[GhostUser]

Hi guys, not sure if I've posted this in the correct place but I wasn't sure where it should go.

I've been suffering from depression and I'm also overweight, someone pointed me in the direction of Kathleen DesMaisons book Potatoes not Prozac which discusses sugar sensitivity and the link between this and depression. So far what I've read makes a lot of sense and I'd like to start following the plan.

However, the book seems geared toward a meat diet and also one of the first steps is to eat breakfast with protein and complex carbohydrates. This makes sense to me until I learned how much protein is recommended. The formula she uses is your weight / 2 = daily intake in grams of protein. So I'm 210lbs which makes my protein intake 105g per day!! Is this not a bit high? I've researched the recommended daily amount which seems to be an average of 35-45g per day.

Does anyone have any experience of this plan, I'm feeling so confused right now

Thanks

Ok so I just googled this and a lot of people are saying its a cult lol, I feel so dumb now should have realised it was too good to be true. I agree she has some good ideas i.e. eating a decent breakfast, 3 meals a day etc but I don't think I'll be finishing the book. When will I learn to listen to myself doh!

Wow I still have a lot to learn!

 

[Veganess]

Dr. John McDougall has advocated a starch-based vegan lifestyle for years both for weight loss and for long-term health. He has a website, complete with a forum, that may be interesting to you.

www.drmcdougall.com

 

[unovegan]

Well, you could try some of these changes and see what happens. In addition, you could add St. John's wort to the regimen and that might be enough to do the job. St. John's has been proven to help with mild depression. A combination of that, heavy exercise and changing your diet might be more than enough to help.

Years ago, I suffered from depression and I used Prozac for about 6 months and it was amazing. I weaned myself off as i was also in therapy and ran like a madman and weaning myself went perfectly. Never needed it since.

 

[radiantkd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beanz76

Hi guys, not sure if I've posted this in the correct place but I wasn't sure where it should go.

I've been suffering from depression and I'm also overweight, someone pointed me in the direction of Kathleen DesMaisons book Potatoes not Prozac which discusses sugar sensitivity and the link between this and depression. So far what I've read makes a lot of sense and I'd like to start following the plan.

However, the book seems geared toward a meat diet and also one of the first steps is to eat breakfast with protein and complex carbohydrates. This makes sense to me until I learned how much protein is recommended. The formula she uses is your weight / 2 = daily intake in grams of protein. So I'm 210lbs which makes my protein intake 105g per day!! Is this not a bit high? I've researched the recommended daily amount which seems to be an average of 35-45g per day.

Does anyone have any experience of this plan, I'm feeling so confused right now

Thanks

Ok so I just googled this and a lot of people are saying its a cult lol, I feel so dumb now should have realised it was too good to be true. I agree she has some good ideas i.e. eating a decent breakfast, 3 meals a day etc but I don't think I'll be finishing the book. When will I learn to listen to myself doh!

Wow I still have a lot to learn!

It is too bad you discarded the idea before looking further. I am laughing at the idea of our community being a *cult* - I think it is because people are wildly enthusiastic about the success they have. We actually have several hundred vegetarians who are doing the program, thriving, healing depression and losing weight. About the protein requirements...if you use the .4 calculation, it would be about 27 grams of protein per meal which is actually less that the RDA...

Not sure where you are finding the 35-45 per day.

Your profile of depression and being overweight is just like 90% of the people who are doing the program and feeling terrific. We would love to have you join us at our site. And I promise you do NOT have to worship the great potato in the sky as a key to access, LOL. Just check it out and then make a decision. You might be pleasantly surprised.

kathleen

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by radiantkd

It is too bad you discarded the idea before looking further. I am laughing at the idea of our community being a *cult* - I think it is because people are wildly enthusiastic about the success they have. We actually have several hundred vegetarians who are doing the program, thriving, healing depression and losing weight. About the protein requirements...if you use the .4 calculation, it would be about 27 grams of protein per meal which is actually less that the RDA...

