Guest Blog from TrueFitness: Carbs

Last week I began a nutrition discussion and I would like to continue this week. Whole grain foods are good and enriched grains are kind of bad. Not all bad just empty calories not optimizing nutritional value bad. This week I want to go further into detail about carbs and why they are important and why they can become “bad” if not eaten in the right amount.

Carbohydrates in and of themselves will not make you fat! Your body is a very efficient machine and has learned how to optimize the fuel that it is given. The fuel our body uses begins out as a carbohydrate that we ingest. Our primary source of energy comes from carbohydrates in the form of glucose. Glucose is the base level of a carbohydrate that we use as our fuel source to create more energy. This energy is needed to run all the systems and processes in the body from breathing to digestion and from repairing muscles to producing more enzymes and hormones. It is carbohydrates which provide the fuel to create the energy needed for the human body to work. Taking away carbohydrates from the diet therefore does not allow the body to optimally create energy. Any diet that prescribes no carbs doesn’t allow the body to provide the energy needed to be at your best. If you are not at your best to train then how can you become your best at the sport for which the reason it is that you are training.

Carbohydrates are the largest macronutrient component of our diet. This means our daily diet should consist mostly of carbohydrates then protein and lastly fat. We need about 50-55% of our diet to be from carbs. This can skew higher for aerobic long distance athletes but for Rugby 50-55% of daily intake is the goal. This will provide enough calories for energy and not allow for an over abundance of calories while still allowing for enough protein and fat in the daily diet.

An over abundance of calories means one thing. You are eating too many calories and too many carbohydrates will lead to one thing. That one thing is storage as body fat. Now I did say earlier that carbohydrates will not make you fat and I still stand by that statement. Carbohydrates will not make you fat but eating too many carbs will. The body stores excess carbs as fat and it is the excess that can make carbs bad. Carbs are an easy food source to overeat. With all the processed foods and high carbohydrate foods available in the American diet it is very easy to overeat carbs on a daily basis and overeating carbs is what we need to avoid since that leads to an increase in body fat. Avoiding excess carbs is a start to a healthier diet. If you know how many calories your body burns on a daily basis then you just need to factor in that number and estimate between 50-55% of your calories from carbohydrates and then you know how many calories from carbohydrates to eat on a daily basis.

The overeating of carbs is what got the misnomer that there were “bad” carbs and therefore must be “good” so we had the belief of avoiding the eating of bad carbs while eat good carbs. Well as we just learned along with last week, there are no “bad” carbs. It is the overeating of carbs which leads to carbs being stored as body fat and those carbs created a whole belief that eating carbs are bad. Go ahead and eat your carbs. You need them to fuel your workouts get better at your sport.
For anyone interested in learning their total daily need of calories to figure out how much is 50-55% for their daily carb intake please email me at spencer@truefitness.biz and I will give you a free consultation.

Anyone in the San Diego area is welcome to drop in at our studio at 2949 Garnet Ave. 3rd floor, Pacific Beach, CA. We would love to put you through our workout. Please feel free to call or email Spencer Aiken,CSCS (951) 296-7993 email:spencer@truefitness.biz
Article written by Spencer Aiken, CSCS, CEO, TrueFitness