Unlock the Power: Discover the 6 Key Benefits of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function [Episode #844]

This week’s topic is: Unlock the Power: Discover the 6 Key Benefits of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function

What’s really wonderful about this show today is it’s sort of locking an inner power, if you will, from ingesting certain foods and even supplements that contain these amino acids. This is something that we all want to learn about and is very easy to do.

By the way, eating a plant-based diet is something that I also paid special extra attention to when I was pregnant because amino acids and protein in general become very important when we’re pregnant. We’ll get into the benefits today and highlight how we get these foods, sources into our body, how we benefit and how we really maximize this power that comes from utilizing amino acids in our life.

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[Question Answered]

Freda – Colorado

I’d love to hear more about amino acids and why and how you incorporate these into your daily routine? Thanks Kimberly! ;)

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:00 Namaste loves and welcome back to our Thursday q and a show. Our topic today is about Unlock the Power: Discover the 6 Key Benefits of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function. And what’s really wonderful about this show today is it’s sort of in locking and inner power, if you will, from ingesting certain foods and even supplements that contain these amino acids. And as we’ll get into today in our show, this is something that we all want to learn about. It’s something that we can very easily do. By the way, eating a plant-based diet, which is something that I personally follow, it’s something that I also paid special extra attention to when I was pregnant because amino acids and protein in general become very important when we’re pregnant. So we’ll get into the benefits today and just highlight a little bit about how we get these foods, these sources into our body, how we benefit and how we really maximize this power that comes from utilizing amino acids in our life.

01:13 A little reminder before we jump right in that over on our website, mysolluna.com, it’s our hub for everything, all information, all podcasts, articles, our amazing supplements, high performance skincare, other meditations, and hundreds, maybe thousands of food-based plant-based recipes that I think you would enjoy. So please be sure to check it out. We’re also going to post the show notes after this show. You can go look at some of the research studies or the links that we will provide you. So it’s all over on our website. Alright, all that being said, let’s get into our topic today around amino assets. So I remember when I started getting really interested in food, this was when I was backpacking, just post-College really. And I started to really learn about these building blocks and I became, I think when we become vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, we pay extra attention.

02:14 Or maybe also everyone I know, my husband cares a lot. He’s not plant-based protein or is a very important part of his life. He lifts weights, he builds his muscles. So across the board, it’s something that we want to understand a little bit more in depth. And as a vegan, and if you happen to be plant-based or vegan as well, you may have heard this question many times, where do you get your protein? How do you make sure you get enough protein? So we’re going to talk about all of that right now.

Question around the topic of: Unlock the Power: Discover the 6 Key Benefits of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function: I’d love to hear more about amino acids and why and how you incorporate these into your daily routine? Thanks Kimberly! ;)

Kimberly: 02:58 Our question comes from Freda who lives in Colorado. Freda, thank you so much for being part of our community. Thank you so much for your question because a lot of people wonder about the same things. So I send you a big virtual warm hug to Colorado where I imagine it’s starting to get a bit chilly. Maybe you’ve even had some snow already, maybe you’ve already been out skiing. So wherever you happen to be sending you much love and you ask, I’d love to hear more about amino acids and what they are and what they do for the body. Also, what plant-based foods have them so I can incorporate them into my daily routine. Thanks, Kimberly. Love the podcast once again. Freda. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. So amino acids are crucial molecules that play a fundamental role in various processes within our body. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, so they’re an essential component in the structure and function of cells, tissues, and organs. So there are essential amino acids, meaning that we have to ingest them on a regular basis, although proteins are recycled in the body.

