Studies show fiber intake is associated with lower body weight.
So it makes sense to eat as many vegetables as possible, right?
Not so fast.
All vegetables are not created equal, and eating the wrong type of vegetables (i.e. high-carb vegetables) can knock your body out of fat-burning mode.
Let’s take a look at why this is and which vegetables are best to eat for weight loss…
Your body is programmed to seek energy
Just like a car needs energy from gasoline to power it down the road, your body needs adequate energy from food for it to run on all cylinders.
When not getting sufficient amounts of energy-providing food, an organism’s ability to function dwindles until it eventually succumbs. This is known as starvation.
Evolution has been driven by competition between organisms for energy. Those organisms that developed the most successful methods of finding and consuming high-energy food survived and thrived.
This need for energy is so vital to an organism’s survival that it is baked into your body’s DNA. Your body is programmed to make you crave and seek food when it is running low on energy.
Carbohydrates are high-energy sources
In nature, energy is stored in molecules such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
The word “carbohydrate” comes from a combination of “carbon” and “hydrate.”
A hydrate is simply H2O (hydrogen and oxygen) that has bonded together with another element, in this case carbon.
So a carbohydrate is essentially just a bunch of hydrogen and oxygen molecules combined with carbon atoms, attached to each other by chemical bonds.
When these bonds between the atoms get broken, as happens when your body breaks down carbohydrates, energy is released. This energy is harnessed and used to power various bodily processes.
Sugars and starches are the digestible carbohydrates that we eat in our diets, and they are readily burned by the body to produce the energy it needs.
When it comes to eating, starches and sugars are for all intents and purposes the same thing. Chemically, starches are simply strings of sugar molecules.
Your brain rewards eating high-carb foods
We know that eating high-fiber, low-energy foods such as green leafy vegetables (e.g. salads) is optimal for our health.
So why do we tend to have an aversion to vegetables and instead crave sugary and starchy foods?
It goes back to the fact that our bodies evolved to seek and consume high-energy foods for survival out in the wild where such foods were scarce.
Sugar and starches are energy-rich, while high-fiber foods such as vegetables tend to be low in digestible carbohydrates (which means your body gets a lower concentration of energy — i.e. calories — from eating them).
Because your body evolved to seek high-energy foods, it gravitates toward these energy-rich sugars and starches over fiber-rich vegetables.
This was great when humans lived out in the wild and food was scarce. But now in modern times, where energy-dense foods are readily accessible, it is easy get carried away and overindulge.
Carbohydrates are addictive
Your brain’s reward system lights up more and more as you eat high-energy foods.
A “sugar buzz” is the result of dopamine released in your brain to reward you for eating energy-rich sugar.
The more this dopamine is released in the brain, the more the brain wants it. Consuming sugar and starches is addictive, by design.
This addiction is not a problem in the wild where high-energy foods are scarce. But modern society puts abundant sugar and flour within easy reach.
Not only is there a wide variety of high-energy foods to purchase at your local grocery store (and vending machines, gas stations, etc.) any time you want them, but foods are also being genetically selected and engineered to provide greater densities of starches and sugars.
Furthermore, many foods in our modern diet have been physically and chemically “refined” to remove fiber and nutrients while concentrating sugars and starches to make them more desirable and difficult to resist.
Refined foods lack natural fiber
In nature, we eat oranges one-by-one, complete with their high fiber content.
At the grocery store, we purchase a half-gallon of pulp-free orange juice, allowing us to drink the fiber-free sugary juice of several oranges in a few gulps.
This happens with most processed foods.
White flour is wheat with all the fiber (the “bran”) and the nutrient-dense portion (the “germ”) removed. So you get a concentration of energy without any of the benefits of the fiber and nutrients that are normally found in wheat.
Sugar is typically either sugar cane or beets, with all the fiber removed. Corn syrup is another refined sweetener, which — you guessed it — is corn with the fiber removed.
The processed foods of our modern society are designed to be abundant in concentrated carbohydrates with much of the fiber that would normally accompany these carbs in nature removed.
