Living A Full Life

The Role of Carbs in Sustained Energy and Health

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 13

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Ever wonder if carbohydrates are really the villains they're made out to be? Join me, Dr. Enrico Dolcecore, as we unravel the truth about carbohydrates, breaking down myths and misconceptions that have clouded this essential macronutrient. We'll dive into the critical role they play in energizing our brains and muscles, and why around 50% of your caloric intake should ideally come from this powerhouse. While popular diets like keto and intermittent fasting are all the rage, you'll learn why these might not be the best long-term solutions for sustained wellness.

Get ready to master the art of balanced meal prepping with a focus on achieving that perfect macronutrient harmony. I’ll share practical tips on assembling meals that hit a 45% carbohydrate, 45% protein, and 10% fat ratio. Think brown rice paired with your favorite protein sources and healthy fats from cooking oils. We’ll also explore adjusting your macronutrient intake throughout the day, such as cutting back on carbs in the evening to aid rest and recovery, all while understanding the nuanced difference between so-called "good" and "bad" carbohydrates.

Finally, we’ll tackle the complex relationship between eating habits and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Dispelling food myths is key, like the notion that carbs alone are responsible for weight gain. Instead, we’ll highlight the importance of overall caloric balance, portion control, and staying active. Hear why low-carb diets might lead to quick but misleading weight loss, and how reintegrating carbs can affect water weight. Together, we’ll cultivate an approach to eating that supports long-term health, vitality, and contentment.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Living a Full Life Podcast. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori, and this week we'll be going through carbohydrates. Last week's topic was about proteins and I didn't expect all the questions that came up from it about how much to eat. Go back to that podcast. Learn about proteins. I really just wanted to talk about proteins and move on with other health topics, but because of that I thought, oh, let's talk about carbohydrates as well, cause it kind of I don't think it confused people. But they were like well, are carbs bad or should we not have carbohydrates? So that's a big no-no.

Speaker 1:

Let's get into carbohydrates and their role in our health. Uh, carbohydrates are the most misunderstood micronutrient there. Because of fad diets out there, they've made carbohydrates sound bad, or if you eat too many carbs, you're going to get fat, or whatever these things are. They villained or vilified carbohydrates. And uh, let's, let's go down through the myths and the science behind it. Break it down so we have a better understanding of carbohydrates and nutrition. And so the key points in this podcast are going to be you know what are carbohydrates, nutrition. And so the key points in this podcast are going to be you know what are carbohydrates, what's their role in the body, how much we need and the best and worst sources. And then we'll break some other misunderstandings about carbohydrates.

Speaker 1:

So carbohydrates are sugars, starches, fibers all found in the foods that we eat. So they're found across all platforms of food, from grains to plants to meats. It's everywhere. And there's different types of carbohydrates. There's simple carbs and there's complex carbs. Simple carbs are fast uptake carbs, monosaccharides, like glucose, dextrose, sucrose. They're found in fruit and are absorbed very quickly. You can usually taste the sweetness on your tongue immediately. Those are typically simple carbohydrates, where the sugars are right there. Complex carbohydrates come in fibers, grains and searches. So those are complex. They take the body a little bit longer to break down into the disaccharides and monosaccharides that we were talking about. Just like proteins have to be broken down into their amino acids, the same thing happens with sugars and carbs. They need to be broke down into their macronutrient form.

Speaker 1:

So the primary source of energy for the brain and muscles in our body are from carbohydrates. The brain only uses glucose, so we got to get that some way shape or form through our diet. And glucose is found across all foods, mainly fruits and vegetables. You'll see that in there, because even on a cellular level in plants, they need that as well. So we find that across all sustained life. It comes in through our foods. As long as they're from nature. You're usually getting enough glucose from that, so. And then muscles.

Speaker 1:

Muscles convert all carbohydrates into glycogen as the energy source to do what they need to do. Muscles use up a lot of glycogen, and that all comes from carbohydrates as well. So if the brain needs it and your muscles need it, you need it for sure. They're not bad. They're an absolute necessity to life. This is why long-term ketogenic diets, where we eliminate carbohydrates or put them on very low the brain and our muscles do take a lot of fatigue from that.

