Carb Confusion - Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe | Balanced Bites

Podcast Episode #233: Carb Confusion

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Topics:Carb Confusion - Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe | Balanced Bites

1.  News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:30]

2.  Shout out: Kristen Boehmer of Living Loving Paleo [16:24]

3.  Confusion about Carbs [18:46]

4. On the topic of fruit [30:59]

5. Carb load while training for half ironman triathlon [41:53]

6. Best carb load for training goals of strength and leanness [48:48]

7. Midsection gain with addition of carbs [52:29]

8. #Treatyoself: Peanut butter cookies [57:38]

 

 

Links:

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Carb Confusion - Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe | Balanced Bites Carb Confusion - Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe | Balanced Bites Carb Confusion - Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe | Balanced Bites

You’re listening to the Balanced Bites podcast episode 233.

Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe. Diane is a certified nutrition consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Paleo, The 21-Day Sugar Detox, and co-author of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Liz is a nutritional therapy practitioner, and the best-selling author of Eat the Yolks and The Purely Primal Skincare Guide. Together, Diane and Liz answer your questions, interview leading health and wellness experts, and share their take on modern paleo living with their friendly and balanced approach. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only, and are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone, it’s me Liz, and I’m here with Diane.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh hey.

Liz Wolfe: Hey friend. How are you?

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m great, how are you?

Liz Wolfe: I’m good. Did you watch the Oscars last night?

Diane Sanfilippo: I did. The Oscar party is a big to-do here in San Francisco with my friends, so yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Wow.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, one of my friends hosts it every year. We either dress up in Oscar fabulous glamorous outfits, which just means whatever dress you might have, or a costume, and I wore a costume this year.

Liz Wolfe: Why don’t you tell us what that costume was after we hear from one of our sponsors?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Sounds good.

Diane Sanfilippo: Pete’s Paleo is a friend of the Balanced Bites podcast. They’re bacon is insanely delicious, and sugar free, and their premade paleo meals make your life so much easier when everything is getting busy and getting real food on the table is still a top priority, as it should be. Pete’s Paleo is now offering a 30-day gut healing kit containing bone broth, gelatin gummies, instant organic soup packs, and an E-cookbook. It’s the perfect complement to any anti-inflammatory diet. Get yours today at www.guthealingkit.com. Use code GRABACUPPABROTH to get $25 off; that’s an amazing deal. It’s GRABACUPPABROTH, C-U-P-P-A. And you can grab that code any time at www.BalancedBites.com to just read it and make sure you’re typing it in right. You can also use code BALANCEDBITES to get $5 off any of their regular meal plans. Check out www.PetesPaleo.com today. Pete’s Paleo; bringing fine dining to your cave.

1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:30]

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so my costume which I posted over on SnapChat while I was in the elevator.

Liz Wolfe: Oh my god, with this Snapchat! So, I’m not on Periscope. Do I have to now not be on Snapchat?

Diane Sanfilippo: Wait, first. Ok, hold on. Let me tell you about the costume, then we’ll talk about Snapchat.

Liz Wolfe: Ok.

Diane Sanfilippo: And then for all the people who are like, this chatter annoys me; I just can’t help but think of these people, and I want to be like, if the chatter annoys you, stop listening now. So, I dressed up as; shoot, what’s her last name? I have it on a name badge. Joanna. Joanna –Something; Kate Winslet’s character from Steve Jobs.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, that’s a fun costume.

Diane Sanfilippo: I forget what her last name is. But it was pretty rad. I threw it together kind of in the last hour or so, and I’m putting on the business attire and the pencil skirt and this shirt that comes up kind of high on the neck, because she wears a lot of stuff like a little scarf or something like that.

Liz Wolfe: A mock turtleneck. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah {laughs}. It’s not a mock turtleneck. But whatever. And a sweater and this belt that looks like her outfit, and then sweeping the bangs across the forehead. And then I got Scott’s mike pack that he uses when he records his Full Body Fix videos, and put the mike pack on my belt and wired the earpiece up to my ear because she wears this ear piece the whole time because she’s kind of wrangling and managing Steve Jobs at all these events, so it’s like; put your finger to your ear, “Where’s Steve? Where is he?” Anyway. And I had a clipboard and a bun and all that smarty pants stuff.

So, it was cute. I like it. I liked my little costume there. That was fun. And then I was wishing I had worn something totally different because I realized you’re sitting for 4 hours and a pencil skirt with Spanx is not the most comfortable to be sitting in {laughs} for 4 hours. So there’s that. Did you watch the Oscars at all?

Liz Wolfe: No, but I just took like 6 selfies while you explained your costume.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} You’ve got to take 6 and pick one.

Diane Sanfilippo: At least!

Liz Wolfe: I did not watch the Oscars.

Diane Sanfilippo: At least 6.

Liz Wolfe: I was happy to see this morning that my favorite actor from my childhood, Romeo and Juliet, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Basketball Diaries won an Oscar. Because he was really lacking in his life

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: With all the supermodels he’s been dating, and all the yachts that he yachts on and what not.

Diane Sanfilippo: I know.

Liz Wolfe: So I’m really, really glad he got a win there, with that one.

Diane Sanfilippo: He’s probably pretty bankrupt, too.

Liz Wolfe: He really needed that.

Diane Sanfilippo: Chris Rock was awesome. I love it, it was really fun to watch. And they actually sped it along nicely this year by taking winners; I don’t know, I guess they must have just taken lists from people ahead of time of any names they wanted to say.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: Like, if they were just going to rattle off a list of names, they took that and just ran it in like a ticker across the bottom. It was very sportsy to me. {laughing} It was almost like, you know when your husband, because I don’t watch this stuff, is watching Sports Center and it’s talking about one thing and then there’s something else on the ticker. They say men can’t multitask, but I don’t know, they have about 10 different updates happening at once on that channel. So they had the names across the bottom, and then people actually go to say something a little bit more meaningful, and that was cool.

Except, when Leo did his speech, I couldn’t hear anything he was saying because all I saw was that it looked like he was dipping;

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Was he?

Diane Sanfilippo: and I’m like, “is Leonardo Dicaprio; does he have dip in his mouth at the Oscars right now, and could you not have spit that out a second before you went up on the stage?” {laughs} Yeah it was really distracting. So there’s that. And I notice things like that because I’m hyperaware.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Because you’re hyperaware of whether people look like they’re dipping.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s weird, because when I figured out that people actually still do that, then now I see it. So very strange, but anyway. It was a good show and that’s about it.

