Episode 155: Understanding Simple vs Complex Carbs

We need carbs to lose weight in a menopausal body.

And...not all carbs were created equally. 

Here's what we need to know about simple vs complex carbs.

Grab a free copy of my Fiber Guide right here: MindStrong's Fiber Guide

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 155: Simple vs Complex Carbs

0:00  
Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel. I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where we help Perry and post menopausal women not just lose the weight, not just heal their metabolisms, but be in the driver's seat of their health for life. Because once we understand the how and why, I love to say, if you know how to ride a bike, try to fall off the bike right when you understand a skill, it is very tough to unwire your brain from that skill. If you are new to the mind strong family, welcome. If you are an OG to the mind strong family, and you've listened to this podcast before, you know that in our world, we don't ever use the terms good food, bad food, allowed food, not allowed food. We think of foods as nutritious and less nutritious, and the whole foundation of everything we do when it comes to nutrition is getting away from diet culture, right? The reason most of us have not succeeded is not because we haven't found the right diet yet. When I have an older podcast about this, it's something we talk a lot about in my my older workshops, most of us have not tried 150 diets. We have tried 150 versions of one diet. Because when we put our horse blinders on and we say, this is a good food, this is a bad food, this is allowed. This is not allowed, we're trying to live in a state of restriction. And one thing that is capital T. Truth about human nature, this is true of every human alive, is that we are pleasure seeking creatures. We are designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. So trying to put our horse blinders on and say, I can't eat this, I can only eat this. This is allowed. This is not allowed. We are living in a state of restriction, which is a whole lot of pain, and it is only a matter of time until we self sabotage. That was a long winded way of saying this. If you are someone who's never dieted before, hit menopause, your body's changed. What's going on? You're in the right place. If you're someone who's been yo yo dieting for years and years and years, and you're beating yourself up about it. I need you to hear this, because you're also in the right place. It is not your fault, and I say that as someone who is a fan of radical personal responsibility, you were fighting against your human nature. Diet culture is never going to work. Now I'm giving that longer winded preface to this episode, because today we are diving deep into the topic of carbs, specifically the difference between complex carbs and simple carbs. And I need to have a conversation. Need to about diet culture first. Because, number one, the vast majority of us have lived a life of demonizing carbs and being petrified of carbs. And number two, if we are someone who still eats carbs, which seems to be the vast majority in my 10 years in this industry, we're used to calling them good carbs and bad carbs. So in today's episode, we're going to do a little recap of why we need carbs, especially in a menopausal body, and then, most importantly, we're going to dive deep, for the purposes of today's episode, into the different types of carbs. How much of each we should be eating? How to know the difference between them. Everything there is about simple and complex carbs. Check it

3:17  
out. Welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong. And we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals, I promise you, it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll. I'm

