Carbs. Are You Eating Enough?

This week Brianna is talking about carbs - are you eating enough? She briefly breaks down what to look for throughout the day and overall week to see if you (likely) need to increase them.

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Featured Mocktails: 

Mocktail Club 

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Brianna 0:22

Hello everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Briana. If you listened to Bailey's episode last week, you'll know that her and I are doing back-to-back solo episodes. We have a ton going on. It's summertime. I was traveling last week. The week before last. I'm gonna be traveling this upcoming week. Bailey has an event that she's going to this upcoming week, so we're doing some solo ones. Before we get started, I am drinking... I got these... One of my coworkers got me this for my birthday, Mocktail Club. I think she got it at Sprouts, but they're called Mocktail Club. This is Manhattan Berry. It's actually pretty good. I like it. This one has pear juice, blackberry, ginger, and apple cider vinegar, so if you don't like the tanginess of apple cider vinegar, you're probably not gonna like this. But if you do, then you'll like it. And plus it's supposed to be, like, a mocktail, so I feel like alcohol kind of has that little- Tanginess, vinegary. I, it's hard to explain, but very good for a mocktail option. Super yummy. I'm gonna try the other flavors. But this week I'm piggybacking a little bit off of Bailey's episode last week. Last week she did an episode on post-meal fatigue and how you can... what could be causing it, and how you can switch what you're eating or how you're eating around so that you feel energized after meals and not tired. So this week I'm gonna be talking about carbohydrates. Are you eating enough and how do you tell? Because I feel like this is a little bit complicated, and the reality is we've gotten really good at low carb. We've gotten good at low carb. We are scared of carbs. Even when I have clients who are like, "No, I'm eating carbs", I- I'm like, "No, you're not. You are, but you're not eating them the way that you think you are." So this could be an area that's really hard to tell, am I eating enough? What do I do if I'm not? Another reason it's hard to tell, other than just being scared of carbs and learning to demonize them, is we are so not used to listening to our bodies for a multitude of reasons. Number one, a lot of us don't know how to listen to our bodies, and that's something that has to be learned. It's my biggest gripe with intuitive eating, the whole "Just listen to your body." So much easier said than done. Half the time I know for me, my body is telling me things that we probably don't need to do. Okay? So it's more about just listening to your body. It's about am I listening to my body effectively, and do I trust myself, right? Because a lot of us are told, if you're not being told, "Just listen to your body," you're being told, "You can't listen to your body. Curb your hunger. Don't have an appetite." This, the best thing about the GLP-1 is everyone just thinks, "I have no more food noise." And to the point where we're thinking normal thoughts of food and hunger are food noise when they're not, and I did a whole ep- we did a whole episode about this a couple weeks ago. Food noise is absolutely real. But just thinking about what am I having for lunch?" Or, "Oh, you know what sounds good?" Or, "I'm a little snacky right now." Those things aren't necessarily food noise, but we're told that they are to the point where we think we sh- should never feel hungry. I should never feel hungry, should never feel snacky. I should never have cravings. That's not true. But that, that is scary. It's scary to have all those things. The other thing too is, I've worked with a lot of women now, and, I give them upfront kind of the framework, right? How to build your meal, like PHFF, protein, healthy fat, fiber. How do I make sure I have all those on a plate? We are so scared about getting it wrong or doing trial and error. I have had so many women tell me "Just tell me the right amounts of all these things, and I will do that, and then all will be well." And the reality is those things change. What you need from day to day can change, especially for women, based on your cycle, based on your sleep, your activity level, your stress, all those things. So if I tell you, "Hey, eat X amount of XYZ at every single meal," some days you're gonna feel really good, and some days you're gonna be like, "This isn't cutting it." And then there's gonna be other days where You're like, "I'm so full. I don't wanna eat anymore, but I haven't eaten all of it." So we need to allow ourselves to kinda tap into how do I feel after a meal? How do I feel, at the end of my day after eating? What could I have done better? What, why maybe was I so snacky today? Was there reasons for it other than what is the right answer, let me just do it, and then I will ignore everything that I feel 'cause I just wanna be right? That is scary. But allowing yourself to kinda tune into what is my body telling me? That bio feedback will tell you a lot of did you eat enough, did you eat too much? What do you need to tweak? So I'm gonna kinda give you some tips on how you can tune into how you're feeling after a meal, and then maybe some things to kinda look for throughout your day or your week to kinda see am I getting enough carbs? So first and foremost, if we do better with carbs earlier in the day, we are more insulin sensitive in the morning, and this is for everyone, whether you're male, female, have blood sugar issues, insulin resistant, not insulin, it doesn't matter. We work, we utilize them a little bit better in the morning. What a lot of us do is we are, dieting or trying to eat good, and so we'll just naturally be, like, lower carb throughout the day, and then dinner time is when you have your carb because dinner is always a thing. It's always like you're sitting down with family. Maybe it's the meal you take the most time for. Maybe it's the most exciting meal, and carbs have their place at dinner. So you go from eating no carb to low carb throughout the day, and then your biggest carb is