Carbohydrates friend or foe?
Having a solid understanding of carbohydrates, will do wonders for your fitness journey. There is no one size fits all method or diet. Knowing the basics will allow you to fair better than someone who doesn’t.
The news, media and other outlets, such as facebook and blogs; only provide sound bites of what carbs do. With that being said, we won’t ever get a full and accurate understanding unless we do research ourselves.
Carbs are 4 calories per gram
While you may of heard carbs are 4 calories per gram, not all carbs perform and affect the body the same way.
Simple Carbohydrates
Without going to deep, we have several types of simple carbs, or sugars we can look at.
Glucose, fructose and galactose, they are easily digested and absorbed into the bloodstream.
What kinds of foods contain carbs?
Fruits and veggies, beans and dairy to name a few.
Complex Carbohydrates
Complex carbs create a slower release of glucose than simple carbs. So you will often hear the term slow digesting carbs used when talking about complex carbs.
Starch carbs are ones that we tend to over indulge in and are usually the ones that make us feel full.
Pasta, grains, veggies and rice, are some complex carbs,
The other type or carb is fiber.Fiber is not absorbed by our bodies, so its usually not included in the carb count on nutrition labels. Dietary fiber is usually what you will see on the nutrition label.
How to wisely avoid bad carbs
The carbs you should avoid are the ones from processed foods, drinks, juices, alcohol, etc.
Choose whole food sources, cut back on processed and refined sources such as candy, white rice and white bread.
Eat the simple carbs in moderation, things like candy and bagels, offer little to no nutritional value, and are termed “empty calories”.
How to prioritize the right carbs
All carbs turn into some form of sugar, this is the preferred fuel for tissues and organs and the only fuel for our red blood cells.
The body can turn protein form muscles into carbs if need be, which is a indication that we don’t necessarily need carbs to function.
But it is the easiest and most readily available energy source in our body.
There are different ways of deciding how many carbs you need in your diet.
The entry level to low carb dieting is 40% of your calories coming from carbs for example.
Athletes may consume higher carbs for their sports specific reasons, etc. In the future I will make more post detailing the specifics.
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