04:07 But as we’ll get into in just a moment, in order to really feel our best, our most energized, our strongest, we want to make sure that our diet is of a very high quality and that we are taking these entities in and benefiting from them. I will also mention that as I’ve said this many times, you guys that have been with me over the years, you’ve probably heard me say it thousands of times, we are not what we eat. We are what we digest and what we assimilate. So if we eat really dense proteins and we have weak or compromised digestion, or we’re eating really complex meals, for instance, we may not be getting all of those amino acids to be assimilated in the most efficient way. And this is where taking digestive enzymes is really powerful. The protease in the digestive enzymes helps to split the proteins down into amino acid so we can best absorb them. So little side note, as we get into this, we want to make sure that we are doing the best for our bodies, but we are always focused on digestion. So it’s not just what we’re eating, but how best we are digesting our foods. So I recommend taking your digestive enzymes before lunch and dinner as I do, and you can check out our very powerful sauna ones if you are interested.

05:40 So back to amino acids, they’re essential for protein synthesis. The process by which cells build and repair proteins. Proteins are a vital component of our muscles, our hormones, and other biological molecules. So if we’re

Kimberly: 05:56 Not getting enough protein in our body, you’ll start to notice this breakdown. We feel weaker, we may look more frail, and our hair can start to break. Our nails start to become brittle. Our skin may start to look shallow and not as healthy because protein is being utilized throughout our entire body. A research article from the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that ingesting amino acids or taking amino acid supplementation, enhanced muscle protein synthesis in response to resistance exercise. So what this means, we’re not all athletes here, but we’re exercising. We’re in daily life. There’s wear and tear that happens on our bodies, and we have to replenish important things on a regular basis. So as we know in the community, one of the things we want to replace regularly is probiotics, which can get wiped out by stress, sugar, improper eating, traveling, many things.

07:08 We also want to replenish our electrolytes because we sweat and we just go through minerals constantly through our daily lifestyles. We want to replenish electrolytes. We also want to replenish amino acids so that we are able to maintain our muscle and tissue quality. Branch chain amino acids are referred to as BCAAs. These include leucine, iso, leucine, and valine. And these are particularly important for muscle growth and repair while we’re pregnant. As I mentioned, this became of particular interest to me and in postpartum, recovering from having a baby and all the stages, everything that follows aging. As we get older, we want to make sure that we’re giving our bodies what it needs to maintain healthy bones, healthy muscles. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition back in 2017 found that by taking your BCAAs and eating them either in supplements or food can promote muscle protein synthesis and keep your muscles from breaking down. So maintaining your fitness levels and your muscle tone is important for not just being an athlete. But I think practically in my life, I’m still carrying my three-year-old Moses everywhere, picking up your child, picking up your groceries, getting around with agility, walking up hills. We want to feel strong in our bodies. We don’t have to be muscle builders, but when we feel that strength,

#1. Benefit of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function: Providing body with energy

Kimberly: 08:55 It gives us mental strength as well and emotional strength. It was interesting how in my Ayurvedic Vedic chart reading with Dr. Suhas, who’s also been on our show, a link to our interview with him, he’s incredibly knowledgeable Ayurvedic physician. He does a lot of work with Deepak Chopra and he prescribed to me weightlifting saying that it would be great for my constitution, giving me strength in my body, and also more mental and emotional resilience. So that’s one area that amino acids can really help us with that more density in our structure, which can also help us in all these other areas, the formless parts of us, our emotional wellbeing as well. Energy wise, amino acids can be used as a source of energy. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition from 2004 found that amino acid infusion increased energy and fat oxidation in healthy individuals.

10:02 So let’s talk about moods. Certain amino acids serve as precursors for neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that play a role in our mood, our cognition, and our overall neurological function. So when we’re living this holistic lifestyle, we remember that everything works together. And I actually had a thought about this yesterday and I remembered what it felt like to be in my body when I was in high school and I was trying to eat very low calorie and I was eating virtually no fat, very low protein, basically pretzels, fat-free pretzels and apples and things like that. And besides my unhealthy physical eating and status, I felt like I was going crazy in my mind. Sometimes I had these extreme moods, I would easily get stressed out. I would feel surges of anger if something didn’t work out or I got something wrong on a test. And I just remember feeling really mentally unbalanced and my food that my diet had a huge, huge, it was a huge contributing factor to that.

