The Case for Eating more Carbs in the Evening

Well I have to confess that I have thrown in a towel for ketogenic diet. I gave it a good try and I was very stubborn but now i have to confess it doesn't work for me. My experiment lasted about 2 years during which time I was constantly without energy, lost too much wight and muscle mas and was generally feeling miserable most of the time.
I think I was doing everything right in terms of supplements and also monitoring. I measured calories and did daily blood tests for ketones. But it seems my body needs some carbs.
As soon as I introduced some more vegetables, occasional rice and potatoes I started feeling much better. I still do intermittent fasting but I do load on ( not so evil) carbs especially after resistance training. I changed around my workout regimen and I actually gained 4 kilos, 3 more and I will be my "ideal weight". But for me the biggest indicator is how I feel, and I have to admit that there was significant change with introduction of carbs.

Anyhow just wanted to share my experience.
 
Thank you very much Laura for this thread
and Persej for the C's quote [A: It may not be wise to become too aggressive about avoiding carbohydrates.]
because I understand now why I'm so bad with keto diet. I'll introduce starchs (evening) and will see if I improve.
 
Z said:
Well I have to confess that I have thrown in a towel for ketogenic diet. I gave it a good try and I was very stubborn but now i have to confess it doesn't work for me. My experiment lasted about 2 years during which time I was constantly without energy, lost too much wight and muscle mas and was generally feeling miserable most of the time.
I think I was doing everything right in terms of supplements and also monitoring. I measured calories and did daily blood tests for ketones. But it seems my body needs some carbs.
As soon as I introduced some more vegetables, occasional rice and potatoes I started feeling much better. I still do intermittent fasting but I do load on ( not so evil) carbs especially after resistance training. I changed around my workout regimen and I actually gained 4 kilos, 3 more and I will be my "ideal weight". But for me the biggest indicator is how I feel, and I have to admit that there was significant change with introduction of carbs.

Anyhow just wanted to share my experience.
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Thank you for sharing Z. It's really interesting and true that the keto diet is not a one-fit-all way to optimal health. I was on keto for over four years and had only positive results after the first few months of adjustment. It worked so well that I was running circles around my husband on construction sites and comfortably handled a seven day work week.

I was down to just over 50kg in weight but my muscle tone was almost exceptional that I started to wear baggy clothing to divert attention from myself (don't like attention :roll eyes:).But I guess life has a way of throwing tougher challenges our way in different forms to teach us to maintain our warrior attitude and to soldier on.

The past almost couple of years I've been more paleo with some 'what's the use' slip ups but something in me is not giving up and carbs just do not sit well with me.

I have to say that since the crystal project started and I requested mine (not knowing if or when I would receive them) my deepest prayer was for clarity of thought so that I could run my machine more objectively and direct my actions accordingly. I seem to be doing just that. My resolve is strengthening in many ways and a return to diet is one of them so...onward and upward I hope.
 
Z said:
Well I have to confess that I have thrown in a towel for ketogenic diet. I gave it a good try and I was very stubborn but now i have to confess it doesn't work for me. My experiment lasted about 2 years during which time I was constantly without energy, lost too much wight and muscle mas and was generally feeling miserable most of the time.
I think I was doing everything right in terms of supplements and also monitoring. I measured calories and did daily blood tests for ketones. But it seems my body needs some carbs.
As soon as I introduced some more vegetables, occasional rice and potatoes I started feeling much better. I still do intermittent fasting but I do load on ( not so evil) carbs especially after resistance training. I changed around my workout regimen and I actually gained 4 kilos, 3 more and I will be my "ideal weight". But for me the biggest indicator is how I feel, and I have to admit that there was significant change with introduction of carbs.

Anyhow just wanted to share my experience.
Click to expand...

Thats good to hear Z! What are your macros if you keep track? I feel the same way, thinking about bumping carbs to 125 from 100 net grams. I still have anywhere from 25 to 40 grams a sugar a day, not sure how bad it is with high fat intake like 200+ grams a day. Some paleo advocates like Bulletproof or Paleoleap say you can have 25-50 grams of fructose a day. Thats by sweettooth talking lol, use to eat 150-200grams of sugar a day!
 
