Are Carbs Enemies or Buddies

We all want to lose weight, look pretty and feel confident about ourselves. We all work hard to achieve our healthy weight goals and first thing that we do is to eliminate carb from our diet. Yes, that’s the first thing recommended but have you ever thought that there must be a reason why nature provides us with many varieties of foods that contain carbohydrate in them.

I agree eating less carbs or no carbs does promote weight loss but are we not depriving our body from the important nutrient in the process? I have heard this sentence so many times that “I am trying to lose weight and carbs are my biggest enemy” But we always eat carbs in so many other forms which sometimes are absolutely difficult to eliminate from our diet. For example when we eat blacks beans, the protein content is high but the carbohydrates are also present in them, the fruits and veggies we eat all contain carbohydrates. So we are not eliminating carbs completely we are just making right choices 🙂 .

It is very important to understand the difference between good carbs and bad carbs. The good carbs provide the required nutrients to the body, converts the food into usable energy and also helps in absorbing and digesting protein. Whereas, the bad carbs are like empty calories which get digested and provide no nutrition. Bad carbs promote stored fat, high sugar insulin, weight gain and lethargy. Good carbs can also be a source of fiber. Hence, it is very important to make the right selection of food for fitness rather than making carbs your enemy.

Some food items where the bad carbs are present are:

White rice
White bread
White pasta
White flour
Sugar
Cookies
Cakes
Soda

The food items that contain good crabs are:

Whole grains
Whole wheat
Fruits
Veggies
Quinoa

When we talk about making right selection of food, often the first thought that comes to our mind is to sacrifice on taste or desires but that is not always true.

For example,

a. We can continue eating rice but if eat brown rice instead of white rice, we would be adding fiber along with the carbohydrate and if we are able to shift to black rice then we can add antioxidant along with other nutrients.

b. We can continue with our pasta cravings but we just need to shift to whole grain or whole wheat pasta and add fiber to our healthy diet. The taste would almost be the same but we would increase the nutritional value of the dish.

c. Instead of eating white bread we should make an effort to develop a taste for whole grain bread or whole wheat bread. Even sprouted wheat bread is delicious. To start with you can try red quinoa oatmeal bread that I have shared in the recipe category for all my friends.

By making the right choices we are not sacrificing on taste we are just moving towards a healthy living.

Health Tip of the week

“Make right choices for a healthy living”

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