If the thought of eating carbs makes you believe you’ll blow up like a balloon, you’ve fallen into the anti-carb trap. As with everything nowadays people only read the headline and don’t read the fine print. Some carbs are bad. Those often have added sugar and highly processed ingredients and offer only calories with no nutritional benefits. Some carbs are nutritional dynamos and loaded with benefits. They are good. They’re low in calories, but essential to maintain good health.
Carbs break down into two groups, simple and complex.
Carbs are macronutrients. Like the other two macronutrients, protein and fat, they contain nutrients that are essential for a healthy body. Carbohydrates provide the body with fuel. Within the category, there are three types of carbs, sugar, starch, and fiber. Simple sugar breaks down quickest, while complex carbs take longer. Those are carbs with starch and fiber. Fiber can’t be digested at all by humans. Microbes digest soluble fiber and insoluble fiber isn’t digested but provides bulk.
You’ll benefit from good carbohydrates and get only calories from bad ones.
Look in the produce section for good carbohydrates. They’re fruits and vegetables. These are complex carbohydrates that also contain fiber. The fiber slows the absorption of natural sugar so it doesn’t spike blood glucose levels, ultimately increasing the chance of gaining weight. Whole grains, vegetables, and fruit fill you with fiber while providing an abundance of nutrition necessary for the body to function.
Good carbs help you lose weight, while bad carbs pack on the pounds.
It’s nearly impossible to eat so many greens or so much fresh fruit that you gain weight. That’s because of the fiber, water, and low-calorie count of the good carbs. If you ate a huge serving bowl of mixed fresh fruit and vegetables, it would be difficult to gain any weight. The same is not true of simple carbs. Just one serving of chocolate lava cake is 1179 calories. You’d have to eat 53 medium tomatoes to consume the same number of calories.
- Consuming large amounts of simple sugars and bad carbs can increase your risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. It also increases the potential for malnutrition, making it possible to be obese and malnourished.
- Good carbs can help your body in another way. The soluble fiber in good carbs is food for beneficial bacteria. That helps improve your microbiome to prevent digestive issues.
- One easy way to determine which carbs are good or bad is the level of processing. Whole foods, food less processed, are good carbs. Highly processed foods tend to be bad ones.
- Cutting out products with added sugar is one way to eliminate some bad carbs. Don’t look for food with sugar substitutes since they can increase inflammation. Inflammation leads to the accumulation of fat.
For more information, contact us today at Travel Trim