Carbohydrates in the Real World

It's important to consider what you eat and how it will affect you though the week.  Today, let's look at carbs.  Truth be told, if you only had fats and proteins and were stuck for several years on a desert island, you could live, but the same is not true if you took out the proteins or fats.  But like I said yesterday, carbs perform a lot of functions to help you get through the day--the most important being storage and transport of energy. 

Now for the what's and how's. 
What: You'll find two kinds of carbs--complex and simple.  Generally you want to eat complex carbs--these are complex chains of simple sugar molecules.  When you eat them you're body needs longer to digest them.  As a result you'll feel full longer and you're body 's insulin will increase more gradually.  You want to keep your insulin at a steady level (except post-workout) because insulin is very good at turning your foods into fat quick. Like I said, post workout is the exception to when you can have simple sugars.  Dextrose is has been shown to be a good sugar to ingest post workout.

When: you want to eat most of your carbs early in the day.  This way your body can burn off what you eat before you go to bed at night.  Cut off carbs by 6:00pm at night, because most of what you eat after this point will get stored as fat when you go to bed. 

Stay tuned proteins are coming!