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?

Oh my god 😂 😂 😂

Sounds very high in grains to me

What would Otzi say?

If you want advice make an appointment with a dietician. They're actually qualified.

I'm currently on an eat something diet. Despite being diabetic this diet does not do anything nasty to my blood sugar. Portion size is also important. There's no way I can eat as much as OP and I'm not an undereater , just recovering from illness. Listen to your body.

I forgot to add that I had an iron infusion as well.

Breakfast was missed due to a patient transport mixup.

Even Artic region hunter-gatherers didn't have what modern (influencers) people would call an extremely low carb diet traditionally, that's another myth. About 29% of their kcal from carbs. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8172218/

Traditional (Aussie) aboriginal diet also included plenty of honey. Lots of carbs and their carbs were all high fibre. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19087457/

It's mostly low energy density punctuated by honey binges, huge amounts of dietary fibre and plenty of dirt on your veg, if you want a hunter-gatherer type diet, assuming not aiming for Artic region model. And you have to physically work for every morsel of it no matter which region one is emulating.

This!
Also check your iron

I have found that the more fibre I eat the better I feel. Whilst your example isn't massively low in fibre it's not that high in fibre either. We should all be eating at least 25-30g of fibre a day as a minimum from a variety of sources.

Focus on adding in a wide variety of fibre sources- nuts and seeds, beans, legumes, high fibre fruits and vegetables (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/high-fiber-foods/art-20050948) and whole grains into your diet.

I eat beans and/or lentils pretty much daily- you can make a cheap and easy salad with a drained tin of cooked beans, some sweetcorn, chopped up salady items or some shredded cabbage. Make a nice dressing (I like either a homemade vinaigrette or a yogurt, tahini and lemon juice dressing), and you an add in things like some cooked quinoa/rice/potatoes and a protein source like tofu, eggs, fish etc for a filling easy lunch.

Exercising tends to improve your energy levels- resistance training is so good to build muscle and bone strength as well as getting the blood circulating and boosting your confidence.

Plus it might be worth getting iron and vitamin levels checked. I eat plenty of meat and fish but I still tend to get low in B12 and iron if I don't supplement.

Porridge is very healthy plus nutritious. That should help energy plus fill you up.

There isn't very much of anything there!

You sound orthorexic. That may be why you aren’t feeling particularly well.

The last two quotes are advice for diabetics. Is there anything about diabetics which means that advice for them would be different to the general population?

The other two, you're totally right. All life forms can use carbohydrate. All organ systems require glucose. Is everyone happy with that? No problems at all, there? This completely fits the world as we know it? It doesn't raise any questions? We can proceed on that assumption.

Carbohydrate isn't glucose. I assume I do not need a citation for this. Grains do not actually contain glucose.

Grains (or complex carbohydrates) are broken down into sugars by via glycolysis. They are not just available to be used as energy as they are. They need to be broken down into glucose. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482303/

I get it. What you're trying to prove is that cells use glucose for energy. We therefore need grains to break down starch into glucose to run cells. And that's true. It's just, way, way too simple. It's how cells work. It's not how complex organisms work. And that's a really important difference. How can I cite a source to say that physiology isn't cell biology scaled up?

If you should miss a meal, or fail to ingest enough carbs, your blood sugar will drop. That's normal. It's supposed to. It's not bad. (There won't be a paper on it. Then idea that homestasis depends on small changes is a fundamental principle of physiology) The drop means that your insulin levels drop because you don't need to be pulling sugar out of your blood and pushing it into fat to prevent high blood glucose. You then use glycogenolysis to break down stored glycogen from your liver and fuel metabolism. And when that runs out, you make glucose from and protein. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK549820/

Because you don't only make glucose from carbs. You also break down protein and fats into glucose as well, via glycogenesis. So even if your cells could only run on glucose, you can get it from fat and protein. This is a normal pathway. Not something specific to long term keto diets or diabetics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK541119/

And even if you didn't, there is glucose in a grain-free diet. From vegetables. Without the problems with carbs. As you can clearly see from the macros I posted earlier.

And even if there wasn't, most (not all) of your organs can in fact run on other sources of energy. They preferentially run on glucose. But they don't have to. And part of the reason they preferentially run on glucose is that glucose is a massive problem in your blood. You're all worried about low glucose. But HIGH glucose is a bigger problem, physiologically speaking. Your body is continually trying to drive it down. That's why diabetics are in trouble. That's what actually causes type 2 diabetes.

That's when you get into ketones as source of alternative source energy. I will pull together some evidence for the last two paragraphs later. I'm out of time for the moment.

No, she isn’t. 45-65% of an adults calories should come from carbs.

You are a (natural, organic) fruit loop.

You're again posting reams of pseudoscientific babble instead of just admitting you were wrong to say that the body does not need glucose and wrong to say that grains don't contain anything the body needs.

At least you've made it very clear to anyone else reading that your "advice" is gubbins, so well done for that.

Wow! That’s not just poor science, it’s plain rude.

First you won’t accept anything without citations. Fair enough. So I go to the trouble of finding you citations. And summarising them for you. And, without even bothering to read the citations you demanded, you reject them and insult me.

I would never do that. Never.

