What To Eat (And What To Avoid) For Better Mental Clarity

You are what you eat! (Photo: Getty Images)

When I was in high school, I thought I was invincible.

It didn’t help that I was a football player (who became an All-American) and loved to play sports.

What I didn’t realize was, the food I was eating was holding me back from my best performance. I ate a pretty terrible diet of grains, sugars, and dairy.

I thought it didn’t matter. I thought the extreme fatigue I felt after I ate a huge bowl of pasta for dinner or a candy bar before a game was just me being tired.

I was wrong.

A guest I had on my podcast, Yuri Elkaim, has a similar story. He was a soccer star growing up, but struggled with extreme fatigue and digestion problems. It wasn’t until all his hair fell out at 17 years old (in just a six-week period!) that he realized something was really wrong.

Fast-forward a couple decades, and Yuri has become a New York Times best-selling author and holistic nutritionist, and has been a guest on platforms like Dr. Oz, Yahoo! News, and The Huffington Post.

The reason why I was excited to interview Yuri wasn’t just because of our similar backgrounds with food and sports (thankfully I never lost any hair).

He has made a business around breaking down the incredibly complex world of nutrition and health, and explaining the truth about what kinds of foods give us energy and which ones drain us. Some of these are no surprise: sugar, caffeine, and gluten. But he points out that we can also eat foods that create mental clarity (and not just cut out ones that sap our energy).

Yuri recommends the following for creating clarity and energy:

• Green vegetables (think smoothies, salads, green juice, etc.)
  

• Other plant-based sources (nuts, seeds, fruits, legumes, etc.)
  

• Whole foods (things that don’t come in a package)
  

If you’re looking to boost your energy to an all-day level, while creating mental clarity, do yourself a favor and eat your greens! Listen to my full conversation with Yuri below:

And for more on my conversation with Yuri on reversing fatigue, click here.

ABOUT LEWIS HOWES: Lewis is a pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur who hosts the top-ranked podcast The School of Greatness. He interviews the best and brightest minds in health, entrepreneurship, relationships and lifestyle. Follow Lewis on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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