Are you tired of feeling sluggish and groggy after holiday meals? In this podcast, I, Erik, dive deep into the real reasons behind that infamous food coma we experience during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just the tryptophan in turkey that’s to blame; it’s the high levels of carbohydrates and sugars in our festive meals that can lead to that post-dinner lethargy. I’ll share some eye-opening insights into the nutritional profiles of typical holiday foods and offer practical tips on how to enjoy your celebrations without the dreaded food coma. Join me as we explore how to adjust our holiday plates for a more energetic and enjoyable experience this season.

Chapters:

• 00:11 - The Holiday Season
• 04:49 - Understanding the Thanksgiving Food Coma
• 08:30 - Understanding Food Coma: The Role of Carbohydrates and Desserts
• 13:51 - Understanding Carbohydrate Intake
• 20:22 - Understanding Carbohydrate Impact on Meals

info@therealityofhealth.com

Welcome, healthy friends.

Yeah.

That time is upon us.

The food coma time of the year.

Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This one's more going to be about Thanksgiving, but it also applies to Christmas.

You know, that time eat too much.

You're like, wow, I need a nap.

Well, why does that happen?

We're going to get into it a little bit.

Might not be exactly what you've always been told, but, yeah, let's learn some new stuff.

Also, I'm going to give you some really good tips on how to enjoy this time of the year and not feel like this.

Like this guy.

By the way, really difficult to find photos for this episode.

I don't know why.

It just was terrible to find what I wanted to show you.

Doesn't really matter.

You don't really care because you're like, just bring me the info, man.

What are you waiting for?

I'm kidding.

All right, so as you see here, this is what we've all felt, right?

It might not be your face on the table, but sometimes you're just in the Lazy Boy.

You're trying to watch that football game, and you're like, I can't stay awake.

Why is that?

Well, you've been told tryptophan and all kinds of things.

Not true.

I will say some of this is my perspective.

Not gonna back it up with too much science.

That's boring.

Nobody really cares.

I got a little bit in there, but this should be a fun episode.

And I'm going to give you really good tips on how to not feel so lethargic.

You know, you show up to the party and you're like, I'm in a good mood, happy to see everybody.

You're kissing your family, hugging everybody.

The kids are like, oh, Uncle John.

And all that kind of stuff.

And then about halfway through, you're like.

And you're thinking, why am I so groggy?

Well, we're going to talk about it.

Classic.

Maybe not for everybody, but let's pick out the classic Thanksgiving dinner.

Sometimes we don't always do turkey, but the reason I brought this photo up is because turkey's always been considered that whole tryptophan thing.

Well, it's not true, okay?

There's so much more going on in this photo than the turkey.

You might be asking yourself, well, then, what is it?

I don't understand.

Well, I'm gonna show you how.

And this photo is so.

It is very common to the everyday, ordinary, USA type of Thanksgiving dinner.

Do you notice one thing that's missing?

Now, I'm.

I don't Believe in eating veggies, which I think some of you know by now doesn't matter what I eat or what I think about vegetables.

They're low carb.

And there's none.

There's a little bit underneath the turkey, but nobody's eating those because nobody does.

What do you see?

You see bread, that's carbs.

Potatoes, that's carbs.

Gravy has some decent amount of carbs, depending on how you make it.

Stuffing, which is pure carbohydrate.

And then you have cranberry sauce, which is sugar added to fruit.

So that's a double sugar whammy.

And then you have the infamous alcoholic beverages.

Oh, yeah.

Could that be the reason that everybody parties anyway?

Unless you're a dry house.

There are dry houses.

There's religious houses that don't have these.

So you think, well, I don't drink alcohol, so why am I tired?

Or I do drink alcohol, but I thought I drank light beer, and therefore I should be good.

No, we're missing it.

There's so many things going on here.

I'm only going to get into the major groups because these have the biggest influence on why you're so groggy and in the food coma.

All right.

To show you how to tweak your Thanksgiving or holiday dinner and not feel so groggy in food coma, actually just feel better.

Here you go.

Tryptophan.

Turkey down here on the bottom is 0.38 grams per serving for 4 ounces.

Salmon's less, shrimp is less.

Soybeans pretty high.

Very close to turkey.

Beef tenderloin at 36.

Chicken 39, yellowfin tuna at 38.

So my question for you is, how come when you have Thanksgiving, or maybe you do a turkey at Christmas and you go, oh, it's the tryptophan.

It's kicking in.

You don't say.

During the normal days of the week, oh, I've had too much chicken.

I'm in the chicken tryptophan coma, which is more than turkey.

You don't do that, man.

I had that tuna fish sandwich earlier today.

Feeling it now, ready to go to sleep.