11:22 So it’s really important that we balance our diet and part of that balanced diet is eating natural foods. It’s eating fruit and greens and vegetables, but also the denser foods, whether we get our, which we’ll talk about sources in just a moment, but we know the denser proteins and fats come from seeds and nuts, legumes, tempe, even organic tofu and sources like this are really important to keep in as well, to get that balance which makes us feel good in our brains. So yesterday for instance, I very organically I was playing chess with my son and I felt like I needed a little bit of grounding, so I just made a very simple trail mix for myself. I made a little bowl with walnuts and I did put some dark chocolate chips in there and some goji berries. I remember chewing the walnuts really well and just feeling so much more settled.

12:26 And I don’t just mean from a hunger level, but also in my mind, in my brain, I just felt really good in my body. And that’s the power of how a holistic diet can really help us feel. Great. So when we’re speaking about amino acids, particularly tryptophan had an impact on serotonin levels and mood. And the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that ingesting tryptophan helped with depression and also anxiety. And I remember back in the day, this is back in the beauty detox food days almost a decade ago now, when I wrote that book and talking about why do we feel so good when we have a warm glass of almond milk before bed or hemp milk even? And it’s because of the tryptophan levels in these plant-based milks can help us feel good. It helps with the serotonin levels, it helps to soothe us, it helps to bring about more calmness. And again, these are things as we start to pay attention, we can start to incorporate them organically into our rituals, including, as I mentioned, very easy thing is to have a warm elixir before bed, and especially this time of year, I recommend having a milky elixir as I do almost every evening.

13:53 I’m a big fan of the nut milks, whether it’s macadamia milk or hemp milk or organic almond milk or something of that variety for this reason to get the minerals in and to get the amino acids in. And then you can add in certain herbs. We’ve got lots of recipes over on the website. You can keep it really simple. You could make it cinnamon, a little bit of raw honey or ginger, or you could steep the ginger in there, or you could make even a sort of a nutmeg, like a spiced tea at night, which we might feel really good to digest right now. Especially amino acids are also really important for your immune system. Amino acids contribute to the production of antibodies and other components of the immune system helping your body defend against infections and diseases. So a study published in the Journal of Nutrition from

Kimberly: 14:50 2016 found that certain amino acids, such as arginine and glutamine play important roles in supporting immune function. So again, this is how we maintain our resilience. When we talk about resilience, we’re talking about emotional resilience, we’re talking about physical resilience, and this is the holism. The holistic quality of our lifestyle starts to cross over into many different areas. So having amino acids, we’ll talk about sources in just a moment, make us mentally and emotionally strong. Of course, we’re coming into the season now where flu is circulating colds, coughs and such. So we want to make sure we’re maintaining that beautiful balance in our diets.

15:36 You can also start to notice how healthy your lifestyle is by how quickly wounds heal. It’s amazing. My children get a cut or scrape and it disappears so quickly because they’ve got so much Shakti, so much prana, so much energy in their bodies. They also eat very healthily as well. But amino acids are involved in the synthesis of collagen and other proteins essential for wound healing and tissue repair. So whilst we might see the scrapes and the cuts, imagine the little micro tears and things that are happening inside of your body. Your tissues need to be repaired when you do resistance exercise or you lift weights, the acting in the myosin, the tissues break down a little bit. We want to have that really good nutrition in our bodies to furnish the repair internally. So arginine is one of the amino acids that’s really important to the wound healing process.

#2. Benefit of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function: Enhancing the musculoskeletal system

16:40 It helps to increase blood flow and oxygen, and this helps to increase collagen formation and decreases inflammation. So you can also start to infer that if amino acids are really great for helping with wounds and collagen, then they’re probably really great for my skin in general. And I would say you’re definitely right there. And when I say skin, I’m talking about all the extensions that come from our skin, including yes, our skin, but also our nails and also our hair. So let’s go back to or let’s talk about a little bit more why all of this is so important and some other reasons. If you’re not yet convinced about amino acids, as I mentioned, you’re going to have more energy when you consume amino acids on a regular basis, you’re going to also, your musculo musculo musculoskeletal system will benefit because amino acids like lysine, promote calcium absorption. So you need that for

#3. Benefit of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function: Regulating digestion

Kimberly: 17:48 Bone growth. So we want to balance the diet. It’s not just the one thing that we want to focus on consuming, but it’s the whole diet as a whole. We want to look at holistically, and we’ll also help to regulate your digestion, make sure your hormones are functioning properly, your moods, as we mentioned earlier, your immune system, and also to stimulate the growth of skin, nails and hair just to keep the collagen and elastin really functioning well.

