I Love Carbs, I Hate Carbs

I Love Carbs, I Hate Carbs

Life is a combination of magic and pasta

Yes, it is truly love-hate relationship with them. We learned from media that carbs are evil and you should avoid them as they are responsible for getting overweight. You know what.

Carbs are not making you fat, fatty food is.

There is one truth about eating carbs. Eating way too many carbohydrates will make you bigger, but eating too much sugar will have the same effect. Basically, everything that you eat, in larger than normal amounts, will make you huge. Even eating too much of protein will have negative effect.

What carbs do?

They play essential role in muscle growth and by that speed up your metabolism and weight loss. Yes, you heard me right.

FACT! Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and glycogen. Glucose is “blood sugar” and gives you energy while glycogen is stored in liver and muscles as an emergency energy store. For example, during weight training your muscles burn glycogen stored in them to compensate work.

Some carbs convert into glucose quickly and some need some more time. “Simple carbs” – sugar, honey- will convert fast, while “complex carbs”- whole grain food- need more time.

Try to stick to “complex carbs”. They are with lower GI- glicemic index- number. Pick the ones with 55 and lower.

How much carbs to eat?

That depends on your goal.

To lose weight– go easy on carbs

To build muscles and tone– you will need more of them

TIP! Eat carbs with high and medium GI carbs (60-90 range) 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after.

Why to eat carbs before training when you want to lose weight?

The reason you should do that is carbohydrates give you energy to perform better, faster and more effective during exercises.

You need to eat them AFTER exercises to keep your muscles well fed, so they can recover faster and grow more.

The best sources of pre and – post workout carbs;

• banana
• oatmeal
• baked potato
• pineapple
• apricots
• dates
• watermelon
• cashews
• walnuts
• beets

They are in 60+ GI range.

All the other carbs you eat throughout the day should be below 60 GI index.

Don’t eat any food that contains carbohydrates that are higher than 60 in GI index. You can reserve this kind of foods for pre and post workout meal.

Eating carbs is good and you should have them every day, but in reasonable amounts. Have everything in moderate amounts. Hope you are not avoiding them as they can really help you and they taste so good.