You don't do that.

It's.

You know, even beef tenderloin is close.

You're not like, oh, I had the beef tenderloin.

I just need to take a nap.

Doesn't happen.

That whole tryptophan thing, throw it away.

Doesn't mean anything.

Here's what actually is happening.

Here's your average plate.

And I'm serious about this.

This is average.

I just mentioned notice There was no vegetables on that other plate.

Okay.

Stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.

And you have the turkey, and you got the, the, the gravy notice over here to the right.

I understand this is one person's makeup of what's in a turkey dinner.

I get it.

But it's a pretty good general understanding of what the nutritional profile would be of this type of meal.

And most people, when they're getting together for Thanksgiving, they want all the fun foods.

You know what I mean?

I want you to notice I don't care about all the calories because calories don't mean anything.

It has nothing to do with food whatsoever.

We'll have an episode in the future on that.

Fat doesn't mean anything because fat does not make you tired.

You can eat all the fat you want.

You don't get tired.

Same with saturated, same with cholesterol.

Sodium doesn't make you tired.

It actually gives you charge and makes you feel good.

Notice the carbohydrates in this particular plate.

At 123 grams, that's significant.

And you say, eric, carbohydrates are more than just sugars.

It's also fiber.

Yeah, 11.

And that's it.

Of the 123 grams of carbohydrates.

But there's 78 grams of sugar.

That's not good.

There's other types of fiber in there that equal to 123.

The general idea is now you have 110 grams of protein.

This is a very average regular meal.

Okay.

Your ve.

Your, your meal may vary, right?

I mean, let's, let's be real.

Not everybody eats the same things.

Maybe it's ham and you don't do sweet potatoes, and you do regular mashed potatoes and.

Doesn't matter.

We're getting just generals here to give you the idea of why you have food coma and how to mitigate that through that whole night so you feel good and you're not tired.

Because I hate being tired during a party like that.

Here's what it should more look like.

If you want to reduce how you feel in a food coma, you need to bring your sugar and carbs down.

Sugar stimulates insulin, and that'll put you to sleep.

The other thing is, is when you're trying to digest all that fiber plus the sugar at the same time, of course, the protein as well.

You have a lot of digestion going on and your body is like, okay, all of my resources have to go to digesting this in the stomach.

And then you have to Push it into the small intestines and make its way through.

That's just the main meal.

We haven't even talked about dessert yet.

You could make the argument that there's already dessert in your meal.

I mean, you've got sweet potatoes.

The name is right there.

Sweet.

You've got sugar in the fruit.

Even on this one you still got a small amount of sweet potatoes.

And you still have cranberry sauce.

That is dessert.

But notice green beans and a salad.

Much better.

Look how you just went from 78 grams of sugar down to 33.

Much better.

That make more sense.

We're filling our plate with the carbs and sugar and high fiber foods and that's what's making you tired.

It's not tryptophan.

Here's a breakdown, quick one for you.

So if you want to feel better, you need to eat more meat at your at this dinner and less of the sides or be particular with the sides.

Get rid of the desserts.

I'm going to show you dessert and drinks.

I'm going to tell you exactly how to drink to have the lowest impact.

So yeah, you have some fun.

Low impact on your health and you actually have no crash.

Okay.

All right.

Notice the meats.

Zero carbs.

Okay, let me first state this graph is the best one I could find.

Obviously there's nuances within this, but generally speaking, this is going to give you an idea.

For example, with the meat at zero grams.

Lasagna, 30 grams of carbs in a serving of one cup.

Okay.

Could be 25, could be 35.

Stuffing, half a cup, 20 carbs.

You know how much a half a cup is?

It's only like this big.

By like this amount.

It's small.

You have to have the fiber count in there because there's bread.

Right?

So the carbs are at 20 when it could be like 15 sugars.

So we're just going to take this as a general reference.

Remember, you don't just have to digest the sugars, deal with the insulin, but you also have to deal with the fiber as well.

And then of course, you have to digest proteins and fats.

The problem is the carbs.

That is the issue.

Mashed potatoes, well, a cup is at 30 grams, so it's slightly less than a half cup of stuffing.

Sweet potato, one cup or one sweet potato?

Excuse me.

At 30 grams.

Candied yams, half cup at 45.

Don't do the candied stuff.

Quit adding sugar to your sweet potatoes.

Okay.

Sweet potato casserole.

A third cup at 30.

Now watch here's where your sides make more sense.

Green beans at four for a half a cup.

But then, look, you went to green bean casserole for a half cup, and you added 5 more grams of carbs.

Corn, not good.

Sauerkraut, pretty low.

Difference with sauerkraut is that's a whole cup for 6 grams.