Speaker 1:

So these fad diets whatever we want to call them can be problematic for longevity and vitality over long periods of time. That's what this is all about. That's what the definition of wellness is. How long can you stay vital for in our life? So carbohydrates are like a fuel for our car. That's what glycogen is. So it's fuel. We need to put it into our systems. Our muscles convert it to glycogen and then, as those fuel tanks are used, during the day, maybe you went for a workout, maybe you went for a run, maybe you went, walked or stood all day or, as me, as a chiropractor, maybe you adjusted a bunch of patients all day and you use your muscles. At the end of the day, the glycogen is depleted, or hopefully you've been eating meals throughout the day to replenish the glycogen, and that's more of a realistic way of how we use carbohydrates in our diet. So how much carbohydrate do we really need? Let's get into the nitty gritty about carbohydrates. The general guidelines is that about 50% of our diet, or our caloric intake for the day, should come from carbohydrates. That way we have enough room for our proteins and fats for the rest of it. So 45 to 65%. This is where you're going to see on all. I call them athletic diets. So all diets that recommend exercise are. You're going to find that guideline Once you get into carb-restricted diets.

Speaker 1:

Those are a different group of diets. Keto diet, intermittent fasting diet those types of things where they eliminate carbohydrates or they're very low are more of the fad diets to help boost and speed up fat loss at the beginning and those diets should be done short term. There's a there's intermittent fasting diets and like even just not eating. You've heard of just fasting for 24, 48 hours and what can happen with breaking down zombie cells in the bodies, and I know these things are becoming popular of what happens with macrophagy in the body when it starts to eat dead cells and how rejuvenating that can be for the body. It's very true. However, these things should be done more of like an annual detox or just a certain time where you want to do that and have time to do that, or maybe you're on a break from your daily activity for a couple of days where you can do that and it is beneficial. There is a lot of benefits to fasting for certain amounts of time.

Speaker 1:

However, we're talking about good diet and proper diet habits. Today that's what we're talking about. So the general guidelines is about 50%. Needs vary based on age, activity level and individual goals. Like we talked about, if we're dieting, it's different. However, if we're trying to stay vital and stay well, it's going to be based on activity level and age. As we age, we need less carbohydrate, believe it or not.

Speaker 1:

Just because of the metabolism slowing down and other reasons, we should be eating complex carbohydrates most of the time to give our body more work to do to break these things down, because the simple stuff will fuel our glycogen very quickly, like simple sugars from fruits, will fuel that very quickly, and then anything extra that is not converted to glycogen is actually processed through our liver and converted to fat, believe it or not. So that's where we can end up putting on weight. So that's the issue with weight gain. So symptoms of inadequate carb intake can be things like fatigue, brain fog and poor performance. We see this in the keto groups and the Atkins diets, the high protein diets and the low carbohydrate diet. They start to get fatigued and brain fog through this, and that's because of the low glycogen or glucose levels.

Speaker 1:

What happens with excessive carb consumption, on the other hand, is it spikes our blood sugar, which can lead to potential weight gain if coupled with excessive calories. So when we eat too much or we exceed the caloric maintenance level for our age and our weight and our height, these things can be turned into weight gain because of an abundance of carbohydrates in the body. So for an active adult, what we want to do is figure out the portion sizes that make the carb intake realistic and healthy to maintain weight. So this is not a weight loss podcast. What this is is maintaining a healthy lifestyle. So we want whole, nutrient-dense carbohydrates and the sources of these come from fruits like bananas, berries, apples, oranges all fruits are nutrient dense in carbohydrates and there are fast, simple carbohydrates. Vegetables like sweet potatoes and squash are our complex carbohydrates with more starch in them. Then we can also get carbohydrates from our whole grains and these play a great role in glucose sensitivity, blood sugar regulation. So having quinoa, oats, brown rice in the diet has shown to maintain blood sugar levels and an optimal range. These are great things to have in there and the lack of them can increase blood sugar levels or make you insulin resistant and have sugar spikes whenever you do get into the complex or simple diet, carbohydrates like fruits and sweet potatoes and squash and all those things that we talked about Legumes are also a great resource. These are mainly your beans, your chickpeas, your lentils. And then all of these examples come with fiber, which I think is underestimated in our diet.

