AFPA Health and Fitness Blog

This article is part of a series on Nutritional Psychology and how what we eat affects our brains and moods. Nutritional Psychology is a relatively new field that emerged in pursuit of taking our time to examine and investigate the connections between what we eat and how we feel. Eating to maintain gut health plays a role in eating for mental health because of how nutrients affect mood and behavior. Read on to learn more about the gut-brain axis and which foods to eat for a healthy gut.

Everyone has a downer of a day now and then. The kind where you just have the blues and are feeling low. Similarly, everyone has fears and things that induce nervousness. Find some dietary tips for how to boost your mood in our article How Nutrients Affect Mood and Behavior and the biological pathways they work through in our article This is Your Brain on Food. In this article, the focus is whether or not diet can help treat depression and anxiety.

The first article in this series on food and mood explains the chemical basis for how food affects our mood. In this article, we’ll talk more about specific foods and eating habits that affect your mood and the burgeoning field of Nutritional Psychology.

We feel what we eat as much as we are what we eat. Our brains are the energy powerhouse for our bodies, so eat well to think and feel well. In this article, we cover: The Brain: Our Energy Powerhouse, How Foods Fuel Moods, and Changing Diet to Maintain Your Mental Health.

With the rise in healthy living, the need for personal trainers, health coaches, and nutritionists is greater than ever before. While it’s an exciting time for successful business owners, the tremendous growth of the market also means more competition for entrepreneurs in the space.

New diets are continuously emerging onto the health and wellness scene. The latest and greatest, however, is not so much a diet but more of a non-diet and a lifestyle choice. This most recent trend to show up has, in actuality, been around for decades but thanks to social media, wellness experts and influencers turning away from the diet culture, intuitive eating has made its way back to the health scene. Intuitive eating breaks away from the traditionalism of diets and instead embraces a mind-body holistic approach to eating and nutrition. Intuitive eating believes that nothing is off limits and “good or “bad” foods don’t exist.

Taking the leap to become a holistic health coach can seem intimidating—especially if you’re leaving the stability of a 9-5 job.

We’re kicking off our quarter-of-a-century celebration with 25 things you need to know about eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet. While everybody (and every body) is different, a plant-based approach to eating is scientifically proven to improve health, lower the risk of disease, and much more. Here’s everything you need to know about taking the plant-based plunge:

If you’re concerned about eating the right foods for optimal health, you’ll need to do more than count calories. In our previous article, we touched on the topic of macronutrients and the ways you could maximize your meals to take advantage of them. Here, we will talk about micronutrients; nutritional compounds that are equally important but needed in much smaller quantities.

If you’ve been in the fitness community for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard about macros.  Understanding the facts behind macros and about your personal nutritional requirements will make a difference in your own health journey.  In this article we’ll explore what macros are, how to know if you’re getting in the right ratios and the best foods for delivering them.