Carbs For Energy and Weight Control

By: Dr. Sarah Radtke Welsh Substack Instagram

The main threat to survival over the course of humanity has been starvation. We have overlapping built-in mechanisms to deal with it. The number one way is to put on fat and keep that extra energy on hand in case times get tough. I remember the day my professor explained that fat people are actually starving. It was shocking, as I had previously thought that they were over-eaters. Turns out, both can be true.

Fat people have the hormonal signaling of starvation. They are almost always tired. So tired that it’s hard to exercise. They also often have joint pain. Maybe some of it is due to the weight, but some of it is because a body in starvation mode will not put energy into non-essential functions like healing joint injuries or building muscle. But how can they be starving when they are eating so much?

Here’s the kicker: food is information for your body about your surroundings and if it doesn’t reflect a healthy environment, your body will take on the hormonal patterns of starvation. This is why eating lots of calories in the form of ultra-processed food makes people fat. It is lacking in nutrients and full of things that are foreign to the body, basically acting like poisons that slow down your metabolism. It doesn’t look like times are good to your body. This is where the time-tested advice to eat a healthy, whole foods diet is so often successful. A rich and balanced diet has all the energy and nutrients that your body needs to thrive in a healthy environment.

Starvation is Good

Intermittent fasting has become popular because starvation was such a regular occurrence that our bodies utilize it for house-cleaning. When you break down your body to use it for energy, the body prefers to break down damaged cells first. If we never go into starvation, the normal process of autophagy (killing unhealthy cells) does not go into full effect and infected or cancerous cells get more opportunities to thrive. Going without food periodically is not only good for everyone, it can be miraculous for people with auto-immune disease, cancer, and any chronic condition.

Starvation is Bad

Any diet that doesn’t provide adequate fuel for long enough will trigger the hormonal profile of starvation; slowed metabolic rate, low estrogen and testosterone, high cortisol. These tell the body to store food as fat and not turn it into energy. In the long run, this is not desirable unless you are facing a serious health condition that is treated with a fasting diet. For those in good health, you want to avoid getting your body too far into the hormonal profile of starvation, especially for too long or repeatedly. It can trigger signs of aging, like hair-loss or poor skin elasticity, joint degeneration, infertility, and inability to sleep deeply.

Carbs are the Problem?

So many people have come to the conclusion that simply avoiding carbs is the key to keeping a slim figure. If you have been over-consuming carbohydrates, you will find this to be a very effective strategy. Those who regularly consume sugary drinks seem to find this advice especially effective. However, total carb avoidance for prolonged periods of time will create the same problems as starvation.

Carbohydrate Chemistry

You always need to have sugar in your blood. You will die quickly without it, and so your body is well-prepared to maintain it. The body can store a certain amount of sugar (glucose) as glycogen in the liver and muscles, which is easily converted back into glucose. After about 18-24 hours, glycogen stores are used up. This accounts for the initial quick weight loss you see. Fasting for that length of time is not enough to change hormonal signaling because it doesn’t put a great deal of stress on the body. Beyond that point, you trigger a process called gluconeogenesis, or making new glucose. Here’s where your body breaks down proteins and turns them into new glucose. It’s not a very efficient process, meaning you don’t get a lot of sugar out of it, and the main hormone that turns this path on is cortisol. So if you don’t eat any carbs for long enough (like on a ketogenic or carnivore diet), you will automatically have high cortisol.

Hormones Control Weight

If you have spent your life trying different extreme diets, only to gain back the weight once you stop, you have been playing Russian Roulette with your baseline metabolism. Every time you lost weight, you elevated your cortisol, and it stayed high once you stopped dieting, thus resulting in the fat returning and a frustrating cycle continuing. If we recognize that our bodies are trying to keep us alive rather than acquiring the figure we desire, we can approach the issue differently.

Understanding Your Body

If we want to achieve our weight goals for the long term, we need to eat proteins, fat andcarbohydrates because that’s what constitutes a healthy environment for our bodies. A good indicator of how fast your metabolism runs is your temperature. 98.6° used to actually be a normal temperature for most people. Today, most adults run well below that temperature, by a full degree or more. If your temperature is below 98.6° you are suffering from a slow metabolic rate. Having a fast metabolism means that you turn everything you eat into energy. You will have high estrogen and testosterone, heal injuries quickly, sleep deeply, build muscle and bone, have high cognitive function and avoid chronic disease.

Weight loss requires a calorie deficit, not starvation. Creating short-term calorie deficits of 10-15% while maintaining physical activity can cut into fat stores without driving us into a starvation profile. Since carbs are most quickly transformed into energy, they help keep a high metabolic rate, cortisol low, and athletic performance at its peak. Our bodies remember what we have lived through. If there have been many famines in our life, we may be programmed to maintain a certain amount of fat. Changing that is best achieved by creating a stable, nourishing lifestyle, not punishing ourselves with unsustainable diets that can never deliver the look or the quality of life we want.

Follow me on Substack for more.