For those who love carbs, they’ve been taking a beating lately. Do not eat carbohydrates, they make you fat say the “experts”. Lately, there has been a complete war on carbs and as someone who loves their carbs… it’s time to start a war on the “war on carbs”.
Carbs are essential, there’s just no way around it. Whether your goal is to lose weight or increase athletic performance, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you ditch our carb friend. For all high-intensity, short-duration activities, muscle glycogen is the source of energy, and muscle glycogen comes from…carbohydrates. Even moderate intensity endurance activities use glycogen for about 50% of your energy needs. In fact, the only limiting factor in your athletic performance will be the lack of carbohydrate availability. Even during low-intensity exercise, when your body uses a higher percentage of fat as a fuel source, it needs a fair amount of carbohydrates to fuel that process. Have you ever played a sport or engaged in a high intensity training program and hit the proverbial “wall”… that’s because your body has a reduced supply of glycogen EVEN THOUGH your body has a large supply of fat. You want to perform better… eat your carbs.
What if you want to lose weight? surely you need to decrease your carbohydrate intake. After all, carbs make you fat, right? Carbohydrates add variety, necessary nutrients, and volume to your diet.
The recommended ranges for carbohydrate intake are between 45-65% of your total intake. Weight loss occurs when there is a calorie deficit and not a particular macronutrient profile.
The weight loss that occurs with low carb diets is generally attributed to 2 things… a lower total calorie intake and a loss of body mass. Have you ever started a diet that restricts carbohydrate intake and had great results in the first few weeks? Low carbs mean lower muscle glycogen stores. For every gram of glucose lost through glycogen, 2.7 grams of water are also lost with it. This glycogen loss combined with water loss is the contributing factor to the large initial losses observed.
Some studies you’ll read (actually, the newspaper headlines you’ll read… very few read the actual studies) will tell you that we’re gaining weight faster than ever even though our fat intake has decreased. This is partially true. The PERCENT consumption of fat in our total diet has decreased, but the actual grams of fat consumed have not changed, while the total calories consumed in our diet have increased. Also, most studies are based on self-reports, and people generally report eating less than they actually do.
Consider that in the 1900s, the typical diet had a higher intake of carbohydrates and a lower intake of fat. Despite the fact that our dreaded enemy, carbohydrates, was consumed at a higher rate, we have only seen an increase in weight problems in the last few decades. In short, the increase in weight gain we see as a society is largely due to increased calories and decreased activity.
So here’s the good thing about carbs:
1. They Provide Nutrients You Can’t Get From Fats Or Proteins
2. Add bulk to your diet
3. Stabilizes blood sugar levels
4. An adequate supply of carbohydrates in your diet prevents your body from turning to protein for energy, meaning protein can do its job.
5. It is the body’s preferred source of energy
6. Your brain only uses carbohydrates for energy.
7. You need carbohydrates to fuel the fat burning process.
All of this doesn’t mean running out of a dozen donuts. Select good choices of vegetables, fruits, whole grains… eat them… yum!
