Opposite Ends of the Spectrum: Carb Coma versus Low-Carb Flu
The first time I ever heard reference to a “carb coma” was while watching The Biggest Loser TV show. The contestants had been given the challenge to eat a smorgasbord of their favorite sugary, starchy, dairy, and gluten-laden foods, all in the hopes of earning the golden ticket—a 2-pound advantage at weigh-in. Half the contestants dove in, eating candy bars, hot dogs, pizza, pasta, cookies, doughnuts, and more. I have no idea who won, but what I do remember are the reactions of trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels once the feeding frenzy ended. The trainers entered the room where the contestants were scattered glassy-eyed and bloated. I recall watching Bob Harper, disgusted with the group, point to a contestant and saying something along the lines of, “Tara is sitting over there in such a carb coma she can barely move.”
And the thing was, even through the TV, I could see what he was talking about. The contestants were sitting there numb, glassy-eyed, and just dull looking. It was a noticeable, visual difference from the contestants around them who’d chosen not to partake in the game. Obviously pounds of weight hadn’t instantly appeared on the contestants but just looking at them, you could tell they felt heavier.
Carb comas are real and I’m willing to bet you’ve experienced them, and much more frequently than you may realize.
“CARB COMA” DEFINED
The fancy name for a carb coma is “postprandial somnolence.” And what is that, exactly? An overly simplified definition is that it’s drowsiness related to glucose entering the bloodstream due to the type of food that’s just been consumed.
Why do these attacks of drowsiness occur? Contrary to what we’ve been told, carbohydrates in and of themselves are not the enemy. Our bodies and minds need carbohydrates for energy. But all carbs are not created equal. Junk food as well as many of the carbohydrates that are part of a “healthy” diet (think whole-grain bagel with peanut butter or fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt) more quickly converts to sugar in the bloodstream. This in turn produces a rise of insulin as your body struggles to maintain normal blood sugar levels and move the “toxic” glucose out. It does this in one of two ways. First, it shoves the extra sugar into muscles. But we only have limited storage space there so guess what? All the excess glucose gets converted to fat. Yippee.
Next is the roller-coaster ride. You’ve felt that swift, jittery, sometimes nauseous feeling that comes with either eating too much food or even just eating small amounts of certain foods such as sweets? As insulin floods your system to drive down blood sugar levels, your body is thrown into a state of chaos, often referred to as a sugar rush. However, what goes up must come down. As the insulin does its job and pushes the glucose out of your bloodstream and into your fat cells, your blood sugar levels drop, causing you to feel thick, heavy, and lethargic. Sound familiar? Congratulations. The sugar crash has set in.
Unfortunately, this merry-go-round of up and down is a daily occurrence for millions of Americans who take it for granted they will feel dazed and sleepy upon returning to the office after lunch. Sugar is the primary culprit. But this pattern (often repeated at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and with snacks) takes a toll on the body, creating a vicious cycle of inflammation that stresses the body to the core, each and every day.
Is it worth it? Along with the feelings of drowsiness and lethargy also come the feelings of helplessness and self-loathing. We hate that we feel bloated and out of control. We swear we’ll never overeat like that again. Or we promise we’ll confine ourselves to a mere taste of the sugary foods that cause the peaks and valleys. And we mean it. Until the next time rolls around…
LOW-CARB FLU: TRANSITIONING FROM A HIGH-CARB DIET
Let’s jump to the opposite end of the spectrum. Obviously carb comas are bad news, both in terms of what they do to the body and how they make you feel. The good news is that eating Paleo Vegetarian means you will end, once and for all, the cycle of sugar highs and lows and the doldrums that accompany that way of eating. Let’s face it; it’s pretty challenging to drag yourself into a carb coma on a diet that consists primarily of vegetables.
However, if your diet has previously been heavy in carbs—and most every vegetarian’s diet is—you may experience a transition period that will leave you feeling, well, crappy.
The carb flu or low-carb flu refers to a set of symptoms that occur as the body detoxes from its carb-laden state. (Another way to think of it is the transition period as your body moves from being sugar burning to fat burning.) Not everyone experiences carb flu and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for who does and who doesn’t. But if, as you begin your PV journey, you feel any or all of the symptoms below, recognize that you’re not sick, you’re not dying, and this diet isn’t “terrible because of how it makes me feel.” Feeling “meh” for a short time actually means you’re on the way to feeling much better each and every day for the rest of your life.