in the evening. Metabolically, not the smartest thing to do. So check in with yourself. Am I having carbs at every single meal? And again, carbs don't have to just be, like bread or pasta or rice or, tortillas or potatoes. Like, all those corn. It doesn't have to be, like, all the starchy ones. Yes, carbs are in all those things, but it's also fruit. Am I eating fruit? Just am I eating carbs? Do you have a carb at every meal? If you are lacking carbs at your meals, a couple things will happen. So one, you'll be tired. So carbs are your main energy source. You will feel tired. Now, this is tricky because you will also feel tired if you have too many carbs at a meal, and we know what this feels like, right? You will go out to Mexican food. I just use Mexican food 'cause I'm in Texas and I love Mexican food, and it's what I think of when I think high carb, 'cause you can go high carb at Mexican food. But let's say you had some chips, and then you had your fajitas, and you had some beans, and you had some tortillas, and you come home and you need to take a nap. Yep, you probably overdid it with the carbs at that meal, and that's what Bailey was talk- she talked a lot about that last week. You probably overdid it. You're having a blood sugar crash, probably too much food, not enough fiber, not very balanced. Okay. I'm talking more of this brain fog, I'm dragging, right? And these are different. And again, this can be tricky, right, 'cause you're tired or tired. But let's say it's lunchtime and you're just dragging. Brain fog. I can't really focus. I feel fatigued. Maybe you're irritable. If you do not have enough carbs, you will feel like that. So I'll feel tired, I'll have fatigue, can't really focus. The other thing that you might feel is like, I'm not satisfied. The amount of women I talk to and they're like, "Okay, I tracked my food. I know my lunch was a good lunch. It had protein, it had fat, it had fiber. It was a good amount of calories, but I just don't feel satisfied. I'm not necessarily hungry, but I'm not satisfied. I just want a little something." That could also be you're not having enough carbs. Again, it's your main fuel source. Your brain uses carbs. Maybe you're not feeling hungry, but you're just like, "That meal, something was missing." Carbs. So kinda think of those two things. Am I feeling fatigued? Am I feeling brain fog? Am I having a hard time focusing, lack of energy, or am I just feeling like, ugh, missing something? Those two things can mean you're not having enough carbs at your meals, and we want to really be consistent with carbs. Like I said, most people will go low-carb breakfast, low-carb lunch, and then high-carb dinner. I kinda want you spreading them out throughout the day. If there's gonna be an area that you have a tiny bit of lower carbs, I would say maybe dinner or really just focusing on very high-fiber carbs at dinner. But you want 'em at every meal, and this is where you really do need to build awareness of what the heck is a proper amount of carbs and what does that look like. And this is where I'd recommend working with someone because it's very individualized based off of your activity factor, based off of your metabolic health, all the things. Okay, so it can change. I can't sit here and be like, "Do X amount of this." I can tell you a general amount of what's an upper limit for a lot of people, but Thinking I need to be getting carbs, at least 40% of my calories from carbs. So if you... Maybe we could do an episode on, like, how the heck, what does that even mean? Let m- I'll give you an example, okay? Okay. So let's say you have 1,800 calories that means you b- need about 180 grams of carbs for the day. 180. So let me just divide that by three. 60 grams would be 60 grams of carbs at a meal to hit 180 grams of carbs for the day. 180 grams of carbs is not crazy, just so everyone's tracking. That's not crazy. That's still relatively conservative, okay? Now, you're probably gonna have a snack throughout the day. Maybe you work out and you have some carb at pre-workout, so maybe all your meals don't get exactly 60, but just for simplify it, you need about 60 at a meal for this person. Let's say they're not snacking, they're not doing a pre-workout snack, whatever. What the heck does that look like? Okay? Now, this is where you don't know what you don't know, and I'm all about not having to track, but when you have certain goals and when you're trying to build awareness, you need to know, right? I, and I'm gonna tell you, you don't know. I... Because I will have women be like, "Oh, I am eating carbs." And then I have them plug it in, and I'm like, "You had 15 grams of carbs at that meal." You did not. Or vice versa, right? It's And I'm not bagging on Costco pizza, 'cause I just had some because for some reason, after you spend hundreds of dollars in groceries, you're just like, "I need something simple." I got my kids pizza. I had some because, hello, Costco pizza is superior. One slice of Costco pizza is 70 grams of carbs. Okay? So you could be thinking, "I roasted potatoes at home. Oh, my gosh, I have so much carbs." And then you look at the serving size and you realize none. Or you could be thinking, "You know what? I was really good at lunch. I just had one slice of pizza." Okay, and you had a ton more carbs than you're used to. So again, awareness. You need to build on your knowledge before you can just never have to track again, unless you truly don't care. Okay? But for a lot of people that I work with, they care. They care about weight loss. They care about insulin resistance. They care about their blood sugar. Okay you don't know what you don't know. So this is where I would say tracking is helpful. Plugging in your meal. We're creatures of habits. Let's say you're gonna have lunch this week. You know what you're gonna have. Plug it in and see, am I actually getting carbs at that meal? Am I getting way too many at that meal? You need to know. So let's say, okay, I need about 60 grams of carbs for this person. What carbs are you having, and how much carbs is it, right? If you're having beans, look at a can of beans. A serving, I think a serving depending on those beans, is around 21 grams of carbs. Measure it out. Are you