So Snapchat; alright, here’s the thing about Snapchat. Snapchat is what Instagram used to be sort of, but more fun. Sort of. {laughs} So you get to post stuff, randomly whatever. People can’t actually comment on it or have interaction from the other side. You can just watch someone’s snap. You can only comment back and forth or have a conversation around it if you follow each other. So I can comment back to Hayley, obviously, because we’ll follow each other. But for the folks who are following who are listeners or what have you, if we’re not all following each other, you don’t write back and forth. But it’s fun. I just think it’s really fun to share a little behind the scenes stuff, and what I’m eating that doesn’t look beautiful all the time, and just a lot more raw and real.

And it’s pictures and videos, and you can do funny things to it, like fast forward it and have a chipmunk voice, which is probably one of my favorite things to do. And you can do funky face filters, which are hilarious, and I just like it. I think it’s fun. So I do it because it’s fun, not because, I don’t know, any other reason. So you can follow me there if you want to, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I say try it before you say that you don’t like it. Not you.

Liz Wolfe: Well, you really should have kids, because they love that stuff.

Diane Sanfilippo: The people; I mean, {laughs} the face filters, that will just, it’s endless entertainment.

Liz Wolfe: I know what I’m doing Friday night.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Face filters!

Diane Sanfilippo: Hot Friday night!

Liz Wolfe: Alright, so what are your real updates?

Diane Sanfilippo: So, real updates, very quickly on Portland, for those of you who are going to be in the Portland area or live anywhere near there, March 17th we have a little bit more than halfway sold out on the event so if you have been interested in coming to our live podcast event, which is going to be so much more even than a live podcast, as if that weren’t enough. We’ll have food from Cultured Caveman, we will have some fun sponsorship stuff going on, some swag bags and all kinds of good stuff. So you guys can check that out.

I believe we’re still working on a few other sponsorship things that are getting wrapped up, so if you’re listening to this and you have a paleo-oriented company, and you want information on that you can email [email protected] and Nicky will get in touch with you about it. But we have some availability left for some sponsorship on the event itself. And yeah, tickets are on sale, so you can get to it right from BalancedBites.com/events. What else?

Videos; we’ve got new videos going out every week. If you’re on my emailing list, you’ll get those. Eventually they’ll find their way to the internet, but I don’t know when or how. So for now it’s mostly subscriber exclusives, so make sure you’re on my emailing list if you want to see fun videos, like cooking stuff, or workout videos. Sometimes a 15-second clip gets posted to Instagram, but obviously the videos are much longer than that, so if you want to see more detail and a little bit more of the video, make sure you are subscribed to my emailing list. And that’s it. What's up with you?

Liz Wolfe: I went to the zoo on Sunday.

Diane Sanfilippo: How was that?

Liz Wolfe: On “Sunde.” It was {laughs} Ok.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Well, sometimes I get a little bit sad at the zoo. We wanted to see the penguins, because they were doing a penguin thing. I need to Google this. I need to be educated. Because I understand that a lot of zoos are basically rescuing animals, and in that way are just wonderful. The modern zoo, I don’t think is probably what… what I kind of learned about the old timey zoos and the old timey circus stuff. But I’m looking to be educated as the conservation thing and the rescue type thing versus; oh, these poor, sad animals have 2 inches of space to work with and they’re supposed to have miles and miles and miles of space to work with. It’s just a funny juxtaposition to the way I used to think about these things.

If you’ve read Katie Bowman’s book, Move Your DNA, she talks about how whale fins flop over, and how that’s kind of a function of the way they’re able to move in captivity. And I just think about these monkeys that are supposed to be brachiating through miles, and miles, and miles of tree cover and they’ve got a cage the size of my bedroom. So I just kind of wonder. I just kind of wonder, you know? You just wonder. And it’s just such a big thing for kids to go to the zoo, and it’s something to do, and whatever. But I wonder about that.

And, I also wonder; so, the zoo we were at. They kind of funnel you into different areas. I felt like I was entering this scary place where I was just completely stuck. We were walking towards maybe where the gorillas are or something, and it was like a funnel cake place on my right, and a slushy place on my left, and children with blue mouths and purple faces running around.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Just, absolutely crazy. And I’m just thinking; my husband’s like, you want a funnel cake? I’m like, yeah, you want a funnel cake, and a slushy, and some behavioral problems?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: What do you think? It was just this weird parenthood moment where I was like, what am I doing? I’m at the zoo with sad animals and children, like the children were almost more interesting to watch than the animals. I don’t know. It was just; it was a moment, for sure.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like the scene from Mean Girls where all the people become the wild animals.

Liz Wolfe: Yes!

Diane Sanfilippo: P.S., you are describing my personal hell.

Liz Wolfe: {laughing}

Diane Sanfilippo: Like, to the letter.

Liz Wolfe: It was really strange.

Diane Sanfilippo: Sticky hands and blue faces and loud noises.

Liz Wolfe: Yes.

Diane Sanfilippo: Squeaking and squealing. Ooh, yeah. No.

Liz Wolfe: And I don’t know if it’s a treat; I mean, no judgment. People can do whatever they want, it’s no big deal. I just have a little baby, so…

Diane Sanfilippo: Well it creates an environment, it’s not judging each individual thing, it’s just, holy cow, and that’s all together.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like a wall of crazy.

Liz Wolfe: It was a lot.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: And maybe when my kiddo is 3 and 4 I’m going to understand the utility of a funnel cake at the zoo, but I don’t know. It was just an odd thing. And the other funny thing was everybody was walking around with strollers; I mean, even people with one tiny baby and nothing to carry around. The baby is like passed out in the stroller, and we walked in just holding the kid, and then when she got tired we just strapped her on in the baby carrier. So I’m just wondering, am I missing something, or is everybody else missing something, and this is my life now where I go to the zoo and I wonder if my kid’s going to be the one with the blue mouth running around, like completely insane out of her mind in a couple of years? I don’t know. Maybe other parents can relate.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think that shines…

Liz Wolfe: You know, hands on the glass.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, sorry. I was going to say, I think it shines a light though on sometimes; this might sound crazy, but the bubble that we sort of live in.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: When it comes to even how we eat, and I know we’re constantly trying to help folks find our show who, you know, are shopping in all different parts of the country and we’re recommending foods that then people are like; I can’t find those things! You know?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: But when we realize that we are, you know, we’re in a little bit of a bubble with the way that we think and the way that we move through the world. And if what you do is so different; like, it’s not like, is one right or is one wrong, it’s just, do I want to keep putting myself in the scenario where now I’m questioning what I’m doing, and how do I move through that and enjoy the upside of going to the zoo without then either questioning myself or feeling overly judgmental or any of that stuff, you know?