THE DOCTOR IS IN
You may be experiencing a version of low-carb flu if, after starting to eat PV, you experience:
Aches and shakiness
Headaches
Mental fog or fuzziness (forgetting things)
Constant tiredness/fatigue
Mood swings
Difficulty completing workouts
These symptoms may last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Wait—a few weeks? Yup. Which is why it’s important you have a heads-up that it may be coming. Otherwise, if you’re feeling constantly drained of energy, with a low-grade headache and achy joints, you’re going to jump to the logical-seeming (yet incorrect) conclusion that this diet is horrible for you and your health.
If you do get hit with the low-carb flu, there are some things you can try to alleviate the symptoms. These include:
Staying hydrated
Getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep each night
Eating more healthy fats such as avocados, olive/coconut oils, real butter or ghee, whole eggs, nuts
Eating a little protein and fat before a workout
Reducing the intensity of your workouts until the symptoms pass, especially if you’re doing high-intensity workouts that last over an hour
Remember, low-carb flu is simply your body transitioning from using unhealthy glucose carbs to the more ideal situation of creating glucose from healthy fats and proteins. The symptoms will pass and you’ll not only return to normal, you’ll return to a state of amped-up, feeling better than normal that will make you wonder how you ever used to get through your day in your zombielike carb-coma state.
Don’t Fear the Fat
I love the look of shock on people’s faces when I explain to them that I eat a high-fat diet. We, all of us, have been brainwashed for so long to think “low-fat” that we don’t even question the reasoning behind it any longer. But the SnackWells era of “OMG—there is no fat in these cookies! Here, let’s split a box” made us all—you guessed it—fat.
Is it true you can lose weight on a high-fat diet? Yes, it is. And do you want to know the two best things about eating fat?
1. Fat tastes REALLY good.
2. Fat fills you up.
I know, right? Like Halloween and Christmas all rolled into one. Naturally, not all fat is created equal. While I would love to tell you that the fat found in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is the good healthy kind, um, no. Unfortunately, I can’t do it. (But rest assured if that ever happens, I will phone you immediately.)
There are, however, a number of phenomenally healthy fats out there in which you may feel free to indulge. And—this is the fun part—you finally get a leg up on all your friends and family who have mocked, questioned, or challenged your diet. What, Cousin Jessica, you’re forgoing butter on your dinner roll because it’s fattening? Huh. Well, I’m just going to drown my vegetables in some real butter14and say, “Mmmmmm….” in front of you while I eat them. (Yeah, Jessica and I have issues.)
Fats will be a key part in your dieting success. Take a deep breath and read that again. Don’t just gloss over the words. Embrace them. Fats help you lose weight. This is important. I’m serious about the brainwashing. We are a country that fears fat. But if you’re going to make the PV diet work for you, you need to overcome any mental block you have to eating fat. It really is the key to filling you up and helping you crave less food, thereby assisting in long-term weight loss.
So come, join me on a tour of what I like to call the fun and fantastic world of fats.
FAT AT A GLANCE
There’s a world of research available on fats—saturated versus unsaturated and the role of cholesterol and the family of omegas. Google search “Paleo fats” and you’ll find long diatribes with complicated-looking equations and chemical compounds. We’re not going into all that here. But I will give you a quick insight into the role fat plays in the PV world and why the Paleo view on fat differs so radically from that of conventional medical wisdom.
There are three primary categories of fatty acids: saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. Let’s focus on saturated fat. Why? Because it’s gotten such a bad rap. People tend to lump cholesterol and saturated fat into one great big “no-no” category. “Death by cholesterol! Heart-clogging disease!” These are but a few of the rallying cries of conventional wisdom against eating saturated fats. So why do Paleoists embrace them?