4:15  
going to avoid going too deep down the rabbit hole about why our body needs carbs. I have a plethora of episodes all about carbs, because it's such a heavy hitter topic. Diet culture has taught us carbs make us fat, right? If you want to lose carbs, go on a low carb diet. And for most for a lot of us, I'm not going to say most of us, for a lot of us, our brain has proof from our 20s, 30s, early 40s, that we did lose weight when we do the did those things? Again, trying very hard not to go down the rabbit hole about water weight versus fat, and we, for the purposes of this little recap around carbs in a menopausal body, we are not living in the same body of our 20s, 30s, early 40s. If you listen to this podcast, you know one of the big themes of menopause is cortisol control. We are. Living in a body where as our estrogen drops, our cortisol naturally spikes. Carbs are our body's natural energy source. So if we are not giving our body its preferred energy source of carbs, guess what we're doing to those cortisol levels. They are spiking higher and higher, making weight loss nearly impossible. All of that to say. And if you haven't checked out my other episodes all about carbs. 10 out of 10 recommend we need carbs in a menopausal body. I personally, I've been in this industry for over 10 years. I personally have never met a menopausal woman, woman successfully losing weight without carbs. Now, not all carbs were created equal. There are we're going to divide carbs into two categories. We call them simple carbs and complex carbs. And if you've hung out here before, you know I will never use the the words good carbs and bad carbs, or allowed carbs and not allowed carbs, because, number one, they're all allowed and number two, I happen to think Kris could be cream. Donuts are good. They're fantastic. They're one of my greatest joys in life, and they're not the most nutritious carb. So today we're going to dive deep into the difference between complex carbs and simple carbs, and how to find that balance in how we eat them. The theme of complex carbs, these are the carbs that in the past in diet culture, you may have heard them refer to as good carbs, right? Complex carbs are more nutritionally dense. They have more vitamins, they have more minerals, they have a lot more fiber. So when we're talking about complex carbs, we're talking about things like sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite every time I talk about sweet potatoes, I'm like, I don't know how this is a nutritious food because it tastes like candy to me. It's too good to be true. Sweet potatoes, fantastic source of complex carbs, things like brown rice, jasmine rice. I don't really love brown rice. I love jasmine rice. I eat a decent amount of jasmine rice, quinoa, oatmeal, right? As I'm going through this list, it's like, oh yeah. I've always called those are the good carbs. Yeah, they're the most nutritious carbs. That's why they were labeled in diet culture, the good carbs. Now, you heard me say that the theme of complex carbs is they tend to be more nutritious, right? They have more vitamins and minerals, and they tend to have the most fiber. Fiber is a power house for every human alive, especially in menopause, fiber is going to help you lose weight, fiber is going to help regulate blood sugar. Fiber is going to help your heart health. It is a powerhouse. I have passed episodes all about fiber. We have a guide that I'll include with this episode all about fiber, 10 out of 10. Recommend you'll hear me talk about in that fiber episode, that the key is to slowly increase. Most of us are wildly not getting enough fiber in, and if you try to go zero to 100 you'll never go to the bathroom again. So we need to work to slowly increase fiber. But that's one of the big reasons that complex carbs are the what we used to call the good carbs, right? It's the vitamins, it's minerals, and it's the fiber that tends to come along with it, the theme of simple carbs. So we have complex carbs, we have simple carbs. The theme of simple carbs tends to be sugar. So you heard me reference one of my favorite, favorite foods, favorite things on the face of the earth, Krispy, Kreme, donuts.

8:17  
Real quickly. Fiber is one of those topics

8:19  
that it's I put under the categories of shoulds right? We know we should be getting more of it in and we don't often know what that looks like. So I've put together a super simple fiber guide to show you exactly what to look for and where to get some more fiber. You can use the link in the show notes below to grab your copy. Now let's get back to the show are Krispy Kreme donuts the most nutritious thing out there, unfortunately, and Rachel's rules of health and fitness, if I could wave my magic dumbbell, yes, that is not, that is not the reality of this universe in which we live. Krispy Kreme donuts are carbs and fat, and the carbs that they're made unfortunately, not a lot of protein, either. The carbs they're made up of are simple carbs, because the theme is sugar, right? If you think about Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, the things that we used to demonize, it called the bad foods, the theme to those carbs is sugar. Now, where I draw the line in the sand and do not agree with diet culture is the all or nothing mindset, what I will never tell someone. In fact, I'm going to go the opposite. What I will never tell someone is you can only have complex carbs. You should never have simple, sharp carbs. I felt the complete opposite. I think it's important to have simple carbs now and then, of course, of course, we want to focus on the more nutritious complex carbs. And I think it is important to fit in those more fun, simple carbs now and then, because we all know what happens when we put our horse blinders on. Say, I can't, I can't, I can't. And then one day, we have one donut, and next thing we know, we're down the rabbit hole of six, because I've already messed up my diet, and I'll start again on Monday. And there I go, when we can learn to stop demonizing. Food and say, You know what? This donut isn't the most nutritious, right? It's simple carbs, it's a lot of sugar, and I have been craving a donut for two weeks now. I'm going to fit it into my nutrition plan, and I didn't cheat, I didn't splurge. I don't have to go down a rabbit hole. I'm still hitting my goals, and I can enjoy a donut, and it's not that big a deal. The thing we hear time and time again from women is this, healed my relationship with food, which happens organically. We don't have to force that part. And this is where that stems from. When we stop thinking of foods as good, bad, allowed, not allowed, when we encourage. Might be a strong word, but I'm going to use it here. I encourage women. If you're some people love to eat totally clean. I'm not going to encourage you in that case. But if you are someone who's like Rachel, I can't have a donut because if I have one, I'll have six or I can't have a cookie because if I one, I'll eat the whole pack. I'm going to encourage you to start learning how to fit one or two into your plan so we can rewire our brain away from that diet culture, all in all out mindset. So that was a bit of a rabbit hole. It's one of the most important rabbit holes that I will always go down for the purposes of today. Complex carbs, or the are, the more nutritious fiber, rich carbs, simple carbs are, the more sugar based carbs. There's one more point to this conversation that's important, and that's the topic of fruit. Again, I have a much, much older podcast all about fruit. But here's what we need to understand. If someone ever tells you, don't eat fruit because of the sugar, kick them in the groin and run away. That's extreme. Don't do that. That is the most. That is the silliest thing I've ever heard in my life. The let's just think about this logically before we dig deeper into this. Do we really think that the sugar in a banana is the same as the sugar in Lucky Charms, right? Does that make logical sense? No, it is not the same conversation. The reason that fruit gets demonized is because it is higher in sugar, and those are natural sugars. Those are not lucky charm, Krispy, Kreme, Donut sugars. Fruit also has a tremendous amount of fiber. It varies fruit to fruit, but as a general statement, fruit is a fantastic source of vitamins, of minerals, of fiber, of all the things we're talking about that are the nutritious carbs, fruit, in my opinion, is one of the best places that you can be, quote, unquote, spending your carbs because of how nutritious and fiber pack they are. So when, when I hear these people saying, you know, I don't eat fruit because someone told me it's going to make me fat because of the sugar, like whoever told you that advice they need to, I say this sincerely, they need to get out of the nutrition industry. Because, number one, they don't know what they're talking about. And number two, they're doing more harm than good, the number. And I get passionate about this because the number of women that I've worked with over the past 10 years, and they're like, I'm eating bananas again. I'm eating fruit again. I feel incredible. And it's like, how are we telling women that fruit is the devil, but banana but bacon is okay. Like, what kind of diet culture are we living in where bananas are evil, but eat all the bacon you want? It makes absolutely no sense, and it drives me. It drives me bananas, because I hate the nutrition industry. That's why. So in summation, eat your carbs. You need them especially that's true for every human being, especially in a menopausal body, it is nearly impossible to lose weight without carbs because it is nearly impossible to control your cortisol levels without carbs. When we're looking at carbs, we've got two types. We've got our complex carbs and our simple carbs. The theme of complex carbs is more nutrient dense, more fiber packed. Side note, they're also slow burning. I have an older podcast episode called What to eat before and after you work out. Spoiler alert, complex carbs are fantastic pre workout. If you haven't checked out that episode, it's it's a popular one. When we talk about in detail, Woody before you work out. Obviously complex carbs are a great pre workout choice because they're slow burning energy. The Other Side of carbs are simple carbs. The theme is sugar. That's where we've got our Lucky Charms, our cocoa puffs, our crispy cream donuts, the foods we used to call bad, but we're just going to call less nutritious now, those tend to be faster burning energy, so they're better post workout, because you get you get

