I love bread! Italian bread with a bit of olive oil, or French bread with sweet butter, bagels, muffins with my morning coffee or tea, and even those English muffins with their little nooks and crannies just holding on to every bit of butter and jam, yumm! But it doesn’t end there; I also love pasta and white rice. I know I’m not alone in my love affair with carbs. Ms. Dolson from About.com explains that carbohydrates are “organic compounds consisting mainly of sugars, starches and fiber. They are used primarily for energy in the body.” She also points out what I’ve learned over the years, that if we don’t use this energy fairly quickly it’s going to be stored, unfortunately, not as energy. Some will be stored as glycogen which is used in the brain and muscle cells but also as the energy we use during a high intensity workout. However, what we don’t use is stored as fat, yuk.
Now, I’m not proposing a low carb or no carb diet all of a sudden. We already know that eliminating certain nutrients might work in the short term, but eventually those foods will make their way back into your diet and guess what? You will gain what you lost and then some. So what do we do about these carbs? There are so many and they are everywhere.
Well, first know the source. An article in MedlinePlus breaks it down for us in a very simple way:
“Complex carbohydrate foods provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber that are important to the
health of an individual. The majority of carbohydrates should come from complex
carbohydrates (starches) and naturally occurring sugars, rather than processed
or refined sugars, which do not have the vitamins, minerals, and fiber found in
complex and natural carbohydrates. Refined sugars are often called "empty
calories" because they have little to no nutritional value.”
“Simple carbohydrates are broken down quickly by the body to be used as energy. Simple
carbohydrates are found naturally in foods such as fruits, milk, and milk
products. They are also found in processed and refined sugars such as candy,
table sugar, syrups, and soft drinks.”
Both lists have good and bad carbs. In actuality, they could all be bad if we’re not careful. This is where a balanced diet really makes a difference. A high fiber diet from the complex carbs list balanced with the fruits and dairy from the simple carbs list makes more sense than trying to eliminate all carbs. Just because potatoes are part of the complex list does not give us permission to eat a pound of mash potatoes in one sitting, but we can have one serving which is only a ½ cup.
The best way to avoid the “bad” simple carbs is simply to keep them out of the house. Choose whole grain bread and pasta, brown rice, fruits, nuts, legumes, vegetables, 100% juice, tea, and water. If you can’t trust yourself during meals then snack on vegetables while making dinner or eat a salad before dinner. This way you will fill up and not be as hungry for the main course. I have a hard time eating salads in the winter time, still working on that, so I go for the soup instead. A cup of broth-based soup before my dinner keeps me from eating more than my share of starchy foods.
Other Carb
resources:
UC Berkeley Foundations of Wellness
Carbohydrates and Diabetes on KidsHealth.org
Check out these other
great blogs:
Stay well,
I have heard that fruits are a simple sugar, but that because of their high fiber and nutritional value that they should be considered a healthier carb. I guess in moderation. Either way I’ll take a fruit over a piece of cake or glass of milk any day =)
Switching over to complex carbs a few years back made the world of difference on my weight loss goals.
Posted by: Fitness Surfer | December 23, 2008 at 17:16