Saturated fats are essential to body function. Intake of saturated fats plays a key role in brain function and cardiovascular benefits and help with everything from calcium absorption for strong bones to boosting our immune systems. In fact, new studies indicate that heart disease and obesity is caused not by saturated fats (like eggs, red meat, butter, cheese) but by “healthy” unsaturated foods like corn and vegetable oils. Saturated fats taste good and fill you up. They’re a “yes” on a Paleo-based diet.
Next is monounsaturated fats. The Paleo take on these fats is that they are good for you so long as they aren’t heated, as this causes a breakdown of free radicals. (Insert complicated chemical-chain graphic here…yawn.) Monounsaturated fats lower blood cholesterol concentrations and are found in foods like olive oil, nuts, and avocados.
Now for the bad boys, the polyunsaturated fats (cue scary music). For once, conventional wisdom has it right. These fats are not good for you, as our bodies can’t metabolize them. You’ll find most polyunsaturated fats hiding behind names like “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” on the ingredient list. Often these fats are used to give foods a long shelf life.
And finally, trans fat. No section on fats would be complete without mention of trans fats. Found in most any form of junk food and frequently listed as “partially hydrogenated” on the ingredients list, trans fats are unhealthy and throw the body into a tailspin. They’re also a common cause behind weight gain. Avoid, avoid, avoid!
THE OMEGA FAMILY
Omega-3s and omega-6s are both necessary for our health. However, the standard American diet is heavy in omega-6s and generally lacking in omega-3s. What foods contain omega-3s? Wild-caught fish, eggs, and nuts are the standout stars; although lower in concentration, dark green vegetables like broccoli and spinach also contain amounts of these healthy fats. Flax seeds and walnuts are wonderful, and even though not Paleo (but possibly included in a modified PV diet), beans contain good amounts of omega-3s as well. That’s your overview. Now let’s dig into some of the actual ingredients you can and should be using in your PV diet.
WHAT PV FATS SHOULD I BE EATING?
To say that Paleo folks love their fats is like saying that race car drivers like to occasionally step on the gas. Uh, yeah they do. As Paleo Vegetarians, we adopt the same fat-loving mindset of pure Paleoists, if not the exact same set of fats. True Paleo relies heavily on animal fats. Beef lard, bacon drippings, poultry fat, tallow, duck fat…Paleo recipe websites are literally dripping in animal fat.
That’s not our bag. So what fats as Paleo Vegetarians can and should we be eating?
Butter
Or as I like to call it, “butt-ahhh.” When it comes to livening up foods, the saying “Everything’s better with butter” isn’t just a tagline, it’s a mantra. Butter has a low smoke point, so it’s not great for high-temperature cooking, but there aren’t many foods I can think of that won’t benefit from a little butter poured over them, especially fish and fresh veggies. Ideally you want your butter to come from a grass-fed cow as it will contain more CLAs, or conjugated linoleic acids. Even if the term sounds ominous, CLAs are our friends. Studies are showing CLAs help reduce body fat, increase muscle strength, and help with endurance workouts.
Ghee
Ghee is clarified butter, meaning butter with all of the milk solids removed. In other words, it’s pure fat. Or in other, other words, pure heaven. It has a much higher smoke point than butter, making it ideal for sautés. It also has a slightly nuttier flavor than butter, which is really, really good when preparing eggs and veggies. Did I already use the word “heaven”? I did. Well, ghee deserves a double dose: It’s heavenly.
Olive Oil
Olive oil is also 100 percent fat. (Notice a trend here?) Aside from being mostly monounsaturated healthy fat, olive oil also serves up healthy doses of vitamins E and K. It has a low smoke point and may not be ideal for cooking, but it’s perfect for cold dressings or as a healthy drizzle on top of your meals. Go for extra-virgin olive oil for higher quality and a stronger flavor.
Coconut Oil
Say hello to your new best friend. Coconut anything is often hailed as king in the Paleo world, and you’ll find coconut used in a lot of recipes, especially Paleo desserts, where coconut flour reigns supreme. As a fat, however, coconut oil has a lot going for it. It’s solid at room temperature due to the fact that it’s mostly saturated fat. Gasp. Saturated fat? But…but…isn’t that the bad stuff?
Yes, if it’s found in a Taco Bell burrito. No, if it’s found in coconut oil. What’s the difference? The quick answer is coconut oil contains lauric acid, known to help lower cholesterol levels. Lesson? Taco Bell—bad. Coconut oil—good.