And if you make it yourself, you get probiotics, which help you digest food.

Obviously, we go to the carrots and the cranberry sauce.

Look at a quarter cup at 25 grams.

Here's your gravy.

A quarter cup of gravy at four grams.

You know what that four grams comes from?

It's not the drippings.

The drippings are collagen and fat and water.

The gravy comes from corn starch.

Or maybe you added wheat flour to make the gravy.

There's where your carbs come from.

One biscuit at 25.

Cornbread, 28.

Okay.

I put this.

I showed you this to explain how this works right here.

All right, so when you look at this plate and then you add up what I just showed you, that's why you come up to 123.

All of those put together.

That's a lot.

When you could make better choices.

Desserts.

Oh, boy.

So not only did you have all of this on the left side, which made up your normal food, I just showed you at 123 carbs.

This does not include your dessert.

Yeah.

Now you add.

I'm going to pick one of the most common we do on Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie.

So an eighth of a slice.

What?

What is an eighth of a slice?

That thing's like this wide.

35 grams of carbs.

There will be some fiber in there, but I'm telling you, it's mostly sugar.

You see, if we pick one of the least ones.

We just had a sugar cookie.

You had two little sugar cookies, 22 grams of carbs.

Very little fiber in that.

That's mostly all sugar.

Not good.

You see where this is going?

Okay, you can see how you've had 123 with your meal.

Then later, you decide to have dessert, and you've added another.

Let's round it at 50 grams.

So now you're approaching 200.

Meantime, you may have had some beverages.

Eggnog at 30 for a half a cup.

Who drinks a half a cup of eggnog?

I've never done that in my.

Every time I've ever had eggnog, it's been like at least 2 cups.

Sweet or spiced apple cider.

1 cup 30 grams.

That's a small, little, tiny mug.

Nobody drinks that much.

They always drink more.

And then we get into wine and beer and spirits.

Going to address this because this right here, these numbers are false.

I'm going to show you what real numbers are.

Yeah.

When you add the food to the dessert, plus your drinks, you're in the hundreds of grams of carbs and sugar.

My point of showing you this carb chart is, where isn't the carbs?

Oh, that would be in the turkey, ham, beef, chicken, and duck.

So what do you think your plate should mostly be?

That would be right in the meat category, the animal food category.

So then you say, well, I can't.

I mean, I can eat that.

All right, so I'll do the greens.

I'll have a salad, maybe some green beans.

I'll have some, you know, those type of foods that are low carb.

Asparagus, whatever.

Brussels sprouts, name it.

Great.

I'm all for that.

You lowered your carbs.

Cool.

Then you're like, well, I want a dessert.

Notice whipped cream.

This is natural whipped cream.

Now, we're not talking some sweetened version.

Two tablespoons is two grams of carbs.

So that's lactose.

Not that bad.

Two tablespoons of whipped cream is quite puffy.

It's big.

Add some berries, any of the berries you want.

Now you have a low carb, low sugar, decently healthy dessert, by the way, when you're feeling, like, heavy, that's a light dessert.

You're like, yeah, this is not bad at all.

Add a little stevia when you make the whipped cream.

Now you sweetened it, feeling like you got a more sweeter type of dessert without adding all the sugar.

You see where we're going with this?

Pretty cool.

I'm a big fan of whipped cream, especially if you're lucky.

Blessed to be in a state where you can get raw dairy.

Oh, man, I can't wait until I try for the first time, whipped cream from raw cream.

First of all, for those of us who are lactose intolerant, can't do processed dairy products.

So getting raw dairy, we're able to eat that kind of stuff.

I can't do that.

I can't wait to do that.

Anyway, does that make more sense to see where you're.

Where your carbohydrates are coming from equals your food coma.

So eat less carbs.

You're not in food coma.

Eric, are you saying that I can't have any carbs at all?

That I should just not enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner, not what I'm saying.

Have small amounts.

Think about it like this.

You decide.

I'm going to have the sweet potato casserole with mini marshmallows, right?

Do you have to have a large portion?

Isn't just two or three bites enough?

I mean, really, do you need 14 different things on your plate that all add up to 350 carbs?

Can we just do pick the ones that you love the most, small portions.

That way you are more selective.

Let's keep the carbs under 150.

You're doing better.

If you can keep them under 75, you're not going to have food coma at all.

Remember, you're not just doing food.

You're doing drinks, too.

And let's be real, most people aren't just doing water the whole time, right?

And if you drink, you know, soda pop or whatever you say from wherever you live, pop, soda, fizzy drink, whatever, you're adding way more sugar.

That's what we see with the children, right?

Children are bouncing off the walls.

You wonder why.

Pick the sides that you like.

