Good carbs, bad carbs

There are indeed “ good carbs” and “ bad carbs.” It isn’t what you think, though. I’m not going to talk about complex carbs versus simple carbs. If so, I’d be the same as most other nutritionists who suggest you eat copious amounts of whole grains. We’ve been there and done that, and it certainly hasn’t made us healthier.

Bad carbs are those which: (1) are void of nutrients for their proper metabolism; (2) may cause digestive distress; and (3) are refined and man-made/factory-made.

MACRO & MICRO

Protein, fat, and carbohydrates are macronutrients. They each carry calories with them to provide your body with energy. Vitamins and minerals are micronutrients. They do not carry calories, but they are required cofactors to the proper metabolism and assimilation of the fuel that macronutrients provide.

Good carbs are those which: (1) contain easily digestible, bio-available nutrients that make it possible to metabolize them at a cellular level; and (2) are available from nature as whole foods.

When I say “void of nutrients,” what do I mean? Well, you’ve heard about “empty calories.” To understand this concept, you need to get a picture of how carbohydrates are processed in your body.

When you eat any kind of carbohydrate, your body expends energy in the form of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in order to metabolize the sugar within the food. Before the energy and nutrition from the food you eat can nourish your cells, it must be broken down into its various constituents. Your cells can’t make use of a doughnut or a strawberry! In order to power you, your cells need macronutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to first power them.

Without both macro and micronutrients, your energy levels would plummet. To metabolize carbohydrates and turn them into cellular energy, you need B vitamins (especially B5) and the minerals of phosphorous, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and chromium.

Cellular energy is your gasoline. Collectively, your cells come together to drive the engine that keeps you moving throughout the day. This is why a diet rich in bad carbs makes you tired. When you eat carbohydrates in refined forms, the food carries calories from the macro nutrients, but lacks the micro nutrient cofactors that help you put those calories to use at the cellular level. This is where the issue of good versus bad carbs makes a difference in your body.

Just four teaspoons of table sugar (a bad carb) delivers a total of sixty calories in carbohydrate form. That’s it. It doesn’t give you anything else—no nutrients at all. One small sweet potato (a good carb), on the other hand, contains about sixty calories in carbohydrate form but also gives you B vitamins, phosphorous, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and chromium. These are the exact micronutrients your body needs to metabolize carbohydrates. This is the difference between a whole, unrefined, nutrient-dense food and a refined, nutrient-poor food. (Incidentally, the sweet potato also gives you vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C, calcium, potassium, zinc, and selenium.)

When you eat whole, nutrient-dense foods like sweet potatoes or other vegetables, fruits, roots, and tubers, you give your body everything it needs right in one “package” to effectively turn those calories into energy. In other words, eating whole, nutrient-dense foods allows you to make nutritional deposits into your body’s “energy bank account.” Nutrient-poor foods like sugar ask your body for a withdrawal without making a deposit.

are you carb loading for your desk job?

Carbohydrates are a fast-acting fuel source and are broken down in your body into glucose (sugar) whether they begin as Pop-Tarts or fresh pineapple. If you become active shortly after eating, the glucose is then used quickly. If not, the glucose is stored in your body as one of two things: glycogen (jargon for “stored glucose”) in your liver and muscles, or as fat. Yes, fat.

Your body can only store glycogen in two places: your liver and your muscles. When you eat carbohydrates, your body “checks” to see how much is already stored in those two places before deciding how to handle what you’ve just eaten. If you have been active and have used up some of your stores in your liver and muscles, your body will replenish it with the new food.

While your body has only limited places to store carbohydrates, it has unlimited storage sites for fat. So, what happens when you eat more carbohydrates than your body can store in your liver and muscles, and you don’t use it right away through activity? The glycogen tanks aren’t emptied, and your liver converts the extra carbs into one of two types of fat: triglycerides (circulating blood fat) or adipose (body fat).

Carbohydrate storage that takes place after you exercise is the exception to this rule. Your muscles have first dibs on the carbs you eat in your post-workout meal (any meal eaten between thirty minutes and two hours after exercise, but remember to go into rest-and-digest mode before eating). This allows your muscles to be replenished and restored for your next workout and is just one of the many benefits of exercise—getting carbohydrates right into your muscles rather than as fat on your bum, belly, or wherever else you don’t want it.

Fat on your bum may be undesirable, but fat can also be stored closely around your organs. This is called visceral fat, and it’s more dangerous than that extra junk in your trunk because it has the capacity to impede organ function due to its close proximity.

Your genes have some say in how your body handles the selection of where to store extra carbs as fat. You may know people, for example, who can seem to eat lots of carbs and never work out. Yet, they don’t have much muscle tone. Their bodies are likely converting moreof their excess carbohydrate intake into triglycerides and visceral fat than to visible body fat that makes their clothes tighter. They seem lucky because their clothing size remains the same, but they’re actually in more trouble because they are probably walking around with more the visceral fat (around their organs) or high triglycerides. Unfortunately, this lack of visible cue leaves people in the dark as to their inner state of health. So, someone who isn’t visibly overweight isn’t necessarily healthy if they’re eating more carbs than they are able to burn. While genetics are involved, you can certainly improve your health by refusing to add to the visceral fat in your body via what you eat.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14