The Truth About Carbs & Fat Loss

Even with a great plan like the Bodyweight Blueprint For Fat Loss, you can’t exercise your way out of a diet that promotes fat storage.

And, if you’re trying to lose some fat (or even contemplating the possibility) no doubt you’ve come face to face with the specter of the carb conundrum. High carb, low carb, good carb, bad carb, no carb, net carb. Who’s right? And why?

This post isn’t going to get extremely sciencey. There are a plethora of great articles on the web that can fill in the gaps for those who like the geek speak. What we need to do here is give you the truth about what carbs do once they go past your lips and what you need to do about it if you want to lose fat.

The simple fact is that carbs drive the release of a hormone called insulin in your body. And the job of insulin is to make sure all the sugar (from the carbs) in your bloodstream gets stored somewhere. Ideally, that’s going to be in muscles, organs and other lean tissue. But your storage tanks in those areas are only so big. Guess where the rest goes. It gets converted to fatty acid and stored in your fat cells.

That’s the short term picture. The crazy thing is that over the long haul, if you consistently eat a high carb diet, your lean tissue actually gets worse at letting insulin deliver its packages (blood sugar). But the ever welcoming fat tissue is always waiting with arms wide.

And guess what else chronically elevated insulin does. It suppresses a whole bunch of other really cool hormones that promote fat loss and muscle gain…

Don’t get me wrong. You need insulin. You can’t function without it (just take a type 1 diabetic as an example). But with our SAD (Standard American Diet) we’re invoking an entirely unnatural state of constantly elevated insulin levels.

Here’s a cool little video that sheds some light.

OK, so what are we going to do about this? Some diets, like Atkins, promote an extremely low carbohydrate diet, to the point of excluding even fruits and most veggies. Other diets ban all grains from the diet. Some approaches use a rotating scheme of carb consumption. But like I said earlier in this post, for now we’re going to keep it very simple.

3 Easy Carb Consumption Strategies

1. Eat as many fruits and veggies as you can, and eat them with every meal or snack. Show preference to leafy greens and include them in at least one of your daily meals. Favour fruits with dark skins (meaning they are bursting with antioxidants).
2. Use sweet potatoes, wild & brown rice and squash judiciously. Ideally consume these foods in moderate portions close to your training window. So for example, you might have a half cup of rice with your lunch, train mid-afternoon, then have a small portion of sweet potato with your supper. The above mentioned carb sources are released relatively slowly into the blood. So they won’t spike your blood sugar and insulin quickly. And since your training will temporarily increase your sensitivity to insulin, you are more likely to use and / or store these carbs in your muscles.
3. Avoid “white” carbs in all forms. These highly processed carbs (like sugar, flour and pasta) cause a serious insulin spike, are calorically dense and have little to no nutritional value. They can also hinder the absorption of nutrients from other foods. Even if you don’t cut them out completely, be aware of them and steer clear whenever possible. And watch out for the hidden and insideous forms found in soft drinks, smoothies and even deli meats and yogurt. Read labels and look out for things like sugar, dextrose, maltodextrin, fructose, etc.

There could be books written about this subject alone (oh wait, there has been–tons of them in fact). But the main thing is to have a basic plan to get started with and a strong enough “reason why” to spur you on. For all you nutrition geeks out there, feel free to expand on the subject in the comments. For those of you new to the carb conundrum, don’t hesitate to ask any nagging questions.

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