Carbohydrates: Your Misunderstood Best Friend

There are only a few things dieters fear the most:

• Making sure they are making progress

• Dealing with Hunger

• Knowing what foods to eat while dieting

• And above all the fear of carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are always the center of hate for dieters.  They are constantly being labeled as “evil”, “bad”, and immediately being disregarded as the sole reason why people gain weight.  

Throughout the history of dieting, this is nothing new.  In the ’80s and 90’s you can easily replace carbs with fats and you’d be having the same conversation.  This is how fad diets work; they strike fear into the hearts of dieters.

However, as time goes on, we should have a better sense of what drives weight gain and weight loss.

For years, I’ve heard some variation of “I know that if I eat fewer calories I’ll lose weight.  But if I get a slice of bread or some rice, I’ll get fat.” I usually hear this around family gatherings or while my girlfriend is dieting.

Fortunately, this isn’t true.  You can and SHOULD eat carbs.   This article is going to cover why you should prioritize carbs to improve your training performance and body composition to get better results.

Why do People Think Carbs are bad??

Without question, the biggest nutritional myth is that carbs make you fat.  The easy answer is because is most of the delicious foods we eat (i.e. pizza, cookies, sugary soda, donuts) happen to be loaded with carbohydrates.

However, carbohydrates are predominantly found in veggies, fruits, oatmeal, potatoes lentils, quinoa, and grains.  In fack, the Mediterranean Diet, which research has repeatedly shown to reduce the likelihood of cardiovascular diseases, is a high carb diet that features all those healthy carb options. Even rice, a staple within Japanese culture, is linked to longer life and lower weight.

Despite all this research and data, I can already hear Karen saying “ But whenever I eat carbs, I’m always gaining weight!”

However, this is just not the case.  Two different studies  (here and here) compared what happens when you eat too many carbs or fats.  What happened?  Overeating fat resulted in the same outcome as overeating carbs and sometimes overeating fat leads to an increased fat gain than overeating carbs.

To be clear, this doesn’t prove that eating carbs don’t make you fat.  However, the evidence suggests that you can gain weight regardless of insulin levels. 

 In other others, the goal isn’t to avoid carbs completely, yer rather find the sweet spot (pun intended) for your body so you can enjoy your food stress less, and be in control of your weight.

Why You Should Eat More Carbs

A healthy diet can and should include carbs as they allow us to thrive.  Each macronutrient has benefits and duties within our bodies, which allows us to live life at a much higher level. 

The truth is, carbohydrates play an important role within the body, including being your body’s preferred energy source.  Also, here are some specific examples of how carbohydrates play a major role in our health and well-being: 

1. Performance - Carbs are the body’s primary fuel source when it comes to higher intensity activities (I.e. strength and HIIT training), so your muscles can optimally perform at their best. 

1. Recovery - Although protein is the number one source for this, carbs help replenish muscle glycogen for future performance and actually can help rebuild muscle tissue when protein is not available. 

1. Hormonal health - An inadequate amount of carbs will negatively impact hormones, such as leptin, ghrelin, the thyroids, and even adrenals glands all of which assist in metabolism, energy production, and fatigue management. 

Safe to say, that our bodies need carbs.  You can be very healthy on a higher carb diet and you should be having carbs within your diet without fear that it will lead to weight gain.

Need proof?  The best example is this meta-analysis that compared carbohydrates intake ranging anywhere from 4( super low carbs) to 45  percent (Pretty high) of total calories, with fat content at 30 percent or lower in low-fat diets.

Here is what the researchers discovered:

1. Low-Fat diets were slightly more effective at lowering total cholesterol and LDL (bad cholesterol)

2. Low-carb diets were more effective at increasing HDL (i.e. Good Cholesterol) and decreasing triglycerides

3. Neither diet was more effective than the other at reducing body weight, waist measurements, blood pressure, glucose, and insulin levels.

The overall lack of differential effects led the authors to conclude that both low-carb and low-fat diets are viable options for reducing weight while improving metabolic risk factors. Take a moment and re-read that again,

Oh, and if you thought this was a small study, it wasn’t.  This study included 23 trials from multiple countries and totaled 2,788 participants.

So, What Exactly are Healthy Carbs??

Without question, the best carbs for your health are the ones you’ll eat in their natural states, such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, rice, potatoes, oats, and quinoa.  Healthy carbs will contain varying amounts of complex carbs and fiber which helps with digestion and performance.

Here are a few healthy Carbs you should be prioritizing

• Oatmeal (steal-cut, old fashioned, quick oats)

• Rice (white, Jasmine, or brown)

• Beans/legumes

• Potatoes and sweet potatoes

• Quinoa

• Fruit (all varieties)

• Veggies (all varieties and eat the rainbow!)

How Many Carbs do you need?

This is largely dictated by your activity level and exercise intensity. People who exercise regularly have very different dietary needs than more sedentary people.  If you are relatively sedentary or mostly do low-intensity activities (i.e. walking) then you won’t burn as many carbohydrates when compared to higher intensity exercises (i.e strength training). 

 In other words, if you don’t exercise often or at a higher intensity, your carbohydrate needs are much less.

So if you are more inactive, an effective low-carb, non-keto diet can be accomplished with roughly 100-125 grams of carbs a day from vegetables, beans, whole fruit, and starchy sources like oats, rice, pasta, and bread.  However here’s the major key: 100-125 grams of carb is hardly a “no-carb” approach, yet it’s still pretty low carb.

Higher carbohydrate intakes are more appropriate for gym rats and athletes engaging in intense muscle tearing, glycogen (carbohydrate) depleting training sessions.  For setting your muscle-building macros, check out this article.

Eat the Way you Want (Carbs Included)

While it’s true that lower-carb diets provide many health benefits with weight loss, don’t confuse “low carb” with “no carbs” dropping all carbs is unnecessary and in many cases, this behavior leads to binge eating struggles, and weight gain.

Instead, enjoy your carbs.  Eat them based on your activity level and personal experience and sensitivities with different types of foods.  If you’re struggling with dieting, accepting that carbs are good and won’t make you lose fat is one of the most liberating decisions you can make.

Hopefully, you’re realizing how important carbohydrates are for building a balanced meal, improving your gym performance, building muscle, and losing weight.

If you want help building muscle, losing fat, or for me to personally design a customized exercise and diet plan