How Many Carbs Should You Actually Eat? with Dr. Ben Bikman
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Are carbohydrates actually bad for health or is the question framed incorrectly?
I want to tell you about something that genuinely moves me. And that's watching what happens when women come together around real health science. There's something powerful that shifts when a woman realizes she's not broken. She's just been given the wrong information. And when she sir is surrounded by other women who are waking up to that same truth, wow, it's magic. The healing accelerates. The consistency becomes easier. The loneliness of the health journey just literally dissolves. And that's what I have been watching over and over again happen inside my reset academy, month after month. Women who come in frustrated and depleted. They start to find their rhythm, they start to reclaim their energy, and the most beautiful part is they start rebuilding trust with their bodies.
Inside my academy, you get monthly trainings, live coaching calls, and an incredible community of women who are all doing this work right alongside you. And I show up every single month with new content, new tools, new ways to explain things because. your body is always changing and your health education should grow with it. So come join me over there. All you've got to do is find us on resetacademy dot doctor mindypels dot com. That's resetacademy dot doctormindypels dot com. I can't wait to see you there. Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in.
Let's dive in. When I wrote Fast Like a Girl, I made a claim that a lot of people did not want to hear. I said that there is a week in every woman's menstrual cycle where her body just handles carbohydrates completely differently. Where that same bowl of pasta that felt fine three weeks earlier now leaves her bloated, foggy, and stuck on the scale. I saw it over and over again in my clinic before I ever put it into a book. Women who could fast easily, glide through keto without a struggle, and then they would hit a wall the week before their period, every single month, over and over and over again, like clockwork. So I had to name it. I said, this is real. This is hormonal. This is insulin resistance tied to the luteal phase.
And then the internet decided to argue with me. I had wellness influencers, doctors tell my audience that the whole idea is nonsense, that carbs are carbs, and a woman's cycle has nothing to do with how her body processes them. Yet every woman will tell you that she craves carbs the week before her period. In my strong opinion, that is by design. It's not a sign of weakness. Here's the thing, 70% of all the calories consumed on this planet come from a single macronutrient, carbohydrates. And we still argue about the basic facts of how they behave in a female body. Mix that with some wellness influencers telling women that they need carbs to reduce menopause symptoms, while others strongly state that the path to weight loss during menopause is paved by the ketogenic diet.
So today I want to settle all of this and I want to do it with the person who actually teaches this in a university endocrinology classroom. This is why once again I have brought you. Doctor Ben Bickman. Ben is a metabolic scientist and a professor at Brigham Young University. And he's one of the clearest voices in the world on insulin resistance. He has authored two books, Why We Get Sick, and now his upcoming book, The Carb Crisis. He's spent his career studying exactly what happens inside the body when insulin stops working the way it should. In this conversation, Ben backs up everything I saw in my own clinic with the actual endocrinology behind it. He walks through why progesterone makes the luteal phase a built-in state of insulin resistance.
And he makes the case that our carb crisis has less to do with willpower and far more to do with a food system working against us. If you've ever felt like your body inexplicately stops cooperating for one week out of the month, or when you went into menopause, all of a sudden you looked at a carbohydrate and started to gain weight, well, this conversation is your answer.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Are carbohydrates actually bad for health or is the question framed incorrectly?
0:00–12:02
2
How does a woman's menstrual cycle affect her carbohydrate tolerance and cravings?
12:02–21:50
3
What determines how many carbs a person can safely eat – muscle mass, activity level, or hormones?
21:50–31:47
4
What makes a carbohydrate “good” versus “bad” – is fiber the key factor?
31:47–39:14
5
How does fiber change the metabolic response to carbs and why should it matter?
39:14–47:18
6
Why does the nervous system (sympathetic vs. parasympathetic) influence fasting and carb metabolism?
47:18–56:45
7
What role do GLP‑1 medications play in carbohydrate cravings and weight loss?
56:45–1:05:34
8
What practical steps can women take to improve their health by controlling carbs?
1:05:34–1:12:15
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz
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Trying Everything to Lose Weight? These 5 Things Matter More Than You Think
Why So Many Women Feel Disconnected From Their Bodies with Emma-Louise Boynton
10 Foods That Naturally Boost GLP-1 & Quiet Food Noise
How to Make Healthy Food Actually Taste Good with Chef Nyesha Arrington