If you’re a carb lover, you’ve never felt so out of place in the health world. The low-carb diet is trending, leaving you to wonder if you need to jump that train to get healthy. But in the same breath, you wonder how you’ll manage because carbs are life. Today I want to speak the truth about carbohydrates, so you never have to ask if you should eat carbohydrates again.

Carbohydrates are surrounded by a great deal of controversy in the health space. No matter what way you swing the argument, you can find research to back it up. That seems to be a trend in the health space. Adding confusion and pulling the attention away from the only thing that can change your health, and that is understanding what your body needs.

But the truth is, this subject isn’t as dicey as the world has made it out to be. The better news, carbohydrates are a part of a healthy diet. In fact, they’re essential.

Today we change the narrative proving it’s not the elimination you need. It’s understanding how your body works and what it does with the carbohydrates you consume. What your body does with what you provide produces the outcome you see.

Don’t focus so much on what you eat or what you shouldn’t eat that you miss what your body needs. In most cases, 99.9% of them, your body needs healthy carbohydrates to a certain degree.

On this podcast, we dive into the science on carbohydrates, why your body needs them, the process of ketosis, and the real cause behind your drive for another flash diet. I also give you arguing points to let go of the shame you might feel when you sink your teeth into that granola bar.

Go ahead and eat carbohydrates, making peace with carbs once and for all.

What are carbohydrates?

You might think you know what a carbohydrate is, but let me reiterate it. A carbohydrate is a macronutrient, and macronutrients are nutrients. We could get into the fancy stuff, like the structure of carbohydrates and the level of fiber they contain. But what we need to keep reminding ourselves, carbohydrates are still a nutrient.

Nutrients that nourish the body, providing an essential foundation for health. Of course, this gets a little tricky when we label entire food groups as one macronutrient when some contain multiple macronutrients. Even vegetables, while mostly carbohydrates, can contain protein or fat and sometimes both. The same happens in every natural food group, including nuts and seeds or legumes. Most foods contain multiple macronutrients, even if one is of higher density, carrying the specific label.

But we can’t discount this. It’s a point that needs to be clarified, showcasing the difference between processed carbohydrates like simple sugars containing only carbohydrates and those natural sources containing many macronutrients loaded with micronutrients. Helping us to make sense of why not all foods are created equal.

The difference in these foods, those with more macronutrients and micronutrients, will be processed, digested, and absorbed differently than those processed sources, even if they contain a lot of carbohydrates. Which is why we can’t compare carbohydrates on a food label. It’s not like comparing apples to apples. There is a lot more that goes into it. Your body is much more detailed than this.

Are Carbohydrates healthy?

While it is debatable whether carbohydrates are essential to the body based on the body’s ability to produce alternative fuel sources, we have to be careful not to dumb this down to logic. The alternate fuel source our body can rely on is called ketosis, and where the name keto was born to classify low-carbohydrate diets.

But just because your body can do it, does it mean it’s healthy?

That’s the question I constantly ask.

Our bodies are incredible at compensating for what we’re not providing—surviving crazy amounts of stress. But just because it can, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. And at what expense do these external changes bring internally?
These questions are the foundation for the endless arguments surrounding carbohydrates, with plenty of research on both sides of the field. But if you dive in, you’ll find that while your body can survive on ketones, it’s not the intended fuel source the majority of the time.

If you look at your system as a whole, you’ll realize that carbohydrates are not actually the problem, but the problem is your mindset behind them. Leading you to consume far too many of the wrong kinds.

I think we’re missing health in a sea of diets telling you what to eat and how to move when the problem that keeps you stuck is not either of those things but why you do those things.

This isn’t just a food problem. It never is, nor ever has been. Of course, what you eat matters. Changing what you eat can change your external appearance. But it won’t stick long-term unless you deal with the root – that is your mindset that changes your cravings and changes what your body does with the food you eat.

You have to look at your system as a whole, recognizing that maybe this entire low-carbohydrate subject is not even needed when you stop giving food power and start eating for health. When you stop eating to look a certain way and start eating for longevity.

My Case for Why You Should eat Carbohydrates

I’m not arguing that weight loss doesn’t happen on a low-carb diet, but I want you to realize at what expense. Eliminating an entire macronutrient group is not just a means of changing an external appearance, it changes your entire body chemistry. When you change your entire body chemistry, changing it back (consuming carbohydrates again) will produce its own negative consequences. Why? Because you’ve changed your biology – for good or for bad.

I’ll think we’re all asking the wrong question in the health space. We need to stop asking what foods are good or bad, but what foods produce the most energy to my system? Not just calorie energy but physical energy that you feel.

Health is always and only about energy to your system.

The more energized your body is, the less your body will need food. Especially those quick carbohydrates you crave. Decreasing your cravings for carbohydrates and food while energizing your system, leading to weight loss without restriction. Health is not just about what you eat, it’s about how your body channels energy, and that’s what you really need.

If you want to learn how to channel energy, getting healthy without restriction, enroll in Health Made Simple.
Don’t get lost in the science of right and wrong, good or bad. But go back to what we’ve always done, what your body was born to do.

Working for longevity, not just quick results.

Carbohydrates are not just energy, they’re nutrients.

Your body needs carbohydrates because carbohydrates bring with them many essential micronutrients your body needs to heal and thrive. Don’t be scared of carbohydrates but understand them and what they can do for your body. Not too many, not too little, but just right.

Take note: Just because I’m for carbohydrates doesn’t mean I’m for binging on them or consuming processed carbohydrates.

Overeating anything can stress your body, adding excess body fat (1). That doesn’t just happen with carbohydrates. We just tend to gravitate toward more carbohydrates than other foods.

I mentioned it already. The real problem with health is not the food itself, but why we eat the food we do. If we ate for nourishment, the topic of carbohydrates vs. protein would be off the table. But our relationship with food has become complex. And our bodies have become more stressed, making them more reactive to the food that we eat.

This reaction we have is the root that we need to deal with. We should be able to handle a healthy amount of carbohydrates. For most of us, that amount should be less than what we currently consume or perhaps just better sources. But even if we overate carbohydrates, our body should be capable of processing and burning through them without feeling the need to store, hoard, and conserve them.

But we don’t. Because our bodies are stressed physically, mentally, and emotionally. And when you’re stressed, your working energy goes down, and your drive for energy goes up—leading you to crave all the carbs and look for comfort food on a bad day.

This isn’t wrong. It’s natural.

But rather than fighting it, what if you learned how to satisfy what your body is really after. That is energy. Learning how to supply energy in healthy ways – ways outside of food. If you want the answers to do this, changing your health without giving up your life, enroll in Health Made Simple.

You’ll never look back, and you’ll never give up a carb again.