Carbs - To eat or not to eat.....everyone's question!
Everyone has heard of “low-carb” diets and yet anyone who follows one complains about craving more sugar while following it, why? Have you ever stopped to consider that all these “low-carb” diets might just be programming you to crave the very thing you are avoiding? Sugar! Many people have become programmed into thinking that ALL carbs are bad and mean weight gain. Carbs however are not the enemy but very necessary for your progress. Let’s consider a few things.
There are three primary roles of carbohydrates. One is to provide the body with energy. Two is to spare protein from being used as energy and three is to provide the body with much needed fiber. You cannot get fiber from proteins or fats, so you must eat carbs to get fiber. So besides providing you with the energy you need daily, carbohydrates will enable the protein you consume to stay available for building and repairing muscle while also providing you with fiber to help control appetite and help you properly process the fats you eat daily. This certainly does not sound like something we should be trying to avoid!
Carbohydrates are broken down into 5 categories. For this article we will focus primarily on just two of them. The two kinds of carbohydrates we will discuss are: simple sugars and a very broad category know as complex carbohydrates. A simple carbohydrate is simply a sugar. Simple sugar foods include cookies or cereal and to a lesser degree fruit. When a carbohydrate is a simple carbohydrate it means that it will digest quickly and cause a quick rise in your blood sugar levels. Anytime you cause a quick spike in your blood sugar levels you are prompting the hormone insulin to be released quickly also. The purpose of insulin is to keep blood sugar levels balanced by sending the sugars where they need to go. If you eat too much simple sugar which your body cannot use, the excess will get stored in fat cells. So instead of drinking a soda which is loaded with sugar, you could try water with lemon juice. Or ask us for a sample of Emerge the next time you’re in store!
Here is an analogy I like to use. Consider your paycheck. You’ve become accustomed to receiving a certain amount of money each time you get paid. For the most part, the amount of money you earn will be roughly the same. This is good because it enables you to know how much disposable income you have. But imagine for a moment that your employer paid you at random times. You never know for certain when or how much you will get paid again. Knowing that you need to have a certain amount of money to pay for necessities such as your mortgage and gas and food, you are far more likely to spend frugally and save your money.
Your body knows it needs to have a certain amount of fat just like you know you need to have a certain amount of money to make ends meet. If one day you consume, let’s say, 1600 calories and the next day you consumer 900 calories and the day after that you eat 2,000 you can start to imagine the confusion your body is experiencing. It is now like the employee who is at the mercy of the employer paying random amounts. It becomes very hard to budget.
What is the solution? Is there a way to consume carbohydrates correctly? A resounding absolutely there is! They are called complex carbohydrates. These are the good carbs that you should be consuming with each meal. Complex carbohydrates include foods such as pasta, rice, potatoes and oats. Unlike simple carbohydrates that are composed of one sugar molecule, complex carbohydrates consist of several sugar molecules bound together. What that means for you then is that when you consume complex carbohydrates they will be broken down into glucose more slowly and enter the blood stream evenly. Again, insulin will be secreted to regulate sugar levels but at a slower, more even distributed rate as well. When we have a slower release of sugar into the bloodstream and have an equally slower release of insulin, our body will effectively store more glucose in healthy cells such as muscles rather that cramming excess glucose into fat cells. Also by consuming complex carbohydrates and limiting simple carbohydrates you can greatly control hunger levels and by default energy levels.
Come in to Max Muscle Davis County TODAY to figure out not only how many carbohydrates you should be eating per day but ways to incorporate eating the right ones for your needs and goals. Nutrition is not about deprivation and you certainly don’t want to deprive yourself of carbohydrates!
