Before becoming a Nutrition Coach, the idea of changing my diet felt like trying to climb Mount Everest straight from my living room sofa.
Since an early age, I had suffered from deep depression and anxiety; it was the "demon" on my back for many years. I spent my days on the sofa, surviving on high-carb foods like sodas, pizza, and sweets. I was convinced that just one more movie or one more treat would finally lift my mood. The truth is, it only made me more tired and unmotivated. If there was something simple to do, like washing the dishes, I felt stressed, irritated, and overwhelmed.
So, I asked myself: Do I want to live my life this way? Stressed and unhappy? Of course, the answer was no. Today, I understand exactly why I was feeling that way, and more importantly, how to change it.
Happiness depends heavily on our lifestyle. Aristotle was one of the first philosophers to say that happiness is not luck or a divine favour; it is a matter of our daily actions and lifestyle. Fast forward to 1938, when Harvard University began a famous, decades-long study on happiness. By observing people's lives, psychologists confirmed that true happiness comes from "social fitness" and the daily choices we make.
Every single day, we get to choose who we will be. We can choose to stay on the sofa drinking sodas, or we can choose an activity that we love, one that brings us a sense of pride and accomplishment.
In my previous article, I spoke about how to build a schedule that helps us find joy when we introduce new healthy habits. Today, I want to go further and explain the science sitting behind that schedule, using my own story as an example.
Climbing Your Own Mountain
Going from a sedentary lifestyle to a healthy one overnight is impossible. However, it is possible to climb your own Everest after the right training. Grace Lee (featured on the 29029 podcast) climbed seven mountains around the world. Ed Jackson, a former rugby player who is quadriplegic, climbed the equivalent height of Mount Everest on his parents’ stairs to raise money for charity.
Being inspired by the success of others pushed me to stand up and take action to get where I wanted to be. If someone had told me three years ago that customising my meals, following my own biology, and going for runs would make me genuinely happy, I wouldn’t have believed a word. But things change, and so do our beliefs.
The Biological Ingredients for Happiness
Thanks to my studies and deep research into nutrition, and experimenting on myself, my mind completely opened. There are actual ingredients for happiness. I am not talking about a magic potion; I am talking about food, exercise, and doing what we love.
While I am not a fitness trainer or a psychologist, I can guide you through making the right food choices.
When I was stuck on the sofa, my only moments of "happiness" came when I was eating carbs. But after a few hours, that happiness would vanish because my blood sugar was crashing. High-carb food gives us a brief moment of strength and focus, but the inevitable drop leaves us feeling empty and sad. On the contrary, healthy fats (like nuts, seeds, avocados, salmon, mackerel, and olive oil) truly nourish our brains and clear the "brain fog" that those sugar spikes create. In a recent Instagram Reel, I spoke about why healthy fats are so important: our brains simply work better when we feed them the right fuel.
Biologically speaking, when blood sugar crashes, our body releases cortisol and adrenaline, leaving us with what we think is an empty stomach, so we instinctively look for more sugar. To stop this cycle, we have to balance our macronutrient and micronutrient intake and make different choices.
Building My "Happy Diet"
My personal first step was cutting out sodas and replacing them with water and fruit (sparkling water with lemon was my favourite!). Just this one step helped me lose my first 5 kg in a few weeks. This happened because I eliminated something that tasted good but had absolutely no nutritional value. The result was more energy and motivation to try the next step. My belly was less bloated, and losing those 5 kg felt like taking off a heavy backpack.
With time, I educated myself and adapted my meals to my unique body. By spending more time cooking fresh meals and stepping away from ready-made food, I found that taking action directly led to happiness.
One of my favourite recent changes is the introduction of seeds. I love adding hemp hearts (or other seeds) to my kefir and salads, or having them as a mindful snack. Seeds are packed with essential vitamins and minerals. While I professionally cannot say that seeds "cure" depression, they do an amazing job of stabilising our mood.
The Gut-Brain Connection
Promoting vegetables and fish in our diet is also absolutely essential for our happiness because of the fibre and Omega-3s. Our gut microbiome is intimately connected to our mood via the gut-brain axis. When we feed our good bacteria with fibre and Omega-3s, and reduce the systemic inflammation caused by excess sugar, those healthy bacteria send positive signals through the vagus nerve. This actively supports our brain's ability to produce Serotonin (the "happy" hormone). When we nourish our gut, we truly feel lighter, happier and calmer.
I patiently recorded my food diary, counting macros and adjusting whenever something wasn't right, until I finally found my personal "happy diet."
Because sugary foods can highly influence depression and anxiety, my current goal is to keep my carbs relatively low (around 50g because of my personal weight-loss target, I’ll get higher when I’ll reach it), keeping my protein and healthy fats higher. I focus on a balanced, varied diet with less meat (just once or twice a week), and prioritise high-potassium foods (avocado, spinach, beet greens, salmon, sardines), Vitamin C, and Omega-3s. This is my powerful, anti-depressant, and anti-aging fuel for both body and mind. It gives me the energy to be creative, focus on my career, crush my workouts (from yoga to a 5k run), socialise, and reach my healthy weight.
Note: I want to specify that this is a diet that I tailored to my own body and needs. Everyone has different and unique characteristics and a diet should be customised with a specialist.
Pushing the Happiness Button
This change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen after just a few weeks. When I first started to see how my skin, hair, and body were healthily improving, and my state of mind shifted from "I am tired with no motivation" to "It’s great to be alive", I knew I had found my breakthrough.
Finally, going back to the Harvard research, mentioned before, and speaking about “Social fitness” as a key ingredient to be happy. When we feel great and empowered, we want to share it with the world, and we like to hear from others with similar experiences. This positive feeling guides us to find a way to socialise and be more curious towards the world (something that anxiety and depression do not allow). During my journey, when I started to feel that way, I signed up for “ParkRun”. I wasn’t a runner or athlete, I wasn’t even constant with my simple workouts. Now I am running at least twice a week, in addition to my fitness schedule, and even if it’s tiring, it has improved my mindset. When I run I don’t think and worry about different things, I encourage myself to breathe, focus and get to the end on my own rhythm. That mindset is now part of my daily life.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has noted in numerous interviews that "discipline leads to happiness, success, and personal fulfilment." I want to add that taking control and understanding what we really need isn’t about depriving ourselves of what we like. It’s about loving what serves us, and learning to love new things.
It is about opening our minds and finally pushing that happiness button.
What is one 'ingredient' you’re ready to add to your life this week?
Beatrice Monti
Healthy Flame by B Founder
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