Carbohydrates provide your body with calories (i.e. energy) but lack any other nutritional value. To operate properly, your body needs additional nutrients and fiber, and it will continue craving until it gets them.
As a result, eating concentrated carbohydrates with the fiber and other naturally occurring nutrients removed creates a tendency to overeat.
Excess carbs are stored as fat
Giving your body the fuel it evolved to consume — high-fiber, low-energy foods — helps it function properly and makes it possible to shed pounds and maintain your weight in a healthy range.
Eating too many carbs provides your body with an excess source of unneeded energy. Your body doesn’t like to waste energy, so it stores this excess in the form of fat.
To better understand this, let’s take a closer look at what happens in your body to the food you eat.
As carbohydrates from food are digested, a simple sugar called glucose is released. This glucose is absorbed into your blood stream and transported to your cells.
Your cells use glucose to produce the energy they need.
When you are consuming a lot of carbohydrates, your body prioritizes burning these for energy first before it taps into your fat reserves, which are there as a reserve to fall back on in case the inflow of carbohydrates dries up.
Any excess carbs that are not needed for immediate energy production are stored as reserves in fat cells.
When you’re eating more carbs than you need, your body is storing the excess by either expanding the size of your existing fat cells or adding new fat cells.
Trigger “fat burning” by reducing high-carb foods
When the amount of glucose in your blood drops, your body starts releasing fatty acids from your fat cells, shrinking the fat cells in the process.
Fatty acids are the building blocks of fat and consist almost entirely of just carbon and hydrogen molecules. As with carbohydrates, the bonds between the atoms in the fat molecules store energy which your cells can release to obtain the energy they need.
You body does not technically “burn” fat. What it is actually doing is converting fatty acids into carbon dioxide and water by breaking apart and recombining the carbon and hydrogen atoms along with some oxygen.
As the carbon and hydrogen atoms from the fatty acids are pulled apart and recombined into carbon dioxide and water, energy is released.
Your cells capture and utilize this released energy, while the carbon dioxide and water leave your body through your breath and urine.
Fatty acids are also processed by your liver
Some cells in your body can use fatty acids directly for energy production. Other cells, such as brain, heart and muscle cells, cannot process fatty acids directly and rely on special molecules called ketones.
Ketones are produced by your liver from fatty acids released from your fat cells. These ketones are then circulated through your blood to the cells that need them for energy.
The state in which your body is creating and utilizing ketones for energy rather than glucose is called ketosis (from ketone + the suffix -osis which means “being in a state or condition of”).
Ketosis is triggered when glucose levels in your blood are low and fatty acid levels are high.
This happens when you are eating a low amount of carbohydrates and your body needs to resort to using stored fat as an energy source to make up the deficit.
Therefore, replacing high-carb foods in your diet with vegetables that are low in starch and sugar helps put your body into fat-burning mode.
Not all vegetables are created equal
It’s true that most vegetables are good for you due to their fiber content and the vitamins and minerals they provide your body.
However, for fat-burning purposes, not all vegetables are ideal.
It’s important to be aware that some vegetables, such as corn and potatoes, contain a lot of carbs themselves — enough carbs to slow down or even stop ketosis entirely. We refer to these as “high-carb vegetables.”
As you eat starchy or sugary vegetables, the carbohydrates in them break down into glucose and enter your bloodstream just like any other carbs, preventing your body from staying in fat-burning mode.
To use vegetables successfully for losing weight, you need to identify which vegetables in your diet are the high-carb vegetables (high in starches and sugars) and replace them with low-starch vegetables.
You can kick the high-carb habit
This is all great, you may be thinking. But what if you crave processed foods and carbohydrates and find it difficult to resist them?
If you find yourself in this situation, don’t despair. There is a way to loosen the grip of carbohydrates on you.
High-carb vegetables which contain an abundance of starches and sugars — like corn, potatoes, peas, beets, tomatoes and carrots — can be used temporarily as a “fix” to wean yourself off sugary and starchy processed foods, similar to how methadone is used to get people off heroin or vaping is used to get off cigarettes.
