Carbohydrates Are Actually Good.
Do you feel like cutting out carbs is “clean” eating? Do you think that anything containing bread or flour is junk food? Should you avoid sugar at all costs? If so, then we need to intervene. Carbohydrates—including sugar—are actually good for you. And giving them up can do more harm than good when it comes to health and fitness.
Don’t confuse a low-carb diet with healthy eating.
As I’ve often said , what we do to lose weight is not the same as what makes us healthier. You can lose weight on a low-carb diet, and that’s okay. But that doesn’t mean cutting out carbs will make you healthier overall .
In fact, many of the shortcomings of the diet can be eliminated by allowing yourself more carbohydrates. The fact that low- and high-carbohydrate diets can promote weight loss does not mean that they are equivalent in all respects. People who eat more carbohydrates tend to feel less fatigued during exercise and can be more flexible with their diet, whether they’re trying to lose weight or not.
Carbohydrates include sugar, starch and fiber.
Before we dive into this topic, let’s talk about what carbohydrates are. Almost everything we eat can be classified as fat (including oil), protein or carbohydrate. Carbohydrates, or carbohydrates, include:
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Sugars , including table sugar, glucose and fructose. Natural sugars are found in fruits, vegetables and milk.
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Starches , which plants use as carbohydrate storage. White bread and white rice are examples of foods that contain a lot of starch and nothing else.
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Fiber , which our body cannot completely digest. Various types of fiber are found in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and beans.
You may hear about “complex” carbohydrates. For a biochemist, starch and fiber are complex carbohydrates. But the term has been incorrectly used to refer to “fiber foods” such as fruits and whole grains. White bread is full of complex carbohydrates, so don’t take this distinction too literally.
It is important to remember that both sugar and starch can be broken down and create energy for our body quite quickly. Fiber slows down this process, but so do fats and proteins. So if you need quick energy while running, you may prefer sugar or starch. If you want a complete meal that you can digest over time and that will provide you with all its health benefits, foods with fiber, protein, and fat are the way to go, but these foods can also include sugar and starch.
Sugar is not poison or toxic
It is not good to include a lot of sugar in your diet; This is true. And most Americans do get a lot of added sugar in their diets, far more than our bodies can use beneficially. I do not approve of such excess. (Most of us would probably be better off if we gave up at least some of that sugar.)
But what I am saying is that we need to look at why too much sugar is bad and not overreact by demonizing sugar or saying it’s poison, it’s toxic and we need to get rid of it. There is absolutely no reason to believe these myths. Too much sugar is bad for us because sugar is a dense source of empty calories . But our body copes well with moderate amounts of sugar.
And if you’re an athlete (even a sports enthusiast who enjoys jogging and lifting weights), you may find that simple carbohydrates like sugar help fuel your workouts. This, in turn, allows you to perform better exercises. Take marathon runners for example: sucking on packet after packet of sugary gels is unnatural and abnormal; but none of them run 26.2 miles at a steady pace without stopping. One feeds the other . Even if you want to argue about what humans evolved to do, you have to accept the fact that hunter-gatherers eat a lot of honey .
Carbohydrates can reduce fatigue before and during exercise (and perhaps in everyday life).
If you’ve ever felt deprived during a long workout, you can chalk it up to the workout itself. But people who are either dieting or eating clean may feel this way because they are not getting enough carbohydrates.
I say this in part based on research that has shown that refueling makes a huge difference for endurance athletes, like my example above of marathon runners. This has been scientifically established.
The other part is the mostly anecdotal, but well-supported anecdotal observation that people who eat carbohydrates before exercise tend to feel more energized during those workouts. That’s why the best non-stimulating pre-workout if you want to avoid caffeine is a snack . If you’ve been doing fasted cardio or eating keto all day and then trying to bite the bullet during a workout when you’re tired, try eating some carbs before your workout. You will feel a huge difference.
And it’s not just about physical performance. Research also suggests that a low-carb diet may interfere with cognitive tasks such as memory and attention . Your body can get by on a low-carb diet, but it works best when it has carbs.
Eating carbohydrates allows for more flexibility in your diet.
A big part of the reason low-carb diets are effective for weight loss is that it’s hard to avoid carbs when you’re eating out or grabbing a quick snack on the go. Most processed foods contain carbohydrates, as do most home-cooked meals, unless you specifically prepare them without carbohydrates.
As a result, you don’t have to eat much when you follow a strict low-carb diet, and this largely explains why it becomes so easy to limit your calorie intake. But note that if you cut out carbohydrates, you’ll end up avoiding many healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains, which contain many vitamins and other nutrients that should be present in a healthy diet. It’s very difficult to eat fiber if you’re cutting out starch and sugar at the same time.
More carbs means you don’t need as much protein
It’s important to get enough protein, and I don’t just mean reaching the minimum recommended daily intake . If you’re working out, you need more protein, and if you’re trying to lose weight, you need more protein, and these are a few common reasons why it’s good to include protein in your diet.
Carbohydrates really help you do this job. Carbohydrates are considered “protein-sparing,” meaning that if you get a lot of carbohydrates in your diet, your body is less interested in breaking down protein and burning it for energy. Or to put it another way: on a low-carb diet, some of the protein you eat is wasted simply because your body requires some kind of fuel for energy and doesn’t have its preferred source of carbohydrates. So if you find it difficult to get enough protein in your diet, make sure you eat plenty of carbohydrates, this will help the protein you get to be absorbed further.