Fitness Essential or Myth: Carbs Make You Fat

Fitness Essential or Myth: Carbs Make You Fat

Will eating carbohydrates make you fat? Is eating less carbohydrates the best way to lose weight? Every new year people cut down on carbs, to drop a few extra pounds but is this beneficial?

What are Carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are sugar molecules, one of the three main macronutrients along with protein and fat. Carbohydrates are digested in the body and broken into glucose (a blood sugar), this is the main source of energy for your body’s cells, tissue, and organs. This is either used immediately or stored in the body.

The 3 main types of carbohydrates are:

Sugars - These are “simple” carbs because they are in the most basic form. Mostly found in fruit, candy, desserts, processed foods, etc. 

‍Starches - Multiple simple carbs strung together make up a “complex” carb, that your body must break down into simple carbs. This includes potatoes, bread, pasta, etc.

‍Fiber - These are complex carbs that are either difficult or your body cannot break down. Plants, fruits, beans, whole grains, etc. contain higher levels of fibers.

How Your Body Uses Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in your body. When that energy is not used it is normally stored in the body as glycogen in the muscles or converted into fat for longer-term use. As our bodies need energy glycogen is depleted and then fat resources are used. 

Using fat as energy takes a lot of oxygen to turn into energy, whereas carbohydrates and glycogen require less, and therefore carbs make it easier for your body to create usable energy.

My Body Just Can’t Handle Carbs

While many people have said for only some people is medically true. There is a factor of insulin resistance. This is when your body has a difficult time regulating insulin levels when glucose is in your bloodstream. Essentially, your body releases too much insulin and you store more glucose than necessary, or fat.

This medical condition can be temporary or chronic but is thought to be a 10 to 15-year precursor to Type 2 Diabetes. Lifestyle changes are the best solution to this problem through exercise to increase energy expenditure and improve insulin sensitivity. Also, calorie or carbohydrate-restrictive diet.

Controlling your Insulin

To some degree, everyone’s body reacts to increases in glycogen in the bloodstream by releasing insulin. The are a few things you can do to help control this.

How to Control Insulin: Exercise More

This is a given, there are many studies to show by expending energy your body gets better at handling carbohydrates and glycogen. This is a surefire way to achieve healthier insulin levels.

How to Control Insulin: Don’t Stop Eating

Unfortunately, many people respond to weight gain in this way but this will only increase the problem. People reduce their calories to an unhealthy level and this only makes things worse by slowing your metabolism and increasing insulin spike when you do eat.

How to Control Insulin: Sleep More

Not getting enough sleep will have negative effects on insulin resistance levels. Studies have shown that increasing your sleep by only 1 hour per day will better your insulin resistance levels.

How to Control Insulin: Change your Diet

There are a few different diet protocols that have shown improvement in insulin resistance. Both attack the problem from two different angles.

Diet 1: Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting has been shown to improve insulin resistance in the body. This can be done in many methods. Skipping breakfast, skipping dinner, skipping one day of eating during the week. This has great effects on the body's ability to handle glucose and gives the pancreas a break from producing insulin.

Intermittent fasting is a large topic and there are many things to consider, it would be best to research this before starting this diet.

Diet 2: Small Meals

Eating only small meals is another diet change that could help. Ideally, this would mean you are dividing your carbohydrates into smaller portions throughout the day. The thought process would be that by dividing the glycogen to lower levels you will reduce massive insulin spikes. The issue with one massive carbohydrate meal is that insulin levels get very high and your body will then store more energy (fat).

Diet 3: Eat Lower Glycemic Carbohydrates

All carbohydrates have a glycemic index or the insulin response triggered by eating a food. The greater the glycemic index the greater the insulin response in the body and this will cause you to store more fat. High glycemic high carbohydrate foods are cakes, bread, pasta, candy, etc. While lower glycemic high carbohydrate foods are vegetables, fruits, dark chocolate, beans, etc.

To look up different foods you can visit this University of Sydney Guide.

Do Carbs Make You Fat?

Yes and No. As expected this is not clear cut and different for everyone.

Carbohydrates alone DO NOT make you fat. 

For some people, your body’s response to carbohydrates will make you store fat.

Your body may be more likely to store them as fat for many reasons: You eat too many, you have an insulin resistance issue, you do not exercise enough, you do not sleep enough, you eat too many high glycemic foods, you eat too little, etc. 

If whenever you eat carbohydrates you gain weight you can try some of these methods, and they may help. 

‍