Liz Wolfe: Or feeling like maybe I’m being judged, or maybe people think I am judging them?

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm. You’re the crunchy hippie mom, for sure.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: For sure.

Liz Wolfe: But it wasn’t that hard!

Diane Sanfilippo: You’re like handing the kid carrots, and their kid is eating funnel cake, and they think that you’re crazy. Or that you're judging them, maybe. I don’t know?

Liz Wolfe: Maybe. I don’t know; I mean, I just brought a couple of squeeze packs, and an RxBar, and I was golden. Maybe people are staying at the zoo longer than me, but I was toast after like 2 hours. And that was the space between a meal, I didn’t need to stop for a funnel cake. They do have some kind of funny restaurant names, though. There’s the Beastro and the Tuxedo Grill by the penguins. It was cute.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s cute.

Liz Wolfe: It was cute. It was interesting. But it’s also, you know, a good place to build up your immune system.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Because all these little kids were putting their mouths and their hands all over the glass and banging on the poor penguins behind the glass, like. Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: So, all of that. And other than that, since I’m using up a bunch of time talking about completely irrelevant things. We are; some people know, if they get my emails, that we found lead paint in our house, and we’re just in this whole downward spiral of our entire house is completely torn apart and we’re basically building it again from the ground up, which is not what we wanted to do, nor what our bank account was wanting to do. So we found the lead paint, we’re mediating all of that, and then we found out that some of the structural stuff had been basically, like patched together.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: With glue and tape and somehow the inspector before we bought the house didn’t notice it; I don’t know what the intention was ahead of time to hide something from us or not, but this house is definitely not as in as good shape as we were told it was by the inspector before we moved in. So we’ve basically had to just raze the whole bottom floor, literally, and raise; R-A-I-S-E, and raze, R-A-Z-E, so we’re staying with friends who are amazing us for letting us basically camp out in their basement so we can stay together as a family near my husband’s work and I just, I love them so much. And I was thinking about that landlord video from FunnyOrDie.com, remember that little landlord video with Will Ferrell, where she’s like, “Where’s the rent? You pay now!”

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: And that little girl is 13, or thereabouts at this point. So we’re old. And anyway, I just wanted to thank my friends for doing that, and for giving us a place that we could actually cook healthy food and be together as a family. That’s kind of what’s holding us together at this point. So that’s my life.

2. Shout out: Kristen Boehmer of Living Loving Paleo [16:24]

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome. So we have a shout out this week to Kristen Boehmer. I always question whether or not I’m pronouncing that right.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Of Living Loving Paleo who recently released her paleo sauces eBook, it’s called Get Sauced, we will link to that in the show notes over on the blog. Head over to BalancedBites.com and check episode 233 for the link for that. But it’s an 86-page eBook. She’s got 33 easy, delicious sauce recipes, and I think; let’s see, what does she say, 38 recipes including the variations. Oh, it’s thirty- yeah, 33 recipes and then there’s more little tweaks and things like that.

And then she made different variations to two to give you guys egg-free recipes or variations that can be nut-free, nightshade-free, etc., coconut-free, all of that good stuff. Lots of photos, pictures with everything, so you guys can check that out if you’re looking for delicious sauce recipes. Which, definitely between spices, and spice blends, and sauces, that’s kind of the key to making paleo interesting and delicious, for me at least, because I’m not all about complicated recipes. I’m like, give me a meat, give me a veg, give me something starchy, whether it’s starchy veg or white rice or something like that and it’s just a matter of seasoning it right or putting a sauce on it and calling it good. So definitely check that out from Kristen, and we’ll link to it over in our show notes for episode 233.

Liz Wolfe: The Balanced Bites podcast is sponsored in part by the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants, including me, I’m an NTP, emphasizing bio-individuality and the range of dietary strategies that support wellness. The NTA emphasizes local, whole, properly prepared nutrient dense foods as the key to restoring balance and enhancing the body’s ability to heal. Nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants learn a wide range of tools and techniques to assess and correct nutritional imbalances. To learn lots more about the nutritional therapy program, go to NutritionalTherapy.com. There are workshop venues in the US, Canada, and Australia. Fall registration will open June 2016. I know the price is increasing next year, so do not wait. If you see the NTA as part of your future, get started now. You won’t regret it.

3. Confusion about Carbs [18:46]

Liz Wolfe: Alright, so are we ready for some listener comments and questions?

Diane Sanfilippo: We are. So the topic that we’re talking about this week is carb confusion, sort of based on what happened on the show the last couple of episodes while they weren’t in succession, but the two episodes I did with Christine on carbs, and then also last week, or this past weekend I went to a paleo sort of conference day at UCSF here in San Francisco, and on the panel on the speaking panel were Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser, Chris Masterjohn, Stefan Guyenet, and they were all talking about different topics throughout the day, but then the panel discussion at the end of the day, which I think we know is probably one of the most interesting at any conference or event. It’s the Q&A, people love Q&A, which is kind of what this show is all about, right? One of the questions was very, very pointed and very, very important I think for the stuff that we talk about every week here on this show, and I’m actually going to read it. I’ve been doing this little quick daily posts, I’m trying to just get a thought out a day, because I otherwise have days that go by that I feel like I didn’t get anything done, which I know Liz you don’t believe me when I say that. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: But, there are days like that. So anyway, the question was, “What’s the biggest problem you see in people who go paleo, not 2 or 3 weeks into the way of eating, but 3 or 4 months into or so, or longer?” And all of the gentlemen on the panel were in resounding agreement over a seemingly simple, yet very often overlooked fact that many people who go paleo accidentally end up going low carb; or worse, they eat fewer calories overall than they truly need. And we’ve talked about this on the show; I actually went back and searched our own archives to see perhaps when the first time I mentioned this term; not that I think I coined it, but I know amongst our conversations, it’s definitely something I’ve coined amongst us. Among us? Amongst?

