How many carbs should you eat?
December 14, 2011 in FAQ, Sugar/Carbs
Now that you know that you should be reducing yourcarbohydrate intake, you are probably wondering just how many grams of carbohydrates you should be eating every day. Like so many aspects of paleolithic nutrition, the answer is “it depends”. It depends on what your goals are, how far away from those goals you are, how active your lifestyle is, how well you sleep, how well managed your stress is, and what health issues you might be dealing with. Here are some general guidelines, but I urge you to experiment. Most people just feel better eating fewer carbohydrates (after an initial adjustment period), but some people do better on more carbohydrates. You may wish to consume more carbohydrates only on the days that you work-out and aim for a lower carbohydrate intake on your less active days. Also, carbohydrate quality can be equally important. You may be able to get away with more carbohydrates if you are getting them only from vegetables.
Very Low (30-50g daily): A very low carbohydrate intake is appropriate for people trying to lose weight quickly and for those that are dealing with stress management issues, sleep problems, or unresolved inflammation. I don’t recommend going below 30g of carbohydrates per day for an extended period of time, although there may be some health benefit to having an occasional day where your carbohydrate intake is extremely low. The easiest way to get your carbohydrate intake this low is to limit yourself to 1 piece of fruit or 1 serving of a starchy vegetable (like yams or squash) per day. The rest of your carbohydrates should come a rainbow of non-starchy vegetables. This will be great for your acid-base balance (more on this in a future post) and provide you with very high levels of vitamins and minerals.
Low (50g-75g): A low carbohydrate intake is appropriate for people trying to lose weight who are fairly close to their goal weight (or are in no rush), for people who are lightly to moderately active, and for people who have ongoing issues with auto-immune or inflammatory diseases. Depending on what your lifestyle is like (how stressed you are, how well you sleep, etc.), you might consider this a “maintenance” level, but most people will be able to tolerate higher carbohydrates one they have reached a healthy weight.
Medium (75g-100g): This is an appropriate carbohydrate intake for people who are in a healthy weight range (and don’t want to gain weight) and who are moderately active. This would be a good “maintenance” level for most people.
High (100g-150g): This is still “low carbohydrate” compared to the typical Western diet. This is an appropriate carbohydrate intake for people who are in a healthy weight range (or maybe trying to gain weight) and moderately to highly active. This is also probably a good range for women who are pregnant or nursing (see how you feel and maybe consult with your OB, midwife or a nutritionist). It is also perfectly acceptable to have the occasional day where your carbohydrate intake is higher, but be warned that once your body adjusts to lower carbohydrates, you might feel really lousy if you overdo it.
A note about the adjustment period: Depending on how many carbohydrates your body is used to consuming, as well as how active and fit you are, you will have anywhere from a 1 week to 4 week adjustment period. During this time, you may feel more tired than usual, experience intense food cravings, feel lightheaded, experience headaches, or feel nauseous. I suggest going to bed a little earlier than usual (which is good for you anyway) and finding some fat-rich foods to get you through the adjustment (like steak, coconut, avocado, and bacon). You will probably notice a sudden switch to feeling better (and probably way way better than you felt before reducing your carbohydrate intake). This reflects a change in your metabolism to one that runs more efficiently on fat (and that is a more natural state for your body to be in).
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If you want to drop weight, eat LOTS of WHOLEFOOD carbs and keep your diet under 10% of total calories from fat.
I eat high carb on my days off too. I work 10-12 hours a day on the computer 7 days a week. I eat over 700g of carbs each day. Single digit body fat for the last 10 years.
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Lol. . .well said. . .lol
Do you know of any reason to eat more carbs while nursing (other than a higher caloric need)? I’m nursing a 7 month old, and have been “paleo” since about 6 months pregnant. (And gluten/ dairy free for most of my pregnancy). I’m currently 17 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight, and would like to lose a little more (10-20 lbs?). I think I eat 60 or 70 grams of carbs a day usually. (though I don’t measure portions so not totally sure). I’d say I’m definitely between 50-100 g/day, usually on the higher side. Just curious, as I usually see “higher” carb being “allowed” for heavy exercisers, but haven’t seen anything specific to nursing. Thanks!
Sorry I didn’t reply to this comment earlier (got stuck in the spam folder). You can definitely eat more while nursing, which should be a bit more of everything, including carbs. It can be very strenuous on the body to drop your carb intake (and food intake in general) too low while nursing (you’ll notice your milk supply decreasing) and those last 10-20 pounds can be quite challenging to lose as long as you are lactating (your hormones protect that weight to support lactation). You can slowly cut your carbs down to help support weight loss, but watch for signs of your milk supply going down (or other signs of cortisol going up like not sleeping well, feeling moody, getting headaches) and just be patient with the last 10 pounds. I hope this helps!
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I am new to the Paleo life-style and have a significant amount of weight to loose (~100lbs). So far I am having success, feeling great and am optimistic that I will be able to adopt changes for a life time of “healthier me”
I have a question regarding carb restriction. When we count carbs are we looking at total carbs consumed or, “net” carbs for the day?