Not sure where you are finding the 35-45 per day.

Your profile of depression and being overweight is just like 90% of the people who are doing the program and feeling terrific. We would love to have you join us at www.radiantrecovery.com. And I promise you do NOT have to worship the great potato in the sky as a key to access, LOL. Just check it out and then make a decision. You might be pleasantly surprised.

kathleen

Hi sorry if I offended you by calling the group a cult, I was just repeating what a few people were saying lol. However I do think the book pushes the RR products a bit too much and there seems to be comments from members on nearly every page about how great the plan is. A few to get the point across I think are fine but every page to me is a bit much. Just my opinion.

The 35-45g per day I found on a few different sources

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/protein.html

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/hea...fishq/#A220901

http://www.dietaryfiberfood.com/protein-requirement.php

Thats just a few I found but most are around that amount (unless you exercise a lot - which I don't lol) - I'm not saying they are all definitely correct, I have no idea of the correct rda which is why I looked it up but I found several which were saying the same thing.

Also I find the book confusing when talking about sources of protein and dense protein, I'm not sure where I stand with these being vegetarian as the book seemed very meat based. I joined a vegetarian group who follow the plan but couldn't really find any information on sources of protein, it was more just people chatting. Also not sure how I count all protein intake i.e. quinoa is a good source of protein but also a complex carb, not sure where I would count that.

I actually didn't find the potato thing strange at all but maybe its because I like my spuds lol

How long have you been doing the plan? Have you found a big change?

Thanks

Liz

 

[Earthling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by radiantkd

It is too bad you discarded the idea before looking further. I am laughing at the idea of our community being a *cult* - I think it is because people are wildly enthusiastic about the success they have. We actually have several hundred vegetarians who are doing the program, thriving, healing depression and losing weight. About the protein requirements...if you use the .4 calculation, it would be about 27 grams of protein per meal which is actually less that the RDA...

Not sure where you are finding the 35-45 per day.

Your profile of depression and being overweight is just like 90% of the people who are doing the program and feeling terrific. We would love to have you join us at www.radiantrecovery.com. And I promise you do NOT have to worship the great potato in the sky as a key to access, LOL. Just check it out and then make a decision. You might be pleasantly surprised.

kathleen

Are you vegetarian, Kathleen?

 

[luvourmother]

hi

i recommended this book to you. online research does make it seem more like a fad than science, however, the basic facts about brain chemistry and the close connections to the foods we crave is valid science. many more have studied this since Potatoes not Prozac was written and confirm the connections between sugar and mood and brain chemistry. understanding that serotonin, beta-endorphins and tryptophan can be directly effected by food is crucial for understanding sugar sensitivity and depression in general. without a basic understanding about brain chemistry, this will be very confusing altogether.

as for the protein conversion, the book recommends around .4 grams of protein per lb of body weight, so for you that would be around 80 grams a day. check out this DRI conversion chart, it takes gender, age, height, activity level into account: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/interactiveDRI/

the author also kinda discourages counting grams because we tend to focus on the number and it takes the focus away from how the food makes us feel, which is the whole point of the book: eating food to help us feel better

yes, the book outlines animal protein sources in detail, however it does include adequate vegetarian sources. She even covers the myths surrounding complete and incomplete proteins (not many diet books recognize this complication), i think this may be what you are referring to as "dense protein" sources.

here is a rundown of how i modified the recommendations in the book to fit a vegan diet:

breakfast: peanut butter toast and green shake, oatmeal with nuts

lunch: bean burrito with veggies, whole wheat pasta with beans, quinoa salad, falafel, baked potato with chili

snack: almonds or hummus

dinner: lentil soup/dahl, sloppy lentils, split pea soup, quinoa w/veggies, brown rice sushi, oven fries, mashed potatoes with skin(i don't eat tofu, tempeh or seitan, but those would fit in here for sure), chickpea curry, bean burgers, falafel, brown rice or whole wheat pasta with lentil meatballs, lots of salad and much more!