Liz Wolfe: I like amongst.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} So, it’s this accidental low carb diet. And that was the biggest thing that they were all calling out, was the accidental low carb. And also just the accidental; it’s known as hypocaloric, your calorie range drops lower than you think it will, and it can happen at the same time because a lot of people who go paleo essentially cut out a food group, right; they’re cutting out grains. People who have not been taught how to incorporate more fats into their diet very consciously don’t then always make up the calories that way. The other part is, when we get rid of grains and we don’t pay attention to adding in more than just a sweet potato now and then or more than just a little bit more fruit now and then; we really lack in total carbohydrates.

Not to say that every person needs to be eating tons of carbs all the time, it’s just that it becomes an accident. People don’t realize that they’ve done it, and what ends up happening a lot of times is that people become very fatigued. Some of the stuff that Chris pointed out, Chris Kresser, as a result of this; and I’m sort of blanking on more of a list that he went through, and I know he’s written quite a number of articles on his blog at ChrisKresser.com about, are you lower carb than you think? Problems with your low carb diet. Really, just, you know playing both sides of this so that people understand that it’s not a one size fits all. It’s not everybody should go low carb. Which, Robb even mentioned 10 years ago he would have said it’s the great panacea for everything, and now he realizes that that’s obviously not the case even for himself.

Anyway, Chris Kresser was pointing out that a lot of the symptoms of eating too low carb for your needs; fatigue, lethargy, brain fog, insomnia, inability to recover from exercise. It kind of goes on and on, and it’s not that eating low carb will necessarily cause, in a cause and effect type of way in a mechanism low thyroid function, it’s just that if you are fatigued and lethargic and are having issues already with adrenal health and thyroid function, it’s not going to help and it may perhaps promote that more. That’s not something that Chris was saying at the talk, but it’s just something I’m mentioning here.

Robb even pointed out that when he had started training more in jujitsu, which he’s been doing for quite some time but I know in the past couple of years had ramped back up after he wasn’t doing bookwork anymore, and had pulled back from the blog a little bit. He said that he thought he was eating a balanced paleo diet with the inclusion of sweet potatoes pretty often, but when he sat down to calculate what he was eating, he was undereating by roughly 50% of his total caloric needs based on his height, weight, muscle mass, etc., activity level. So I think he mentioned his calculation came out to about 1700 calories and he should have been eating 32-3400 calories.

This is where, Liz, you and I have talked about this on the show, too and I’ve been a big proponent of this for a long time. This is where weighing and measuring can be very, very helpful. Of course with the caveat of, if you have issues with restrictive eating or eating disorders in that way, but what I’m finding and I think what we’ve seen on the show over the last 4-plus years is that a huge number of people end up overeating on paleo. They undereat on a strict paleo challenge, they undereat on paleo in general when they first start for a lot of different reasons; because they’re cutting food groups, because they’re cutting; they’re just cutting the availability of food from what they used to eat and I know you guys listening have had this happen to you. You started eating paleo, and there was a moment in that first month or two or three where you were left stranded and hungry and you didn’t know what to eat because nothing around you was paleo and available, and you went hungry. And that happens more often than not, and it happens consistently for a lot of people. And then it also happens that people are undereating carbs because they think a sweet potato once a day will be enough, and sweet potatoes actually don’t have a very high carb load when you look at the portion size that you might eat in relation to the type of activity that you’re doing.

So, it was a really interesting topic to be brought up. Another thing I do want to talk about in another episode, Liz, and I think we both will be excited to talk about this but it’s not very specific to carbs, although it is a little specific to the gluten free grain based carbs, is that another sort of theme of what happened in what was coming out in the conversation on this panel was that the goal of what we’re doing with paleo shouldn’t be to consistently restrict our food choices more and more over time; it should be the opposite. It should be to find what is the threshold; and actually Mark Sisson talked about this last year at PaleoFx; what can I get away with? And I’ve always been in that camp, you’ve always been in that camp, for sure, we’ve been talking about this for a long time. It’s not just about is it paleo or not, it’s, “how do I feel when I eat it, and if I’ve been strict paleo for a certain amount of time and I reintroduce something, how do I feel? I need to really pay attention to that in a lot of different ways, and then make an educated decision based on information at large as well as information from my own body on what I’ll continue to eat.”

And obviously my own experiment in the last three or four months has been with eating a lot more white rice, with eating things like steel cut oats, organic corn tortillas, and feeling really good doing that. And I’ve said this for years, I don’t have an autoimmune condition, knock on wood, perhaps lucky in that. But I think if we were to look at, let’s say the top 10 or so paleo authors, bloggers, advocates, what have you, maybe out of those 10, 3 might have a diagnosed autoimmune condition. And a real reason to keep things stricter, on that stricter side of things, whether it’s autoimmune, whether it’s really staying grain free 100% of the time.

Robb mentioned he really does not tolerate white rice or things like steel cut oats very well; he does have celiac disease, or very intense gluten intolerance if he doesn’t have celiac, I can’t remember if he said he was diagnosed or not. But he definitely can’t do that stuff. I know Chris Kresser can, I know I can, I know you can. I know there are a lot of other paleo authors and pretty prolific speakers on the topic, Mark Sisson, who can tolerate this stuff in a broader scale. So it’s a really important topic for us to talk about.

It’s a really important point to make to those of you listening that when we do talk about carbs even from this paleo or real food perspective, we are going to be talking about things like grains, we always say gluten free grains. I do tend to stay gluten free most of the time, but look; if you’re eating gluten-containing grains, there’s still a context for that that could be much healthier than what all of us were eating 5, or 6, or 7, or 8 years ago. Right? If we look at what we were eating before, the point of what we’re doing with paleo is to bring a lot more consciousness to those decisions, to get a lot more real food on the plate, whole foods that we look at our plate and we know where it comes from, the original form and that’s what’s the bulk of what we’re eating instead of the other way around where we were probably eating a lot more processed refined foods in the past.

So instead of being dogmatic about this thing, just making sure we’re opening up to what are the possibilities, and what are the needs of our population of people who have been paying attention to what we’re talking about. Liz, you know you and I have this unique responsibility with the podcast to address these things, right?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: We can’t just let these topics go by and just bury our heads and say, well, you know, the podcast is centered around modern paleo living. Well, it’s called the Balanced Bites podcast, it’s not called paleo anything. Neither of us have ever labeled our stuff paleo, except obviously then I wrote this book called Practical Paleo, then people look at what I’m posting on Instagram and it’s white rice and a lot of people have questions about that.

