To not understand why my healthy (I think) way of eating isn't making me feel energetic and fabulous

[LindyFoo]

AIBU to consider this is a healthy daily diet (not looking to lose weight as already a healthy weight). I want to feel more energetic and fabulous :-). Don't eat meat or drink alcohol. In my 60s, fit and well, very minimal stress.

AM
Smoothie with banana, kale, milk, peanut butter, avacado, skimmed milk powder, greek yoghurt
SNACK
Sourdough bread with peanut butter
MIDDAY
2 egg with onion, peppers, cheese and a mixed salad with olive oil dressing
5PM
Salmon with salad or brown rice with prawns and lots of vegetables and spices

What is missing? Or not helping?

Maybe make an appointment to see a dietician. They can be very helpful.

Yes I was under the impression that fibre is really important for all those reasons.

Very science degree, much knowledge

@takealettermsjones have you read “ultra processed people”? It might help you better understand the difference between processed food and ultra Processed food.

What makes you think I don't understand the difference?

Because you seem to think brown rice and kit Kats are both processed. 🤷‍♀️ one of them is, one is ultra processed.

I didn't say that.

What was the weight of the ricotta in your omelette and the weight of your steak and the weight of your cheese portion and the weight of your cashew nuts then?

What on earth does 'natural' mean in your context, guestsareinvited? Even leaving aside the fact that plenty of 'natural' plants are poisonous to humans, what in our food chain today is 'natural' by your strange definition?

Sure, grains have been developed by centuries of agriculture but so have all the fruits and vegetables we eat today. You know of course that apples today are nothing like Stone Age wild apples, and carrots are very different, and cultivated strawberries are dissimilar to wild strawberries and so on and so on.

The animals we eat today are nothing like Stone Age animals either - even if you buy organic grassfed beef and higher welfare pork. Pigs are not wild hogs, cows are not the bony cattle that were originally domesticated by our ancestors. They've all been bred to human specifications, just like grain.

You have to process olives to eat olive oil, just like you have to process wheat to eat it. As others have pointed out, you also have to cook or soften lots of vegetables and some fruits to make them edible and safe.

I don't think there was some ideal pre-lapsarian age of Food that Humans Were Supposed to Eat as you seem to. Humans have always been moving, adapting, improvising, domesticating, farming.

It sounds broadly healthy.
Smoothie is the only thing that rang a bell because of the thing about eating solid food rather than blended (???), but if that feels better to you than eggs, porridge etc, then it's not exactly terrible like some people seem to think!

I would think about what you eat over a week as much as in a day. Make sure you mix it up a bit day to day, different fruits, veg, protein sources etc. Add seeds and nuts where they work, e.g. a handful of pumpkin seeds to a salad. Make sure your quantities are enough especially if you are active. Make sure your iron levels are normal esp given you are pescatarian and also if you are active. Mine are sometimes on the low side so i supplement with spatone.
And make sure you're hydrated. I sometimes eat two breakfasts, porridge and fruit first thing as that works for me, then scrambled egg, sourdough and avocado/tomatoes mid morning. Light lunch (soup / small portion of dinner leftovers) or snack, then dinner with salmon or a vegetarian/vegan recipe. Riverford have some excellent menu boxes so I make those a couple of times a week to make sure I'm eating a wide range of vegetables. And they are really tasty.

Have you looked at hormones at all? I felt quite a bit better and less fatigued when I got a (private) testosterone prescription.

But yes as some others have said, keep an eye on the whole picture- exercise but not to excess, stay hydrated, chase good quality sleep etc. The best I've ever felt was when looking at the Whole30 diet but it isn't super pescatarian friendly- but in terms of how your plate looks with loads of veg, unprocessed protein sources and fats (nuts, seeds, good olive oil, avocadoes etc). Felt great on that but it costs a fortune and is quite hard to follow if you don't eat meat!

takealettermsjones I am not 'vastly more intelligent' than anyone, and I certainly don't pretend to be. I'm not flexing, Im trying to establish credibility, because I'm fully aware this not a usual view. I KNOW a lot about carbs. A lot more than most people. That's not a flex. I should probably have a more interesting life and a more balanced interests! But is does mean I'm not just trotting out something I read in the Daily Mail. Why should I not be passionate about it? How should I come across? I this argument is factually correct, so how should I respond when people say 'are you the one with those insane carb theories' or 'you don't know a complex carb from a Kit Kat' and many people won't read the full thread, so I need to prove again and again that I don't mean Kit Kats.

A question first. Tell me why your body needs carbs. Not calories - carbs specifically. What do they add to a diet, nutritionally or physiologically that taking them out would mean is a problem?