Other Oils
I’m pretty low-key when it comes to cooking, sticking with ghee, extra-virgin olive oil, and coconut oil for almost all my baking, sauté, and dressing needs. However, there’s a world of oils out there, so feel free to experiment with tastes. Other fatty friends in the Paleo world of oils include walnut, macadamia, avocado, and flax seed oils.
Avocados
If there is such a thing as the perfect food, the avocado may get my vote. There was a time back in my calorie-counting days when I would gasp in horror at the very idea of eating guacamole. “Do you have any idea how fatteningthat is?” I would ask. Thank heavens those dark days are over. Yours should be, too. And if that’s the case, bring on the guac! Full of antioxidants, low in sugar, a great source of vitamins K1, B9, and C, and chock-full of energy in the form of fat, avocados are the rock star of the Paleo world. As if that’s not enough, avocados help our bodies absorb nutrients, making them the perfect accompaniment to any meal.
Nuts and Seeds
Nuts and seeds are Paleo-friendly. (Pause for cheers and applause.) However, nuts are sneaky. Chances are I’m not going to accidentally plow through half a can of ghee. The same can’t be said for leaving me alone with a jar of cashews. Definitely enjoy a handful of nuts each day as a snack, but do monitor your intake, especially if you’re using PV to lose weight. Feel free to mix and match among the following:
Almonds
Cashews
Hazelnuts
Macadamia nuts
Pecans
Pine nuts
Pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
Sunflower seeds
Walnuts
Note: Be wary of nuts on salads in restaurants. A salad with “tossed pecans” usually means tossed candied pecans. Same for walnuts, etc. It’s easy enough to ask the server to hold the candied nuts and toss a few plain ones in there.
Eggs
Leave the egg-white omelet behind. For those of you eating eggs (and I strongly recommend you do), the yolk is where the money’s at. The yolk is host to the many nutrients found in eggs, including vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K, and is also a source of calcium, iron, folate, and zinc. It’s not uncommon for me to eat as many as five to seven eggs a day. That’s right. A day. We’ve been brainwashed to think of eggs, and especially the yolks, as cholesterol-producing nightmares. Not true. Eggs from pasture-raised chickens are also higher in vitamins than conventional eggs are, so if possible and within your budget, do seek them out.
Fish
I know this isn’t for everyone, but if you do eat fish, go for the fatty ones—salmon, trout, and mackerel come to mind. Smaller fish like sardines, anchovies, and herring are great for snacks or to add some much-needed healthy, flavorful fat to a salad.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLESTEROL
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: cholesterol. Try telling people you eat five eggs a day and watch them scramble (ha ha—get it?) to hand you their cardiologist’s number. (The fact that they have a cardiologist should tell you something about their diet.)
Okay, moment of truth. It took me a while to embrace my love of eggs and fats. In general, I was terrified of adding fats to my diet for fear of gaining weight. With eggs, I couldn’t see past the formula I’d been fed for years that egg whites were good, egg yolks were bad. After all, 1,000 anorexic-looking, egg-white-omelet-ordering movie stars can’t be wrong. Or can they?
Here’s the dish on cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol, which is what we’re talking about when we talk about egg yolks, doesn’t impact blood cholesterol. In fact, adding dietary cholesterol (the healthy kind) to your diet can actually help keep your blood cholesterol levels in check. Why? You’re feeding your body healthy cholesterol so it doesn’t feel required to make the bad stuff.
When it comes to fat and the fear of weight gain, repeat after me: Fat fills me up. Fat fills me up. Fat fills me up. In fact, one of the biggest “dieting” mistakes people make is cutting the fat from their diets. This leaves them with little to no energy for their workouts, they’re almost constantly hungry, their joints ache, and they’re in a mental fog as well. That’s a hard row to hoe to lose some weight. The healthy fats above will give you energy, lubricated joints, and mental clarity and keep you feeling satiated after a meal. If that’s not enough, the very presence of fat will help you absorb nutrients from the many fruits and vegetables you’re eating. Win-win.
Fruit: The Secret Saboteur of Weight Loss?
