Getting Healthy

Is getting your carbohydrates only from fruits and vegetables healthy?

so if all your carbohydrate intake comes from fruits and vegetables only (no grains or anything else, just fruits and vegetables), is that ok? is it a healthy nutrition lifestyle or should you get carbs from other sources as well?

Absolutely healthy as long as you also get essential protein & fat. Your body requires fats, you will die without them. Your body requires protein, you will die without them. You will die if you eat protein without fat. You do not require carbohydrates. The body can manufacture all it needs from the protein/fat combination.

A low carbohydrate diet is a high fat diet (calling it a high protein diet is actually a misnomer). The protein should only be a little higher than adequate. Although it is completely possible to live on a fat/protein only diet for long term (as proven by research done in a hospital setting) it becomes boring fairly quickly. Luckily many, many vegetables and some fruits, nuts and seeds are low in carbs and greatly expand the diet. Most long term low carbers eat as many, if not more non starchy vegetables than vegetarians.

Glucose is the bodies preferred fuel (if you want to get technical, it actually burns alcohol most efficiently, but that doesn't make it any healthier for the body than carbs), the body can convert 100% of carbs, 58% of protein & 10% of dietary fat into glucose. The body can also be fueled by fat (dietary fat & fat cells) but only in the absence of carbs. Your brain actually prefers to be fueled by ketones (part of the fat burning process), only the heart requires glucose, but glucose can be easily converted from fat stores or excess protein if needed or dietary fat.

IF a person eats sufficient fat & protein & minimal carbs, they can become very healthy. Free of blood sugar health problems, free of high blood pressure, free of any health problems associated with high cholesterol, free of obesity health problems. (Cancer is fueled by glucose, if your body is not fueled by glucose, it doesn't seem to be possible to have cancer, but that is just speculation on my part.) Almost all foods have some carbs, even meats & eggs, only fat is carb free, so we can only speak in terms of very low carb but anything less that 9 grams of carbs per hour controls insulin and is considered low carb (up to 144 grams per day).

High fat, adequate protein and very low carbs will after 3 days convert your body from glycolysis (burning glucose for fuel) to burning fat (dietary & body fat) as fuel (ketosis). While in ketosis you will burn dietary fat and if dietary fat is more than sufficient, body fat directly. High calories will keep the metabolism at maximum fat burning capabilities. During this time the body will go through withdrawals and the desire for carbs becomes very compelling, but by the 4th day you will be free of sugar addictions. The first week or so of this conversion process a person feels weak and sluggish, usually has a headache (called the induction flu) after this is over, most people comment that they feel better and have more energy than ever before. They eat foods for nutrition and fuel and their bodies crave vegetables and fruits.

A calorie is not a calorie. The body does not follow logical mathematical equations. Metabolism is controlled by nutrition. You can't eat 600/1000/2000 calories of fruit (pick a number, it doesn't matter - only the amount of fat stored changes) , your body will treat it as being starved (which it is, starved of nutrition) and will shut down your metabolism as if you're eating nothing, but will store every possible ounce as fat. You may lose water weight and the lean tissue the body has to strip for nutrition, but that just makes fat storage more efficient. Inversely, you wont gain weight on 5000 or more calories of fat & protein (if fat is 65% of calories) because insulin (the fat storage hormone) is not activated.

Eating carbohydrates while trying to lose body fat is terribly inefficient. When in glycolysis (burning glucose as fuel) you have to lower your calories (which slows your metabolism) and exercise heavily to deplete your glycogen stores before burning body fat.

Simple carbohydrates (sugar, flour, bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes, rice) triggers insulin which can store the calories you eat into fat. The more protein you eat the more the fat burning hormone glucagon is released. The more carbohydrate you eat the more the fat storage hormone insulin is released.

High insulin levels unbalance other hormones. Controlling your insulin level will balance out other hormones & allow human growth hormone (HGH) to be produced naturally so you will gain lean muscle even without exercise. Any exercise will greatly increase your muscle mass with high HGH levels.

I wondered how not only educated persons but persons specifically educated in nutrition are promoting sugar as a food essential to health but I now know that anyone that goes against the current regulations can lose their license and be sued for malpractice (even though what they are doing IS malpractice but it's accepted practice - sigh).

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