How To Eat Carbs And Still Lose Fat On a Low Carb Diet

So you tried low carb, keto, maybe dabbled in some carnivore too & now you’re ready to add some carbs back in…⁣

Yikes, right?!

It’s normal to be a little scared & anxious after seeing results on a low carb approach to your nutrition, but feeling you need to switch things up.

I’ve felt that too! But after pushing through the fear & embracing more vibrational, functional eating, you’ll strengthen your trust muscle with each experience & season of experimentation! It’ll help you find your sustainable lifestyle approach to look & feel your best!

⁣Y’all know I’m an advocate for meat-based, protein-focused nutrition for my Crohn’s & health preferences if you’ve been here a while. If you’re new, WELCOME! Pumped to have you here in this safe space of love, wellness, & learning!⁣

I’ve lost 60lbs & put my bulimia & Crohn’s disease in med-free remission via a flexible carnivore diet approach & kept it off for over 4 years!

weight loss before and after katie kelly carnivore — Tap photo for a blog guide I documented just for you on how I lose the weight & gained health!

Y’all should also embrace that nutrition isn’t one size fits all! I fully support a no diet dogma approach & support trying new things to find YOUR WAY. ⁣

⁣So say low carb worked short term, maybe you lost a few lbs, maybe you tried it for a reset, a medical condition — whatever. ⁣⁣

For most, yes, you’ll lose weight initially, primarily because of water loss & more food awareness (quality & quantity). Most don’t stick with the low carb/keto/carnivore diet long-term unless they’re on it for a specific reason or it fits their lifestyle/preferences appropriately. That’s ok too!⁣

⁣⁣The most common reason people fail to stick to any diet regimen: “real life” & social situations ends up “getting in the way.” Adherence & consistency are the keys to any success plan. ⁣🤷‍♀️You ultimately make the decision to stick to your commitments to yourself or not.⁣

⁣⁣You can incorporate carb cycling just like you incorporate fat cycling, it’s the same concept just utilizing a different macro as a fuel source. I have a blogs on resetting your insulin & leptin resistance here and specifically how to carb & fat cycle here.

Regardless of why you stop, there are things to know to help ease your transition.

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⁣⁣MAIN POINTS

1.) Have a plan⁣

2.) Get familiar with portion sizes⁣

3.) The order you eat your food matters

4.) Focus on whole foods over processed⁣

5.) Go slow⁣

6.) Expect fluctuations⁣

Things I believe in no matter what diet:

⁣⁣NO diet dogma & eating for HEALTH
Cyclical, seasonal eating
Quality, Quantity, When, & What you eat matter
Variety & nutrient density
Eating for efficient digestion & absorption
Experimentation & fun = learning & results!
Optimal protein centric meals
Eating for strength, health, & functionality
Loving your life & being kind to others!
Self love living + an abundance mindset!

Take it slow, you got this! ⁣ No need to exclude or be dogmatic about any food choices or diet as long as they help you be your best!⁣

⁣Here are some more gut friendly, gluten free, low fiber, low fodmap options that worked for me.

Great options for pre or post workout carbs. I keep mine post workout in the form of plain rice cakes mainly if I feel I need a carb refuel after heavy training or high intensity cross training or cardio. These tend to be easy on the stomach with minimal bloating & gut issues for most.

Let’s dive in further!

Regardless of why, there are some things to know to help ease your transition. ⁣⁣

1.) Have a realistic plan

One of the biggest problems with dieting altogether — lack of clarity/planning. Most people end up falling back into bad habits. What’s your why? What’s sustainable & realistic for you? What’s your relationship with food, self-awareness, and your body image? Your story matters & your results hinge on all of these details.

2.) Assess portion sizes

⁣Quantity, quality, when & what you eat all matter. With any form of restriction, especially carbs, once you allow them, you’re more likely to go ham. Make sure you’re a moderator (not an abstainer) & comfortable & ready to add them back in. Measure & weigh your portions! Check nutrition labels for anything you’re sensitive to.