Thank you for research. Interesting, i've been eating like this for long time: first meal - usually fat bomb, second meal - more protein (fat & meat & veggies) and if there's third meal or a snack, it's no fat (or very little), just some carbs plus eventually protein - usually a fruit or something else with some glucose and some bacon for example. I do this, because eating fat late impairs sleep, while carbs are digested much faster.
Do i understand correctly that niacin should be only taken in the evening/afternoon?
B Rh+
 
Found this regarding eating more carbs in the evening:

https://justinhealth.com/5-steps-to-create-super-healthy-skin-podcast-74/

Evan Brand: Wow, so–so explain that a little bit differently why when the cortisol levels are low in the evening that carbs make people feel so much better and I notice they sleep better, too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. So cortisol is a glucocorticosteroid. Again, medicine uses big words. We like to break it down and kinda give you the ability to–to be your master at being able to–to decipher what’s going on, so just focus on the glucose part of cortisol. So if we’re mobilizing glucose and we have higher amounts of cortisol in the morning, that means hormonally we already have an advantage of mobilizing glucose in the morning. So it doesn’t make sense to take in extra glucose in the morning if our hormones are already more prime to do it. The only exception would be morning workouts where you want that post carb meal after a CrossFit workout or after some type of training to increase insulin because insulin has an effect of lowering cortisol. That’s–that’s more of a–a exercise-nutrition type of podcast. We’ll save that for the future. But regarding to the concept here, cortisol is lower at night so we have less hormone capacity to stabilize blood sugar at night so it makes sense if we do a little more carbs. Do it at night, because a lot of people who are fatigued have a harder time stabilizing blood sugar at night and if we’re disrupting sleep because blood sugar is dropping or adrenalin and cortisol are going low which are causing blood sugar to go low, which is causing us to wake up, we don’t–we wanna do as many things as possible to avoid waking up. So sometimes the carbohydrates timed at nighttime, between 5 or to 9 o’clock or so can be great to buffer any low blood sugar swings that may happen while we’re sleeping that could disrupt sleep.
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Thanks Anthony for this additional information it make much sense base on my experience. I have been eating organic fruits for breakfast for the past ten years .I also have more fruits for lunch and then one cooked meal in the evenings between 5 - 8pm.
I have been experimenting with a total fruit diet for the past two years.I sometimes go on total fruits for 1- four days .The results has been very good.I am normally full of energy as the digestive process for fruits are much shorter than most processed foods.
All in all there is no hard and fast rules about how we should eat. My little knowledge of health and wellness so far has made me more aware of the dangers of high carbs especially if you are not exercising.
 
Harmony99, you may have misunderstood what Anthony posted.


What this thread explains is that for some, they need carbs in the evening because otherwise the body has issues regulating blood sugar. Before this, many had slight issues with the paleo or ketogenic diets that restrict carbs to a very small number.


In the morning it is better to not take sugar. Fruit has a lot of sugar. Some are not so bad, like avocado/coconut which has it's own sort of "fat" which burns slower in the body.




The general idea is that saturated fat from meats/eggs should be the primary energy source along with light carbs, like vegetables. Coconut is also a good saturated fat source but hard to digest for some.


Before this paleo diet, I would eat a lot of fruit or cereals/oatmeal in the morning only to be hungry a few short hours later, and then hungry again and again. Now on the paleo diet, I feel good with a lot of energy through the whole day only eating 2 meals with a snack in between or before bed!
 
I read a controversial french naturopath Robert Masson, talking about fruit and only diet fruit, saying this was very demineralizing even if you took the approach with three types of fruit (which have been thought to provide all the necessary to live). It depends on the latitude of your locality, and the time of the day : more sun and heat is better, and later in the day eating one type of fruit alone is ideal. If you're skinny is less ideal, if you're fatter it's preferable. It's to one's experience to decide but eating only fruit doesn't seem to be the best fitted for humans, based of what I know and read. Nora Gedgaudas would say that big apes eat fruit, but human evolved with smaller intestins best suited to eat fat and meat :). I do eat one fruits or nuts or berries in the afternoon, when I have taken enough sun during the day.
Hope it helps.
 
