In the attempt to be “healthy” and feel energized I tried a whole lot of things.  I have done keto, paleo, whole 30, intermittent fasting and generally stuck to a low carb diet for many years.  I cut out sugar completely in all forms because duh sugar is bad for you.  There was a time period when I wouldn’t even eat fruit because of the high sugar content, and heaven forbid fruit juice.  I was actually scared of eating carbs and fruit because I didn’t want to gain weight.  

 I did HIIT work outs, went running and felt guilty if I didn’t get some sort of intense exercise in- despite how tired I was.  

That all worked for awhile….until it didn’t.

My body was running off of caffeine and stress. 

I was exhausted, run down, burned out, and the only thing I could think about was “when can I go to sleep?!". Insert Nutritional Therapy school and a lot of research. This is when I started to unlearn what I thought was healthy.

Here’s what I learned:

The best thing you can do for your body starting today if you feel burned out, stressed out, run down and kind of like you got hit by a bus is… EAT CARBOHYDRATES with every single meal.  

Oh my god.  Yes I just said that.  Eat fruit, eat sweet potatoes, honey, maple syrup, drink some orange juice.  

Let me clarify, I am not telling you to grab a candy bar or other processed food.  I’m saying stop the low carb diet right now and add carbohydrates back in, in the form of quality whole foods.  Eat these along with protein and some fat ideally.  But eat them.

Let me explain further:
A low carbohydrate diet is actually a stressor to the body.  If you are already stressed out and exhausted, this is just making it worse. Your cells run off of glucose (sugar) and if you don’t get it from your diet, your body will make its own using stress hormones.  Have you ever noticed that you crave sugar when you're under stress? It’s because your body is burning through glucose quickly and it’s asking you for more.      

Consuming carbohydrates as part of your diet will help keep your stress hormones down and creates an environment where your body starts to feel safe and begin healing..AKA get your energy back and start feeling like yourself.  

No clue where to start? Need some meal ideas?  Too tired to even try to figure this out?