It’s all about balancing blood sugar. Food order & when you eat matter. Sugar & carbs spike your blood sugar more than any other macro (protein & fats are the other 2 macros).

Tips:

Don’t eat your carbs naked (by themselves): pair them with a protein like ground beef or grilled chicken or a fat of your choosing like bacon fat, butter, or a nut butter if you aren’t sensitive to those. It acts as a buffer & slows your blood sugar spike. If you can eat fiber & non starchy veggies, these will help buffer the spike as well, but not as efficiently as protein & fats.
- Examples: white rice & butter & ground beef, rice cake & peanut butter, grilled chicken and sweet potato, etc.
- When eating a meal, eat your protein & fat first, veggies if you eat them next, then your starchy carbs. You’re less likely to overeat as well because protein & fats are more satiating.
- I time my carbs if I’m going to eat them after my workouts. That’s when I refuel my body & it uses the carbs more efficiently vs storing them as body fat. Also reduces your cortisol levels & helps with recovery. Choose sources that serve you best mentally & physically. I personally avoid anything treat-like or sugary, including fruit to prevent binge eating tendencies & gut issues. High fiber, fruits & veggies, & sugar are huge gut irritants for me. You may be able to eat them and that’s ok! Do you!

trigger food gut lilbitoffit katie kelly indiana carnivore

3.) Quality Matters

Rather than going straight for processed options like chips, pasta, doughnuts, & cupcakes, go for whole-food, non-starchy vegetables first like your greens, then white rice, potatoes, gf oats, fruit, etc. Again, choose things that are not physical or mental triggers for you.

4.) Go Slow

Keep it easy on your GI system: choose gluten free, cook food thoroughly, & go low fodmap if you’re one that struggles with any G.I. distress. Start with adding carbs in at 1 meal/d for a few weeks & assess how you respond. If you’re good, add a serving into another meal. White rice is usually a safer, gut friendly option.

5.) Expect Fluctuations

You might have weight & blood sugar fluctuations — it depends on how your body metabolizes carbs, your diet, exercise, etc. Much of the weight changes are water weight initially. Pair carbs with protein & fat to help control those blood sugar spikes. With every gram of carb, you get 4g of water.⁣ Bloating & constipation could happen because of the re-introduction of fibrous foods, drink your water! You may have more energy or less. You might feel hungrier. Again, we’re all bio individually different. Have patience.

Supplements to Help With Carb + Nutrient Utilization & Body Goals

I was tired of struggling with post-meal blood sugar spikes when eating carbs and grappling with insulin sensitivity issues. NuEthix Formulations has a wonderful profuct, Slin-Trol™, the glucose disposal agent designed to assist your approach to managing blood sugar levels.

Slin-Trol™ enhances your body’s ability to efficiently utilize glucose, ensuring it is directed towards muscle cells rather than being stored as fat.

DIRECTIONS: As A Dietary Supplement, Take 1 Tablet With Carb Containing Meals To Improve The Nutrient Partitioning Of The Meal And To Possibly Minimize Fat Storage.

I take mine prior to my largest meals & walk 10-15 minutes after eating for better digestion.

Utilyze is a dietary supplement designed to support digestive wellness and nutrient absorption.

It contains a blend of digestive enzymes that target the breakdown of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in the body, which can improve overall digestive function and help with nutrient absorption.

Utilyze comes in convenient travel packets and aims to support overall health and wellness through improved digestion. This supplement is gluten-free, non-GMO, and suitable for adults of all ages.

DIRECTIONS: As A Dietary Supplement Take 1 Packet With Larger Meals 2 To 3 Times A Day.

Cort-Eaze is a natural supplement designed to help with stress and anxiety relief. It contains a blend of herbs and nutrients that work together to promote a healthy stress response and support adrenal function. I use it for recovery & cortisol balance, which can affect your sleep, digestion & ability to build muscle & lose fat.