Harmony99 said:
Thanks Anthony for this additional information it make much sense base on my experience. I have been eating organic fruits for breakfast for the past ten years .I also have more fruits for lunch and then one cooked meal in the evenings between 5 - 8pm.
I have been experimenting with a total fruit diet for the past two years.I sometimes go on total fruits for 1- four days .The results has been very good.I am normally full of energy as the digestive process for fruits are much shorter than most processed foods.
All in all there is no hard and fast rules about how we should eat. My little knowledge of health and wellness so far has made me more aware of the dangers of high carbs especially if you are not exercising.
Click to expand...
Harmony99, if you are interested in increasing your health and wellness knowledge, you might want to check out the Experiment with Fruitarian Diet as a healing Diet thread and the pinned threads on the Diet and Health board if you haven't already. :)
 
I would like to ask whether by 'carbs' in the evening you mean eating an amount of carbs that still keeps you in ketosis? Based on my experience, I can have 30g of carbs and still be in ketosis but that's like 1/3 of a cup of oatmeal. Is this enough to make you guys feel better? I can't say it has worked for me.

Or does this thread suggest that being in ketosis for extended periods of time isn't for everyone, and some people actually do better in the carb burning mode?

I must defeatedly admit that I haven't done too well on the ketogenic diet and I'm currently having a hard time adjusting to it. Last summer my diet consisted of fat, meat and carbs in equal proportions. I was doing intermittent fasting every night (ketostix showed ketones nearly at the top of the scale every morning) and I took large amounts of l-glutamine before bed every night. I wasn't in ketosis but I felt fabulous. A brain fog and fatigue of over 10 years cleared and I really felt the worst was behind me.

Until the symptoms hit me like a ton of bricks in mid-September and I can't exactly figure out why. I started the ketogenic diet in late October to see if it would help but it hasn't. After nearly 6 weeks in ketosis I still feel exhausted, brain fogged and thirsty (I do take electrolytes and recommended supplements), and I still have huge carb cravings.

I'm seriously beginning to think that my body may simply be damaged beyond repair and no diet is going to fix this. But I do think I must experiment with different approaches to make sure I've left no stone unturned. Maybe I should just do intermittent fasting as a means of getting some ketones into my system instead of aiming for long-term ketosis?

Any suggestions will be really helpful.
 
Ant22
Reaching a state of Ketosis is the first step of many on the path to try and get your body working better. For me the journey so far has spanned 11 years. There have been many improvements but the journey is still stretching on forward.

I have come to the conclusion that the choices made 11 years ago are still in the process of showing benefits today. There doesn't seem to be a magic bullet that will produce instant results.

Try to not be discouraged and keep walking.
 
When it comes to helping your body to heal and recover your health, yeah, there is no magic bullet and it does take time! Pharmaceuticals may stop a symptom in its tracks and that may appear miraculous, but pretty much always, it is paid for by some other body system.

There are some natural tricks that do seem to be more supportive and encouraging of regaining health and may have good results in a short time, but that always depends on what the problems are and how long-standing.
 
I doubt if you're damaged beyond repair, Ant. I thought I needed a certain amount of carbs but was surprised when I actually reduced them further, how my body responded. I would be 0 carbs right now but I have a super low carb yogurt at the end of the day for a treat. 4 grams of carbs according to the label. I definitely don't crave carbs. I eat whatever fat I can when available but don't worry to much about ratios. I just eat when I'm hungry until I'm full.

Are you still eating eggs? I cut out eggs a while back. When I was doing Keto diet back in the 'fat bomb' days, I didn't feel right after after so many weeks. I think it was all them eggs I was eating. Anyway I feel pretty good now. Not perfect but much better. Keep at it. Health is a tricky one for sure!
 
I doubt you're damaged beyond repair too, Ant. Maybe you should tell us what exactly you're eating. It could be that you need to tweak things a bit. Some people actually do take up to 2 months to transition to ketosis, so it could be that you're just one of the unlucky ones. I know you said you're doing electrolytes, but are you getting enough salt? Sodium is really important while transitioning and it can help get rid of some of the symptoms of "keto flu".
 
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