Everyone loves carbohydrates, but to the person trying to lose weight they can seem like the enemy. If you have ever gone on a low carb diet, then you know that dropping your carb intake can make the pounds drop off quickly. Yes, low carb diets work, but they can also leave you feeling drained and moody. There is a way to enjoy carbs without storing them as fat and it involves timing and a few small tweaks.
Your body looks at carbohydrates as energy. When you eat a carbohydrate, whether it is a piece of white bread or a hearty bowl of oatmeal, your body will break it down to its smallest units, glucose.
Glucose is found floating around in your bloodstream; you might know it as blood sugar. This sugar is used by all of the trillions of cells in your body for fuel. So you can see that carbohydrates are valuable nutrients as far as your body is concerned.
The problem dieters run into is what I like to refer to as "spill-over." What this means is if you eat too many of the wrong carbs or eat them at the wrong times, your body will be unable to store them as energy. Instead, they will store them as fat.
Here is how your body handles carbohydrates...
You eat a carbohydrate-rich food, then enzymes break the carbs down into glucose which does one of three things:
1. It can be used for immediate energy by traveling from your bloodstream into your cells.
2. It can be stored for future energy needs in your muscles and liver. This is called glycogen.
3. If options 1 and 2 are filled, then the unused carbs become fat.
In other words, if you eat carbs and your body does not immediately need the energy and it has enough already in storage, then that carb, and every one that follows "spills over" into your fat cells.
To enjoy carbohydrates and not store them at fat, you need to make a few tweaks and time your intake of carbs. This way you get to enjoy the satisfying taste of carbohydrates, your body gets the needed energy, and you lose weight.
Here are a few steps to take to avoid storing carbs as fat:
1. Eat carbohydrates early in the day, preferably complex carbs in the morning. By complex carbs I mean foods such as oatmeal, whole wheat/whole grain breads, even starchier vegetables like potatoes or sweet potatoes.
In the morning your body experiences a natural spike in metabolism and your body cells are at their highest sensitivity to insulin. This means that the carbs you eat will be used more efficiently and not land on your belly or hips as fat.
2. Time your carbohydrate intake around exercise. By eating carbohydrates a few hours before a workout you provide readily available energy to your body. By eating carbs right after your workout you replenish future energy stores in your liver and muscles.
3. Most importantly, do not completely avoid carbohydrates. When carbohydrates are withheld from your diet, your body's number one fat-burning hormone, leptin, plummets. In fact, leptin levels can drop up to 50% after the first week on a strict low carb diet.
Leptin is a key hormone to control if you want to lose weight and you need carbs to keep leptin working for you. So do not avoid carbohydrates. You can enjoy them without storing them as fat if you time your intake and use them to keep your leptin levels high.
If you do these things, then you will essentially keep your body
in a fat-burning state 24/7. This is because carbs are energy and carbs
keep leptin levels high. High leptin levels = high levels of fat
burning.
But what if I told you there was an even easier way to enjoy carbs without storing them as fat and at the same time keep leptin levels high?
But what if I told you there was an even easier way to enjoy carbs without storing them as fat and at the same time keep leptin levels high?
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