Most of the body can run on keytones. And it makes glucose from protein and fat, via glycogenolysis, gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis. They are real, physiological processes you will find in any, quite basic, biology text lol, should you care to open one. And I was taught it in the first year of a Biological Sciences degree at a British university. By a professor. Who wrote a book on it. Twenty years ago. It’s old, respected, well established science. Calling ‘pseudoscientific babble’ makes you look ignorant as well as rude. So well done for that.

Well, you would do that, because you have rejected the clear evidence I and others provided that the body does need glucose and that grains do provide nutrients.

I don't care what physiological processes you learnt twenty years ago. The fact remains that you were wrong to say that the body does not need glucose and wrong to say that grains don't contain anything the body needs.

I accept plenty of things without citations, but not incorrect statements, obviously.

You can think my attempt at comic exaggeration is rude if you like but to my mind it's far worse to spout nonsense disguised as dietary advice. I do get very irate at the fact that people will say any old shit on diet threads that MN fails to regulate, so to be honest, there's a lot worse I could have said.

And I AM more qualified to weigh evidence. I have a science degree. That's the whole point of a science degree! (I also know that doctors have minimal, if any nutritional training, and that health degrees contain comparatively little science, because I have one of those as well. So I DO have and idea what I'm talking about. Certainly compared to anyone without those qualifications. You can't your mother's qualifications give your claims validity and discount mine). I am not reliant on second hand qualifications. I studied for my own.

Well it's clear you don't have an English degree as this is barely literate. Are you saying that in addition to a science degree, you also have an MD? Or you also have a nutritionist qualification? What's a 'health degree'? Something made up and given out by the RFK jr school of science? And, by the way, you have no way of knowing what kind of degree I might or might not have (I have several, actually, as it happens, and don't need any of them to know that you're peddling absolute bullshit).

I don't have the time or the inclination to write a book from memory about something I studied in my free time five years ago.

Not sure exactly what you're referring to (your assertion that all carbs are heavily processed?), but was it in your free time or as part of your 'degree' studies? Either way, you seem to have plenty of time to write long, weirdly capitalised posts that are rife with misinformation.

I did a bunch of OU courses when I had some free time.

Doesn't mean I come on Mumsnet as though I'm the only person with a science qualification.

I come on Mumsnet to witter on about random shit I have an opinion on. In this case, my educated assessment of the situation is as follows;

When humans were solely hunter-gatherers, they ate anything they could find. Once they developed agricultural technology and the language to communicate their skills, we saw exponential growth in population, further technological and social development, extended lifespans and increased survival. So if it weren't for the grains, we wouldn't be chatting shit online about carbs and protein and calories and, most of all, cats all these thousands of years later, we'd still be a handful of humans selected through luck and horsepower, looking at those weird little furry creatures catching rodents and wondering whether it was better to skin and eat it or feed it to the canines that have started to hang around in the hope of some bits of meat.

Get vit b injections they work

Only if you're deficient in vitamin B.

They do work, but it's important to make sure you need them first as there can be adverse effects from overdosing B vitamins.

I've never said I do have an English degree, fire away at my grammar. It's not my strength and I might learn something.

How much nutrition is included in a medical doctor's undergraduate training? The answer when I was kicking about in hospitals and socialising with doctors varied between about 2 and 4 hours. Not a whole lot, I think you'll agree. Has it changed?

I have a first in biological sciences. And a 2:1 in physiotherapy (which I practiced for 15 years until I retired). Both from well respected, bricks and mortar, UK universities. I did a couple of hundred or so hours of research into low carb diets about five years ago when I started one myself, because I wanted to be well informed that what I was doing was safe and beneficial, and because it was interesting. I concluded it was safe and beneficial, and went ahead. So I have firsthand experience as well. Before I did it, I thought it was all rubbish and people needed carbs. Now I don't. So I understand it's a controversial view.

I only read published, peer reviewed, scientific papers (or books which referenced them. And I checked the sources) written by doctors with post graduate interest in nutrition or respected scientists. Like I was taught is gold standard scientific method. But it was in my free time and I didn't keep referenced notes. I am not (quite) that much of a nerd.

I am not pretending I'm the only person with a degree. Or that I'm some ultimate expert that knows best. But also I'm not an idiot who doesn't know how bodies work, or relies on google AI for information, or who is repeating mis-information from dubious sources on the internet, which seems to be the popular view.

Am I right, or am I wrong though, that the best way the body can process carbs is via the Kit Kat.

Im right arent I?

I stand by my informed opinion that there is no nutritional benefit to eating grains, that it is safe and beneficial to omit them completely, that they cause many health problems and that I felt a lot better without them. I've read your sources, and I agree with them. They don't tell the whole story, because a single paper never could and because your interpretation is too narrow and too simple. Bodies are not.

No, that isn't exactly the same as 'carbs have nothing you need'. If you need a retraction, consider it retracted. There's still plenty of room for discussion, but it requires accepting new information. Not MY information - just not your own. If you feel you know everything there is to know already, good for you. Scientists still seem to be researching diet a bit, so they obviously feel there's more to it. I'll stick with them. (Maybe you should write and tell them....)

I wonder how all of you bickering “scientists” think this is helping the op?

she has, I suspect, like most others, stopped reading.

Pointing out misinformation helps everyone.

But yes, clearly, there's only one scientist around here.

It's Otzi the Iceman