Potatoes and Prozac

In her national bestseller "Potatoes Not Prozac," Kathleen DesMaisons offers a seven-step dietary plan for sugar-sensitive people like me. I've tried to implement her suggestions into my diet because, as a recovering drunk and depressive, sugar can throw me into an emotional mess that gets downright ugly. A diet rich in fiber and protein is crucial to my mental health--but for me, it's prozac AND potatoes.

Here's what DesMaisons proposes:

* Keep a food journal. The journal keeps you in relationship to your body. It reminds you of the connection between what you eat and how you feel.

* Maintain your blood sugar level. Stay steady and clear. Always have breakfast. Eat three meals a day at regular intervals. Eat brown things (whole grains, beans, potatoes, and roots), green things (broccoli and other green vegetables), and yellow things (squash and other yellow vegetables). Choose foods with the least sugars and the most fiber.

* Enhance your serotonin level. Eat protein at each meal. Make sure that enough tryptophan is swimming around in your blood. Have a complex carbohydrate (without any protein) three hours after your protein meal to boost tryptophan into your brain. The baked potato as a nightcap is a powerful tool.

* Enhance your beta-endorphin level. Reduce or eliminate sugars and white things to minimize the beta-endorphin priming that comes with a hit of sugars. Make life changes to enhance behaviors and activities (meditation, exercise, music, orgasm, yoga, prayer, dancing) that evoke or support the production of your own beta-endorphin in a steady and consistent way.