Eat more fruits and vegetables.
Every diet in the world promotes replacing unhealthy food with healthier options like fresh fruits and vegetables. The Paleo diet and the Paleo Vegetarian diet are no exception. A handful of plump, fresh, antioxidant-boosting blueberries for a midmorning snack? Yes, please. Fruits are a quick and easy on-the-go food that taste good and can satisfy the urge for something sweet.15 Too much of a good thing has its drawbacks, however, and fruit is no exception.
Years ago, a friend shared with me a diet that was heavily based on fast-food meats and cheese (I know, right?) but didn’t allow fruit. As in, zero fruit. Zip. Nada. My incredulousness was matched only by my outrage at how yet another “miracle diet” was hoodwinking innocent people like my wanting-to-believe friend.
“There is no way that completely eliminating an entire major food group like fruit can be good for you,” I informed her, perhaps somewhat haughtily.
“How is that any different than you wiping out an entire food group by not eating meat?” she countered.
“Well, that’s…you’re taking out of context…It’s accepted that, I mean—hey, at least I won’t get scurvy on my diet!”
Flash forward to the present, and I owe my friend an apology. While I’ll never understand how a diet can get away with promoting people to eat fast “food,” it turns out there is something to weight loss and the no fruit thing.
Before you panic that I’m going to ban fruit, let me put your fears to rest. My favorite treat in life is a banana smeared in almond butter. I will not give that up. Ever. But for those interested in weight loss, too much fructose (fruit sugar) can undermine your goal. How much fruit is too much and how much is just right? Good question. Let’s discuss.
THE GOAL: FAT BURNING VERSUS SUGAR BURNING
As has hopefully become clear by now, sugar is the enemy of any Paleo-based diet, as well as anyone trying to lose weight. It inflames the body and promotes weight gain. And to your body, a sugar hit is a sugar hit.
For weight loss, the guideline is you want to keep your sugars at or below 20 grams a day. That’s not a lot when you consider that a banana has almost 16 grams of sugar and a medium apple has 14. Dried peaches? Forty-four grams. (I just blew your mind, I know.)
The point being, whether you eat fresh pineapple or a bag of Skittles, your insulin levels will skyrocket and that excess sugar in your blood is going to be converted to fat. To add insult to injury, many fruits are also high in carbohydrates, something that needs to be limited for weight loss.
FIBER WON’T MAKE SUGAR GO AWAY
“But what about the fiber?” I hear you asking. “I’m eating fiber when I eat fruit, so that’s healthy, right?”
Please understand that I’m not saying fruit is unhealthy. And if it comes down to a choice between the pineapple and the Skittles, I will always push the pineapple. What I am saying, however, is that when you’re trying to lose weight, the number-one thing you need to do isn’t calorie count or exercise more or starve yourself. The number-one thing you need to do is reduce or limit your sugar intake. Period.
A diet heavy in fruit doesn’t allow for this. The fiber present with fructose in fruits does slow the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream, but it doesn’t completely negate it. We’ve still got to deal with those pesky insulin surges that, once they abate, leave us feeling droopy and lethargic and—upsettingly—hungry. And not just hungry, but sugar-craving hungry. Having had too much sugar, our bodies are giving us the SOS signal to SEND MORE SUGAR. Thus starts a vicious cycle that goes something like this: sugar leaves our bloodstream, so our body tells us it’s hungry because it’s craving sugar, so we eat sugar (healthy sugar, like an apple), so we’re on a sugar high, so we crash, so the hunger kicks in again.
How much fruit is okay? Please don’t hate me for saying this, but it really depends on the person. Men sometimes seem to tolerate fruit better than women (i.e., they can eat it and keep the weight off) but that doesn’t hold true across the board. Whether you eat fruit and what kind and how much depends on your goals, your activity level, and whether or not you’ve made the transition from sugar-burning to fat-burning.
A common mistake for dieters turning Paleo or Paleo Vegetarian is to eat fruit as a substitute for the foods they’re missing, namely grains. But while grabbing an apple at breakfast, a banana as a midmorning snack, melon at lunch, berries as another snack, and grilled pineapple at dinner sounds healthy, eating like that is going to send your body into a sugar tailspin that will pack on the pounds. It’s also going to leave you frustrated, feeling like you’re doing everything right (it’s an apple, for God’s sake!) but not seeing the results you desire.
