Doctor explains how carbohydrates are ESSENTIAL to weight loss
We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info
Carbohydrates are made up of various components: fibre, starch, and sugar.
You can slim down by eating the right healthy carbs, and they fall into three categories.
1. Simple carbohydrates
Simple carbs burn up fast, spiking your blood sugar and causing it to crash, says Alicia Galvin, a resident dietitian for Sovereign Laboratories in Dallas.
This can leave you with a craving for more carbs and can also lead to weight gain long term.
These are found in foods such as:
Refined grains
Sugary drinks
Syrups
Products with added sugar, such as baked goods or breakfast cereals
2. Complex carbohydrates
These carbohydrates will keep you full for longer because they take more time for your body to digest and break down for energy.
They are found in:
Vegetables
Beans
Quinoa
Potatoes
Whole grains
Other plant foods
Galvin added: “Complex carbs have an additional component: fibre, which is technically a type of carbohydrate, but it’s not digested and absorbed.”
3. Dietary fibre
This is often referred to as “roughage” and is food that the body can’t break it down to use for energy.
Instead, the fibre helps helps keep your digestion system running as well as making a person to feel full.
It is often found in the same foods that contain complex carbs.
Galvin explained: “[It] not only feeds the good gut bacteria, but it also allows for the absorption of the carbohydrate to be slower into the bloodstream, so it won’t spike glucose levels and insulin levels like a simple carbohydrate would.”
Examples of dietary fibre are:
Fruit
Vegetables
Oatmeal
Barley
Seed husks
Flaxseed
Legumes – dried beans, lentils, peas
Soy milk and soy products
But Galvin warned people not to overdo it with fruit: “You still have to be careful with fruit, because it is going to be more rapidly absorbed than something like sweet potatoes or beans that are very high in fibre,” she said.
Both simple and complex carbohydrates are turned to glucose (blood sugar) in the body and are used as energy.
Because complex carbs and dietary fibre take longer for your body to break down compared to that of simple carbs, a person will spend more energy burning these than simple sugars.
Eating these healthy carbs can then result in weight loss rather than weight gain.
Source: Read Full Article