#4. Benefit of Amino Acids for Optimal Body Function: Enforcing healthy sleep/wake cycles

And hormones, which I’ve mentioned a couple times, we need our amino acids to be balanced and hormones are these chemical messengers that affect everything in the body from our fertility levels, our metabolism, how well we sleep at night, how we regulate our appetite, so on and so forth. So it’s really, really important that we are getting our amino acids in. Now. We’ve come to the part of the show where I’m going to give you some insight about how to source your amino acids and to make sure that you’re getting amino acids throughout the day.

18:55 So a couple of principles is that we want to focus on whole foods, and we want to remember that all foods have amino acids, plant-based foods have amino acids. So we don’t necessarily have to think that we get them in just one form or one source. So for instance, if you start the day, and this has become a habit for you, which I hope it is, drinking your glowing green smoothie, there are tons of amino acids in leafy greens, and these amino acids work together over a 24 hour period. So we used to think that we had to get all the essential acids in one meal, and now we know that’s not true. They combine, they work together throughout. So starting the day with your glowing green smoothie is a wonderful way to get a lot of different amino acids in your system. Also, just remember that natural foods, whole foods, natural foods, so everything from cranberries to apples to pretty much all the fruit that you can imagine right now.

20:06 I try to think about what I put in my son’s lunch, the strawberries, all of it has different sorts of amino acids and we want to mix and match our foods to make sure that we’re getting variety. So everything from quinoa is a wonderful source of essential amino acids and which you can easily incorporate into your diet. As is tofu, Tempe, and Amme. Please make sure you’re getting non GMO organic sources, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds. It’s very easy to make chia seed pudding. It’s easy to put chia seeds in your powered protein smoothie, which is a really wonderful and easy afternoon meal

Kimberly: 20:46 That you can consume. Pumpkin seeds are a personal favorite of mine to put on salads. All nuts are wonderful sources. I’m in a big walnut phase right now. Macadamia nuts are really popular in Hawaii where we spend a lot of time. So over there I tend to eat a lot of macadamia nuts, which are really rich and really fatty. Mushrooms, avocados, beans, seaweed. Nutritional yeast is something that we’ve been using in our dharma kale salad and in different recipes for many years. If you’re unfamiliar with nutritional yeast, it has sort of a, I would say it’s almost like a cheesy flavor. It’s like a dry yeast product, and I wouldn’t keep it around for too long. It’s one of those things that feels better to me to use fresh, or you could even store it in the fridge, but it’s a wonderful source of B vitamins and amino acids, and so you can use it in salad dressings tahini. Now is the time to think about thicker dressings. So last night I had arugula salad and I made a very simple version of our tahini dressing with tahini, lemon, a little bit of water and sea salt. That’s really all I need. I blend it together and it feels really thick and nice and delicious.

22:09 So I mentioned quinoa as well as lentils. Today we make a lot of one pot meals. So today a meal that we’re making as a family is a big veggie lentil soup. It is based on the everyday awesome soup. If you have a copy of my book a few books ago called Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life. And so today we’re putting, we mix the veggies today, we’re putting in carrots, broccoli, celery and cabbage, and then red lentils, which I also use in dull and ginger, a little bit of turmeric, cummin. It’s great. My kids love it, and we have it with sprouted brown rice. You can make it with lentils, I’m sorry, quinoa, whatever you want to add with it. But it doesn’t have to be complicated to get all these amino acids in. When we do our meal planning, if you go to the store, you can see from this wide range of foods, they’re whole foods and they’re simple, right?

