Carbs - Good or Bad?

Low carb diets like keto are more popular than ever which gets some people thinking…are carbs good or bad for you?

I have personal experience eating low and high-er carb diets so let’s settle this once and for all.

What and How?

Carbs are one of the three macronutrient groups: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

All carbs, through digestion, are broken down into glucose or blood sugar.

As this glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream, sugar levels rise in your body which causes your body to release the hormone insulin.

Insulin is what is needed to move sugar from your bloodstream into cells where where it can be used as a source of energy.

So our bodies need fuel and our bodies break down macronutrients like carbs into a fuel source.

Cool, right?

Benefits

Now one of the big benefits of carbs is that it’s our muscles preferred energy source.

You know this if you’ve ever seen what a bodybuilder eats in a day. They eat a lot of protein and a lot of carbs.

Carbs are also referred to as “protein sparing”. This means you can actually get away with eating less protein if you’re eating a lot of carbs because they help reduce the amount of muscle protein breakdown.

There are other benefits but the big one here for us, in terms of training, is they are beneficial for fueling our bodies and helping muscle growth.

With that said, they are not essential…depending on your goals.

Myths

The biggest myth regarding carbs is that you need to eat low carb to lose fat.

The reality is you need to be in a caloric deficit - eating fewer calories than you burn - to lose fat.

But what about people who failed with every diet other than low carb?

Once again, going low carb helped them eat fewer calories which helped them lose fat…there’s no magic here!

You could achieve a similar effect doing the One Meal a Day (OMAD) diet.

Even if that one meal was a giant meal - full of protein, carbs, and fats - you’d still lose weight because that one meal is more than likely going to be less than the calories you burn in that day.

Best Carb Sources

So if we can safely eat carbs in a diet, what kinds of carbs should we be eating?

You always want to get your macronutrients from nutrient-dense, satiating foods.

As always, there may be certain carbs that don’t play well with your body. If you feel this is the case, remove them from your diet, see if you notice any changes, and reintroduce them if desired.

Here are my top carb sources:

• White rice
• Potatoes and sweet potatoes
• Rice and egg pasta
• Blueberries
• Bananas
• Vegetables

When to Avoid Carbs

Aside from the obvious cases like people with diabetes, there’s one case where I would seriously consider limiting carbs unless you really know what you’re doing.

If you are sedentary, you don’t have a need for a lot of carbs because your body and muscles aren’t working much.

The more active you become, whether your job requires physical activity or you’re just hitting the gym often, the more you can safely introduce carbs into your diet.

If I were going to be spending a significant amount of time outside the gym and I knew I wasn’t going to be as active, then I’d reduce carbs.

But if you’re living a healthy and active lifestyle, stop being scared of carbs.

They’re not going to hurt you :)

▶️ Did you know you can learn to like foods you hate? You learn how in my latest video on YouTube!

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