How long can a person maintain health if they consume a mostly carbohydrate diet?
My doctor is always chiding me about my diet. I eat a few bagels for breakfast. Pasta for lunch and crackers and/or cereal for a later meal. I hardly ever have any fruit or vegetables. I really don’t like them. My body tells me to eat breads, cereal and starches.
OMG I gained 12lbs just reading this.
Scurvy and rickets come to mind…..
fruits and veggies are carbohydrates, plus a whole lot more. The pasta and breads are just processed carbohydrates, which takes out all the additional nutritional benefits like fiber and vitamins/ minerals. The diet industry does focus on the big 3, carbs fat protein, but there a thousand trace chemicals that your body uses, and you need to get them into you fairly regularly.
Your dr is right. you need to get some complex, unprocessed carbs and other stuff in to the diet. Or, to answer your question, your health will deteriorate. how fast depends on what you aren’t getting. An imbalance of potassium/ sodium may show up in days. A lack of vitamin C may affect you in a few weeks. A shortage of calcium might take a year or two to noticiably eat away at your bones. Certainly if you’ve been eating like this for a while, you are far below your potential. That doesn’t mean it’ll kill you, just make you weaker, more lethargic, more prone to injury.
I’d suggest starting simple. eat breads and pasta that are whole wheat. That gets back some of the fiber.
Try and sub potatoes with the skin on for other starch cravings. it’s not great, but it’s an improvement.
A lot of veggies are better raw than cooked, carrots and celery for example. They make decent finger foods.
This may sound weird but it may be an improvement for you to season some ‘good’ items with sugar or honey. The sweetness will target the carb craving, and it will add a variety to your diet, ex. Honey roasted nuts, caramel dip for apples.
What do you drink? processed drinks like soda and purified water don’t offer much. try and introduce juices, tea and spring water.
well there are vitamins that if you dont consume them will weaken you immune system, like vitamin C for instance. you need potassium to help with your muscles, something you find in bananas (shutters i HATE bananas). iron is good for the blood, but you can find that in most meats you eat. you need your omega 3s for brain development (found in fish and beans). the list goes on and on about all the things your body needs or could use to be better. however avoiding these things i dont think will cause you any long term damage.
what is going to happen, is when and if you metabolism changes. eating a high starch/carbohydrate diet and not turning it out will cause all sorts of problems for you in the future: weight gain, cholesterol, possible diabetes, etc. especially if you are not extremely active. if you suffer a major illness or injury you can be looking at long term problems as well.
Oh wow. I’m a vegetarian, so I do eat a few more carbs than meat eaters- but not NEARLY that much. Yeah, that’s certainly not good for your health. Try cutting it down to ONE bagel, and put some tomatoes or fruit on the cream cheese, or whatever spread you use, to replace the other bagel, Then for lunch try a sandwich- it’s still carbs from bread, but you can get protein from peanut butter, or calcium from cheese, etc. Instead of Cereal, try some low fat lasagna- it’s still carbs (pasta) but you can overload it with lots of veggies- but you won’t be able to taste them ALL, if they’re mixed up with lots of spices. :]
Then for snacks, at least try some fruit! Even if you have to dip it in a little sugar- fruit is much better for you than all the carbs in crackers.
You should also try some vitamin supplements.