potatoes are very important because they have a high satiety index, they make us feel satisfied by increasing our serotonin levels (with insulin). other foods increase serotonin too, like cake, but the satiety index of cake is around 65 compared to 323 with potatoes, when we eat sugary foods we do feel better but not for long, and the effects of the sugar cause crashes and mood swings unlike potatoes , brown rice, and whole grains.

one reason that protein is so important to eat at every meal is because of tryptophan, we need tryptophan to get serotonin and we need insulin to move the tryptophan where it can be effectively used to get serotonin. tryptophan is an amino acid, eating protein raises a.a.'s in our blood for use.

since i have become more aware of how closely food effects brain chemistry and made some changes to my diet i have noticed that i do not have mood swings nearly as much as i used to (very frequent) and when i do i am able to understand the real reason why i feel so crappy is bc i of what i ate or failed to eat. i am a very moody person, have been my whole life, also get horrible bouts of depression but i also have eaten sugar and white carbs regularly for my entire life, sweet cereals, cookies at lunch and looking forward to dessert have been normal for me. even fruit i was using in addictive manners to get my sweet fix.

i am not one to prescribe to fad diets, and trends. P.N.P. is not a diet book, it is a depression/mood disorder book that focuses on how food can help balance our personal and unique brain chemistry's in similar ways that medications can. Im not surprised that this science is years old yet no one seems to have a clue about it, the pharm. co's would lose major $$$ if more people knew, how many anti-depressant commercials (funded by the US gov't) are on tv each day.....

if you have any questions about how to change your diet to help improve your depression and moods let me know, i can help

 

[penny79]

Fruit makes a good breakfast!

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by luvourmother

hi

i recommended this book to you. online research does make it seem more like a fad than science, however, the basic facts about brain chemistry and the close connections to the foods we crave is valid science. many more have studied this since Potatoes not Prozac was written and confirm the connections between sugar and mood and brain chemistry. understanding that serotonin, beta-endorphins and tryptophan can be directly effected by food is crucial for understanding sugar sensitivity and depression in general. without a basic understanding about brain chemistry, this will be very confusing altogether.

as for the protein conversion, the book recommends around .4 grams of protein per lb of body weight, so for you that would be around 80 grams a day. check out this DRI conversion chart, it takes gender, age, height, activity level into account: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/interactiveDRI/

the author also kinda discourages counting grams because we tend to focus on the number and it takes the focus away from how the food makes us feel, which is the whole point of the book: eating food to help us feel better

yes, the book outlines animal protein sources in detail, however it does include adequate vegetarian sources. She even covers the myths surrounding complete and incomplete proteins (not many diet books recognize this complication), i think this may be what you are referring to as "dense protein" sources.

here is a rundown of how i modified the recommendations in the book to fit a vegan diet:

breakfast: peanut butter toast and green shake, oatmeal with nuts

lunch: bean burrito with veggies, whole wheat pasta with beans, quinoa salad, falafel, baked potato with chili

snack: almonds or hummus

dinner: lentil soup/dahl, sloppy lentils, split pea soup, quinoa w/veggies, brown rice sushi, oven fries, mashed potatoes with skin(i don't eat tofu, tempeh or seitan, but those would fit in here for sure), chickpea curry, bean burgers, falafel, brown rice or whole wheat pasta with lentil meatballs, lots of salad and much more!

potatoes are very important because they have a high satiety index, they make us feel satisfied by increasing our serotonin levels (with insulin). other foods increase serotonin too, like cake, but the satiety index of cake is around 65 compared to 323 with potatoes, when we eat sugary foods we do feel better but not for long, and the effects of the sugar cause crashes and mood swings unlike potatoes , brown rice, and whole grains.

