Gemma Hortet, anthropologist and nutrition specialist: "Foods rich in tryptophan, such as oily fish, cocoa or legumes, help generate serotonin and enhance our well-being"

We are all 'very energy justitos'. And it should not be just a sensation when you are already beginning to talk about fatigue as the silent disease of the XXI century. In 'Feed your vitality' (Dome Books), the anthropologist, social educator and nutrition specialist Gemma Hortet points out the keys to "energy nutrition, that of common sense, which takes into account how you are, where you live, what you work and what vital moment you are in". The author lays the foundations for "a new way of eating more aligned with the needs of each individual, to face the challenges of everyday life and avoid chronic fatigue that affects a large part of the population."

I have been very amused by this "we all have the ability to press the light switch, but not all of us are willing to make the path to achieve it", because I have always said that there are people (including, me, sometimes), who seem 'opaque'. Why does this happen? Making changes is not easy we all know what we have to do to be healthy but we do not do it because: we lack motivation, it involves effort, we do not have patience and we look for immediate rewards ... To make a change in your life or to travel the path of health you have to put effort and dedication and this is only done if what you are going to achieve is better than what you have and, in addition, you have a good time doing it. The automatic behaviors of the human being are designed not to lose energy and to obtain pleasure. You will only get someone to make a good change in their life if the effort they make to achieve it has a good time. An example is food, we have dedicated ourselves to prohibiting food, "everything good either kills you or ages you, a friend told me", what a horror! We have to change this message, take care of yourself, just like taking care of anything requires effort and not everyone wants to make an effort, but if that effort is pleasant and has daily rewards things change. When I tell my patients to stop eating commercial ice cream, but that they can make a delicious homemade mango sorbet with cashews, coconut milk and frozen mango, things change. They have to spend more time preparing the ice cream (effort), but the reward is worth it and the loss is not seen. Imagine if I told them to swap ice cream for an apple! They will be healthier, sure, but sadder and unless they are very motivated they will not continue long on the path of health. Why do we run out of light and lose the desire? We run out of light or energy, because we do not know how to take care of it enjoying the process. We need to enjoy every day. We live in a very demanding society that demands much more than we can give this leaves us empty, discharged of light, without energy at all ... If charging with energy, if entering the path of health requires a lot of effort and dispensing with everything that generates dopamine (motivation, immediate well-being) we will not achieve it. Eating foods loaded with sugar, salt, fat, and caffeine gives us immediate pleasure, but quickly drains us of energy. If we teach patients to enjoy the process of taking care of themselves, to see that there are many paths that lead to health, this will not happen. When you start taking care of your energy knowing how you are and what you need without forgetting to give yourself pleasure on a daily basis, you do not lose light or desire. But this requires a method and an accompaniment to make it work. There are times when we always feel tired. Why does this happen to us? Because we don't make transitions, we don't accommodate ourselves to the rhythms of nature, and we don't balance what we spend. We return from the holidays going from being idle all day to being in the office 10 hours, the body as well as the mind needs to adapt progressively. In summer, you have to sleep less and go out more; On the other hand, in winter, you have to sleep more and go out less. You have to rest and sleep when it gets dark and work with daylight. We have to balance sedentary lifestyle with physical exercise, mental work with spiritual calm. Physical wear and tear with quality food. Yes You repair what you spend, if you harmonize with the seasons, if you listen to your body, etc. It is more difficult for you to spend periods of great fatigue. The problem is that we do not do it, although we can, because we are not yet giving importance to dedicating a time of daily self-care that includes movement, food, relaxation and pleasure. What does it depend on that our energy deposits are at capacity? How important are emotions and how important is the merely physical? We feel energized when we give our body and mind what it needs. Energy has to be learned to recharge and not lose. There are things like physical exercise, breathing, contact with nature, good social relationships or good nutrition that recharge us with energy, but we will only feel them fully if we enjoy the process. If I focus on food so that our physical body has energy, we have to eat quality foods prepared in the way that our digestive system can assimilate them so that the nutrients arrive. But we are much more than that. Feeling good is key to having energy. We are an accumulation of emotions that we also have to feed and food is a highly emotional tool. There are foods, those rich in