14:15  
refueled faster.

14:17  
Not great pre workout, because it's going to burn too fast. Again, I have a whole podcast episode on that big concept here. Most important concept, in my opinion, is it is not good, bad, allowed, not allowed. I think it's important to Yes, of course, focus on those more nutritious complex carbs in the majority of the time and still allow for those less nutritious, more fun simple carbs in the middle, in the gray area, here is fruit. Eat your fruit. Fruit is a fantastic carb source. It is packed with vitamins,

14:47  
minerals, fibers, all the good

14:48  
stuff that we want. I get it. Carbs are scary. We live in a society that tells us carbs make us fat. Sometimes I get a little cheeky when a when a woman comes to me and says, Yeah, but in my 20s, 30s, early if. 40s, I lost weight using carbs. My answer is, how's that working out for you now? Right? Because we are not living in the same body as our 20s, 30s, early 40s, and the same tool bag doesn't work. And I say it with all the love in the world, because I care about you too much not to. If it was going to still work, it would have worked by now. It is incredible how much your body changes and how quickly your body changes when you start giving it carbs? I could do a whole other podcast episode about the number of women who have come to us petrified of carbs, eating virtually no carbs, or super low carb, and within not months, but weeks, because we don't ever go zero to 100 it's a slow incline. It's a slow increase. To start adding them back in, or your body will freak out. You have to do it very meticulously. But the feedback we hear of, holy cow, not just mentally. I mean, mentally, yes, I'm eating pasta again. What? Where has this been for the past 20 years? But carbs are any energy source you start putting gas in a car, it starts running a heck of a lot better. So what we hear from these women is, I cannot believe

16:05  
how much better I'm feeling, how much

16:07  
more energy I have, which you know is my thing. Energy is everything. By slowly increasing my my carbs do not go zero to 100 we need to slowly reintroduce them. Your body will change. Your life will change. Your energy will change every human being needs carbs, especially in a menopausal body.

16:30  
For more information on mind strong fitness, or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team, visit www dot Mind, Strong fitness.com. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai