Nutrition seems to be the area people struggle with the most when it comes to taking control of their health. The exercise can be fairly straight forward but not easy. For example, most people know to go for a walk, jog or a run if they enjoy that type of exercise and want to be more active. And if you go to a pool it's not hard to figure out the you start at one end of the pool and work your way to the opposite end before pushing off to return. You never see anyone get confused in a pool and try to swim cross-ways, over and under the lane ropes, rather than the way everyone has ever done it. And if you step foot in a gym littered with machines you can very easily figure out what to push or pull in order to complete a rep. And if there are free weights available you can pick the weight up and put it down. Simple as that. But nutrition gets confusing. What are macros and should I be tracking them? Should I eat 3 square meals a day  or 5-6 smaller meals. Should I be low-fat or low carb? Would keto be a good option for me? What about intermittent fasting? How many calories should I eat? Should I even worry about calories? How important is protein? And can I get enough as a vegan or vegetarian? Should I be taking supplements and if so, which ones? Should I be buying organic food? Or are conventional groceries sufficient? Phew! That's a lot of questions. And those are just the main ones. There are tons we won't even go into here. For simplicity let's look at the following questions. How much should I eat? Why do I need carbs? Fats?...

If you were a fan of Seinfeld you'll remember the Thanksgiving episode. Jerry starts dating a new girl that has an awesome toy collection. And since this happens to be right around the time of Thanksgiving, Jerry and the gang decide they will 'drug' his new girlfriend by feeding her a turkey dinner rich in tryptophan which is believed to induce sleepiness. Once they manage to induce a turkey coma in this poor girl can Jerry et al break out all the toys and play.[caption id="attachment_4743" align="aligncenter" width="300"] What's the stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy? Tryptophan!So what exactly is tryptophan? Well it's an essential amino acid meaning our bodies cannot make it and it's essential that we get in our diets. And just to back up a bit, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. When we have a particular collection of amino acids, arranged is a very specific order and give this collection of amino acids a 3D shape we have a protein. I usually like to coach and teach with analogies so here's one for amino acids.If we had a bead necklace that was balled up and folded into a specific shape that would represent the protein. All of the beads on the string represent the amino acids. If certain amino are missing, it's not the same protein. If the order of the amino acids i.e. the order of the beds on the string, changes then it's not the same protein. And if the shape of the balled up necklace changes, it's not the same protein.But enough about protein chemistry, what does tryptophan do and why does that matter? Well tryptophan is a pre-cursor of a number of other important metabolites including: hormones such as serotonin which then leads to melatonin and vitamins such niacin (B3). If our...