I’m never going to let the fact that I wrote a book that’s called Practical Paleo dictate what I know and what I teach moving forward just because that exists and that’s what people want to cling to as sort of their paleo bible. I just don’t feel right doing that; my integrity would really be in question, I think, if I did that. And it’s not the tone I want to set for everybody going forward. So we’re going to talk a little bit more about carbs here with some more questions that people have. I’m curious if you’ve got other thoughts and feelings, or general stirrings that you’ve seen, I don’t know, on the internet just on this topic in general.

Liz Wolfe: So this is going to sound a little off from what you just asked me, but one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is, we do get bogged down in the carb stuff, and where are your carbs coming from, and how many, and what’s paleo and what’s not. And all the while, I think we need to understand that anytime we’re focusing that much on something and kind of nickel and diming it, there’s probably something else going on in the outskirts of that that actually matters a little bit more. And what this makes me think about is polyunsaturated fats.

I’m sorry, we have a dog barking in the background, I don’t know if you can hear it. But, I think polyunsaturated fats are such a huge issue, and I think even paleo type people are getting way, way, way too many of them. This could potentially be an issue with baking with almond flour, this could be an issue with eating too many nuts, taking too much cod liver oil. It’s very, very possible to do that. It’s part of the reason I’m not super gung ho on cod liver oil as a fertility and pregnancy food, but I digress.

So people are out here doing something that could potentially be much worse for their health believing it’s within a paleo context, and all the while they’re looking over here and worrying about whether or not they should eat this oatmeal. You know what I’m saying?

Diane Sanfilippo: I do. And I think a huge thing happens when people do replace the food category; I mean, jeeze, we’ve been talking about nuts and nut flour for just as long, right?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: And how even before I was allergic to almonds, which has happened in the span of time we’ve been doing this show, even before that neither of us have ever been an advocate for massive consumption of paleo baked goods, for example. In terms of replacing what we were eating with grains or any gluten containing foods. So, yeah I’m definitely with you on that.

4. On the topic of fruit [30:59]

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so let’s get into this topic a little bit. We do have questions, but you guys sometimes we don’t always let the questions naturally dictate the flow of the entire show because we have topics we want to make sure we’re addressing and the questions can feed into that, and sometimes we just want to hit on some of these topics. So, one of the things I do want to talk about, which kind of came up in my conversation with Christine in the past two episodes that I know you weren’t with me on those interviews and maybe didn’t hear both of them.

Liz Wolfe: Nope.

Diane Sanfilippo: But I kind of filled you in on the background of where the conversation when. One of the things that happens with paleo, and I know you and I have definitely been in this camp before and maybe again at some point is that we just add a ton of fat to our diet. We get rid of a lot of the carbs; we’re eating protein, whether it’s lean or not, we’re eating non-starchy veggies, maybe some fruit, and then we’re adding a lot of fat. Whether that’s through the fattier cuts of meat or just adding it on top of the meal. And I think that it’s interesting because when people start to demonize carbohydrate, one of the things I’m seeing happening is people say; “well, when I added carbs back to my diet, XYZ happened.” What I don’t see happening is, “when I added carbs to my diet and scaled back on the fat, and upped the protein.” Or, “when I added more carbs to my diet, and lowered the fat and kept the protein the same.” People are not actually paying attention to the interplay of 3 macronutrients; they’re just doing what we’ve been saying for a long time sort of not to do in just adding back the carbs.

I mean, you can do that, but if you do that without seeing the interplay of the other macronutrients that you’re eating; so let’s just say, for example, you’ve been eating a 2000-calorie a day diet for years. Maybe you were doing that with protein, non-starchy veggies, some fruit, and some fat. And you were hitting that calorie range that feels good for you, you’re getting enough food. And someone said, well maybe for your activity level you should add more carbs. Instead of us saying, “You should rebalance carbs into the mix of what you’re eating,” we’re saying, using the language, “add carbs.” So people are adding that on top, and what I’m seeing a lot of people respond with is, “well that causes me to gain fat.”

But what I’m not seeing is that they’re not; or what I am also seeing is that they’re not addressing the rebounds of macros. If that makes sense. Like, basically when I got a meal plan and I looked at the carbs that were being included, let’s just say around 150 grams of carbs in a day, which is not that high if you think about it. But the balance of fat was then reduced, and the balance of protein increased for my goals. We just have to pay attention to the fact that these things interact, they’re not independent. You can’t just go adding hundreds of calories and expect that to not have a metabolic output or effect. Especially if you’re not then using that energy.

So, here’s another scenario; if you are an athlete, you’re training Crossfit a few days a week, for example or more than a few days a week, and you’re just feeling run down and tired; you may need to simply add the carbs. Right? You might be undereating in general, and undereating carbs. If you’re not undereating in general, if you go to track your days’ worth of food, and it’s not too low in calories for you, then you can’t just add on a few hundred calories of carbs. You have to rebalance it into the mix.

And I think that most of us at large here have not been well equipped to figure out how to rebalance that. I think that’s something that Christine has really helped a lot of people with who I’ve sent to her basically, just by no direct means other than talking about what I’ve been doing on her program, but I think that that’s something a lot of folks haven’t paid attention to that much, so that’s not giving them the results that they want because they’re not looking at how it’s working in.

I don’t know if you’ve got other thoughts on that, maybe as it pertains also to things like fertility, because I know you were saying women need to add more fruit. And I think you really do mean add.

Liz Wolfe: Yes, fruit!

Diane Sanfilippo: I think you do mean add. Like, not…

Liz Wolfe: I mean add fruit. Like, not; we’re so afraid of fruit. We’re so afraid of fruit! We have this, I think; well, this is what I see. This might be another zoo situation where, I was at the zoo and I felt like I couldn’t see out of the outside; just the outside world around me what I was seeing was maybe just not what I was used to seeing, so maybe the reality is different from what I’m actually seeing, and my sample size is off, but we, being maybe the real food paleo community, have a real feeling that we have to live in targeted nutrition program land beyond the utility of the program. So, for example. I know with the 21-Day Sugar Detox there is a very specific approach to fruit, and it’s there for a reason. But outside the context of the 21-Day Sugar Detox, there’s a whole broad world of options, right?

Diane Sanfilippo: Totally.