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What amount of good carbs would be recommended for teens who work on a farm?
I actually have a post coming about carb levels for kids. I would say anywhere between a 30% and 50% of their caloric intake should come from carbs, the rest divided between protein and fat.
Thanks for your great posts. Could you give concrete examples of what low and medium carb intake would look like, like you did for “very low.” It may seem silly, but it would really help. Those concrete examples would be great for fat intake, as well, which you may have done somewhere!
Thanks very much.
Yes. Let me see if I can put something like this together for a full post though (since its going to involve a fair bit of math on my part!).
You rock! Thanks very much.
Low Carb is a neolithic fantasy. Read this article–it discusses how low carb can damage metabolism in the long run. Robb Wolf also recently denounced low carb. Careful with what you recommend!
http://www.drgarrettsmith.com/low-carb-paleo-diet-a-neolithic-fantasy/243/
Thank you Polly. You are absolutely right that this post needs to be updated. Actually, several other of my very old posts do too. I have been working on a series describing what very low carbohydrate diets do to leptin sensitivity and cortisol expression (by way of cautioning against them) and if you’ve read anything more recent, you’ll know that I now typically recommend 75-150g of carbs for most people, more for athletes. I would like to point out that Robb Wolf’s outstanding 3-part series on paleo and low-carb was hardly a denouncement. He did retract his previous support for ketogenic diets (which I have never backed) and I believe this is an important distinction. He was more careful about how low low-carb should be for most people and for whom exactly low versus moderate carb intake is appropriate. But point taken. This post is definitely out of date.
Aggghhh… I am pretty darn low carb. It’s all so confusing! What to do?!?
Hit “send” to soon. I’ve also been trying to google Wolf’s retraction re. his support for ketogenic diets, and can’t find it. If anybody has a link to that, it would be much appreciated. Or, if you summarize it here somewhere on this blog, that’d work, as well. Thanks so much. I appreciate all your efforts
!
http://robbwolf.com/2013/01/09/thoughts-carb-paleo-episode-3-hope/
He links back to parts 1&2 in that post.
I think the important thing to remember is that the reason why there are so many different points of view about carb intake is because there’s really quite a wide range that works for people. If you feel your current low-carb approach is working for you, there’s no reason to change.
Thanks very much!
Hello Paleo Mom, I’m on my fourth day of eating Paleo and have found your site very helpful. Before starting I may have been eating around 300g of carbs per day. I aim to maintain my weight and have therefore been eating 100-150 grams from paleo friendly sources (sweet potato, vegetables, squash). Still, I am experiencing symptoms of the adjustment period you describe. Mainly lethargy and difficulty concentrating..generally feel a bit weird. Is this usual after this type of reduction?
Thanks very much
Yes, completely normal. Typically lasts 1.5-4 weeks (usually 1.5-2 for me).
Thanks very much for the prompt response. I’m in day 12 and I certainly feel much better than I did during the worst of the adjustment. I have another brief question. I’ve decided to eliminate eggs, dairy and nightshades from my paleo diet, where previously I’d been eating kerrygold butter and lots of aubergine. This is in order to determine their effect when I introduce them at the end of thirty days paleo, and what effect it has on my mild acne. What foods would be appropriate nutritional replacements?
Thanks
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What would you say is a good carb intake for healthy weight loss while also nursing a baby?
Probably somewhere in the 100-200g range, trying to make sure that the majority of those carbs come from non-starchy vegetables, with a couple of servings a day of starchy vegetables and/or fruit.
I am still researching on this. I am malay n my staple food is white rice. how can I go on low carb coz I need to reduce weight for my hormone imbalance. what sources of carb that is good for my health n for my teeth too?
Vegetables.
Hi Paleo Mom!
My son is having autoimmune issues. I aim for him to get around 60-80g of carbohydrates a day, In terms of healing AI / gut / inflammation issues would there be any difference in him getting all of those carbohydrates from blueberries vs. all of those carbohydrates from, say, kale/carrots/turnips? I feel like the fiber in the vegetables might be too hard on his digestion. Does starch process that much differently than glucose/fructose in the body?
Thank you very much you have been a great help!
So, let’s divide this into three categories: fruit, starchy vegetables, non-starchy vegetables. The carbs in non-starchy vegetables almost don’t count because they are so slowly absorbed. Although, the vitamins, minerals and even fiber are important (getting vegetable fiber can help restore good levels of bacteria in the but, but you can stick with eating these cooked to make them easier to digest). Starchy vegetable carbs enter the blood stream more slowly and are predominantly glucose. Fruit enters the blood stream more quickly and is typically about half glucose and half fructose. I would suggest a mix of fruit and starchy vegetables with some non starchy vegetables (especially green ones!) thrown in just for the nutrient value.
Okay thank you for the thorough response. He complains often that starchy vegetables make him gassy, do you think it would be bad for him to get most of his carbs from fruit? He only eats FODMAP safe fruits but would the fructose still potentially cause problems that could lead to more inflammation?
I don’t think it would be bad. The lower FODMAP fruits should be low enough fructose not to cause problems.
Okay thank you!