There is loads to unpack there, you're right. To respond to the points you chose....

Firstly, this isn't advice. It's information for people make decisions. It's GOOD information. I don't think I've ever said 'don't eat carbs' I've said 'carbs are bad and have nothing you need'.

You are equating a food GROUP with a single FOOD. You can't compare an egg to carbs. You need to compare and carbs to protein. (Or eggs to wheat-flour). And the 'so what' is....Does it make a difference to how the protein is digested and the nutrients extracted if you 'refine' the egg by removing the shell and cooking it? No. Does it make a difference to how the carbohydrate is digested and the nutrients extracted if you husk/hull/mill flour and cook it? YES!

You need the fibre or you get too much glucose hitting the system too fast, and your body is struggling to process it.. Because it's not a naturally-occurring food GROUP. Priotein IS. Fat IS. Vegetables (sort of) ARE. It's not a nutrient our bodies are physiologically evolved to metabolise in the form and quantities we ingest it. And it's causing us harm. Complex carbs have fibre, which helps to slow down glucose release into the bloodstream, so complex carbs are less stress for your body. But 'less bad' doesn't mean 'good' If you don't HAVE the glucose, which you don't need and aren't equipped to process in those quantities, you need the fibre to release a harmful substance into your blood more slowly so that you can process that harmful substance and get it out of your system somewhere safe.

But why aim to release a harmful substance slowly. Why not...not eat it? We are all approaching this backwards by trying to mitigate the significant problems of processing a nutrient we could just....not eat. I'm not using the 'it's not natural' argument as a philosophy or a woo-woo lifestyle choice. I am arguing that our bodies are not physiologically evolved to derive energy from a diet where carbs form a large percentage of the calories, and it's creating problems when we do. It is a scientific argument based on biological facts. Why eat them? WHY? When other calories are available (there are actually reasons. They just aren't physiological)

So I stand by my statement that 'carbs have nothing you need'. They don't. I can't edit it, but I've expanded more than enough. I don't know how to say not more accurately in a format anyone would bother to read. There is no physiological advantage TO eat carbs versus other food. And a lot of problems. That's not ridiculous or bizarre. It's not a silly argument unless you reduce it to 'eat like a caveman'. And I'm not. I'm saying carbs are food we are really ill equipped to digest, and struggling to digest it is causing us big problems and making us ill.

Nobody is asking

'why is glucose in the blood so bad?'

'Why do we need to get it out of our bloodstream fast'?

'How do we get it out of our bloodstream fast?'
'Where does they go?'
'If we don't have carbs, what do we use for energy'?

And those are really important questions.

This conversation is giving me a stomach ache

As for pointing out my 'questionable logic', feel free to question. It's how we identify gaps in our knowledge. Hopefully, I can address them.

If myfitnesspal says I need 1400 calories and I am losing weight on 1600, what could be wrong? Well, my fitnesspal could be. It almost certainly IS because how much energy anyone needs is way more complex than that. But it's the best we have, so we'll have to go with it. (I am very short and pretty slight).

But I wasn't eating carbs. That changes your metabolism. It fundamentally changes how your body processes calories and what it does with them. I also uses more of them. I will (obviously) happily expand on that, but I want to deal with your other points first, because they are very good points.

I'm talking about low carb diets in the past tense because I am not doing it now. I'd prefer to be and I genuinely believe it is healthier and better for everyone, and it DEFINITELY is for me. But it is HARD. You have to cook every bloody thing yourself, from scratch. It's inconvenient. You can't eat out. You can't buy a meal deal. You pretty much have to eat at home. You have to THINK so much about food. And you can't eat much that's easy. The fridge is always too full because everything is fresh and you have to lug more shopping home. It's also expensive. I'm not saying this is an option open to everyone. And that's a problem. A political one.

Of course I know that my personal experience is not data. BUT people are saying, repeatedly 'you need carbs for energy'. 'complex carbs stop sugar crashes' low carb diets lack'. There's no study to cite to say you don't. So I've used myself as an example. I don't think there will be any studies - there are massive barriers to them. Not least there is no profit in vegetables. Who is going to fund sizeable, quality studies? You can't blind the participants - we know what we're eating! But I wanted to show in a real way that it's not 'massive slabs of meat' or consitpating. Or swimming in fat. That it actually doesn't look as radically subversive as people think. To show what I am actually suggesting she try and that it's not 'dangerous advice' And, the (poor!) OP asked how she could feel more energetic. Which is subjective. And I think that's how.

But you were eating carbs. Just not the average amount

You quoted, and I suspect you'll agree this fluctuates day to day, 66g of carbs

Thats lower carb.

What was the weight of the items you quoted that are protein based?