Small portions, more greens, more meat.

And by the way, if your meat isn't good enough to eat a lot, like a larger portion, spend more money on the meat and less on everything else.

I could tear this up.

This is like the epitome of a nutritionist's breakdown of what to do and what not to do.

And I could literally do countless episodes in.

I could do an episode on every single one of these ingredients or these sides, desserts, and drinks.

Literally.

I may have actually some episodes on individual of these.

Hmm.

Check those out.

All right.

Crush that one.

Enough to move on.

So let me first say.

So you saw the carb content.

We brought all that together, right?

Well, if this is 78 grams of sugar just in your normal Thanksgiving meal, that equates to.

From all these carbs.

78.

Well, 78 sitting just under this.

Half a cup of sugar.

Okay, so if you showed up at Thanksgiving dinner and you had just dinner with water, you would have, on average, half a cup of sugar.

Let me ask you a question.

I've asked this in sugar episodes, originally in this podcast.

You've ever ate straight table sugar?

I mean, just sit down with a half a cup of straight sugar and just eat it.

No, nobody does that.

Why?

Because it's weird.

Tastes weird.

You can't chew it.

It's cloying.

You just don't do it.

But you mix it in everything or you have the equivalent of it.

Next thing you know, you just downed 100 grams of sugar.

You're like, whoa.

And then the insulin spike hits, and then we have the repercussions.

Now, remember I said that's the meal.

Somewhere around here with the average Thanksgiving meal, that's if you have those portions.

He's talking about.

What if you had bigger portions?

It's even worse.

Now you add your beverages.

We haven't even got dessert yet.

You add your beverages.

You're sitting in 150 world because you added beer, wine, cocktails, Pepsi, Coke, Mountain Dew, whatever.

Now you're here.

Three quarters of a cup of sugar.

You ever seen three quarters of a cup of sugar?

That's insane.

It gets better.

Here's what, three quarters?

Well, let's do three quarters.

To start off with, this is basically where you're at.

By the time you eat dinner, you've had a couple drinks.

Now you had your food, your equivalent is three quarter cups of sugar.

That's 12 tablespoons.

12 tablespoons.

You know that smaller spoon you have in your drawer and you have the larger drawer, the larger spoon.

Take that larger spoon.

Take a more leveled off.

Not a heaping.

Take a more leveled off.

And I want to eat 12 of those in a row.

Matter of fact, let's give you 12 to 15 minutes because that's pretty much all that takes for people to eat dinner.

That's how much sugar you just ate at your meal with your beverages previous.

That's a lot of sugar.

And you wonder why you're tired now.

When you add things like dessert, you can go way past one cup, right?

We can get things like.

I mean, a can of Coke is 40 grams.

Add another 40.

Well, you had two of those.

Or a beer that's got 15 to 20 grams per beer, and you've had two or three before dinner.

This starts to add up.

This is why you're in food coma.

It's not the.

It's not the turkey.

I'm telling you, it's not the turkey.

I also can say this as a carnivore, I eat lots of tryptophan.

Everything.

I eat it all.

Beef and turkey and a lot of chicken and eggs and all kinds of stuff.

I don't get a tryptophan.

Ask any carnivore if they get tired while being a carnivore.

They're like, nope, that's gone.

Never get that at all.

I can eat all I want, and I'm ready to go.

Because there's the.

Tryptophan is not the problem.

It's the carbs.

It's the difficulty digesting your food.

I'm going to make this a two part episode.

I hope it doesn't go into three this beginning.

I'm hoping to set this up for you to see if you really want to be effective next week, understand how to how to eat right.

Enjoy your time.

I'm going to give you some really good tips coming up Monday morning.

So it'll give you plenty of time before Thanksgiving to, you know, get in order what you're going to do to take care of yourself for the Thanksgiving so you have a really enjoyable time without being in food coma.

By the way, you'll also not gain so much weight.

There's that.

But this is the first beginning showing you it's the carbs, it's the sugar, it's not the tryptophan.

Okay?

Trust me.

I'm going to give you some great, great advice and some really cool insights into how to eat at any party, maybe even outside of a party, just on a Friday night or Saturday night.

Really good stuff coming up.

I can't wait to tell.

That's why I'm harping.

I'm just harping on this because this is so fun.

I love talking about this kind of thing.

These are the things that excite me that I want to help you guys learn tips and tricks that man change everything.

Appreciate you listening.

Please tune in on Monday.

It will be worth your while for next week, which is Thanksgiving and even for Christmas, you'll be like, wow, I went through those, felt great, had a good time, ate some stuff.

I had some fun with all of that and I didn't regret it.

All right.

Take care of yourselves.

Thanks for listening.