one reason that protein is so important to eat at every meal is because of tryptophan, we need tryptophan to get serotonin and we need insulin to move the tryptophan where it can be effectively used to get serotonin. tryptophan is an amino acid, eating protein raises a.a.'s in our blood for use.

since i have become more aware of how closely food effects brain chemistry and made some changes to my diet i have noticed that i do not have mood swings nearly as much as i used to (very frequent) and when i do i am able to understand the real reason why i feel so crappy is bc i of what i ate or failed to eat. i am a very moody person, have been my whole life, also get horrible bouts of depression but i also have eaten sugar and white carbs regularly for my entire life, sweet cereals, cookies at lunch and looking forward to dessert have been normal for me. even fruit i was using in addictive manners to get my sweet fix.

i am not one to prescribe to fad diets, and trends. P.N.P. is not a diet book, it is a depression/mood disorder book that focuses on how food can help balance our personal and unique brain chemistry's in similar ways that medications can. Im not surprised that this science is years old yet no one seems to have a clue about it, the pharm. co's would lose major $$$ if more people knew, how many anti-depressant commercials (funded by the US gov't) are on tv each day.....

if you have any questions about how to change your diet to help improve your depression and moods let me know, i can help

Thanks so much for your post, its most helpful. I have been doing the breakfasts but not weighing the protein as I am still having a hard time getting my head around what I need to count and how I count it. I don't really believe in things like powdered shakes I'd rather have food lol but I've been trying to make sure I eat a decent breakfast each day which has made me feel better I guess. I've been having things like beans on toast with mushrooms and tomatoes, scrambled eggs on toast with tomatoes, veggie sausages toast & tomatoes (in case you hadn't noticed tomatoes are my favourite thing lol). Do these sound ok? I love nuts and seeds but I'm intolerant, I'm ok with a few every few days but not too many or my lips start to itch and swell.

I certainly agree that a lot of the things in PNP make a lot of sense but I have a few doubts of my own on things like taking lots of extra vitamins, I would rather get my vitamins from my food and see no reason why I can't. Also I don't really eat lots of sugar, I don't eat white bread, pasta I don't like anyway and don't eat cereal. I do have 4 squares of dark choc (or vegan milk choc like plamil) each day and do drink a few nights a week. Do you think this would still be enough for me to be sugar sensitive, does being sugar sensitive mean I shouldn't eat fruit as I do eat a few pieces of fruit each day?

Thanks for your advice I hope I haven't offended you its just there are so many dodgy diets out there I'm very wary these days

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by penny79

Fruit makes a good breakfast!

Amongst other things yes, if I just ate a piece of fruit and nothing else though I'd be starving all morning lol

 

[penny79]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beanz76

Amongst other things yes, if I just ate a piece of fruit and nothing else though I'd be starving all morning lol

Yeah, well, I don't have just 200 calories of fruit; I have about 1,500 before noon.

 

[luvourmother]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beanz76

I have been doing the breakfasts but not weighing the protein as I am still having a hard time getting my head around what I need to count and how I count it. I don't really believe in things like powdered shakes I'd rather have food lol but I've been trying to make sure I eat a decent breakfast each day which has made me feel better I guess.

I certainly agree that a lot of the things in PNP make a lot of sense but I have a few doubts of my own on things like taking lots of extra vitamins, I would rather get my vitamins from my food and see no reason why I can't. Also I don't really eat lots of sugar, I don't eat white bread, pasta I don't like anyway and don't eat cereal. I do have 4 squares of dark choc (or vegan milk choc like plamil) each day and do drink a few nights a week. Do you think this would still be enough for me to be sugar sensitive, does being sugar sensitive mean I shouldn't eat fruit as I do eat a few pieces of fruit each day?

