food and effects on mood / mind?

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone here noticed that certain foods helped them to think better or impaired even, with their emotions and thoughts?

For example, if we eat healther foods and a greater variety, can this help us to think more clearly? Can sugar and sweets cause us to have more confused/muddled thinking?

And is the inability to think clearly, very much correlated to undernourishment. So if I were to gain more weight, would I be able to have more clarity of mind regained?

I used to think that just hunger itself, would be reason enough to have this problem with thinking but even if I'm satiated, I still feel that I have difficulty with my thought process, and focusing....I was just curious to know if this happened to others, and if this improved once more weight gain occurred.

 

Our brains are primarily composed of fat so when we starve ourselves or fail to have enough body fat and fat in our diets we don't function optimally. So even though you might not be hungry at one point in time that doesn't mean your body is fueled. With weight gain focusing and processing information is a million times easier!

A poor diet will affect the mind.... I'm sure we've talked about this at length before.  There are some studies you can look up on the behaviour and concentration levels of schoolchildren and prisoners given supplements.....

Someone who is underweight is, by definition, more likely to be malnourished than someone who is a healthy weight.  To stay underweight requires food to be restricted and if food is restricted, the nutrition is automatically poorer than if food is unrestricted.  You don't need other people to tell you that.... it's completely commonsense.

At CC we can only support people in active recovery.  If I were you I'd stop looking for testimonials, stop asking these 'what if?' questions and stop prevaricating..... and simply get on with the job in hand i.e. gaining to a healthy weight (BMI well past 20) on sufficient calories and a steady intake of a wide variety of different foods. 

 

  

our brains are not composed of fat.... our brains are composed of brain cells called neurons. neurons have a 'tail' (for want of a better word) called an axon. this axon is wrapped in fat to help transmit chemical and electrical impulses, this fat is called myelin. but the brain isnt composed of fat.

the brain only utilises one type of fuel. glucose. carbohydrates are the most efficent source of glucose. so ideally to keep a steady stream of glucouse in the blood you should choose low glycaemic carbs.

people who suffer a hypoglycaemic attack suffer neural impairment - neuroglycopenia. some symptoms include:

• Shakiness, anxiety, nervousness,
•  feeling of warmth
• Pallor, coldness, clamminess
• Dilated pupils
• Feeling of numbness 
• sweating, palpitations

I was not trying to get any testimonial or anything of the sort; I was genuinely asking because I have actually not talked at length about this or similar subject before, although I have of course heard a great deal of the correlations with food and mood. Yes, I know a poor diet affects the mind, but i'm eating and still feel I have some struggles with muddled thinking, therefore I suppose I ought to have clarified the question and asked 'is it possible to have some difficulties with clarity of thought EVEN IF one is eating/drinking enough.' One can still be underweight while NOT restricting; as with both weight loss AND gain, both processes require time!

I think what people are saying is that it's not so much what you eat as how much.  If you are undernourished then your brain isn't going to function well and that will make you feel irritable and depressed.

This is my own personal experience. For about a year and a half I was only eating 1200-1300 calories. I'm over 200 pounds so that is considered as undereating for my weight range. I was very moody and agitated easily. I would lash out at my boyfriend constantly and we were always on the verge of breaking up. I didn't realize it at the time but I definitely wasn't being my normal happy self. For a few months now, I have raised my calories to 1800 and I feel freaking amazing. I am always happy and I haven't been mad at my boyfriend ONCE. It's mind-blowing, honestly. I had no idea that diet could affect your personality. I still lose about 7 pounds a month on 1800 cals! It's great!