Simple solutions to fit Real Life

Last year I gave up carbs to eat more carbs.

To clarify: I subbed out carbs for carbs.

WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS THAT I DON’T EAT CARBS ANYMORE BUT I DO STILL EAT CARBS.

Stace. Stop. Breathe. Don’t succumb to the carb-troversy.

Mark and I said “so long, bon voyagee!” to the foods that were doing us harm, but those foods are also in the same category of ones that bring us so many nutrients. Like, all the nutrients.

Let’s look at the carb. It’s energy. It’s fuel. Before the advent of the Cheeto it was the fruits and vegetables and whole grains that gave our bodies the natural sugars to fuel us and the fiber to feed our lovely little gut bacteria. But modern diets now include the ultra-processed, heavily refined food-ish items that still provide energy but offer little else by way of the nutrients our cells and muscles and brain needs to function.

Carbohydrates are blamed for obesity and for diabetes; for sugar crashes and sluggishness; for bad overall health. And this is true for the breads, pasta, and bakery tasty treats that are loaded with refined ingredients and saturated fats. These are foods that are not only devoid of nutrients, they also create havoc inside your body, in your blood vessels, your brain, your gut, and contribute to a speedy breakdown of your cells. Which are kinda important to…life.

And so the “carb” label gives us a negative feeling about what we’re eating. We look toward “low carb” or “no carb” diets and it’s as though the pendulum has swung from too many donuts OMG! to zero donuts but also zero potatoes! And I don’t see that as the answer.

Why?

See fuel bit above.

We need to fuel our bodies! And more importantly, we need to fuel our bodies so we can then move them! The right carb is the answer, not the problem.

So let me introduce you to some of my favorites.

Veggies

We try to pack in as many types of vegetables, as many colors, as we can throughout our week. Variety in this area makes sure we not only get the energy but we also get the other nutrients the different types of vegetables offer.

In our roasted veggie salads, our go-to favorites are potatoes, red and sweet, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, peppers, onion, and squash. Our regular salads are a “garbage pail” of sort; we follow the rule of “Is it a vegetable? Then put it in the bowl!” because with a generous drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar all those flavors mixed together offer something tasty.

Beans, seeds and legumes are in this category also; and you know what they say about beans, beans, the magical fruit? The more you eat, the more…power you have to run that last mile, obviously.

Fruits

We go nuts on variety here too. I have an arbitrary goal of 30 different fruits and vegetables each week (again, to give us more of the different nutrients each type of fruit offers) and we get pretty close most weeks. Unfortunately, the sugar in fruit is also as vilified as the carb and some diets suggest limiting intake. But it’s important to make the distinction: added sugar on its own is something to limit, but the fruit as a whole, with all of the fiber included, is a good and natural source of energy.

In the summer we go absolutely nuts over melons. As a reformed brownie addict, I’ve grown to L-O-V-E a watermelon dessert. We also add bananas to anything we once relied on table sugar or honey to sweeten; a ripe banana offers the perfect amount of sweetness (now that my palate is de-sensitized to the obscene amounts of sugar I used to consume). For a snack, we’ll pop berries like we used to do with chips or crackers.

Grains

I don’t know that many people are excited about a good grain like they are a juicy, ripe watermelon. I’ll be the first to admit that whole wheat things taste a bit cardboard-y. But if we’re shifting the way we look at food as more of a fuel, we can look at our grains as more of a vessel to help shovel in more nutritious, better tasting, foods, while serving a very important purpose (hellooooo gut health!)

I am very much all aboard the quinoa bowl train. It’s my favorite grain (I hope for you to one day have a favorite grain too so I don’t feel weird out here on this limb) with a nutty flavor and firm texture, and I love that I can pair it with literally anything.

When Mark first met me, I lived alone and blamed my simple eating habits on the fact that I had no one to cook for (lol, I now have people to cook for and I still don’t do it). My favorite meal was scrambled eggs and quinoa. I ate it all the time, and I would still be eating it if Mark wasn’t constantly cooking all kinds of complex and delicious meals all the time. Sheesh.

But we also don’t shy away from breads! Who doesn’t have a craving for something soft and baked every (second of the day) now and then? Even a whole grain serves the purpose of comfort while still giving us nutrients we need.

So do we limit ourselves on any of the above?

Yes and no.

Just try eating a bowl full of sweet potatoes and see how far you get. Spoiler: not as far as any type of calorie limit you might have if you’re trying to lose weight. Your body has this fun little mechanism to let you know that it’s full, and if you listen to it you don’t need to set strict boundaries on how much you can load up on.

When we pay attention to what we’re eating, we can make sure what we’re putting in brings us good health, not empty (and oftentimes destructive!) calories. The carbohydrates we need are from veggies, fruits and grains that are minimally processed and unrefined; ones that are not preserved or dusted with orange “cheese”.

Follow that simple rule and you, too, can be on the good carb train!

Choo-chooo!

(And please let me know what your favorite grain is…)