The Case for Eating more Carbs in the Evening

I've been looking into solving some of the issues of those folks who just don't do well on the keto diet or super low carbs. I came across this:

http://primalpotential.com/carbs-at-night/

I think that it is possible - even likely - that some people's systems have been modified by epigenetics so that more carbs are not just desirable for them, but probably essential. Obviously, yes, what carbs are consumed would be important and my preference would be for increased veggies like carrots, beets, cauliflower, etc. And, if the person is not super gluten sensitive, oats because they have so many other benefits.

See: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/oatmeal-everyday-powerfood.html

It is also the case that some fiber type things can help carry toxic stuff out of the colon and with quite a number of us finding that we have loads of toxins that are being released by iodine therapy, maybe this is part of the answer?

Even though I try not to eat too many carbs, when I do it's almost exclusively at night. I noticed that when I ate carbs with breakfast, I didn't do as well. But at night if it's a salad or whatever, I seem to do fine. I wasn't doing horribly when I was zero carb, which was for a while, but I know that since going back to eating some veggies with dinner I do feel better.

Thanks for starting this topic, Laura, and for the link. It's information I'm glad to see covered and it comes in a timely fashion - as your shared information often does.

I've been doing paleo for 3 or so years now, at first kind of casually, then getting seriously paleo/ketogenic after a malignant melanoma showed up. (all better now, just required a surgical removal and so far no sign of return - thanks to paleo).

Lately, though, I've been thinking I'd like to add some regular good carb's in the form of veggies and leafy greens. Not a lot, but something to give some soluble fiber, an extra source of viteys and minerals and life, and (I'm not sure why) as a kind of balance.

The most recent transcripts encouraged me to try adding in some non-sugary veggies and see how my body does with that. With the additional encouragement of this topic and link, I feel like I've got a big green light to experiment carefully with how more veggies and greens would affect me.

And a special thanks to you Laura for the extraordinary work you and the crew are doing on the iodine topic. It's awe inspiring to see all this unfolding.

This sounds like a great idea. I think it might help my digestion. I've tried the magnesium and probiotics but still have occasional issues. Eating more fat vs protein didn't really help either.

Like Beau, even before paleo-carbs never worked well for me in the morning, I'd be hungry before lunch!

Beau, what's your blood type? I'm A+, curious if its sort of related to the blood type diet (with O doing best without carbs perhaps?).

I have experimented quite a lot recently with more carbs, and I must say, the results have been quite interesting.

Last year I was on a quite strict KD and I was gradually putting on weight, which left me stumped. And I was feeling a bit off, mostly tired all the time and having some degree of insomnia (going off to sleep very easily, but waking up during the day and not being able to sleep past 06:30, no matter when I went to bed).

But when I reintroduced some carbs, I actually LOST weight and I felt quite well. Having said that, I also do Intermitting Fasting more or less continually, so maybe that is another factor to put into the mix. Whenever possible I skip breakfast and have a late lunch and dinner around 7pm. Things have gone extremely well for me, bit I am aware of the fact, that iodine probably plays a major role in this too. Apart from weight, the other major change was insomnia, which has completed disappeared.

I'm not extremely gluten sensitive, so I think that I'll experiment with oates too, maybe we should add a few tasty recipes to the diet section.

Thanks, Laura, for starting this thread!

Fwiw I had a big bowl of sweet potato with my dinner last night, with no symptoms of bloating or anything, and I swear it helped me sleep last night. In the morning, I am bloated from excess carbs, in the evening however, I feel like they are good for me

Yes, thank you Laura. I also noticed that I have to eat more vegetables, mainly because bowel moments, but also generally I feel better with it. More problems began when I took antibiotics in February last year and probiotics and magnesium didn't help enough. Since then I am constantly struggling with it. The last few weeks I've tried everything, and in the end I added more vegetables and baked apples (apples have lots of pectin, which helps emptying) and that had helped, but I was kicked out out of ketosis. When I reduced vegetables attempting entry to ketosis, problems have started again.
Yesterday I started with probiotics that Laura recommended –bacillus coagulans- and it worked like a charm. Thank you for that too.

Divide By Zero said:

Beau, what's your blood type? I'm A+, curious if its sort of related to the blood type diet (with O doing best without carbs perhaps?).

Click to expand...

I do not know how much the theory of blood groups is reliable, but my healer also said that given that I am A+, I need to eat lots of green leafy vegetables. I will have to find how much more vegetables I could eat to stay in ketosis. I think I will also try with oates too.

From all I've ready thus far, I think the important thing is to restrict the carbs to very late in the day or early evening. I'll be interested to see how many issues this clears up for various people.

istina said:

Yes, thank you Laura. I also noticed that I have to eat more vegetables, mainly because bowel moments, but also generally I feel better with it. More problems began when I took antibiotics in February last year and probiotics and magnesium didn't help enough. Since then I am constantly struggling with it. The last few weeks I've tried everything, and in the end I added more vegetables and baked apples (apples have lots of pectin, which helps emptying) and that had helped, but I was kicked out out of ketosis. When I reduced vegetables attempting entry to ketosis, problems have started again.
Yesterday I started with probiotics that Laura recommended –bacillus coagulans- and it worked like a charm. Thank you for that too.

