Since I’ve been reclaiming my health and eating ‘enough’ food (which has included lots of potatoes!!), which most people see as a ‘lot’ of food, I’ve had people say things like ‘So you used to eat no carbs and now you eats loads of them? You’ve just gone to the opposite extreme!’ or ‘You put how many sugars in your coffee?’ I just generally nod or laugh or what have you as these days I’m not out to convince anybody of anything, I’m only out to improve my own health!
However, I thought I would give a little context for people who want to pass out at the thought of so many carbs or the idea of putting 4 tablespoons of sugar in their coffee! Firstly, let me say that I don’t put 4 tablespoons of sugar in my coffee for any other reason than that is how I like my coffee. Any less sugar and it tastes too bitter. Life is too short to drink unpleasant coffee! Coffee should be enjoyed… mmmmmm! For those who say ‘But isn’t sugar bad for you?’, I say ‘Why? Our cells run on glucose so what’s the problem?’ Now if you are only relying on sugar for energy you may run into some problems (actually I did run into big problems when I was eating a rubbish diet just to get calories!) because you’d run out of vitamins and minerals and your body wouldn’t function correctly. If, however, you make sure you get all the necessary vitamins and minerals your body needs then I just can’t see a problem at all.
However, I thought I would give a little context for people who want to pass out at the thought of so many carbs or the idea of putting 4 tablespoons of sugar in their coffee! Firstly, let me say that I don’t put 4 tablespoons of sugar in my coffee for any other reason than that is how I like my coffee. Any less sugar and it tastes too bitter. Life is too short to drink unpleasant coffee! Coffee should be enjoyed… mmmmmm! For those who say ‘But isn’t sugar bad for you?’, I say ‘Why? Our cells run on glucose so what’s the problem?’ Now if you are only relying on sugar for energy you may run into some problems (actually I did run into big problems when I was eating a rubbish diet just to get calories!) because you’d run out of vitamins and minerals and your body wouldn’t function correctly. If, however, you make sure you get all the necessary vitamins and minerals your body needs then I just can’t see a problem at all.
I’ve already talked about what I eat and how often so now I’ve put all my daily food into a fab app called Cronometer (http://cronometer.com) for you guys so that you can see just what all that food is providing me with. Cronometer is easy to use (and free!) and you just need to add one food at a time. I generally add things separately, i.e. for mashed potato I will add potato and then butter as I like to make sure I’ve added all the correct ingredients. For the potato you will see that the unit says ‘one cup, mashed’ but it is just the potato (you can tell from the amount of calories). Here you can see all my food from one day (although this is just for 5 meals and 2 coffees, lately I’ve been adding a small sixth meal) listed. The only thing I didn’t separate out was the French fries as I would have no idea how much fat to add in. I cook my chips in beef dripping but chronometer might think I cook with some kind of vegetable oil (yuk!). Anyway, I don’t think that makes a huge difference to the overall picture!
So you can see I get around 3000 calories (probably a few more) and 350g carbs every day. I also get 122g of protein. It’s just as important to get enough protein everyday as is it to get enough carbs. This is how much I need to thrive and to heal my body. I think you can add specific targets in Cronometer (maybe you have to pay to upgrade?) but no idea why it thinks I’m having double the amount of calories I need!! Clearly you should ignore that! If I halved my calories I imagine I would feel crap and I would stop sleeping (my sleep gets rubbish if I even miss one meal!)
I’m getting a great supply of pretty much all the vitamins and minerals I need. I might need to up calcium a little bit (not sure as my body seems to be doing fine) but I don’t seem to tolerate milk that well at the moment (I have a small amount with my coffee) and am not that fussed about cheese! I assume my body might let me know if it needs more calcium though! I’m definitely not worried about iron, and sodium, well, you’ll be glad to know that I also add salt to every meal! Lol! I guess that needs a blog post all of its own (before anyone faints at the amount of salt I eat!!)
I hope this overview helps to show that I get a great amount of vitamins and minerals, and that I’m not killing myself with carbs, or sugar, or anything really! Lol! As always though, these are my ramblings and everyone needs to listen to their own bodies for their own individual needs. I love to hear from you guys so feel free to leave any comments below and remember, this is just me ‘thinking out loud’. Take care x
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