Carbs Are The Enemy - Or Are They?

Low carb diets never worked for me and after learning more about the body and carbs I have to disagree with the overall philosophy of low carb diets.  Being an individual who rode the roller coaster of weight loss and gain for many years I have tried it all.  High protein (thought I needed to do that to gain muscle), Low fat (made me literally unhealthy), high carb (made me fatter because my carb choices were poor) etc, etc.  The quick fix "diet" crazes just do not work long term, plain and simple.
Heres a tiny overview to how carbs work in your body.  Complex carbs, which are grains, oatmeal, brown rice, pasta, potatoes, dark breads etc, take longer to digest which also leave you feeling fuller longer.

The body breaks down carbs in to glucose which is used for energy.  Understand that carbs are needed to promote muscle growth as well.  Here is the skinny, in the past few years carbs have taken a bad wrap and I am not immune to this train of thought but I know better now.  Carbs are needed for the energy to exercise and are your muscles first choice for energy fuel. When you eat carbs the body releases insulin which transports amino acids and glucose to the muscles.  Glucose is what your body breaks carbs down to.  So in a nutshell if your not ingesting enough carbs your essentially asking your body to utilize other sources (protein, muscle & fat) for energy.  That is the basis behind low carb diets.  The premis is to utilize the body as a fat burning machine by limiting its carb intake.  The problem is its not very efficient for the body to do so and the human body was designed to burn muscle and fats in a state of emergency or famine NOT as a weight loss fix.  Here is the trick (there is a trick for everything!)  A well balanced diet should include complex carbs, proteins and fats in the right ratios.  The trick is to give your body enough of these three nutrients to function as it was designed.  Eating too much or the wrong kinds of any of the three of them is going to contribute to weight gain.
The fact of the matter is your body wants to utilize carbs for energy and for muscle growth so why would you deny your body what it needs?  If your looking to gain muscle, have energy, exercise harder, perform better and / or lose weight enlist the bodies help by feeding it correctly!
It took me a long while to truly understand that if you want maximum results out of your body you have to feed it and you have to feed it correctly!
Thanks for visiting my blog - Until next time,
Kel
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