Speaker 1:

Fiber plays a vital role. It's a complex carbohydrate. It actually is caloric neutral, so you can eat a lot of fiber and it doesn't have much calorie, because what fiber does is it's not processed in our intestine. Fiber binds to other things in our intestine and pulls it with it to get it out of the body. So fiber plays a huge role in binding and getting things out of the intestinal track, so binding to waste products. So this is really important in there.

Speaker 1:

Fiber is not a laxative. That's a myth. So to increase fiber to help you go to the bathroom is actually a myth. It's actually going to create more binding, and what ends up happening with people that are irregularly going with their bowel movements can end up constipating them. So we got to play a fine line there. We don't want to use fiber to treat anything, but we do want to make sure that if we're not getting enough fiber, we definitely boost that up to help us have a healthier bowel movement, rather than trying to treat constipation or too much going to the bathroom.

Speaker 1:

So fiber should not be played as a prognosis. It should be treated as a balance in the body. So that's how we play with that, and you should only be getting your fiber from whole foods. There's no synthetic fiber you should be taking that we recommend ever for anything. So that's it when it comes to fiber. So fiber has zero calories, if you're going to look at it this way. So you can have as much of it as you want, but it fills you up and it can make you bloated too if you have too much fiber too. So it's just a natural balance that you're going to find out whether you're there.

Speaker 1:

So if you're not eating lentils or beans or quinoa or oats or brown rice or sweet potatoes or squash or none of these things that I'm saying, your fiber intake is probably pretty low. You're not going to get much from bananas, apples, berries not too much, because you're going to have to eat a lot of fruit to get there. Make sense. So we want minimally processed carbs, carbohydrates. So foods like whole grain bread and pasta have to be fit into our diet in moderation because they're processed. We don't want that in our diet as a staple. We're better off with brown rice, quinoa and oats.

Speaker 1:

And then meal prepping. Carbohydrates should make up about 50% of your meal prep. So if you're having half a cup of brown rice, that's your 50%, and then you just proportion your protein and fat around that as well. So typically how I balance my meals is I'll have a carbohydrate, usually brown rice, or even if it's white rice or something along those lines, then it's portioned the other almost 50% as protein. So four or five, six ounces of protein with that. So that will give me about 40 grams of carbohydrates through the rice. It'll give me 40 grams of protein through the protein and then the fat really comes through the oil that I cook the protein in. So that's my fat for there. Believe it or not, you can get two, three, four, five, six grams of fat in there.

Speaker 1:

Times nine You're getting 50, 60 calories of fat in there from the olive oil that you use or the avocado oil, whatever you cooked it in. And then on the side a green vegetable, broccoli, kale, whatever it may be, spinach, a mix of vegetables, onions, mushrooms, whatever you want to mix this with. That is pretty much a healthy, balanced meal right there. Whether you put things in your rice or not, whether there's beans or other vegetables in there, that's great. To mix it up, maybe like a Spanish rice, corn beans, whatever you put in there, that's fine to make it flavorful, or you like that and it's vegetables, it's great. That should all balance out to almost a 45, 45, 10 of 45% carbohydrate, 45% protein, 10% fat. That is a very balanced meal throughout the day to have for breakfast, lunch meals, snacks, dinner time.

Speaker 1:

We can go a little bit heavier on the proteins and fats and decrease their carbohydrates. Now think about that for a second. Why do we want to follow a rule like that? More so, it's because by the end of the day, we're getting ready for rest, and rest doesn't require much glycogen or fuel in the body, in the muscles, so therefore, at that point we can then sit there and replenish with protein, we talked, or fuel in the body, in the muscles. So therefore, at that point we can then sit there and replenish with protein. We talked about this in the last podcast, how protein replenishes and repairs organs and tissues in the body at night. Right, remember, that's where we heal. So hopefully that makes sense for you. So some simple guidelines to follow, and then you play with the caloric intake throughout the day, depending on what you're doing Seems like Americans are always either don't care in their maintenance phase or they are in weight loss phase.

