Keep Carbohydrates in Your Wheelhouse

“I just want to eat carbs without killing myself.”

It’s a very telling line from actor Cameron Diaz’s character Amanda in the 2006 movie The Holiday. After Amanda learns her boyfriend cheated on her she wants to escape, go anywhere beyond where she is. Her escape includes letting her guard down to her daily stresses, no restrictions, no judgement by doing something unthinkable: Consuming as many carbs as she wants!

Many delicious options!

This movie and Amanda’s comment is now 20 years old, but the vilification of carbohydrates continues. I think it’s gained steam since then!

Carbs became evil in the rebound from the 1992 SnackWell era. Remember the lo-fat craze where it was deemed that Americans were getting fat due to eating fat? It seemed overnight everything became fat free. Introducing SnackWell brand of highly processed snack foods with no fat but loaded with sugar!

When singling out fat, an essential macro nutrient, didn’t stop anyone from getting fat, but actually accelerated the increase in body fat, overnight it seemed, we shifted to believing it was actually the carbohydrates we were eating that were making us fat.

Thus carbohydrates became the bad guys, they were making us fat.

The no carbs trend began.

Well here it is 2026 and the trajectory of Americans getting fatter has continued.

And yet people are still trying to avoid carbs.

Eliminating foods with fat didn’t make us thin, and now we see it is not different with carbohydrates. Eliminating entire categories of food isn’t the answer.

We need fat and we need carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates fuel our brain. We want that. So, that’s a good reason to consume carbs.

Carbohydrates in the form of fruits, vegetables and whole grains provide prebiotics, antioxidants, and phytonutrients we need for exercise, and to recover from that exercise. Another good reason to eat your carbs.

Our muscles need carbohydrates to make them go. Carbs provide energy to walk, bend, stoop, twist, lift things, run, hike, ski, and a slew of other things.

After we do all that fun moving around, we need to restock the energy stored in our muscles which we do when we eat carbohydrates.

Our immune system needs carbohydrates to function, it also needs energy to operate which it gets from our dietary carbohydrates. We want this to keep us from getting sick.

If you want to be building or hanging onto the muscle you have, you will need to eat a sufficient amount of carbohydrates each day to help you reach this goal. If not consuming a sufficient amount of carbs you will go backward, that is lose your muscle, not keep it.

When the body does not have it’s needs met, it will work to preserve itself. It will do this by stealing from one area to preserve a more important function in the body. It will take from Peter to pay Paul. Your metabolism may slow, your energy dives, your muscle strength diminishes, power fades, your performance slows, your mojo disappears, bones grow thin, sarcopenia sets in, and more.

Nobody wants this.

You may become skinny fat. You may be small in size, but have a disproportional percentage of body fat relative to your muscle. You look skinny, have no muscle, but high fat stores.

Instead of avoiding or limiting your carbs asses your needs for each day. Begin to gradually introduce them back into your meals and snacks. Include potatoes, legumes, fruit, vegetables, bread, pasta, beans, and more around your training in quantities that your body needs.

To calculate your carbohydrate needs, your bare minimum range for a total sedentary day:

2 g of carbohydrate/kg of body weight. For a 150lb/68kg person is 136g/day.

Here is an idea of the amount of carbohydrates you want to aim for in a day based on the number of hours your are exercising/training taking your body weight into consideration:

3-5 days each week at 1 hour each day= 3-5grams of carbohydrates/kg of body weight. For a 150lb/68kg person is 204-340 g/day.

5-6 days each week at 1-2 hours each day= 5-7 grams of carbohydrates/kg of body weight. For a 150lb/68kg person is 340-476 g/day.

If you are avoiding or limiting your carbs and still looking to develop muscle, re-comp your body, lose fat then I am here to tell you it will not happen, unless you are exercising/training fed and fueled.

Not happy with your body?

Time to do something different.

Eliminating an entire category of foods should make you suspicious.

Start by eating, eating carbohydrates based on your body weight.

Give it a month using the above guidelines, let me know how you feel.