Weightlifting and the Nervous System part 2: Nutrition

In my last post  I laid out a short argument for the reasons that we need to focus on the nervous system. That is if we are going to reach peak performance in weightlifting or for that matter anything that requires any sort of coordination at all. Because let's face it you may have 20 inch biceps but if you can't move any faster or more effectively than my grandmother than you are probably about as useful as that 200 pound curl you've been dreaming about....ie useless and your legs are probably tiny.
So I promised that I would lay out some basics on nutrition when it comes to making sure that your nervous system is up to par. While I am by no means a neuroscientist I have had my own experiences with the nervous system that have proved to be very influential in the way that I approach my nutrition and training.
If you were to google things along the lines of nutrition and the nervous system, dietary needs for neurotransmitters, etc you will get a huge slew of information. As always google will return a substantial amount of information that is eerily redundant. It's like someone read a study then wrote an article and everyone else who was interest in the same subject copy and pasted the original article onto their blog or social column and said, "That is good enough! I will now move on to more things that I don't understand or really care about because I need more content for my site so I can start making money off of ads."
Now that I have that out of my system let's examine what most of those articles will say. "Consume tyrosine it will help you be more alert because it is a component of dopamine." There I just saved you 2 and a half hours of reading the same thing over and over again. But what does it mean? There actually seems to be a lot of validity to this statement but I want to dumb it down quite a bit here. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter or in other words it is a signal molecule. People often think of the nervous system of a series of long wires all of which are directly wired into the spinal cord which then acts like a conduit to the brain. While that isn't necessarily the worst way to think of the nervous system it leaves out on very important attribute of the nervous system, there are gaps all over in those wires that connect our body parts to our brain. It doesn't stop there either, there are gaps all over throughout our brains. Unless we can bridge those gaps nothing, literally nothing can happen. There is no real cognition, breathing, movement, nothing. That is except that last time you lay an egg when you die, but that turd comes about because of your brain stopping the transmission of "holding it in." So I guess there's always that to comfort yourself.
The way that we bridge those gaps is through neurotransmitters. They are literally little messengers that in essence carry "messages" to tell your body to do whatever is needed. Here is a VERY rudimentary example, say I am all set about to pull clean from the floor.

As I apply pressure through my legs can contract muscles to extend my hips and knees acetylcholine is released at every single junction that nerves meet those muscles which cross the posterior side of the hip joint, and the anterior side of my knees. Not only does that happen everywhere a muscle has to contract in my body but it has to happen in perfect synchronicity. Without that synchronicity there is no coordination and therefore no functional strength let alone power. Now there is also the other side of the same coin in which the muscles have to relax but that is worth a discussion all on it's own and not super important right now.

So how can we properly fuel ourselves to optimize the performance of this complex symphony of electricity that is orchestrating literally every single move we make, breath we take, and nights you make it through the night without wetting the bed and pissing off your significant other? From my experience there are two major fronts that need to be addressed the neurotransmitters, and the nerves themselves. If you were to only focus on one that would be akin the putting a modern roller coaster train on an old wooden roller coaster from Chernobyl or vice versa.
Lets cover the transmitters first as they seem to be the more common offenders. Which isn't surprising because they are always being created and destroyed. This is also the portion of the nervous system that I have had my own troubles with in the past. One of the times that I have been the sickest in my life was when for whatever reason I was unable to produce enough serotonin. What the doctor said was that because of me being sick I couldn't absorb hardly any nutrients I was taking in and therefore my body wasn't able to synthesis basically any serotonin. Serotonin is the happy transmitter. So basically I was chemically unable to experience happiness for 3 months or so. Luckily for me deficient neurotransmitters is much easier to fix than say MS (a degenerative disease of the conductive sheath that transmits signals along nerves.) What happened in my case was that I was given some supplements to get me going while I put my diet in order and now I'm tip top. From experience I can say that it is much easier to maintain nervous system health (mental health for that matter as well)  than it is to regain it. So to the reason you slogged through the rest of this post, what should you eat to make sure you have the proper balance/sufficient neurotransmitters?
This is where it gets all anticlimactic most neurotransmitters are synthesized from or at least have their base in amino acids. Where then do amino acids come from? PROTEIN! This may be why there seems to be a disproportionately large number of insane and emotionally unstable vegans.... just saying.

Ok I'm kidding sort of, because for you to have a balance of all the difference neurotransmitters then you have to have the building blocks to create them. For example tyrosine is a component of dopamine, or tryptophan a precursor to serotonin, or choline the base of acetylcholine, all of which play their part in the nervous system from balanced brain chemistry to effective muscle contraction. So here is a list of foods (besides just saying protein) broken down by transmitter and as I mentioned I am no neurologist I am just going to list them for the three above mentioned neurotransmitters since they seem to be the most pertinent to weight lifting and most likely to get out of whack.

Serotonin:
Most wild game (especially arctic)
Spirulina
Spinach
Egg whites
Sesame seeds
Crustaceans
Halibut
Quail
Turkey
Tuna
Pumpkin and squash seeds
Dates
Mozzarella Cheese
Oats
Green leafy vegetables

Dopamine
Parmesan Cheese
Lean Beef
Lean Lamb
Pork Chops
Salmon
Turkey
Seaweed
Game meat
Egg whites
Green leafy vegetables

Acetylcholine
Egg yolk
Beef
Caviar
Veal
Chicken liver
Duck
Goose
Quail
Pork liver sausage
Salmon
Whey (that's convenient)
Milk

For the nerves themselves there is a whole host of things that can go wrong but many of them seem to stem from the myelin sheath or in other words the part of the nerve that makes it so the message actually gets from say the brain to the end of the nerve where your neurotransmitters can actually do their job. Understandably then it's important to protect it.

Myelin sheath foods
Liver
Vitamin C foods (you know them)
Oily fish
Walnuts
Olive oil
Basically anything that has anti-inflammatory properties.

Obviously if there is stuff to put in our faces that makes the nervous system function better then there most definitely will be some that harm the nervous system but I'm going to make it easy for you.

CRAP
Sugar
Caffeine
Anything inflammatory (if it is processed then don't eat it).

So let me sum it up for you and I will give you the same advice that I give almost everyone that asks me what they should eat........drum roll......
If it doesn't have a label then you are probably ok. (does not apply to things cooked up by lunatics wearing yellow hazmat suits)
If there is more than one ingredient you can't pronounce put it down.

Next post is the supplementation side of things for the nervous system, because sometimes good just isn't good enough.

Nutrition data from here and here and here