Liz Wolfe: And if somebody is really trying to get pregnant, have a robust, fertile, I don’t need to use more words for that.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: But, fruit has amazing utility. And we have this tendency to pigeon-hole it into this dessert only, sweet stuff is bad, and my least favorite, which is fructose is hard on the liver, which is something a lot of us parroted, I think, when we first got into the paleo thing. Where, oh gosh! You know, we’re not just talking about…

Diane Sanfilippo: I think high concentrated fructose,

Liz Wolfe: Yes!

Diane Sanfilippo: When we talk about high fructose corn syrup, and I think people then extrapolated that down to fruit.

Liz Wolfe: I think so too.

Diane Sanfilippo: Which is not the case.

Liz Wolfe: Maybe that’s why they wanted to demonize fruit, I don’t know, but it’s so silly because if fructose from fruit is hard on the liver, then starch is hard on the pancreas. You know?

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

Liz Wolfe: It just doesn’t make any sense to be afraid of asking our organs to do what they’re meant to do. But from a fertility perspective ,a couple of things that fruit does; first of all, it has potassium, which mitigates the insulin response, which is really, really useful, because we actually need, especially in fertility and pregnancy, to have a good, well functioning glucose response, because glucose is so important to the developing baby. It needs a steady supply of it, and if we have this overwhelming insulin response that takes glucose literally and kind of makes it unavailable, that’s not good. If our liver is not able to store and release what we need when we need it, that’s not good either. Fruit is just an amazing way to kind of retrain our bodies to work the way we want it to work in that context, and also to provide the nutrition the body needs to have the kind of insulin response that we want.

And I’m talking; I wouldn’t be mad at somebody if they’re eating two or three pieces of fruit a day.

Diane Sanfilippo: Totally.

Liz Wolfe: But that is like, gasp inducing. I’ve found over and over again.

Diane Sanfilippo: But here’s the thing; people; sorry go ahead.

Liz Wolfe: No, go ahead, I’m done.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think people also, again, you know, you’re on a challenge because you're struggling with cravings. That’s different, right? I make people stop eating the really sweet stuff. They’re still eating at least one piece of fruit a day, they’re still getting starchy forms of carbs as they need for exercise, but people are limiting that beyond what I’ve asked them to. I can’t control what people continue to limit when I try and give them more, they want to give themselves less.

But here’s the thing; when it comes to fruit, when it comes to the starchy veggies, anything that you’re doing that is carbohydrate that people are so scared of, which is a big issue, as well; people getting scared of their food.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: We will get to questions after this, but the fruit or the carbs, whatever you’re eating, the starchy stuff or the fruit, it’s actually going to keep you from craving the junk because you’re getting nutrition with it. It’s going to actually give you; I know, and Liz you can validate this or invalidate this as you see fit, but I see tons of women in their first trimester have said they don’t want protein, all they want are carbs. And I’m like, ok, well fall face first into the bag of mango. Right?

Liz Wolfe: {laughing} Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: The dried mango that we talked about for years. We joked about this dried mango scenario, right. Neither of us can really control ourselves around a bag of dried mango, but in a certain context, go for it. Right? Dive into a box of Captain Crunch; probably not the best for your growing baby. No judgment, just saying, probably not. But a bag of dried mango is going to provide nutrition or the fresh mango, or four {laughs} whatever you’re eating. Alright.

So when we demonize the fruit, and then everyone becomes scared of it, and we continue to do what we’re not trying to do and limit our food options, then people end up going to things like the baked good or whatever else it’s going to be to satisfy that craving when really, if we ate a couple of pieces of fruit, we’d probably be just fine. I definitely am finding that to be true for myself, eating some watermelon, stuff that… I’m not scared of fruit, afraid of it, any of that, I just was kind of out of the habit of buying it and that did really, that was {laughs} almost an opposite habit effect where I was just so used to not buying fruit that I have to remind myself to buy fruit. But then when I have that, I don’t have cravings and I don’t have any guilt around eating a bunch of watermelon. {laughs} There’s no guilt. That’s fueling my body in a great way, and giving me not only the carbs and the macros, but it’s giving me micronutrients, as well, which is a huge topic too.

So anything else on that?

Liz Wolfe: I’m sure people are crying hypocrite. Because I’m sure I have been part of the anti-fruit scare mongering at some point in my life, and I probably didn’t make this distinction for a very long time until we got pregnant, probably.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know, though. I think even if you and I have spoken of low carb, have spoken of avoiding too much fruit, I honestly, in thinking back, I think it’s always been under certain context. I don’t think we’ve ever demonized; I don’t think we’ve ever demonized, really, any whole, real foods. Perhaps grains more so than fruit, I would say. So, the fact that I’m eating…

Liz Wolfe: We’ll call it context.

Diane Sanfilippo: Hmm?

Liz Wolfe: We’ll just call it context.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. The fact that I’m eating steel cut oats almost every day is probably the most alarming thing {laughing} of my diet.

5. Carb load while training for half ironman triathlon [41:53]

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so let’s get into a couple of these questions here. Do you want to read some of these? Just so you guys know, too, where they’re coming from. Like I said, I’ve been doing these daily; what am I calling them, Diane Daily, just a really quick, either a note or a slightly longer blog post, or a sentence, just something that happened or was on my mind that day and I asked folks from Instagram and Facebook to post our comments there so that I could grab them more easily for this purpose on the show. And so we’ve got a lot of great conversation happening over on that post, it’s called Paleo and the Accidental Low Carb Diet. So these comments came from there.

Liz Wolfe: Okie doke. This one is from Miranda, “love the podcast. I’m training for my first half iron man triathlon. I started out doing Whole30 and transitioned to paleo. I love the way I feel on this diet. My question is, I would like to add some grains like rice or oatmeal to help my carb count on hard workout days. What serving size and how many servings would you suggest to someone who is adding carbs back in after a few months without them?”

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so good question and Miranda I’m assuming that you listened to the episodes that I did with Christine, and if you haven’t yet I would go back and listen to those. So then this is also on the heels of what I was talking about previously, and whether or not you’re adding the carbs on top of what you were eating before or you’re adding them into a newly formulated kind of ratio.

