A Snowy Day, Keeping the Brain Fueled – January 15, 2022

I did a lot of smiling today. It snowed today. Probably only 2 inches but everything is white. Thankfully we did not have ice or frigid temperature. It was too warm for the roads to be bad. We fed the cows hay three times today because the pasture is covered with snow and there is not much grass left out there anyway. Time to buy more hay by the end of next week. That should be expensive in the middle of January. I got to help Jim with all the chores whenever he went out today. It is so much easier for both of us to work together and get the chores done. The chickens did not go out today. The cows stayed close and the pigs were oblivious that there was a problem.

Since it was snowing today, we made a cooking video for Monday. It was a lot of fun. We enjoyed the fireplace and kept warm.

We are preparing talks for tomorrow. I don’t know if we have told you that we are addiction recovery missionaries. We are over the Springfield area and several outlying towns. On Thursday nights we lead a group in the 12-step program. On Sunday nights we lead of group for spouses and family members. Tomorrow we are speaking to one of the congregations in Springfield, telling them about the programs and encouraging them to come. We so enjoy doing this and are grateful they allow us to touch their lives and they touch ours.

Nutritional Information

When I know we are going to be outside doing work on the farm right after we do the milking, I make sure I feed us a good nutritional breakfast prior to going out to milk. We will have sausage and scrambled eggs, milk and a small fruit like 1/2 a banana or a mandarin orange. We always have good protein for breakfast, but lets say we eat a bowl of ready to eat cereal and a piece of toast, and milk or juice. The difference in giving our brain fuel is this. Eating a breakfast without protein, your brain has only a good supply of fuel for 1 1/2 to 3 hours after breakfast. With protein, your brain has a good supply of fuel for 3 – 4 hours after breakfast. When we come in we eat a good snack with protein and carbohydrate to resupply the sugar that our body used up for energy.

When we eat enough protein, we have the following:

more stable mood

have more energy

hungry less often

less fatigue, particularly in the afternoon

better sleep

high metabolism from having higher muscle mass.

(Fuel Your Brain, Not Your Anxiety, (Allott & Duarte)