How to Become Smarter (28 page)

Bodybuilders use high-protein
normal
-carbohydrate diets on a daily basis and tolerate these diets well in the long run [
338
,
339
]. There are, however, several differences between high-protein diets proposed in this book and typical bodybuilding diets:

1. bodybuilding diets contain negligible amounts of red meat (they use poultry and fish instead) [
   338
   ,
   339
   ];
   
2. bodybuilding diets exist in combination with large amounts of strenuous exercise;
   
3. the diets proposed in this book contain significant amounts of ground nuts, which may cause low mood and malaise when consumed in large amounts daily [
   252
   -
   254
   ].
   

In my experience, increased amounts of cooked animal protein in the diet can cause drowsiness, increased fatigue or lowered mood. Even a single high-protein meal consisting of roasted chicken and eggs can lower mood according to one report [
117
]. It seems that lean meat lowers mood more strongly than fatty meat. Sleepiness or drowsiness can occur with the
protein supplementation diet
; that is, when a person adds more protein to the diet and there are no restrictions on what the person can eat. Sleepiness does not occur with a high-protein diet that is free of cooked grains and all artificial ingredients (the balanced high-protein diet). According to my self-experimentation and some studies [
252
-
254
], nuts are probably the most difficult type of food. They can make me feel bad if I consume them in large amounts daily. Large amounts of nuts, i.e. 60 grams (~2 oz.) of ground nuts or more per day, can cause apathy, nausea, and headache. At the same time, nuts have a strong beneficial effect on attention and thus are an essential component of an attention-enhancing diet.

If you follow the balanced high-protein diet (from the previous section) for several weeks or months, you may start to feel bad both mentally and physically. The most common side effects that I have observed with myself are sadness, apathy, and physical fatigue. Another effect that you may notice with these dietary changes is various character changes, some of which may appear to be undesirable. The possible character changes include: increased confidence and self-esteem; the person may become more reliable (more organized, can keep her word); the person may become less emotional, at least outwardly: manifestations of both positive and negative emotions may become less pronounced. Talkativeness may decrease or remain unchanged within the normal range. The section “Potential adverse effects” in Chapter One explained why the reduced emotionality does not mean that the person will become “less happy.”

Dealing with constipation.
Although boiled ground meat (Appendix I) is not a filling food, my advice is to avoid eating large amounts in one sitting (greater than 200-250 grams or 7-9 oz.). This can cause constipation or hard stool. The latter condition can be painful in the bathroom and can cause small amounts of blood to appear in the stool. Diets containing large amounts of cooked meat and fish promote constipation, and the best way to prevent or reduce this problem seems to be the following:

• Exclude dairy fat from your diet. There is some scientific evidence [
  1006
  ,
  1007
  ], and ever since I excluded high-fat dairy products from my diet, the problems with constipation have disappeared. Low-fat milk and cheese are OK. Fatty meat and fish are OK too.
  
• Avoid consuming more than 200-250 grams of meat (7-9 oz.) in one sitting. If you develop constipation as a result of a high-protein diet, switch to a protein-normal diet and reduce your meat consumption to 50 grams (about 2 oz.)
  per day
  . You can increase it up to 100 grams (3 oz.)
  per meal
  over the course of 5-10 days.
  
• Try adding a fiber supplement to high-protein meals. We can define a high-protein meal as a meal containing more than 100 grams (about 3 oz.) of cheese, cooked meat or fish. Adding the dietary fiber after a meal seems to work better than before the meal, and the most effective supplements are the following (you can choose one of these):
  
  • 1-2 teaspoons of psyllium husks in 1-2 glasses of water;
    
  • raw wheat extract (
    Appendix I
    ), 0.5-1 glasses;
    
  • micro-crystal cellulose, 3-5 tablets, washed down with a glass or two of water.
    
  Popular sources of dietary fiber such as fruits, vegetables, and cooked grains, although somewhat helpful, are not effective. Micro-crystal cellulose works OK for most people, but I cannot use it because it gives me digestive problems.
  
