you’re eating to an 8-hour window.
Things to be aware of before you start intermittent fasting
As you can expect, hunger is a big issue that will occur to anyone who starts intermittent fasting. This is because your body is not used to you not eating for a long period of time. Even though no food is allowed during the fasting period, you are allowed to drink water, coffee, tea and other non-caloric beverages.
Taking supplements is allowed while fasting, as long as there are no calories in them.
If you are interested in using intermittent fasting in helping you slim down for the New Year, HealthLine has a 101 beginner’s guide on how to conduct it.
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
As Intermittent Fasting allows you to have periods where you don’t eat, there are studies that have found this method of weight loss improves your way of life.
Here are some of the benefits of intermittent fasting:
Cause weight loss
Improve metabolic health
Protect against disease
Reduce inflammation in the body
Help the health of the heart
May prevent cancer
Help the health of your brain
It May help you live longer
Lower blood pressure
Conventional Dieting
There are many different types of conventional dieting each one having its own list of benefits.
DASH means Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, this is recommended for people who wish to prevent/treat hypertension and reduce their risk of heart disease.
What can you eat?
This diet doesn’t list certain types of foods to be eaten but lists serving sizes per day.
Fruit – 4-5 servings
Veg – 4-5 servings
Lean meats: no more than 6 servings
Whole Grains – 6-8 servings
Dairy products – 2-3 servings
Nuts, seeds – 4-5 servings
Fats and oils – 2-3 servings
Candy and added sugar – no more than 5
Foods to avoid
Red meats
Salt (high amounts)
Sugar (high amounts)
Fats (high amounts)
Benefits
Following the DASH diet reduces the amount of daily salt intake, this aids in the decrease of blood pressure among other things. Here is a full list of benefits:
If you are interested in using a low-carb diet to help you to lose weight EverydayHealth has a beginner’s guide for how a low-carb diet will help along with some tips and tricks.
How We Can Help
Here at VitaProHealth, we provide the highest quality supplements available to help you through the slimming process. Our slimming supplements are the best. If you have any questions about exactly the best slimming vitamins are for you or want to know more about our slimming lifestyle page, please contact us via email at info@vitaprohealth.com.
