Food for Thought: Changing How We Feel By Changing How We Eat

To truly give “thought for food”, it helps to understand what food means and how it affects the mind and body.

In this book, we will weave together the threads of stress, inflammation, gut health, and food to present an integrated in-depth picture of how choices that we make about food, and other aspects of lifestyle, affect our minds and bodies. The overall objective is to provide readers with enough evidence-based information to enable them to make and carry out informed choices about what they eat.

The goal of the text is to enable you to:

• Distinguish between health-enhancing and unhealthy foods
• Identify how stress encourages unhealthy food consumption and how to modify responses to stress
• Describe the links between food, psychological well-being, and the gut-brain axis
• Explain the importance of food choices in preventing and managing mood disorders and chronic medical conditions.
• Apply practical knowledge to optimize your diet and gut health, reduce stress and inflammation, and experience better well-being

Overall, the purpose of this book is to provide “ammunition” for anyone wishing to increase motivation to change their diet or for anyone wishing to help a client or loved one to improve their diet.

Chapters 1-5: The Stress Connection:

• Describe how stress can undermine conscientious eating
• Learn how to reinterpret stressors as challenges
• Summarize how emotions can affect impulse control
• Identify pathways to manage emotional eating
• Discuss the body’s language of eating and stress-related symptoms

Chapters 6-9: The Inflammation Connection:

• Discuss the interactions between shame, self-blame, inflammation, and weight gain
• Distinguish between healthy and harmful forms of inflammation
• State how inflammation can alter the way we think, feel, and eat
• Discuss how lifestyle can reduce age-related inflammation

Chapters 10-13: What is in Our Food: Sugar, Fats, and Antioxidants:

• List types of antioxidants and their common sources
• Explain how antioxidants can protect against oxidative stress
• Distinguish between harmful and healthful fats
• Identify sugars and white foods that increase inflammation and craving

Chapters 14-18: The Gut-Brain Connection:

• List several ways stress, inflammation, and the Western Diet can affect brain health
• Explain what is meant by the gut-barrier connection
• List ways that toxins, microbes, and stress can undermine gut health
• Discuss ways that probiotics can improve microbial balance
• Distinguish between harmful and healthful foods to improve the gut-brain connection

Chapters 19-21: Changing How We Feel and Think by Changing What We Eat:

• Name several psychological effects of inflammation
• Describe how sleep affects the immune system and eating habits
• Discuss practical guidelines for promoting gut-brain health
• Summarize key findings regarding how what we eat alters how we feel

Chapter 22 includes a neuroscience-informed set of diet practices and recipes.

Continuing education also available for Health Professionals. Learn more about this engaging text and home study program by emailing foodforthought@IBPceu.com