Curtailing a number of carbs is necessary to lose weight. On the top of all, make it clear that carbs are basically carbohydrates. If you want to lose weight, you must strangle a number of carbohydrates from your daily diet.
However, this is true that you cannot eliminate carbohydrates completely from your diet because it will have devastating effects on your health.
Here comes the most teasing and difficult question: how many carbs you should eat to lose weight?
There is no exact answer to the above question because it depends on several factors such as age, gender, weight, metabolic rate, and genetics. You would have experienced that same kind of people have same eating patterns, yet some lose weight but others don’t.
Well, the reason is that they have different metabolic rates, those who lose weight they have more metabolic rate than others and, eventually, that amount of carbs are sufficient for them to lose weight.
What are Carbohydrates?
Carbs are basically sugar molecules that are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Crabs are broken down by our body as a fuel when needed.
Sources of Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are found in grains, vegetables, fruits, potatoes, and sugar. Carbohydrates provide energy to the body in the form of calories.
Types of Carbohydrates
In simple terms, there are two main types of carbohydrates:
- Simple
- Complex
Those carbohydrates that are digested by the stomach instantly are called simple carbs. They are generally found in ready-made and processed foods in the form of refined food.
On the other hand, complex carbohydrates are those that are found in raw food, unprocessed food, and they take more time to be digested. These carbs are rich in fiber and play a vital role in weight loss.
What Amount of Carbs to Eat?
There are a lot of characteristics that decide the amount of intake of carbs. Nevertheless, Mayo clinic reveals that carbohydrates provide almost 70{6f6325e81006090c67b24799731aac0121cbc6cbed9a6704f5a30a9474cd8037} of calories in a healthy person’s daily diet. In simple words, if a person requires 2000 calories in a day, then up to 1300 calories should be from carbs.
It is unlike to calculate your carbs intake but American Diabetes Association revealed a more pragmatic approach to understanding your carbs intake.
Let’s have a look on that approach to get an idea.
- Divide the plate into three parts: one large part.
- Fill the large section of a plate with low starchy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, and green cabbage.
- Fill one part of the plate with starchy food like whole grain, pasta potatoes etc.
- Fill the 3rd part of the plate with the food rich in protein like meat, fish, turkey and salmon. This protein section should be low-fat food.
- Drink one glass of low-calorie drink such as apple juice or unsweetened drink.
Make sure that while filling the starchy food you should choose food that has more fiber and low calories. Probably, you will find such food in whole grain and unprocessed. It should also be without added sugar. As talked earlier, this food must be that has complex carbs.
Complex carbs will cut down your appetite and, as a result, you will eat less. Eating complex carbs would mean that you will be containing enough minerals and nutrition that your body requires at the expense of low calories.
Carbohydrates Similar to Calories
Most of the times, people misread the comparison between carbohydrates and calories. People claim that they are consuming carbohydrates, not calories. However in such case, body’s response comes in releasing insulin that is responsible for fat storage.
There is also a point of view that if insulin levels are kept low, then people will lose weight and it can be done by consuming carbohydrates more. Nonetheless, the law of thermodynamics explains that it is about calories.
If a person eats more calories than he burns, he will gain weight. Calories have the same impact without its source.
Therefore, it is pretty much clear that you should reduce the number of carbohydrates so that you can reduce the number of calories.
Which Carbs to Eat at the Expense of Low Calories?
Now, at this point, we have analyzed that what are carbohydrates and what amount of carbs you should eat to lose weight. It is pertinent to go deep to know that which carbs we should eat at the expense of low calories.
The answer is very simple, we should eat those carbs that have high fiber and low starch. Fiber has a lot of health benefits.
Mayo clinic suggests that we should eat food that has a high amount of fiber because it is helpful to low cholesterol level, prevent constipation, reduce heart-related diseases and reduce weight.
Dietary fiber is available in fruits, vegetables, whole grain, and legumes. You should make sure that not to eat starchy carbs. Starchy carbs contain more calories and digested immediately by the stomach. Starchy carbs are in potatoes, mangoes, and processed foods.
Actual Amount of Carbs to Eat
If a person is below the age of 50 years, he should eat such amount of carbs that contain 38 grams of fiber, for women, it is 25 grams. If a person is over the age of 50 years, he should eat such amount of carbs that contain 30 grams of fiber, 20 grams for women.
Carbohydrates VS Sugar
As it has been discussed earlier that one should eat complex carbs. Therefore, you should eat natural sugar. If you eat processed sugar, that contains simple carbs and converted into fat immediately. Natural sugar is found in fruits and some vegetables.
Carbohydrates as ABC
Before ending the articles, it is pretty much important here to make it simple. After an in-depth analysis of carbohydrates, you should eat the right amount of carbohydrates to lose weight. In general, you eat following foods to get the right amount of carbs:
- Avoid processed sugar and processed drinks
- Eat whole grain food such as bread, pasta, cereals, and crackers.
- Eat brown rice and oatmeal as whole grain.
- Eat those fruits that have low starch and high fiber.
Dangers of Cutting Carbs Completely
It is never advisable to cut down carbs from your diet at all. The reason is that our body needs carbs at any cost to perform many functions. If you cut down completely, you can experience following problems:
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Constipation
- Weakness
You should try to follow a diet plan that contains enough carbs for the body to perform mandatory functions.
At the end of the whole discussion, now it is crystal clear that how many and which kind of carbs we should eat to lose weight. There is no scientific answer for this question but, it is clear that we can assess which kind of food we must eat to get enough carbs to lose weight.