Nutrition 1 - carbohydrates
Today, for the first time, I wanted to write an article not about exercise, but about nutrition.
I wanted to write it short and brief, for people who does not know anything, so to speak Nutrition in a nutshell. However I expanded that article and I wouldn’t call it short and concise. Because I know that a lot of people are lazy to read long articles, I decided to split it into several parts, so today about the carbs.
There are three basic types of nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins and fats and they are fundamentally different from each other. We will explore them gradually.
Carbohydrates, or sugars, or shortly carbs are abbreviated for body main source of energy and a healthy diet should contain most of the energy being in the form of (complex) carbohydrates. When building muscle mass sugars are the main source of energy and a carrier that transports building materials on its site. Carbohydrates are divided into simple and complex and as I indicated, you should prioritize in their diet especially those complex carbs. The difference between simple and complex carbohydrates is the rate of their release into the body, which is given by the size of its molecules.
Basically, if you eat simple carbohydrates, you quickly get them into the blood. The blood sugar level increase and your body will react washing out the insulin, which turns the sugar level to where it was (resp. usually a tiny bit lower). Insulin is a regulator of blood sugar and the problem is, that being the excess blood sugar is stored in fat reserves, which hardly anybody wants. The exception is a condition where the body is depleted of some physical exertion and glycogen is stored in the muscles and blood are depleted, respectively low. Then the received simple carbohydrates used primarily for rapid recovery of these stocks in the form of fat and is only saved its eventual surplus.
The complex carbohydrates are released into the body slowly and gradually, so there is no such fluctuations in blood sugar and body draws energy from them gradually, therefore there is much less risk of getting fat. However, if you will taking them too much, then is your body energy needs, then you will of course get fat.
Simple carbohydrates are found in fruits, breads, sweets and any foods containing sugar and cook in small amounts in different kinds of colorful vegetables. Complex carbohydrates can be found in rice, potatoes, cereals, legumes, pasta and in small amounts in green vegetables.
In practice, you should take some simple carbs in the morning and after a workout or great physical exertion, if your goal is building muscle mass or strength, otherwise the major role should play complex carbohydrates. If you're trying to burn fat, then you should take simple carbs significantly less or excluded them totally from the diet.
Yet it would be appropriate to mention here that the energy value of carbohydrates is 4.1 kcal per gram, but I mention this only for comparison with proteins and fats and counting intake and energy expenditure would be not to bother you, especially because counting expenses is almost impossible, some other time, we will explain why.
So many carbs today and next time we will speek about proteins.