AVOID FRUIT FOR THE MOMENT, NOT FOREVER
There’s only one way to find out what level of fruit your body can handle and still maintain to lose weight and that’s to experiment. If you’re seeking to lose weight, avoid fruit for the short haul. I promise you, you’ll live. I’ve gone years limiting myself to a piece or two of fruit a week and suffered no adverse health effects. And lest you think I speak for everyone, you can go on any Paleo website and chat with scads of people who, for the most part, avoid fruits as well.
If ditching fruit entirely strikes you as too extreme, limit fruit to a small amount each day, such as a handful of berries, which offer the best chance for a low insulin response. Berries are also packed with antioxidants and are nutritionally dense.
Some fruits to definitely avoid for weight loss due to their high sugar content include mangos, melons, pineapple, grapes, figs, dates, bananas (sob—my favorite!), and kiwi. Also avoid most dried fruits (did you read the thing above about the peaches?) which are high in sugar with minimal nutritional value.
Once you’ve gone without fruit and are following a PV diet at least 80 percent of the time and are seeing weight loss, play around with adding fruit back into your diet. Start off with lower fructose fruit like berries and work up to others like an apple or grapefruit or grapes. If the weight starts coming back on, you’ll know you need to cut back.
FRUIT JUICE AND SMOOTHIES
I don’t know what marketing firm was responsible for the masterful trick of making Americans think smoothies are healthy but he or she deserves to be crowned. As a general rule—no, wait. Not as a general rule. Let’s just put it out there as a rule: avoid smoothies. They’re filled with fruit which, as we’ve already seen, is a barrier to weight loss. But almost every smoothie has added ingredients like honey or peanut butter or syrups or just added sugar to sweeten them even more.
Perusing the online nutritional counter for one national smoothie chain, I see that a “Low-Carb Banana” smoothie has 39 grams of sugar. And a “Slim and Trim Chocolate” smoothie has 48 grams. For weight loss, we’re aiming for 20 grams per day. Two sips of one of these “healthy” smoothies and you’ve reached your sugar max for the day. Avoid them.
Also, unless you know for a fact that you can tolerate loads of fruit and not gain weight, throw away your juicer. You don’t need that much fruit in one serving. And never, ever, ever buy fruit juice, also known as the devil’s elixir. (Okay, I made that up.) Expect anywhere from 20 to 40 grams of sugar in an eight-ounce glass. Not worth it.
FRUIT IS NOT THE ENEMY
For all that I’ve said to vilify fruit, it really is our friend. Fruits can help satisfy a sweet tooth. A handful of blueberries at night after dinner takes the place of a big, sticky, overly sweet dessert that would leave you feeling bloated and gross. Instead you get your taste of something sweet and walk away from the table feeling good about yourself and your choices. (My advice on this is to make sure, before indulging, that you know you have the ability to walk away.)
As we’ll see in the athlete’s section (page 112), fruit also has a place and purpose in our diet around workouts. And a final tip, some people find that eating fruit with a protein helps keep the weight off, versus eating a piece of fruit on its own.
Again, nothing here is to say that fruit makes you fat. But what it can do is impede the goal of turning you into a fat-burning machine instead of a sugar-burning machine. That’s why it’s suggested (not mandated, but suggested) that if you’re in this for weight loss, you exclude or limit fruit, slowly adding it back to your diet in a controlled fashion after you’ve met your goal.
14If you’re a pescatarian Paleo Vegetarian, it’s fun to do this with lobster. While everyone else at the table is delicately dipping their crustacean into butter, moaning about calories, you can dunk away without a care, a big smile on your lobster-eating face.
15Once I was fully Paleo and fat-burning instead of sugar-burning, I was at a friend’s house and ate a sliced strawberry offered to me. It tasted so sweet, I accused my friend of dipping it in sugar. She hadn’t, but that’s how much your taste buds are going to bloom. Eating foods as simple as fresh fruit feels like you’ve won the golden ticket into Willy Wonka’s candy factory.