tryptophan, such as oily fish, cocoa, legumes or nuts, that help us generate serotonin in our digestive system to increase our well-being and, at the same time, motivate behaviors that we can carry out that send signals to the nervous system so that it feels good as it is, For example, force a smile, even if we don't feel like it. Feeling good is as important as being well to have energy we must work with food and life habits for our energy stores to be full When we are sad, it is difficult for us to move. And, if we don't move, we are sadder. It's the whiting that bites its tail, isn't it? Totally. The only way to break this vicious circle is to change your environment. Many times, we are not aware, but it is the environment that makes us sick or that does not allow us to change something that does not work or move towards well-being. Signing up for a health training, joining a group that does healthy activities or calling that friend you know takes care of herself can be great deblockers of that whiting that bites its tail. We're not always wonderfully well, I would say rarely, and that's where we get stuck. It is worth more fact than perfect. Life is a merry-go-round of unpredictable events, we can not leave our well-being in the hands of chance, that outside everything is fine so that I am better. We must rework on the value of effort, we live in a society that avoids effort and where everything is achieved immediately. But it is proven that patience and effort are key to being happy and to having energy. Moving is essential to have energy but to achieve it you have to make an effort. After the effort, the reward comes. And, precisely, when we are bad is when we eat the worst, why this tendency to mitigate pain with sweets and simple hydrates that feel so bad to us? Because they are great opiates that give us dopamine quickly. Also, when you feel bad when you feel like you're missing something: a friend, a partner, a job, a date, or the simple bus that's going to make you late, the brain sees that loss as Something to compensate energetically with food, because food is life for him, it is well-being. Simple carbohydrates, such as sugar, sweets, cakes, pasta, pizzas, cookies, chocolates of less than 80% cocoa and even fruit, are quick energy. Therefore, I always tell my patients that fruit is the best treat they can eat when they feel their mood drop while we are solving what causes that drop in energy. Also, I'm going to tell you that the better you eat, the less emotional changes you have and the harder it is for you to turn to fast carbs when you're feeling bad. You explain that the main center of vitality according to science: the microbiota. Why? Since the ancestral medicines, energy has always been located in the area of the 'hara', just where we have the navel (which is where the digestive system is located). Chinese medicine tells us that in this energy center is where we generate postnatal energy through food, energy that we consume day by day and that makes us not lose our vitality quickly. Now, science has discovered that precisely in that area is where most of the human microbiota is located and that these bugs are not only responsible for synthesizing many of the nutrients we need, but also generate neurotransmitters of well-being such as GABA, serotonin or dopamine, they function as agents that protect us from diseases and can even generate a plus of energy. After knowing this, how are we not going to call the microbiota the center of vitality? How can we repopulate, take care of it or reduce it as we need at all times? We have to take care of the microbiota, first of all, avoiding taking medication or antibiotics on our own if we do not need them. Then, we have to work on its maintenance, the foods of the plant kingdom such as berries, legumes and vegetables love them. Starchy vegetables, such as pumpkin, parsnip or beets, and tubers, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes or cassava, are their favorites, especially if we eat them cooked and refrigerated for a minimum of 24 hours in the refrigerator. We also have other nutritional treasures such as cocoa, mushrooms, miso, kombucha, kefir and all fermented foods that help us repopulate them. But, as you say, someone has to take care of keeping them in order so that none overgrows above another and then gives us problems. Here come into play garlic, ginger, cinnamon, oregano, mint, rosemary, chilli, apple cider vinegar and all aromatic herbs that are great activators of digestion and, at the same time, natural antibiotics that control the population of microorganisms in our body. What is energy supply? Energy nutrition is a holistic nutrition that nourishes in every way: it nourishes your physical body, your mental body, your emotional body and your spiritual body. Not only does it contemplate the nutrients of food, but it takes into account its energy, the way of cooking, the season of the year in which you are, what you do, at what vital moment you are, if you are a man or a woman, in addition to whether you have any or other pathology. Food, in addition to nutrients, has an energy that is defined by its amount of water, whether it grows day or night, whether it grows naturally in summer or winter, whether it grows fast or slow,R If it is vegetable or animal. And this energy is enhanced or mitigated with cooking. For example: a woman who comes home at night tired and wants to relax is better off eating a