Thanks for your advice I hope I haven't offended you its just there are so many dodgy diets out there I'm very wary these days

no offense at all, i was skeptical about the book as i am most things (hence my gov't pharm comments lol)! and i of course do NOT follow everything the books says to a "T" simply bc it wouldn't work for me, which is something I really liked about how it was written bc the author agrees that it is best to modify this information to fit your lifestyle and personal needs.

i don't take the extra vitamins as recommended, i simply cannot afford them and the reasoning behind taking extra vitamins is mostly to help make the transitions a bit easier. i also agree it is best to get nutrients and vitamins from foods rather than supplements, however for many this is not as easy as it sounds.

the chocolate in your diet makes sense, it naturally raises serotonin and helps us feel better, it is the sugar in the chocolate that makes it detrimental. when you don't have chocolate do you think about it and crave it? do you feel "better" after eating chocolate?

drinking is not good for anything! especially depression, try your best not to drink alcohol for your own mental health if anything else. the connection between alcohol and sugar sensitivity is a big one.

also be very aware of all the place sugar hides, you may not realize you are consuming sugar when you really are. boxed soymilks and rice milks have added sugar, canned soups sometimes do, it is added to jarred pasta sauces, crackers, bread (even whole wheat can have tons of sugar), prepared frozen dinners, yogurt, and a big one is 'low-fat' and 'non-fat' foods (they take out fat and replace with sugars).

as a vegetarian your protein sources pretty much double than vegan ones. as i mentioned in the other post, don't bother with counting grams and amounts, especially at first, it takes away attention from what is important which is how the food makes us feel. just stick to the basic guidelines: 1)keep a food journal and write down how you feel before and after eating, this is very important please don't skip this step, it will just get more confusing if you aren't keeping a journal. i combined mine with my planner. 2)eat three balanced meals a day 3) eat protein at every meal.

your breakfasts sound great, i luv tomatoes too! i would avoid the nuts since u have allergic reactions, try some ones you do'nt normally eat, maybe it is just the ones you like that give you reactions, but u do'nt want to make the allergies worse so try not to eat the ones you know bother you. do you eat cheese? it is a very versatile way to get protein (grilled cheese, toss onto a salad, cheese dip with crackers etc) yogurt and cottage cheese too.

as for fruit, you have to be careful with fruit i know Penny will have some issue with this, but fruit is not the best choice for everyone, especially for people with sugar and insulin issues. here is a list of fruits from least amount of sugars to most (from the PNP chart): raspberries (low), apricots (low), strawberries (low), blueberries (low), pear (low), orange (med), banana (med), apple (med), dried apricots (high), grapes (high) raisins (very high). fruit juice is much more sugary than actual fruit, avoid juice if you can. just be aware that some fruit has more sugar than others, and be very aware of how the fruit makes you feel.

i learned that i was using fruit in an unhealthy way, i was looking forward to my bananas and treating myself with apples, even noticed at the end of one stressful day that i picked all the raisins out of my trail mix and totally avoided the nuts. this is something i didn't get at first, bc fruit is healthy for us and really made me feel great, but it was a little too great bc of the sugar brain chemical connection. i eat fruit now, but i am much more careful and do not rely on it for a meal as i used to.

i am glad you are trying this, remember that we are all different especially when it comes to brain chemistry, what works perfect for me may not be best for you, this is personal and u have to keep checking on your feelings to know what is working or not for u.

let's work on getting a balanced lunch and dinner routine to match your yummy breakfasts!

 

[penny79]

I don't have an issue with what you said, but I think it's fat in people's diets that's the culprit with blood-sugar issues, not fruit. We can differ on opinions.

 

[draconian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veganess

Dr. John McDougall has advocated a starch-based vegan lifestyle for years both for weight loss and for long-term health. He has a website, complete with a forum, that may be interesting to you.

www.drmcdougall.com

+1. read "the mcdougall program for maximum weight loss" and you'll find out how diet, exercise AND sleep all affect depression.