Have a look at the protein leverage hypothesis.

Yes. But as you can see, there is not a bloody lot of fibre added by those complex carbs, is there? In the random day of food I posted, was it 15g of carbs from vegetables? And a cup of brown rice added 2g!!!!

And what causes all of those problems? What causes the cancer, the cholesterol, the inflammation, the DIABETES??? How much of that is coming from carbs? In the case of diabetes, ALL OF IT. In the case of inflammation? Cancer? I don't know. You tell me - I've had to explain how all these things work to back up my assertions. Shouldn't everyone follow those principles?

I think (and this is my personal theory. It's not physiological fact which, mostly I have stuck to so far and I want to make it clear this is distinct from that) We don't eat enough vegetables. And we don't eat them because eat carbs as filler. Eating more vegetables has a protective effect. But what it mostly does is mean you eat less carbs. Carbs REALLY stress your body. And I think that's what's causing the cancer et al. Not necessarily that simply - but the long term physiological strain is resulting in more of all these things.

This is factual - your body is fighting to get sugar out of your blood all the time. It's just not equipped to BE deluged with carbs all day everyday. It can, and it does. But that's not how it functions optimally. The reason people with diabetes lose nerves, have amputations, get kidney failure and don't heal is because they cannot manage carb metabolism and keep their blood sugar normal. In very basic terms, sugar makes your blood acidic and affects every chemical process in it badly. And I just don't think people get this and what it means. I didn't get here easily.

I wasn't eating GRAINS. If you read what I've written (and I wouldn't blame you if you hadn't. I've written reams) grains are fundamentally different from vegetables. That is my entire point. And I don't think it makes sense if I don't explain why grains are fundamentally different and I don't know how to convey it more simply and quickly, because it is complex and in depth. Sorry. I didn't design bodies to work like this!

here you go

You actually said 'but I wasnt eating carbs'

But I wasn't eating carbs. That changes your metabolism. It fundamentally changes how your body processes calories and what it does with them.

You were eating carbs, so how did that change your metabolism.

Wheres the cheese and the meat and the nuts

No she isn't and no, brown rice will not do that.

Carbohydrates are a naturally occurring food. They occur naturally in fruit and vegetables as well as grains. Most people throughout the last millennium ate loads of bread, rice, maize, cous cous, millet etc. as well as fruit and vegetables. They didn’t all have diabetes.

I feel like I've dealt with that, but it IS a very key point. And it relies on the misconception that humans are always evolving, domesticating, and so on. Yes, they are. But not in the time frame you're considering for something so basic and complex as glucose metabolsim. In recent evolutionary history, humans evolve by changing our environment with our brains and our technology. We don't change our bodies. And where we do, we haven't had long enough to change something this big. This isn't my take on evolution and biology. It isn't a strange or wacky theory. This IS how it is. Your pancreas and liver are the same as they were in stone age people. You need the same food. Your brain is different. But your body isn't. Take, say, skin colour. That's pretty simple. It's just a pigment, and it's visible, so it's a quick and dirty fix in evolutionary terms. But it's thought that has only diversified in response to people moving away from the equator in the last ten thousand years or so. Something like digestion simply isn't going to change in that time frame.

We feel very different to pre-agricultural people, and we have lives that look very different. But our BODIES are not very different. Farming is evolutionary VERY recent. Only 12000 yers ago to begin, and only as we really know it in the last few hundred. You are right that other plants have been modified and selected and they yield, look and taste different, and that animals have been bred to be bigger and meatier. Thats why I have said vegetables are only sort of the same as pre-agriculture, because they do look different. But it isn't the same as they way grains have been radically changed to form huge parts of our diets. If you eat a modern pig or a stoneage boar, the protein and fat is nutritionally the same, and is processed the same way. If you eat a plate of pasta, it's not. And there is no stoneage equivalent nutrionally. Literally none. It's what agriculture revolutionised. That's why it's not a 'natural' food group. It literally does not occur in a nutritionally comparable form or quantity without human agriculture. It seems so small and insignificant to eat grains. But it's a real sea change.

Vegetables and animals have only changed superficially. We need marginally less of them to get the same nutrients. But they are the same nutrients they have always been and we process them the same way as we always have. There IS A Way Humans Have Evolved To Eat. And it's without grains as we know them. That's not a moral assertion or a bonkers cult. It's a physiological one.

Sorry. MFP has turned into a REALLY horrible app since I was using it. I can't get them all less than about five screens.

ok, Im curious because its flying in the face of you saying you dont eat slabs of meat, I personally think thats a large chunk of meat but horses for courses

Its not quite as much protein as you said by the way (ball park figure)

Your fibre is likely storing up trouble for the future.