I made a quick stop at the grocery store tonight for sweet potatoes and fruit. Melissa Hartwig — one of the two people behind the Whole30, and a website I’ve learned a lot from — read my post yesterday and left a very helpful comment.

In my I’m halfway through the Whole30 recap post, I noted that while I’m losing weight, my energy is still really low and my mood is often not much better. Melissa looked at some of my recent food logs and ascertained that I’m not eating nearly enough carbs.

I knew I was eating pretty low-carb, at least in comparison to how I was eating before (even though I was gluten-free, you can get plenty of carbs from oatmeal, gluten-free pasta, and rice), but it didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t eating enough carbs to sustain my energy.

I haven’t been counting anything at all when it comes to my food, which includes carbs, fat grams, or calories. Coming from a background of disordered eating, I especially liked not focusing on calories. (While I’ve been back at a normal, healthy weight for years, the ingrained habit of calculating how many calories I’m ingesting is hard to break. The good thing about making home-cooked food instead of buying pre-packaged is that I have no idea how many calories I’m consuming per day. I eat until I’m full and then I stop. It’s a wonderful thing.)

While I don’t plan to start counting calories again, I will make more of an effort to eat more carbs.

In her comment, Melissa recommended adding 1/2-to-1 sweet potato per day, plus 2 servings of fruit. Did I just receive permission to eat sweet potato fries? That’s a recommendation I can easily get behind.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, sauerkraut

Lunch: Leftover pulled pork with braised cabbage (this was the last of the pork I made on Friday)

Snack: 2 large handfuls of blueberries

Dinner: Leftover beef stew, braised cabbage, and baked sweet potato fries (see, I follow directions!)

(Reminder: I’m following the Whole30 for the month of July. Here’s why.)