 

[Vegansuz]

Thank you so much for you meal suggestions! Am reading potatoes not Prozac and just started worrying about how to give it a vegan twist, very helpful. Been a fan of FOK and McDougall for years but haven’t done it full on. After reading PNP I see the science behind it that fits with my experience and it actually makes it easier to use the info from FOK and McDougall.

hi

i recommended this book to you. online research does make it seem more like a fad than science, however, the basic facts about brain chemistry and the close connections to the foods we crave is valid science. many more have studied this since Potatoes not Prozac was written and confirm the connections between sugar and mood and brain chemistry. understanding that serotonin, beta-endorphins and tryptophan can be directly effected by food is crucial for understanding sugar sensitivity and depression in general. without a basic understanding about brain chemistry, this will be very confusing altogether.

as for the protein conversion, the book recommends around .4 grams of protein per lb of body weight, so for you that would be around 80 grams a day. check out this DRI conversion chart, it takes gender, age, height, activity level into account: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/interactiveDRI/

the author also kinda discourages counting grams because we tend to focus on the number and it takes the focus away from how the food makes us feel, which is the whole point of the book: eating food to help us feel better

yes, the book outlines animal protein sources in detail, however it does include adequate vegetarian sources. She even covers the myths surrounding complete and incomplete proteins (not many diet books recognize this complication), i think this may be what you are referring to as "dense protein" sources.

here is a rundown of how i modified the recommendations in the book to fit a vegan diet:

breakfast: peanut butter toast and green shake, oatmeal with nuts

lunch: bean burrito with veggies, whole wheat pasta with beans, quinoa salad, falafel, baked potato with chili

snack: almonds or hummus

dinner: lentil soup/dahl, sloppy lentils, split pea soup, quinoa w/veggies, brown rice sushi, oven fries, mashed potatoes with skin(i don't eat tofu, tempeh or seitan, but those would fit in here for sure), chickpea curry, bean burgers, falafel, brown rice or whole wheat pasta with lentil meatballs, lots of salad and much more!

potatoes are very important because they have a high satiety index, they make us feel satisfied by increasing our serotonin levels (with insulin). other foods increase serotonin too, like cake, but the satiety index of cake is around 65 compared to 323 with potatoes, when we eat sugary foods we do feel better but not for long, and the effects of the sugar cause crashes and mood swings unlike potatoes , brown rice, and whole grains.

one reason that protein is so important to eat at every meal is because of tryptophan, we need tryptophan to get serotonin and we need insulin to move the tryptophan where it can be effectively used to get serotonin. tryptophan is an amino acid, eating protein raises a.a.'s in our blood for use.

since i have become more aware of how closely food effects brain chemistry and made some changes to my diet i have noticed that i do not have mood swings nearly as much as i used to (very frequent) and when i do i am able to understand the real reason why i feel so crappy is bc i of what i ate or failed to eat. i am a very moody person, have been my whole life, also get horrible bouts of depression but i also have eaten sugar and white carbs regularly for my entire life, sweet cereals, cookies at lunch and looking forward to dessert have been normal for me. even fruit i was using in addictive manners to get my sweet fix.

i am not one to prescribe to fad diets, and trends. P.N.P. is not a diet book, it is a depression/mood disorder book that focuses on how food can help balance our personal and unique brain chemistry's in similar ways that medications can. Im not surprised that this science is years old yet no one seems to have a clue about it, the pharm. co's would lose major $$$ if more people knew, how many anti-depressant commercials (funded by the US gov't) are on tv each day.....

if you have any questions about how to change your diet to help improve your depression and moods let me know, i can help

 

[yung_vadi]

In my experience, no training will help without proper nutrition. lasta.app helped me to study the issue. They picked up an individual meal plan for me and for a certain time I ate according to it. I stopped complexing after 3 months of this diet

P.S. This is not an advertisement. A year ago, I weighed 198 lbs at my height 5' 7''. I was very upset, and it was terrible. I really hope I can help someone.