In this case, Miranda says that she’s training for her first half ironman triathlon; I don’t know what her activity level was like before that. I’m assuming this is adding a workout load, so in this case I’m sure you guys can guess, adding to her daily intake would probably be just fine. She probably doesn’t need to readjust a ton otherwise. What I recommend, and I do recommend this for everyone; again, given the caveat that you do not have issues with restrictive eating or eating disorders, especially if they’ve been diagnosed. But if they have not been diagnosed, if you know that you’re one to restrict then I caution against this. But for those who are curious and need information, you can’t do this in a bubble. You can’t do this without the information of the baseline of where you’re at. So you have to start entering what you’re eating into some kind of calculator, whether it’s My Fitness Pal or, what have I used for a long time? I forget what it’s called; oh Fit Day, I used for a long time.

Tracking what you’re eating; see what you’re eating. Miranda, you need to find out, what are you eating now. What’s the breakdown in terms of percentage; what’s the breakdown in terms of grams, and then add from there. I would start by adding a minimum of 50 grams of carbs in a post workout meal; maybe move it up from there. Half Ironman Triathlon is intense training; you’re going to need to figure that out on a regular daily basis depending on your training itself, but there’s no reason why she should be eating; I’m just going to throw a number out there; fewer than around 200 grams of carbs a day for that type of training, and I’m saying that assuming and hoping that she’s not doing that training while also having a goal of fat loss.

And I know that sounds crazy; people are like, well why else would you train for a half ironman; isn’t it to lose body fat? No. Training, having a goal of a race and some kind of competitive athletic endeavor and at the same time a goal of fat loss is actually antagonistic. You’re trying to be anabolic and really building things up, and it’s not to say that you might not lose a few pounds because you might be training a ton; it might be hard to keep up with that intake level. But, at this point, you need to see how much activity you’re doing every day and start fueling for it. If you’re not recovering, if any of the things I mentioned kind of at the beginning of the show; if you are not recovering, if you are experiencing any fatigue, lethargy, brain fog, insomnia, any of that stuff, then continue to add more. And the only way to know if you’re adding enough is to know what you’re eating. You have to know what you're eating.

You know, Liz, we talk a lot about free eating, sort of eat healthy foods in amounts that feel good, and we don’t always want people weighing and measuring everything. But when people want to do this stuff by adding carbs back in and recalculating; weighing and measuring is extremely useful to find your new normal. You don’t have to do it for forever. Once you’ve done it for a while, and then you see what works better for you. Now that I’ve done this for a few months again, I’m like; ok, well if I’m eating some leaner meats but some more carbs and a moderate amount of fat, I don’t have to weigh and measure every day. I know what the portions look like by now, it’s been long enough. I’ve reinstated different habits and different sort of just what normal is to me is a little different than it was 4 to 6 months ago.

So, we don’t have to weigh and measure for life, but it’s important to get that information. If you’re trying to make changes, then track them. Because you can’t monitor what you don’t measure.

Liz Wolfe: I probably would be slightly inclined just to kind of go with seeing how I feel about it, but I think a lot of people want to control things and observe things a little more tightly, so I definitely see the weighing and measuring argument there. Especially when people are like; ok, I want my clothes to fit, I want to make sure I’m performing well.

Diane Sanfilippo: Right.

Liz Wolfe: In this vector, etc. etc. So I totally see the point there.

Diane Sanfilippo: Right. And the thing is, it can drive us crazy and it’s such a sensitive, delicate subject, but with almost nothing else in life would we expect measured marked change without measuring…

Liz Wolfe: True.

Diane Sanfilippo: The inputs. You know what I mean? You just don’t do that. You don’t measure even the growth of the baby without knowing how much you’re feeding the baby all the time. Yeah, you could do that without maybe actually writing down all the numbers, but you know how many times a day you’re feeding or what you’re giving her or what not; you know what I mean? It’s the same thing. So I think if people are nervous about that then I can kind of understand, but it’s kind of the nature of the beast.

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6. Best carb load for training goals of strength and leanness [48:48]

Liz Wolfe: Alright. Man, we blew through this pretty quick. Ok, let’s do this question from Beth. “Thanks for this post.” The post that you referred to earlier. “And I’ve enjoyed your podcast with Christine, as well. I train regularly for road cycling, and strength training, and try to eat my carbs surrounding these activities. Everyone seems to be in agreement about this, but I still feel very confused when I read info saying how breakfast should be low carb, that I should train in a fasted state to maximize fat loss, or that carb dependence is detrimental to endurance athletes. I feel ok when I save most of my carbs for post workout, and later in the day. Still end up with 100-175 grams per day, and enjoy not having to eat all the time but I’m wondering if this is best for my training goals; stay lean and increase cycling power and my body.”

Diane Sanfilippo: So, on the heels of the previous question, I mean we can’t know what’s best for your training goals. You have to measure that. Honestly; it’s the same answer. Keeping track of it; she’s saying what she’s ending up with; first of all, a range of 100 to 175 grams a day is a huge range, so I think you need to track the quantitative stuff, which is what she’s talking about here, but we need to track the qualitative stuff. So, not just how much, but how are you feeling? Track what the workouts themselves are, because she’s doing two different things, road cycling and strength training. You could do a decent amount of strength training with a lot less carbohydrate than you could do the road cycling.

I do see what she’s talking about in terms of not being so dependent on having to fuel up on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of grams of carbs when you’re doing road cycling, because if you’re training and doing that at a more moderate level, you can access some body fat for fuel for that, and that would be great. One of the things the guys at the paleo talk day, whatever it was called {laughs} conference day here were talking about is, how amazingly well our body does adapt to the different fuel we’re giving it. So I don’t think we have to be as nervous about the fact that we might be eating some carbohydrate that our body can’t then also use fat for fuel, because it can when it needs to and when it wants to.

And 175 grams a day is still not that much for the type of training that she might be doing. I mentioned before, I might be getting somewhere around 150 right now. I’m only 5’4” and I don’t do any kind of road cycling, and I have been on a bit more of a fat loss meal plan, so just given that number even in isolation, 175 is not that much.

So I really think that just goes back to; you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to see what’s going on, and you’ve got to take the qualitative information into account and then just add incrementally. Add in half-cup portions, whether that’s rice or something else. I think if you’re doing it strictly paleo; if you’re doing potatoes and sweet potatoes and fruit and things like that, then you need to know exactly what’s in the portions you’re serving yourself. You need to know how much of something it takes to add up to enough carbs, and I honestly think that if she gets that number working right, and gets the portions down to kind of a little bit more of a science and being sure she’s getting enough, I think her training is going to be that much better, and she will stay lean. I don’t think there will be a problem with that.