Speaker 1:

That's where they're at. No one's really in gaining weight phase. No one ever chooses that Like, hey, I'm going to just get fat over the next year. That happens, incidentally, and unconsciously, over time. No, I don't think anyone chooses that or their weight or their bodybuilding, which, again, it goes back to protein. So I hope that makes sense as far as a guideline for that.

Speaker 1:

So you may have heard the things like good carbs, bad carbs. What are these things? Refined and highly processed carbs like sugary snacks, candy, white bread, soda these are all bad carbs. No surprises there. You guys have heard of all these. Any candy bar, any chocolate bar, sugary snacks. Soda is probably the most evil invention ever made on the planet. Liquid sugar I mean you could consume tons of this during the day tons of sugar during this, like even a six ounce glass or an eight ounce glass of soda is just an enormous amount of simple carbohydrate sugar, pure sugar, that your body will intake quickly. Spike insulin, fill up all the glycogen immediately in the body and then all the extra will be converted to fat. Then when you go and eat some rice or have some fruit later in the day, your glycogen stores are all full. It's all being converted to fat, unfortunately. So moderation versus restriction we got to play a role in this. Should I never have any soda? Should I never have a candy bar?

Speaker 1:

Labeling food as good or bad can lead to an unhealthy relationship with eating. So I found this over time that that is bad. If I want an Oreo, telling me that I can't have it, or even restricting myself from having it is just a bad game to play. It's no fun, life's no fun. I haven't met very many people in my life that are not foodies.

Speaker 1:

When people describe, they're like, are you a food person? I'm like I'm definitely a foodie. I love food. There's a difference between loving food and loving eating. I know some buddies of mine usually football players that love eating. They're big, big boys but they love to eat. They love the idea of eating. They eat fast, they consume a lot of food. I mean, you look at them. You're like yeah, I'm not surprised You're 100,. Yeah, I'm not surprised you're 100 pounds overweight. But for the rest of us foodies, you can be very lean and healthy and be a chef, you know, and be a foodie and be a very good cook. It's different. Watch how they live their lives with foodies. They like to just taste things and have a little bit of everything, and if the Oreo is there and they want it, they have it. That's a healthy relationship with food. Being a foodie, enjoying food, is great. And then those lucky people that don't care about food, about anything you know lucky for them. They're not tempted, that's. That's okay, as long as they're, they're healthy and eating a well balanced diet, that's great. So those are really the you know, healthy versus bad versus good.

Speaker 1:

Limiting this stuff can create imbalances with our food and how we mentally think about food, and that's where we can go off the deep end and fall into things like body dysmorphia, anorexia, bulimic. I mean these conditions that can happen because of the mental way we process food, and having a healthy relationship is really important with that. So just focus on balance. Most of your carbs should come from whole foods, but occasional indulgences are fine Birthdays, celebrations, fridays, it's all good, it's all great. We can enjoy a little bit of all that. So you know there's some myths too.

Speaker 1:

Carbs alone don't really make you fat. Weight gain happens when you consume more calories than your body needs. That's the fundamental rule. So let's say you don't eat a lot of carbs, but you tend to eat a lot of fat. Maybe it's just bad choices of the protein and fat combination that we have. We're eating the fatty cuts of meat. We eat a lot of bacon. We like our big consumption of ground meat, but maybe it's the non-lean ground meat.

Speaker 1:

You can add up fat very quickly. I don't know if you've ever had a six-ounce patty of ground meat. That's 85-15 as far as protein versus fat, 15% fat. And you cook it and you put it into your MyFitnessPal and you're like what the heck, how did I eat 32 grams of fat during this meal? Well, it came from the meat source and then that adds up quite a bit. Times that by nine you got 280 calories just from that meat patty, just from fat. That's not even the protein added in there. So that's how these things can trickle in. You have two strips of bacon. You're like where did that all come from? That fat can add up our calories a lot.