Some of the key ingredients in Cort-Eaze include ashwagandha, rhodiola, holy basil, and magnesium, all of which have been shown to help reduce cortisol levels and support overall mental and physical well-being.

DIRECTIONS: Take Two Capsules Daily. I take mine post workout & before bed. One post workout & one before bed.

Helpful Educational Resources

forever strong — Fabulous book on protein focused, anti-aging nutrition!

Fabulous book on protein focused, anti-aging nutrition!

EXCELLENT article on food sequencing and balancing blood sugar here

Take-Home Message

Watching glucose spikes is particularly important if you have diabetes or a handful of other medical conditions. Your treating doctor or dietitian will advise how to modify your meals or food intake to avoid glucose spikes. Food ordering & timing may be part of that advice.

For anyone wanting to live a healthier, leaner, stronger life, consider removing sugary beverages & foods, processed food, & focusing on protein/meat-based foods as the foundation of your meals. Add fiber, proteins or fats to carbohydrates to slow gastric emptying and flatten glucose spikes. Walk 10-15 after meals & shoot for 10k steps per day. Lift 3-4x per week and watch your body & well being change!

If you found this blog helpful, join me on Instagram for daily inspiration & subscribe to our newsletter community here! I would love to have you!

January 20, 2022

I used to be hungry all the time: what I learned about hunger

Confessions of another dirty bathroom photo…

I ate 63g of carbs yesterday.

I used to be hungry all the time.

I hate sharing my food.

Other things I don’t share are toothbrushes & wieners but those stories probly aren’t IG appropriate & sure to spark conversations that’ll go down the gutter rather quickly.

Been throwin in some 2 a days the last couple weeks on days I have evenings free to experiment. Been craving carbs after my workouts in the evenings, so I honor my body & listen to her. My carbs of choice are rice cakes, easily tracked, portable, & don’t typically cause gut issues in moderation with my Crohn’s disease & autoimmune needs. Quantity varies, I am able to moderate these now. So far so good.

They help me with recovery, lower my cortisol, & help me sleep. Transparently sharing my experiences – go your own way. I stick to meat & eggs for everything else, rice cakes only post workout after an evening WOD with the 5:30 crew. I don’t crave them when I don’t need them. Rest days & days I stick to my morning workouts I don’t want them. Proud of my body & mind for supporting me in intuitive, nurturing ways compared to my self sabotaging self years ago.

Went back to CrossFit & Beats class more regularly. I realized how much more enjoyable & effective my workouts are with community. Being more social was a 2022 intention of mine, Its fed my soul & stoked my hunger in more ways than one & got me thinkin…

I remember being hungry all the time even after a huge meal, I still wanted dessert. I noticed my friends were able to eat smaller portions & be satisfied. I felt ashamed. As I aged & became more self aware, a sense of amazement & awakening crept over me…

Did this mean that the bottomless hunger I felt wasn’t physical hunger after all? Could I sit down at a meal & push away my plate, full & satisfied, without the urge to overeat?

I could, but only after I figured out that I wasn’t only hungry for food. I was hungry for enjoyment & satisfaction, & not just in my belly, but in my whole life.

Somewhere as a kid, between farm chores, playing with My Little Ponies & going on my first diet, I lost track of the idea that I was allowed to enjoy my body, my food, & just being alive. I decided that always feeling hungry & vaguely dissatisfied was part of growing up.

I had to learn the bigger lesson – that hunger isn’t simply about filling our bellies, but about something deeper: a hunger for connection, enjoyment, & love.

From my own experience & awakening of learning to feel full, body & heart, I hope you find ways to satisfy your inner hunger. To be continued in another post at some time, let this be a conversation starter with yourself.

oxox Coach K

May 16, 2021

The Difference between Refeeds and Cheat Meals. What you need to know!

If you’ve been following a low carb diet (low carb, keto, carnivore) for a while and have been experiencing weight loss plateaus, hormone imbalances, low energy, or a decline in athletic performance, you might want to consider implementing strategic refeeds.