23:11 So if we fill ourselves up with a bunch of snack foods or eating a bunch of popcorn or chips, then we miss out on opportunities to get these very enriching and nourishing amino acids in. But if we’re going to the store and really stocking up in the produce aisle and then thinking about the veggies and the colors that we’re inspired with, this is usually how I shop. And I think, oh, I can make those stuffed mushrooms with the pate, ground walnuts and the pesto. Then we start to get inspired and then we’re using some nuts or the doll, as I mentioned, or the kitchery where we’re combining lentils and rice and veggies and it’s so delicious and it’s so easy. So I don’t sit here and think, let me count how many amino acids I’m getting in a day, but I focus on the breadth and the width and the naturalness of my diet, and then there’s no problem getting it in for me and my kits.

24:14 From a supplementation standpoint, I consider the power protein smoothie a type of supplement almost because we’re adding in the powdered protein powder. And you’ll see this if you get our Holistic Mama Pregnancy course, which is coming just around the corner. I did have a protein smoothie almost every day when I was pregnant because there’s times in the pregnancy when you need about 70 grams of protein, you need a tremendous amount of amino acids. And it was difficult for me to eat a lot because I had this acid reflux and I felt really full in my body. So there are times when supplementation like protein powders can be very helpful. There are also times where amino acid supplements can be really helpful, which can come in a powdered form and you add them into water and they’re pure branch chain amino acids. An example of a brand that has these is called momentous, and my husband and I drink them.

25:14 Sometimes we have them around our kitchen. I think it’s like a tropical punch flavor or something. I don’t find the taste too bad. And so if there’s times where you feel a little bit worn down or you want to boost your muscles or you’re working out a lot or you feel like your hair needs a boost, besides eating natural foods and focusing on your diet, first and foremost, as I mentioned, you may want to get a really wonderful, I recommend getting a really wonderful vegan protein powder that you stock at home and perhaps some amino acid, amino acid powder as well. Currently, I switch with my protein powders. I’ve used the Vega one in the past. I’ve used Sun Warrior right now. I found a really interesting brand called Muna, and it’s a very pure formula. I find it very easy to digest. It’s only got a few ingredients, so you can check that out. They’ve got a chocolate variety and a vanilla variety, and I think a natural unflavored one as well, so you can stack up when you have smoothies. As you know, I’m a huge fan of smoothies. So in your power protein smoothie, for instance, you can add the chia seeds plus the protein powder. You can use the hemp milk or the almond milk or a mineral rich

Kimberly: 26:42 Plant-based protein milk, or sorry, amino acid rich milk. And so that way you’re getting quite a bit in one delicious smoothie. And I also love to add in acai and ripe banana and sometimes cacao or some other components as well. So in summary, we want to make sure that we are eating amino acids, an amino acid rich diet. The good news is it’s pretty easy to do so long as we focus on lots of plants, whole foods simple, everything from leafy green vegetables, broccoli mushrooms, all of it has amino acids. So we can please check out all our many recipes over@mysalina.com. There are things like preparing an arugula salad, for instance, and adding some Tempe to it or a bean salad, a chickpea salad, or a nut pate, or making our walnut tacos. One of my classic recipes from the Beauty Detox solution. It’s easy whether we’re eating a raw food diet or as I eat a combination of rotten cooked, focusing on those components of simple, natural, whole and plant-based, or going to get so much amazing nutrition in your body.

28:04 Thank you so much for tuning in. There was a lot of research in this show. I hope you’re inspired by eating these wonderful amino acids, which again are a component of building blocks of protein teen, and they help with everything. As we mentioned from your moods, your energy, your skin, your hair, your hormonal production, your wound healing, and more. We will link to the studies in the show notes on my sauna.com, as well as other podcasts I think you would enjoy and the rest. So a couple of recipes. We have hundreds of them that I think would really work well for amino acid consumption and meditations. There’s a million things over on there, so please visit us and sending you so much love. I will be back here as usual Monday for our next show. Till then, take great care and I’ll see you soon. Namaste.