Speaker 1:

That's, I think, a secondary problem in the American diet is that the oils that we cook in and the fats that we consume really ramp up our caloric intake, which can increase our weight as well. So portion sizes play a big role. That's how you control caloric intake every day and every meal. And overall diet and lifestyle is what plays a role in our weight. If we're inactive and eat a lot, that's a bad recipe for weight gain. If we are active but have a poor diet, that can be a bad combination for weight gain. If we're active and have a great diet and focus on everything, it can be a great recipe for weight maintenance and even putting on muscle. So low carb diets seem to be the best weight loss programs. Oh, you weren't expecting that.

Speaker 1:

You know water, weight loss and reducing caloric intake are common reasons for the initial success in weight loss. So it's a lot of water loss that we lose because as we build up glycogen in our muscles, it pulls a lot of water with us. This is where supplements like creatine play a big role. They play a huge role in that process of absorbing carbohydrates into the muscle, especially glycogen, with water, and make the muscle look more dense. So when we go on to a diet, any type of diet that is low carb, the initial week, the first seven days, is where you see the biggest drop in mostly water, weight and inflammation. This is also inflammation, so the water will leave from inside the muscle and from our fat cells as well, which shrinks the fat cells. So that's great. So we start the shrinking of fat cells. Then what starts to happen afterwards, when we keep a low caloric intake and a low carbohydrate intake, is now the body starts moving from glycogen energy source to fat and then we start attacking those fat cells and trying to take the energy from the fat cell out, which shrinks them even more. Hence why we get actual weight loss and a slimmer result from that. We actually lose inches off the body and then, once we stop the diet or we influx carbohydrates, we can gain three to 10 pounds in a day.

Speaker 1:

What is that? Can't be fat, it's mainly water. You'll gain two to nine pounds of water overnight and that can happen because of a glycogen absorption from that. I've noticed that a couple of times with the diet that I eat and bodybuilding or body recomping is what I should say. It's so maintained all the time that if I get into a carbohydrate intake, my glycogen stores fill and I do gain a couple pounds, which is very different than 10 years ago where I wasn't doing body composition and I'd be low calorie, low carb for a long time, and then I would eat some pizza one night and I would gain 10 pounds the next night. It was mostly water, mostly water. That's why the scale can be your worst enemy. So that's that for that. So the water plays a big role in that. Water is going in and out to help transport everything, and sustainability matters more than trends. Don't worry about the new upcoming diet that's out there or the new shot that you can take.

Speaker 1:

These are trends that come and go. These are all the things that come and go. Remember, if you're old enough, the shaker plates women would just. These would be at the gyms, these plates that would shake. They're still around, they're vibration plates, but they would use them for weight loss. They would put bands around their bellies and shake on these things and these things would shake. Apparently, you could shake and vibrate the fat right off of your abdomen. Well, those don't exist anymore because that wasn't really working.

Speaker 1:

And then the next things that came out, you could cryo-freeze weight off your body, and now we've realized that that can't happen. And then you can melt it by sitting in a sauna. And we've realized that that can't happen. And then you can melt it by sitting in a sauna, and we've realized that that doesn't happen. So these trends all go away, and all those fad diets that don't exist anymore have all gone away as well.

Speaker 1:

But the ones that are tried, tested and true keep popping up again the whole 30 diet, the whole foods diet, the paleo diet, the Mediterranean diet. They've been around for decades because they are staples and foundationally sound diets. That's why so encourage your body to maintain comes from a well-rounded and predictable diet. Each and every day, your body gets used to the things you get used to the things you get used to the routine of meal prepping and getting things ready, because who has time to cook whole foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner and our snacks? It's tough. So meal prep plays a big role. Just like how you prep your children's lunches every day for the next day at school, it's the same thing you need to do for yourself as well.