A refeed is an intentional, strategic increase in calories consumption This can be via carbs, fats, or both carbs and fats. Often done on a periodic weekly basis. These refeeds are an effective strategy for minimizing potential negative hormonal &/or metabolic effects from longer term dieting or low carb intake.

So lets talk Carbohydrates and Insulin

We know carbs have a larger impact on the hormone insulin. Most of us that follow a low carb diet have chosen to go this route for more efficient blood sugar balance as well as improved mental, emotional, and physical improvements. When our bodies don’t respond properly to insulin, we increase our risk for disease like metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Alzheimer’s, and more.

Insulin is responsible for telling our cells (mostly muscle, liver, and fat cells) to soak up sugar from the bloodstream. If your cells don’t respond, the level of sugar in your blood remains high and can begin to have toxic effects. This is called “insulin resistance”.

One way we can become resistant to insulin is from eating carbohydrate-rich foods in excess, especially from refined, heavily processed sources like sugary cereals, donuts, cakes, candy, brownies, poptarts – you get the picture. These foods result in excess glucose in the blood, leading to chronically elevated blood sugar and cells that eventually become resistance to insulin signalling. Chronically elevated blood sugar is a serious problem in and of itself, but so is becoming resistant to insulin, as it serves many important functions in the body.

When You Might Need to Implement Refeeds

Carbs can help athletic performance.

They’re not the devil, you’ll hear me say it over and over again what it really comes down to is our relationship with foods and they’re application.

Carbs are helpful for optimal high-intensity performance. They provide fuel for your muscles in the form of glycogen. Long term low carb dieting can lead to depleted glycogen in muscles/liver and a hindered ability to perform high intensity, glycogen-demanding exercise, especially in the beginning stages of adapting to a low carb lifestyle. HAVE PATIENCE. Performance will improve and even out over time.

One diet strategy that has been shown to actually increase performance is a carb cycling method, where athletes & avid exercisers switch between periods of low and high carb intake. The aim is to maintain the ability to efficiently use both carbs and fats for energy, referred to as “metabolic flexibility.” Not only does this ability reduce risk of disease, it also improves performance and can aid in fat loss.

In other words, properly timed carbohydrate refeeds can be an effective strategy for optimizing athletic performance and maintaining metabolic flexibility when following a low carb diet.

You can also incorporate caloric refeeds by increasing your fats macros (vs carbs) and therefore increasing your over calories to maintenance or a slight surplus in time of dieting. This is a great mental & metabolic break for many and will also help restore your “tank.”

Weight Loss Plateaus

The dreaded plateau! Trying to lose the last 5-10lbs can seem like a never ending cycle. It’s not uncommon to see significant weight loss in the first couple weeks of a low carb diet, but then stall. Coincidentally, it’s shown that 1 week is all it takes to see a drop in leptin levels.

If you’re close to your fat loss goal and have reached a plateau, a refeed can give you the hormonal & metabolic boost needed to shed the last few pounds.

How to Do a Carb Refeed

There are many ways to do a carb refeed, and depending on your situation one may be better than another. Each method involves a larger quantity of carbohydrate intake at a scheduled time, but the size and frequency will vary based on individual activity levels, genetics, bioindividuality, goals, training modalities, digestive needs, etc.

A few common methods you can experiment with to see what works for you:

Weekly

Best For: Individuals who engage in lower intensity physical activity, are currently dieting and need a mental break like on the weekends, or are seeking the health benefits of a low carbohydrate diet but want to avoid any possible negative long-term effects.

How to Do It: Pick one day or one meal per week to eat a larger amount of carbohydrates. For example, your refeed could be on a weekend or on your most physically-active day.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-150g carbs, depending on the individual.

Post-Training

Best For: Individuals that perform a intense training sessions (heavy resistance training, CrossFit, HIIT, Orange Theory, Spin, etc) each week and want to optimize performance and recovery, while maintaining ideal body composition.