actually getting a serving, or are you getting much less? Same with roasting some yellow or purple or whatever potatoes at home. You need to use your friend Google. How much grams of carbs is in X amount of potatoes? Weigh out the potatoes and just get that visualization so you could see, oh, when I'm roasting up potatoes at home, I can have this much, or if I'm making my lunch for the next day, I'm gonna put that much in, or if I'm out to eat with friends and I get a side of potatoes, I actually know how much to get that's appropriate for me so that I'm not just guessing. The shot in the dark thing doesn't work, okay? So am I getting enough at my meals? Am I feeling fatigued, brain fog, or am I feeling really "Ugh, I'm missing something"? Those are kinda your day-to-day after meal things. The other thing that you can kinda tune into is your overall week, right? How did I feel when I was working out? Did I progress this week in my workouts? Did I lift heavier? Did I feel good during my workouts? Did I run faster? Did I... Did my run feel easier? That. How did you recover? Are you still feeling sore two and three days after your workouts? That's not appropriate. Your rec- something is wrong with recovery. I would say your recovery protein and carbs is probably off, and it's probably carbs. The other thing is how is my digestion and my bowel movements? Am I having... Am I pooping every single day, at least one time a day? Am I getting good sleep am I waking up at three o'clock in the morning am I sleeping good? Am I pooping good? Am I feeling good at my workouts and my recovery? Do I feel like I need to come home and just go on the couch? All those things is bio feedback of are you getting enough carbs. You will start to feel very good when you have a good amount of carbs, okay? But again, you don't know what you don't know. For almost everyone across the board now, I'm like, "Hey, we don't have to do this forever, but I just need you g- to gain a general idea of how much you're eating." Nine times out of ten, they are under-eating carbs. Nine times out of ten, their overall daily protein intake is higher than your carbs. Your carb intake should be higher than your protein intake I don't care if you're overweight, I don't care if you have diabetes, I don't care if you're going through menopause, that applies to everyone. It especially applies to you if you have an underactive thyroid. Okay? We get really good at eating protein and really good at undereating carbs, and I can't tell you how many times I've had a female eating 150 grams of protein a day and 80 grams of carbs. That's wrong. You're not gonna feel great. But again, this could be scary. So allowing yourself just to play around with it. How do I feel in my workouts, in my bowel movements, with my sleep, with my recovery, with my energy, with my cravings, with my satisfaction of meals when I'm eating an appropriate amount of carbs? And again, this area is really gray. There are some people where I have them match their protein and carbs in a meal. There are some people where I have them do a little bit of a different ratio, very dependent on the person. But regardless, your overall carb intake for the day should be higher than protein The other thing is fiber. And this is sometimes where I get people to really step back and look. Are you eating an appropriate amount of carbs? Are you hitting your fiber goals? And I would say for females that twenty-five is the bare minimum. If we can be eating more than twenty-five, we should, especially if you have hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, you're going through menopause, weight loss resistance, all the things. You will have a very hard time hitting your fiber goal if you're not eating enough carbs. And if you're one of those people that's like, "Nope, my fiber intake is great and my carbs are really low." What's your fat look like? Because that's the only other place you are getting fiber from. You're either getting it from carb-containing foods, or you're getting it from nuts, seeds, avocado, which are still all great sources of fiber. But we need to be having a certain amount of your fiber come from carb-containing foods, for certain. So I hope this has been helpful in kind of tuning into I eating enough carbs? Carbs are so scary. I truly think that a main reason why a lot of women have thyroid issues is because we've been taught that we should go such low carb. And the thing is if you're thinking like, low carb was the only way I lost weight, or low carb was the only way that I got my A1C to look good, I need you to know that those are short-term fixes. The goal is not to just pull back on carbs and never eat carbs again, and then all will be well with weight and blood sugar. At some point you will need to add back in carbs. The goal is to get your body to use carbs as optimally as possible, not to take carbs out so that your body doesn't have to figure that out, if that makes sense. So this is why a lot of women yo-yo diet. This is why a lot of women have those big weight fluctuations or energy fluctuations, or it's because of this. So the reality is you're gonna eat carbs again at some point. Either the holidays are gonna trip you up, summer is gonna trip you up, going out to eat is gonna trip you up. Something is gonna trip you up. You might as well know how to appropriately manage carbs and how to realize what different carbs do for you, because they're not the same. You just gotta know what to do with it. Hopefully this was helpful. If you still have questions about it, you can reach out to our Instagram, @mocktailminutes. You can send us each a DM, whatever you guys wanna do. But if you have questions about carbs, reach out. We can chat there and see about working with one of us to really understand what that means for you, instead of just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. No pun intended, using a carb joke. Okay that's it. Thank you guys for bearing with me. I feel like every time Bailey isn't on here, I have such a hard time staying like where I need to go, 'cause I'm like doo. I think we do well bouncing off each other. But hopefully you enjoyed this. Both of us will be back next week with a brand-new episode. Bye.