Speaker 1:

So there's some misconceptions about carbs. Can I eat carbs at night? What about keto or low carb diets? And what is the deal with gluten? Is it a carb? These are the most common things I hear about carbohydrates and the misconceptions. Really, can I eat carbs at night? We talked about why you want to spread out your carbs during the day and maybe lean towards more of a protein and fat dense dinner as your last meal, because you're now resting for the rest of the day, so the energy source doesn't have to be carbohydrates anymore, because now you're going to relax at the end of the day, maybe sit in front of the computer. Do a couple more things help the kids with their homework, watch some television. That's about it. Unless you're going to the gym at eight o'clock at night, after dinner, there's really no reason to increase the carbs that we eat.

Speaker 1:

So can I eat carbs at night? You can do whatever you want. You're a full, grown adult, do whatever you want. Should I eat carbs at night? The answer is actually no. We shouldn't. We should actually help the the intermittent fasting process prolong for as long as we possibly can. That and the best time to do is at night. You're sleeping anyways, so you're not going to eat, so that's the best time to do it. Deplete the carbohydrates for the night, let your body heal and regenerate overnight, and then in the morning we break the fast with a whole rounded breakfast protein, carbohydrate, fat. That's the best way to break the fast in the morning, which is great, or you can prolong that if you're in a weight loss phase. This is where it works. Fantastic is skip breakfast and prolong the intermittent fasting phase as long as you can. Maybe eat an early lunch at 10 or 11 o'clock and break the fast then and now you've got a shorter window to eat and replenish the nutrition that you need for the day. That would be more of a weight loss type idea Keto or low-carb diets which ones are better?

Speaker 1:

I like the low-carb ones. For weight loss, if you're dieting, low-carb wins all the time Keto has drastic results. So for our patients that have 100 pounds to lose now we're comparing apples to oranges it really doesn't matter Keto or low carb, they're going to get great results either way. For our patients that have 10 pounds to lose or our clients have 10 pounds to lose definitely low carb Keto. It's going to be hard for them to get off of it. See the difference here. So keto is going to work. Low carb is going to be hard for them to get off of it. See the difference here. So keto is going to work. Low carb is going to work. But the low carb diet is going to constantly introduce carbohydrates every day for them at a healthy level, healthy caloric intake. Keto is really going to make this under 50 grams a day of carbohydrate, which, once they get off of keto because I've never met anyone that can stay on keto forever Once they get off of keto because I've never met anyone that can stay on keto forever Once they get off of this, they're going to bring in carbohydrates. And what happens? Water, glycogen, everything flushes the muscle tissue and they gain 10 pounds very, very fast, which can be disheartening if we're using the scale, which is tough. So that's tough there.

Speaker 1:

And then what's the deal with gluten? Is it a carb? No, gluten is actually a protein that's in the grains, in many grains that we eat, especially wheat, barley oat. It's a protein that's in there. That, for gluten intolerant people, can cause an irritation in the epithelial lining inside of their intestine, which can be very painful and cause diarrhea and a bunch of side effects there as well. So that's what gluten. Gluten is more of a protein. So there you go.

Speaker 1:

Those are the most, the three, most biggest misconceptions. So carbs are essential for energy and overall health. We have to have them. Prioritize whole nutrition, dense sources. Balance and moderation are key. No need to fear carbs, you know, and you know, swap out the sugary stuff for the more complex carbohydrates. That'll save you a bunch of frustration as far as vitality, wellness and energy. And then and then share your favorite based, carb based meals with us. Let's get a little bit interactive for you, maybe some recipes that you enjoy. What's your favorite carb? Good or bad? Meat Pasta I absolutely love pasta as Italian, a good Italian would. That's my favorite carbohydrate. Limit it to two, three times a month, that's you know. Otherwise it gets out of control. There you go. So review share like times a month, otherwise it gets out of control. There you go. Review share like stay healthy, stay well with everything that you do. A healthy diet goes a very long way on all the research for vitality, wellness and longevity. We all want to live long, healthy, happy lives. Starts with diet. Take care, stay healthy.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host
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Dr. Crystal Corona

Co-host