• Avoid high-protein meals when not performing any attention-intensive tasks. Don’t consume high-protein meals out of force of habit. Give your digestive system a rest when you can. Most of the time, it is best to follow balanced diets conforming to the USDA’s or Harvard’s food pyramid. This nutrition contains substantial amounts of boiled grains and normal amounts of protein in each meal (about 100 grams or 3 ounces of protein-rich foods such as cheese, meat, fish or eggs). You can also eat a balanced diet based on this principle and conforming to the natural food pyramid (
  Table 3
  ). In my view, if you make boiled or steamed grains your staple food and consume normal amounts of protein most of the time, this will be the healthiest and least problematic nutrition in the long run (for the majority of people).
  
• Avoid consuming meat and dairy in the same meal. Combining large amounts of meat and dairy is the most reliable way to get constipation.
  
• Add
  raw
  fruits and vegetables to each high-protein meal, in addition to the fiber supplements listed above. This will improve the action of the fiber supplements.
  

Artificial fiber supplements such as cellulose are indigestible by humans. Therefore, they should not be a cause for concern, even though they may appear to be “artificial ingredients” in your diet. Psyllium husks and wheat extract contain digestible components but these supplements are all-natural and thus should not have negative effects on your brain. Patients with a recent history of hemorrhagic stroke should not use high-protein diets, even if these diets contain extra fiber. Straining forcefully while sitting on the toilet can cause these patients to have another stroke, and therefore they need to be extra careful. With respect to low mood, fatigue, and apathy that can result from high-protein diets, my experience suggests that there are several approaches that can reduce or eliminate these problems. This is the subject of the next section.

• Studies suggest that high-protein diets can increase fatigue and emotional tension and can lower mood.
  
• These diets can also cause character changes.
  
• High-protein diets are not appropriate for patients with kidney disease.
  
• Eating a large amount of cooked meat in one sitting can cause constipation. It is better to consume smaller amounts 3 to 5 times a day. If necessary, you can add dietary fiber supplements (for example, wheat extract, psyllium husks, or micro-crystal cellulose) to high-protein meals.
  
• Patients who had a stroke recently should not use high-protein diets.
  [
  Previous
  ][
  Next Key Points
  ]
  

The most effective approach is addition of low-fat milk or related dairy products to the protein supplement (in a separate meal). (Readers can skip the detailed discussion of this topic and jump to the key points: press the skip button or
this link
.) For example, if you feel bad on the balanced high-protein diet, you can replace one of the high-protein meals with several glasses of low-fat milk (pasteurized). If this is not effective, you can alternate meals that contain the protein supplement with:

1. meals that consist of low-fat milk or
   
2. meals that consist of unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with low-fat cultured milk.
   

If you are lactose-intolerant, you may consider using special lactose-free dairy products. If you are allergic to cow milk, you may consider using goat milk instead. If I feel apathetic, fatigued or depressed after an extended period on the balanced high-protein diet, addition of dairy makes me feel better right away and reverses most of the above symptoms. If you are drinking six glasses of milk per day or more, you need to avoid milk that contains dietary supplements such as vitamins A, C, D or calcium. You risk overdosing on those supplements with such large amounts of milk.

You can also add half a glass or more of the wheat extract (
Appendix I
) to each meal and this can also help to reduce fatigue and sadness. Besides, the wheat extract will make the balanced high-protein diet more balanced (pardon the pun) because this diet excludes all grains.

This brings us to the
modified high-protein diet
. This diet is the same as the balanced high-protein diet, but it includes low-fat milk or related dairy products and wheat extract. The
modified protein supplement
is the same as the protein supplement that we saw in a previous section, except that you replace some high-protein meals with low-fat milk or related dairy products. This supplement can include half a glass of wheat extract per meal as well. The modified high-protein diet has little or no effect on mood, whereas the balanced high-protein diet (similar to the Paleolithic diet) gradually lowers mood and increases apathy. There is a small probability that the modified high-protein diet will cause symptoms of hypomania. In this case, you need to exclude dairy and wheat extract from the diet, for several days. Next time you transition to the modified high-protein diet, you can reduce the amount of dairy two-fold and see how it works for you.