7. Midsection gain with addition of carbs [52:29]

Liz Wolfe: Ok. I think I can do one more, and then I’ve got to relieve the babysitter. {laughs} Alright, this one is from Olivia. “I’ve been adding more carbs into my diet over the past few weeks, because I’m looking to gain some muscle mass and heal from adrenal fatigue. However, I feel bloated and I’ve gained some weight in my midsection, which is not where I want it. I’m wondering if this was a result of the carbs, or from my messed up cortisol levels from my adrenal fatigue. I know you really can’t address this question specifically, but a discussion about carbs, cortisol, and adrenal fatigue would be awesome.”

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so as much as I can say about this, in the amount of time that we have first of all, we’ve talked about adrenal fatigue I think we have three or four episodes on adrenal fatigue, way back in the archives, so hit up BalancedBites.com, go to podcast archives by topic and you’ll find those. But I think this also goes back to; did you add the carbs back on top of everything that you were eating before? Or did you rebalance them in? And my hunch is that you didn’t rebalance them in, and the total amount of food that you were eating before was probably enough calories for you, so gaining weight is something that’s going to happen when we’re hypocaloric to our actual needs, regardless of which nutrient it’s really from. It tends to be from either more carbohydrate or more fat than we need; most of us don’t tend to overeat protein. It is very difficult to overeat protein. I’ve been given an amount of protein to eat, and I do struggle to eat as much of it as I’m supposed to in terms of this plan.

So those are the things I would look at. I would wonder, if you added it back on top and you didn’t scale back something else in this case, possibly scaling back on some of the fat, not saying don’t eat fat, just look at where we’re adding tons of it all the time and scale it back because we can get, in terms of volume of food, a higher volume of food in carbohydrate than in fat that it becomes filling. It does have fiber. It does actually fill us when it’s in a better context than it was, I’m talking years ago when we were eating sugar laden stuff as our carb source, or very nutrient poor carbs as our source.

But, if she’s having issues as well with cortisol levels being kind of wacky, adrenal fatigue being an issue, then yeah. Belly fat is something that; I mean, we know hormonally storing body fat in the belly is coming from a high cortisol situation when it’s more isolated like that, or when that’s kind of the highest area that we have it, obviously sometimes we’ll gain weight everywhere, it does land on the belly as well. But if she’s not sleeping well and not taking care of lifestyle factors then simply adding carbs to the diet isn’t going to be the great panacea. You know, just like low carb isn’t; adding carbs isn’t either. It all has to be done in sort of concert with other lifestyle factors as well as other dietary factors and rebalancing things. So that’s about as much as I can say about it for now, but it has to be looked at in context. Surprise, surprise.

Liz Wolfe: I also wonder is it; I’m wondering if the bloat is being mistaken for weight gain or not. I mean, that could be as simple as, you added more of a certain thing than your gut bacteria is equipped to handle with grace just yet.

Diane Sanfilippo: It could.

Liz Wolfe: But maybe not.

Diane Sanfilippo: It could, but carbohydrate does have you hold water. So, eating carbohydrate also depending on how low carb she was eating before, carbohydrates do bond to water. So it’s something that, you know, there could be a real short term effect of that. I mean, I don’t think that the balance of that is extreme to where most people would feel very bloated for a long period of time. But it’s one of the reasons why fitness models will go low-carb for a short period of time, or drop sodium so they can lose water weight before a photo shoot or something like that. I mean, we do hold some water, but that’s not a bad thing when we’re eating carbohydrates, our body does need some of that water. But that could be a reason why she’s feeling bloated from it. Or the digestive issue.

Liz Wolfe: Something else I’ve noticed with adrenal fatigue, as well, and people don’t always like to hear this. I mean, we’re basically talking about busting an organ, you know what I mean? It’s a big deal. And sometimes when you start switching things around a little bit, your body will say, I need this I’m going to keep this until I’m absolutely sure I’m not going to run out of fuel again. You know? So sometimes there is that rebound time that people really get worried about, and of course you want to gauge if that’s actually happening for you or not, but sometimes you do just kind of have to get through it. Go through that process where you bring yourself back to a level that your body can function on, and then you can start, I guess trimming would be the right word from there to get your aesthetics back to a place that you’re happy.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, that makes sense.

8. #Treatyoself: Peanut butter cookies [57:38]

Liz Wolfe: Alright, ok, gotta relieve the baby sitter, but I have a quick treat yoself of the week if you’re ready.

Diane Sanfilippo: Alrighty, I want to hear it.

Clip: Three words for you; Treat. Yo. Self.

Liz Wolfe: Peanut butter cookies!

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Are you making these.

Liz Wolfe: In no way paleo! In no way ok, but I just had some ants in my pants for a peanut butter cookie.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: And they’re so simple. They’re just literally sugar, peanut butter, and an egg. And so there’s nothing too super crazy in there. So I got some fresh ground organic peanut butter, I got some organic hippie non-GMO sugar and I made some peanut butter cookies and I had one.

Diane Sanfilippo: Aww, honey you baked! {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Honey, you baked. I left the rest at my parent’s house, and it was good. I didn’t eat the whole batch. I’m a Moderator.

Diane Sanfilippo: You are, it’s so annoying.

Liz Wolfe: I’ve discovered, as we’ve talked about. I know, literally, I was like; I want some peanut butter cookies. So I made 12, I ate 1. I was so happy.

Diane Sanfilippo: No. Uh-huh.

Liz Wolfe: The end.

Diane Sanfilippo: Would not happen. I made these same cookies; this is like a known popular sort of recipe; it’s like a one to one to one or something of this recipe. Although, did your recipe call for a cup of peanut butter and a cup of sugar?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Did you make it that way? I made these cookies with, I think half the sugar.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I could taste the sugar crunching between my teeth. The little granules.

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m not judging your quantity of sugar use, but you can try it with half as much sugar and I think they were really good.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it was way too much.

Diane Sanfilippo: For how we might like to eat them.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: But I believe I made this recipe, because I was like; ok, 3 ingredients? I think I could bake that {laughs} because I’m such a bad baker. Those are delicious. Yeah, awesome. Love it.

Liz Wolfe: Alright, that’s it for this week. You can find me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/ and you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com. Join our email lists for free goodies and updates that you don’t find anywhere else on the internet. While you’re out there, leave us an iTunes review. See you next week.

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