broccoli cream or a steamed broccoli. This is a moisturizing food that works emotional calm by having an affinity for the liver and cooking cream or steam is very relaxing ideal for the night and to promote rest. On the other hand, that same woman who wants to take care of her diet and her liver at noon is better off eating that broccoli in a wok because wok cooking is activating and will help her cope better with what is left of working hours. Here, cooking gives us one energy or another and broccoli within green vegetables is one of the most affinity for the liver. This is energy nutrition, taking into account everything that makes you up to give you everything you need. How do you interpret that there is a tendency to organize food so as not to gain weight instead of to feed? As a huge mistake, biochemical nutrition, which only counts kilocalories and nutrients to design a menu has failed and the result we see with the pandemic of eating disorders and obesity that we are having. As I said before we have to feed all our bodies and not forget the emotional one. There is nothing worse than banning something to desire it more. Food must be pleasant. When you design a good nutritional plan for someone who wants to improve their health and vitality you have to take into account those fetish foods that make you able to sustain a healthy diet. I speak of 10% transgression, because eating excessively healthy can also make you sick can make you obsessive and intransigent. I'll give you examples: the homemade croquettes your mother makes, the gypsy arm your grandmother makes, your wife's macaroni, the tripe you eat with friends on Saturday at your cousin's bar. There is nothing worse than banning something to desire it more. Food must be pleasant. This is emotional eating that is part of you and your family culture. We have to teach people to place these dishes within a health-oriented diet, to combine them correctly with vegetables or salads, to take them from time to time and in small quantities and to eat them at certain times of the day so that they harm us as little as possible. If we do this, the path of health is very bearable because what counts is what we do most in our day to day. To prohibit and count calories is to promote a sickly diet destined to disease and chronic fatigue. You talk about energies, yin and yan. How do you explain that to a skeptic? How do we apply it in our day to day? Yin and yang are two types of energy that Taoism used to explain how the world moves and forms. Each culture has a way of explaining its world and energy nutrition drinks from Taoism. Yin is related to calm, cold, woman, night and yang, with activity, heat, man, day. To summarize, everything exists because there is duality, day (yang) gives way to night (yin) and at the same time this duality is what balances life. Daily activity (yang) must be compensated with daily rest and relaxation (yin). The sedentary lifestyle of an office (yin) has to be balanced with daily exercise (yang). When we balance daily what we do everything goes in harmony and this harmonyIt translates into well-being and vitality. When we start to do more of one energy and less of the other we start to get tired and if this drags on we get exhausted. What foods can not be missing from our table? The real ones, those who grow, swim, fly or walk. Vegetables, whole grains, legumes, algae, aromatic herbs, spices, eggs, grass-fed meats, small wild fish, seasonal fruits, nuts, seeds, quality olives and good extra virgin olive oil. These are the main ones. Then, there are the more occasional ones that also depend a lot on their elaboration and how they feel to the person: here would be cocoa, coffee, tea, quality cheeses, fermented dairy etc ... And then we would also have the most medicinal foods that depend on the person can be taken daily or more sporadically, here we find miso, sauerkraut, and all fermented vegetables. I always say don't buy substitutes. If you want to eat chicken, buy a chicken do not buy chicken nuggets because they will surely have everything but chicken. And, finally, recommend us a good breakfast, please. Breakfast is the best digested meal of the day, because, in the morning, it is when there is more digestive strength so it is very good that it is complete, even if it is late because the person gets up without hunger. If we do a breakfast/brunch type lunch around 11 in the morning it is also great. It can be sweet or salty although salty always satisfies more. Ideally, it should contain these three ingredients (although it must always be customized): 1) quality fat such as nuts, seeds, olive oil or avocado; 2) Quality protein: kefir, goat yogurt, eggs, canned bonito, anchovies, good quality turkey, Iberian ham, fresh goat cheese, hummus, tofu ...; 3) Quality carbohydrates: vegetables, arugula salad or baby lamb's lettuce or spinach, sourdough bread, organic cereal flakes, moniato, potato, pumpkin, fruit ... A sweet example: oat flakes and chia seeds with goat yogurt + chopped walnuts + cocoa chips + cinnamon + raspberries. Other: buckwheat crepes with fresh goat cheese, figs and hazelnuts A salty example: spelt bread with mushroom omelette and arugula spread with tomato and olive oil Other: sweet potato slices with bonito crumbs, canons and ground sesame. Many times, we eat poorly because we have no knowledge or lack imagination, but fortunately the skill of cooking is learned.

• Articles Gema García Marcos