Replacing sugary flour-based foods in your diet (bread, pasta, donuts, etc.) with high-carb vegetables can help satisfy your carb craving while breaking the hold these processed foods have on you.
By preparing these vegetables with spices and mixing them with proteins, you can create meals that light up the reward molecules in your energy-addicted brain in a similar way that carbs do.
Don’t worry, you’ve got this
To succeed at this, you don’t necessarily need to be a master chef crafting gourmet dishes.
The goal is simply to put together meals consisting of healthy foods that are “good enough” to keep your body satisfied.
When you consistently eat 3–6 cups of vegetables a day, you will improve the population of good bacteria in your gut. This leads to many health and mood benefits, which make healthy food seem more appetizing and reduces your uncontrollable desire for sugar and flour.
In other words, vegetables can provide some of the same “buzz” you get from carbs.
This strategy makes it easier to reduce your intake of carbohydrates by increasing the vegetables you are eating. The more vegetables you work into your diet, the easier it becomes to reduce the carbs.
Successful dieters describe breaking free of the “Sugar Dragon” like heroin addicts describe getting “the monkey off their back.”
It does take some time — several weeks is typical — but it can be done.
Group vegetables by starch levels
We can use a green-yellow-red system, like a traffic light, for thinking about vegetables based on their starch content.
High-carb vegetables (and grains) that are high in starches get the red light: stop and think about the health consequences of consuming these before you eat them.
Despite their high starch content, red light vegetables are still better than flour and sugar and can be used to lessen cravings. So you don’t have to completely avoid them. But stop and think before eating them.
Vegetables in the red category include:
- Beans (kidney, navy, pinto, black, cannellini)
- Butternut squash
- Carrots
- Chickpeas
- Corn
- Lentils
- Parsnips
- Peas
- Potatoes
- Spaghetti Squash
- Sweet potatoes
- Tomatoes
- Taro
- Yams
Proceed, but with caution, with these
Vegetables we group into the yellow-light category are not as starchy, but eating more than a cup per meal will likely stop ketosis.
These are good for helping control carb and fat cravings and can be eaten in moderation.
Vegetables in the yellow category include:
- Artichokes
- Asparagus
- Bean sprouts
- Brussels sprouts
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Cucumber
- Eggplant
- Kohlrabi
- Mushrooms
- Onions
- Peppers
- Salad greens
- Spinach
- Tomato
- Turnips
- Zucchini
Go to town on these
Luckily, there are some vegetables that are low-starch and you can eat as many as you want, whenever you want.
Leafy greens (and mushrooms) are in this category. They are often eaten as salads, but can also be prepared into various side dishes and garnishes incorporated into meals.
These get the green light:
- Arugula (rocket)
- Bok choy (Chinese chard)
- Collard greens (collards)
- Dandelion greens
- Kale
- Mustard greens
- Celery
- Swiss chard
- Turnip Greens
- Lettuces (all)
- Watercress
- Endive
- Garden cress
- Garlic
- Spinach
- Fennel greens
- Collard greens
- Chives
- Green onions
- Radishes
- Radicchio
- Mache
- Dill leaves
- Romaine
Play the game… and win!
To play the vegetable substitution game, replacing high-carb vegetables with low-carb vegetables in your diet, start by choosing from the green light list and trying out a recipe of your choice.
Rate the meal and note how to tweak the herbs and spices to improve it for next time.
By continuously experimenting with combining and recombining the vegetables, herbs, spices and proteins, you have a good chance of finding a way to satisfy your appetite without — or at least with much less — processed food.
You can’t really lose by looking suspiciously at high-carb starchy vegetables, but going ahead and utilizing them to reduce your carb intake from processed foods.
It’s easier to give up pasta with a well-buttered bowl of salty mashed potatoes. Then give up the potatoes for a big bowl of stir-fry made with teriyaki beef and your favorite veggies and soy sauce.
Good luck setting up and playing your game!
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