Divide By Zero said:

Beau, what's your blood type? I'm A+, curious if its sort of related to the blood type diet (with O doing best without carbs perhaps?).

Click to expand...

I do not know how much the theory of blood groups is reliable, but my healer also said that given that I am A+, I need to eat lots of green leafy vegetables. I will have to find how much more vegetables I could eat to stay in ketosis. I think I will also try with oates too.

Click to expand...

Yes, not sure about blood types either; I'm A+. If anything, introduced foods that used to be common I don't do well on. I do fine on things like a sweet potato and beets. Any lettuces are a recipe for failure. Like nicklebleu said, skipping breakfast is a norm, and a late lunch (usually a breakfast now with Iodine etc) and dinner also around 7pm. What is a constant is the wanting to have a catnap around 6:00 or sooner - 10 - 20 minutes is all.

It is interesting, because I tend to crave carbs by the end of the day. For example, I will eat some sweet potatoes with butter, but adding a pork chop to it just doesn't seem like a good idea. Eating carbs also makes me feel sleepy, which helps me to go to bed earlier.

I also find it interesting how fiber is supposed to help with your estrogen metabolism. I'm thinking that as iodine re-balances our hormones, a lot of toxins and xenoestrogens might be released and if they are not cleared out, there can be more weight gain from water retention.

Some are recommending to eat at least 25 grams of fiber in a paleo diet in order to "flush out" xenoestrogens:

_http://www.lifestylebypoliquin.com/Lifestyle/StayHealthy/393/Is_Estrogen_Dominance_Making_You_Fat.aspx?_.aspx

I think I'm going to try this starting this evening. Usually I eat a bunch of greens with dinner. I don't eat anything in the morning until around 11 to 11:30AM when I have a fatty breakfast with egg yolks (usually bacon with lots of grass-fed butter, but about once a week, barbequed fatty fish leftovers from the night before). I have dinner between 5 and 6:30PM, mostly fatty meat, some greens and red caviar.

I've been eating from around 15 to 25 grams of net carbs a day for a few months. For the last 4 and half years or so before that, I'd been eating average around 3 to 5 grams net carbs. I seem to be doing better than last few times I had tried raising carbs now. I've been eating more on occasion between breakfast and dinner last few weeks (started since the iodine protocol made me hungry for the first time since being in ketosis), so I can try shifting more carbs to the latest part of the day. The other day, I had cooked dates in butter with cinnamon right after dinner. Seems to help sleep longer.

I'll look into getting some oats/oatmeal too to try. By the way, I'm bloodtype O-.

I eat only season vegetables, every day I cook meat broth with vegetables for soup, a little carrots, parsley root, celery root, carrots one, if I have to throw in the soup and a piece of cauliflower, cabbage leaf ...
Sometimes just crush with a fork and eat, and sometimes use hand blender and make a cream soup.
Dinner no later than 6 pm.
If I was hungry after 6 o'clock in the evening, drink tea or water.

Interesting. About 3 months ago I went from the average of about 30g carbs a day to less than 10g, with most days close to zero.
I've had no serious problems with it, but I feel like sometimes I get too much fat and my guts don't do so well with that.
So a few days ago, I actually ate some carbs in the evening in an attempt to stabilise it, but I've only done it once so far. Seeing this thread, I think I'll try to be more consistent about it for a while and see how it goes.

Laura, what do you think about the consumption of barley grass and wheat grass, I never used them, allegedly without gluten and are among the "super food"?
Link:
https://translate.google.hr/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=hr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Falternativa-za-vas.com%2Findex.php%2Fclanak%2Farticle%2Fsuperhrana&edit-text=

Beau said:

Even though I try not to eat too many carbs, when I do it's almost exclusively at night. I noticed that when I ate carbs with breakfast, I didn't do as well. But at night if it's a salad or whatever, I seem to do fine. I wasn't doing horribly when I was zero carb, which was for a while, but I know that since going back to eating some veggies with dinner I do feel better.

Click to expand...

Just a "me too".

I pretty much figured out on my own that breakfast should be keto, lunch should be keto, and dinner can be carby. Or, dinner can be keto/paleo and post-dinner snack can be carby. If I do that, everything is fine.

The absolute worst is carbs for breakfast. That's a no-no for me. I don't feel awful or anything, but it's like it throws my system out of whack for the rest of the day.

Finally, the re-inclusion of some carbs means I've actually managed to gain 2kg, which for me is a good thing. I'm still 13kg under my American Junkfood Diet weight. I still have all the Keto Perks, like more rapid healing, increased strength, etc.

I have strongly suspected for awhile now that pure keto is good for far fewer people than we think. I think the key is to get the ketone-burning systems up and running again, and then experiment and adjust the diet for optimal performance over the longer term. That will naturally involve different tweaks for different peeps.