To sum up, low-fat dairy products and water extract of grains are two additional sources of protein, which have fewer negative effects than meat, fish, and nuts. I devised a diet, which I named the “antidepressant diet” for lack of a better term, that consists of pasteurized dairy products, raw water extract of grains as well as fruits and vegetables. We will discuss this diet in more detail in Chapter Four. The antidepressant diet is another approach that you can use to reduce adverse effects of the meat-based diets. The composition of the antidepressant diet is as follows:

• 25-75% of the diet (by weight) is low-fat milk, kefir or buttermilk and unprocessed unsalted cheese; these should be free from any artificial ingredients such as salt, sugar, added calcium or vitamins.
  
• 0-40% of the diet is water extract of grains, my personal favorite is the wheat extract; you can prepare it as described in
  Appendix I
  .
  
• 10-25% of the diet is fruits and vegetables. This can be juices (free of any artificial ingredients), raw fruits and vegetables, or cooked ones.
  

As you can see, this diet contains all types of nutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat and most of the essential vitamins as well. In addition, if it contains sufficient amounts of unprocessed unsalted cheese in each meal, then this diet provides sufficient attention control. The recommended duration of the antidepressant diet is one to three days, but you can extend it up to 7 days if necessary. As soon as the symptoms of apathy, fatigue, or lowered mood disappear, you can resume another type of a high-protein diet. Or you can return to your usual diet if you don’t have to perform any attention-intensive tasks. Official dietary guidelines such as the USDA’s MyPlate or Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate [
61
] are suitable for everyday life. By the way, in
Appendix II
, you can find a summary of the effects of various diets described in this book.

As an aside, people who are vegetarians because they believe that meat makes them feel bad can resume consumption of meat if they use these three simple rules:

1. for every 100 grams (~3 ounces) of meat, add a double amount (200 grams or ~6 ounces) of low-fat milk, cultured milk, unsalted unprocessed cheese, or a mixture thereof to your diet (in a separate meal);
   
2. always use high-fat or normal-fat meat and avoid lean meat;
   
3. avoid meat cooked at high temperatures (fried, grilled, baked or broiled) and instead use boiled or steamed meat.
   

In my experience, this approach can make consumption of meat tolerable and free of such negative effects as lowered mood or apathy. You will also enjoy such benefits of meat consumption as good attention control and good work capacity.

Another way to reduce the negative effects of the proposed protein supplement is to replace red meat (beef, pork, and mutton) with white meat (poultry and fish). In this case, the protein supplement will consist of poultry and fish, which is similar to the preferred source of protein of body-builders. I tolerate this “more vegetarian” protein supplement better, but it is less effective at improving attention. Perhaps because the quality of protein is lower. You can take this approach a step further and exclude poultry and keep fish and nuts. Keep in mind that fish may contain mercury as a pollutant and high consumption of fish is not appropriate for everybody. You can also use an all-vegetarian protein supplement that consists of unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with cultured milk and ground nuts.

How much fat meat contains determines how well people tolerate meat-based diets. My experience and some studies suggest that large amounts of lean meat can have adverse effects, such as upset stomach, diarrhea, and headache. Therefore, in the context of high-protein diets, meat and poultry should contain sufficient amounts of fat: greater than 7% for poultry and greater than 10-15% for red meat. The fat content of fish does not make any difference. This recommendation goes against the traditional official guidelines that you should limit animal fats. We reviewed the subject of animal fat in detail in
Chapter One
. If you feel well on high-protein diets that are based on lean meat, then you can stick with low-fat diets and ignore my advice regarding animal fat.