The Truth About Carbs And Weight Gain
The truth about carbs?!?!
It sounds like I’m about to blow the lid off a big conspiracy, right?
Well, that’s because, in a way, I am!!!
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this idea that carbs and weight gain go hand in hand.
After all, even though carbs from food get turned into glucose, which the body uses for energy, glucose is nothing but sugar. And sugar spikes insulin. And spikes in insulin lead to fat storage. And fat storage leads to you being fat.
So that’s why carbs are evil, so supremely evil in fact that they’re the King Leopold, Adolf Hitler, and Emperor Palpatine of macronutrients.1On top of that, all you have to do is break the name “carbohydrates” down to reveal their true evilness. Well, what do you get when you do?
Yeah, that’s right!
You get: carbo-HYDRA-tes.
That’s right. As everyone knows, HYDRA is a secret organization bent on world domination. Now, if that isn’t evil, then what is?!?!
That’s the way some people tell it, that all it takes for you to get fat is one quick look at carbs and *POOF* you’re a gelatinous blob.
That line of thinking that carbs are bad for you couldn’t be any further from the truth, which is why I’m writing this.
There’s no such thing as a “bad” food.
The problem is you, motherfucker!
Or, more diplomatically, it’s your lack of moderation, motherfucker!!!
Eating far too much of anything, regardless how “good” it is, will result in excess weight gain. So the latest overhyped superfood? Scarf down on more of it than your body needs and watch your waistline expand just the same as if you even glanced in the direction of evil incarnate.2“Evil incarnate” is carbohydrates, if you want to be all sciencey about it.
This is all to say that people overeat carbs then have the nerve, the gall, the utter audacity, to then blame the poor, innocent things for their weight gain.
Yup, has to be carbs!
Definitely NOT the fact that the only activity their day consists of is shoveling food down their hole.
Yup, has to be carbs!
Definitely NOT that they…duh…ate a bazillion calories of carbs in the first place, especially in the form of sweeteners and refined grains.3Examples of sweeteners include table sugar, candy, honey, and syrup. As for refined grains, think white rice, pasta, and white flour.
Yup, has to be carbs just by the very essence of their being carbs!
Sorry, but it isn’t.
The problem is you, motherfucker!!!
With it established that you’re the problem, there’s no reason to eliminate or severely restrict carbs from your diet, even when you’re trying to lose weight.
Remember, carbs are the main source of energy for every cell in your body, making them kind of a big deal. When you reduce your total calories, they’re even more of a bigger deal.
See, you need carbs in your system to not only drive the body’s normal processes but to also have enough energy to power you through your workouts. Oh yeah, carbs also regulate mood, so you need them to also conduct your normal day-to-day activities without turning into a sourpuss because you have no energy to be that special snowflake your mom said you are. And if those reasons weren’t important enough, carbs are protein sparing, preventing the use of calorie-burning muscle as fuel.
So that’s why you need carbs when losing weight!
But how many carbs should you eat per day?
After all, eating too many is where the problem lies, no?
Wow!!!
Look at you, paying attention and shit!
General guidelines call for 45 to 65 percent of total daily calories to come from carbohydrates. For someone eating the standard 2,000 calorie diet, that comes out to 225 to 325 grams of carbs per day.
225 to 325 grams?! That’s a pretty wide gap, no? Where exactly should you be in that range?
That, my friend, is what I’m handsomely paid for, to take the guesswork out of this shit for people. Since you’re too cheap to pony up the funds, what follows is the freebie way to go about finding your carbs.
First, daily carb requirements depend on your age, sex, body composition, metabolic health, and activity level. That means a 20-something-year-old who weight trains and has a fair amount of muscle mass needs more carbs than an obese diabetic in their mid-forties who thinks channel surfing constitutes vigorous exercise.4Channel surfing does NOT!!! It’s sad times we’re living in when I have to make that clear *sigh*
On that note, the low end of of the carbohydrate range, the minimum, is what’s needed for normal brain and body function. That then means that those with less couch potatoey existences should eat at the higher end of the spectrum, possibly even higher depending on the length and intensity of the physical activity.
Second, remember that the recommendations are nothing more than that: RECOMMENDATIONS!!!
Each individual is different with a different body that responds differently to similar things. So it’s going to require some experimentation on your part to find out what your carb tolerance is. That’s your cue to use whatever carb amount you settle on between the 45 to 65 percent range as a starting point and go from there.
Care for an additional hint?
Give the change two to three weeks to work. Make no sudden changes before then. I can’t stress that part enough! And because I can’t stress that part enough, I’m going to repeat it by imploring you to show some fucking patience and let the body acclimate.
Now, if you find yourself starting to spill over after the two to three weeks are up, then reduce your carbs. Conversely, bump up your carbs a little if you find yourself feeling sluggish, in more of a mental daze than usual, or on the verge of becoming an even hotter mess.
And when I say reduce and bump, I don’t mean by drastic increments!!!
Because we want to lose fat — NOT weight — while preserving as much muscle as possible, subtract carbs by 20 to 60 grams, NOTHING MORE!!!5NOTE: If obese, carbs can be cut a smidgen more aggressively.
Once you make these adjustments, give it another two to three weeks to see what the scale, mirror, tape measure, says before making another adjustment, if any.
And that’s it.
Now you know the truth about carbs. They’re not as evil as they’re made out to be. What’s responsible for weight gain when people eat them is people.6Yeah, like what’s responsible for gun violence isn’t guns but people with guns. Yeah, it’s crazy thinking! Additionally, you also have a rough idea how to figure out how many carbs you should eat. As if I haven’t done enough already (which I most certainly have), here’s an extra bonus.
Being omniscient as I am, I know what question you’re dying to know the answer to, and that question is what are the best carbs to eat?
Well, you want to eat carbs that prevent huge spikes in blood sugar levels. For example, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and other unprocessed foods. Regardless of whether you’re trying to lose weight or build muscle, those are the types of carbs that you should eat. But if your only concern is dieting, then at least 5 percent of your carbs should come from resistant starch foods.7e.g. potatoes, white beans, lentils, and raw oats. What makes these foods worthy of me telling you about is that they digest slowly and result in the feeling of fullness for longer periods.
Why feeling fuller is so important is because it has the effect of limiting the amount of total calories you may take in out of hunger.
Resistant starch foods also release short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate, as they pass through the small intestine, helping to increase the rate of post-meal fat burn by at least 30 percent.
Also, besides curbing hunger and helping with fat oxidation, research suggests that resistant starch foods improve insulin sensitivity and lower blood sugar levels, all of which reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome.
But generally, you can eat ANY carbs and still slim down so long as you’re not eating over your daily allotment of calories, which is all that matters.
I know, you’re blown away with all this generosity.
And yes, I agree with you that I’m too nice of a guy!
What drives such unrivaled beneficence?
Nothing but me doing my civic duty to save you from winding up on the news for going on a shooting spree from keto, Atkins, the Zone, or some other severe carb-restricting diet sapping you of much needed energy and turning you into a fuck-my-life-and-everybody-else’s mass shooting train wreck!
That’s what!!!
Glossary: calories, diet, exercise, fat, glucose, intensity, moderation, muscle, patience
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