How to Do It: On big training days, increase your normal amount of carbohydrates in your first meal post-workout.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-150g carbs for most, depending on the individual’s needs

Daily

Best For: Serious athletes who train nearly every day or multiple times per day who need to enhance recovery between sessions and have no negative physical or mental issues with carbs.

How to Do It: Pick a meal to consume a larger amount of carbs. Most often this is post-workout &/or at dinner.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-200g carbs, depending on the individual.

Less Optimal Sources of Carbohydrates

When choosing where to get carbs for your refeed, some sources are more optimal than others. Refined carbohydrates, stripped of their fiber and micronutrients, tend to cause a greater spike in blood sugar compared to their whole food, fiber-rich counterparts. They are better used around training pre/post when you want this spike for fuel and recovery like white rice & all natural/low sugar cereals, rice cakes. Additionally, refined carbs have been shown to promote overeating and weight gain, alter your gut biome, and damage your intestinal barrier.

Here are some carb sources that you’d be better off avoiding during refeeds:

White, processed, non nutrient dense bread
Pastries, cake, brownies
Pasta
Candy, chocolates
Sugar-sweetened beverages
Most packaged foods — check the ingredients!

More Optimal Sources of Carbohydrates

A more optimal carb choice is going to be one that replenishes glycogen, balances insulin sensitivity, and also provides valuable nutrients. Unrefined, complex carbohydrates from whole-food sources are going to be a more optimal choice for most for getting the most out of your carb refeed unless you have issues with fiber, high fodmap fruits & veggies, etc.

Here are some of the more optimal carb sources for a refeed:

Starchy vegetables like potatoes, squash, yams, etc.
Properly prepared grains like white rice, quinoa, oats, etc.
Natural fruits
Nutritive sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, or blackstrap molasses

Summary

Carb refeeds & fat refeeds in general can be a valuable tool if used appropriately. There are several options, from once a day to once a week, but some experimentation will be necessary for determining the exact method that works best for you.

Some of the benefits you may start to see after strategically including more carbs &/or fats in your diet include:

Balanced hormones
Better body composition
Enhanced athletic performance and faster recovery
Increased energy
Reduced cravings
More restful sleep

Hope this helps team! You’re always welcome to message me on Instagram!

May 4, 2021

Calorie and Macro Periodization for Dieting

♦️How To Setup Your Macros & Calorie Periodization for a Fat Loss Cut♦️

Save & share this one!

How do we diet smart without totally turning our metabolism and hormones into dumpster fires🔥? #nutritionperiodization

3 things I believe are under-rated, yet make a BIG difference in progress:

☝️Sleep

✌️Caloric Periodization

🤟Carb & Meal Timing

Sleep: dudes I don’t care what diet you’re following you’re not going to get anywhere if you do not get your sleep under control.

Caloric Periodization: This is the way we structure our macros (& calories) across time periods. (A week or multiple weeks) The BIG reason 👉🏻 it’s how we create sustainability & adherence. Let’s be real, diets aren’t fun. You’re gonna be hungry. It’s a big stress on our bodies. By incorporating structured refeed and diet breaks we give our bodies and minds the reset we need to stay committed to our goals.

Carb & Meal Timing: Tips I’ve learned overtime throughout my journey… keep your largest meals earlier in the day, preferably post workout. This is when our bodies are most insulin sensitive & metabolize food & carbs more efficiently. Fast 12 hours overnight — this will prevent evening snacking. This is why setting meal times & intermittent fasting are effective tools when dieting & when it comes to adherence. Don’t demonize carbs, use them with respect & with intention. If you have a bad relationship with carbohydrates, check yourself. Self sabotaging habits & emotional weight can be the exact things weighing you down. Avoid trigger foods, mental & physical, keep them out of the house.

Love y’all!

What’s your preferred method of dieting? I prefer a one day re-feed a week when dieting! 🤗 👇🏻