Getting Enough Fiber On a Low Carb Diet

(*This is a transcript from the video above “Getting Enough Fiber on a Low-Carb Diet”)

Let’s go over how you eat a low-carb diet while still getting enough fiber, enough vitamins, enough nutrients.

How do you still eat healthy when you’re eliminating so many carbohydrates? Okay. Let’s say that you’re limiting your carbohydrates to 50 net grams for the day. And that’s the recommendation I make too many of my health coaching clients when I switch them over to a low-carb diet. 

I think if you eat about 50 net grams of carbs. You can still get enough vitamins and minerals and good nutrition, and enough fiber as long as you’re picking the correct type of carbohydrates. And the carbs you have to eat are pretty much going to be vegetables like leafy greens, foods that are low in net carbs, high in nutrition, like nutrient-dense type food. And also high in fiber.

 If you don’t know what net carbs are, net carbs are just total carbohydrates minus the fiber. For example, if you are picking a food that is 25 grams of total carbohydrates, but it has 10 grams of fiber, the indigestible part of the food. You’re going to be left with 15 net grams of carbs. 

Okay. So let’s go over a diet that you should be eating if your goal is to keep your total net grams of carbohydrates under 50. So I would say you want to eat vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. Every cup of broccoli or cauliflower only has about three or four net grams of carbohydrate. But they’re loaded with vitamins, minerals, and nutrition. Plus, they’re two different colors. You always want to eat a rainbow color of vegetables for various nutrients. They’re loaded with fiber. You see, I eat broccoli cauliflower regularly all during the week. 

You also want to eat those leafy greens. Like, arugula. Arugula is like free food. Incredibly tasty. They have that fantastic bitter taste like a cup of arugula only has, half a gram of net carbs.

You’ll want to eat a lot of spinach. You want to eat a lot of kale. A cup of spinach, a cup of kale, only has maybe two or three net grams of carbohydrates loaded with nutrition. 

You know, celery stalks, the same thing. Every long celery stalk has maybe one gram of net carbs, zucchini, another great vegetable (fruit) to eat. I think a medium-sized zucchini, three to four grams of net carbs. 

Another food, which I highly recommend even though it’s a fruit, is avocado. Avocados are superfoods like a medium-sized avocado, is loaded with potassium seven, eight hundred milligrams of potassium. 

Another thing you have to be careful about when you’re eating a low-carb diet is not getting enough potassium in your diet and not getting enough magnesium. So definitely pick foods that are high in potassium, high in magnesium. Avocado is excellent high potassium food; a typical avocado may have 17, 18 total grams of carbohydrates, but only has maybe four or five net grams of carbs because it has so much fiber has 12, 13 grams of fiber. 

When you look up an avocado, it’s hard to know the exact size unless you’re like weighing it. I’m talking like a medium-sized avocado. And this is how you have to eat. So, for example, if you want to eat, say 50 net grams of carbs, say you want to lose weight. You want to improve your health, you’re switching over to a low-carb diet. Most of your calories are going to come from healthy fats. And where are these healthy fats going to come from? Just the foods you’re eating. So, for example, you will be eating good quality protein like salmon; you’re going to be eating eggs, sardines, and meats. That’s where we’re going to get the healthy fats from. 

You’re going to get all your fiber now from the foods I just talked about. You want to get 25, 30 grams of fiber every day even though you’re eating low carb. Even though you’re only eating 50 grams of net carbs. If you pick these leafy greens, if you choose these vegetables, you’re going to be getting the fiber. You’re going to be keeping the sugar low, and you’re going to be keeping the carbs down. 

My recommendation for protein is about 0.9 grams per pound of lean body weight. So, for example, if you’re 150 pounds and say you’re 20%, 25% body fat, you want to eat at least a hundred to 115 grams of protein, something like that. 

So this is what your diet should consist of, all your carbs or, say, 75% of your carbs should come from leafy greens and a rainbow color of vegetables. So, for example, you could have one cup of broccoli, one cup of cauliflower, one cup of spinach, one cup of kale, and a whole bunch of like celery stalks cut up in a salad; that’ll be about 25 grams of net carbs. And it’s still going to leave you 25 more grams of net carbs to eat. So, for example, if you want to have one starch for the day you want to have one sweet potato, you may get 15, 20 grams of net carbs that you can have that. But that’s where your carbs should come from. 

See, a big mistake people make, and you know, I’m health coaching people all the time. And how I do it is I look at their food diary constantly. And I’m saying, you know, okay, you did keep your carbs under 50 grams, but there was no nutrition. You picked bread. You decided to have one bowl of pasta that day. You can’t do it like that. You want to have high fiber, high nutrition, eating a whole bunch of vegetables. Then good quality sources of protein like I talked about. And eat an adequate amount of protein. And you are going to do incredibly well eating a low-carb diet. 

To me, it’s the best way to eat to lose weight and for optimal health. 

Mike Cola – Celebrity Fitness Trainer