Carbs, yes or no???

Lately I have been messing around with my own nutrient ratios as well. (This people is how we find out about ourselves!)

I agree to a vast extent regarding the benefits of lowering carbs and raising fats. This is something I have always wanted to try but been scared to do so!

I must add the point that the fats consumed, in my experiences should mainly be of natural un processed sources such as omega oils, eggs, nuts, avocado pears and meats rather than cream, pork scratching and cheese! It’s not to say these fats are all bad, it’s just that we should be moderate with them. We still can get fat on too much of the wrong fats no matter how much we reduce our carbs.

Next a few points in favour of carbs because they are getting too much bad press lately I feel

We all need kcals to grow for a start and if we remove carbs we need to get the kcals from fats. That’s a lot of fat! Too much fat in my opinion. Carbs are a good way to up our daily intake of kcals combined with fats. Never should we rely on one over the other or we will start to get a negative effect.

We lower our carbs for good reasons, one of which is as cookie said” to lower the insulin production" But if we are careful with the carbs we eat we shouldn’t suffer too much with this.

The problems today are that we are too used to eating sugar products. This combined with processed fats is a recipe for disaster! We get a massive spike of insulin to compensate the sudden increase in blood sugar which in turn lowers our blood sugars causing a shitty feeling of unwell! An hour or so later we then feel hungry again due to the low blood sugar, causing us to feel the need to eat more sugary foods which makes it all happen again! It’s almost as if our body is telling us to eat shit quality sugary foods just to feel better!

This actually ties in with the recent media hype about junk food being addictive. I agree with this and once we go down that route, it has a snowball effect and we can’t stop eating all the pies!! I've been there myself but was lucky (or too vein) enough to do something about it!

I think that if we keep moderate/average but still good quality carbs we will be ok. I am not a religious fruit cake but I do believe that God put us here and designed our bodies to eat quality nutrition! It’s my belief that if we weren’t supposed to eat carbs then they wouldn’t exist!

We are supposed to use both fats and carbs for energy, carbs being the primary source when we are active and fats when we are resting! We use 70% fats for energy when sitting around but as soon as we get active, the ratios shift towards carbs. This is where we all are different as we all lead different lifestyles in respects to how active we are! I have a manual job which does mean that I need more carbs than an office worker period! Adding fats does help but only to an extent.

Carbs are also very tasty and I'm not sure about the rest of you but I need a mouthful of rice to get down the amount of bloody chicken I'm eating! I can’t eat meat alone, it’s just so hard going but with a moderate amount of brown rice (brown being of a lower GI than white) the meat is quite nice!

So let’s get back to the insulin theory. If high GI carbs produce this massive spike which eventually makes us fat and watery, then why not keep them low GI Or even add low GI foods to them to even out things a little.

A slow steady release of energy over the day, especially in the morning won’t give us this problem. Why not have foods such as porridge in the morning and brown rice through the day up to training? After which we can switch to fats in the evening when we are resting. I have my cheese omelette at night as opposed to in the morning.

Also remember that our muscles need glycogen when training to stay full and pumped. So what the hell will we look like without carbs to store the glycogen? When I carb depleted for my show, I looked like a bag of shit till the carb up. Prior to the carb up my carbs never went below 200 and I still lost the fat. Another point to ponder upon is the fact that with low glycogen it’s also hard to train intensely. As anyone that’s ever depleted will know, you can’t lift any where near your usual strength or train for as long!

I'm not knocking cookies theory as it has credibility but I am saying that we all should look at our own specific needs to work out what foods we need individually.

If we were to eat off the land so to speak i.e. milk, meat, eggs, nuts, berries, fruit, veg etc (you get the idea) and no processed foods existed we would find it hard to get fat and unhealthy.

What we should do is A. eat fats and carbs in moderation and B. make sure there of good, natural quality.

This coupled with a sensible attitude to how much and when to consume is the key to staying in shape and looking healthy.

No carbs are not the enemy, nor are fats! They are both very important. It’s up to us to not over or under abuse them.

When working out my daily food intake I started with a 33/33/33 ratio of carbs, fats and proteins. I then fine tuned things to my specific needs over a period of a few months. In fact I'm still tuning from week to week to find out how my body responds. I've gone through packs and packs of blue tack from pinning up food plans on my fridge! LOL

One more time for luck, MODERATION IS THE KEY!