What You Need to Know About Carbs to Lose Weight

Unlike many low carb diets suggest, your body needs carbohydrates to properly function.  Carbs are necessary for proper heart and brain function.  They also provide your body with energy and glycogen for your muscles.  Carbohydrates are also a primary source of fiber, which is necessary for good digestion.  Carbs are not the enemy of weight loss.  You just need to know how to eat them properly to lose weight.

First of all, there are two different types of carbs.  The first are simple carbs.  These are found in foods and drinks like candy, soda, junk food, sugary fruit juice, even white bread and pasta.  This type of food usually offers little nutritional value and can make it harder for you to lose weight.  Simple carbs wreak havoc on your blood sugar levels, which can cause mood swings and more cravings.  Eating too many of these carbs can sometimes even lead to diabetes. 

The other type of carbs is complex.  These carbs are high in fiber and offer great benefits.  They are found in fruits and vegetables, whole grain and whole wheat foods like cereals and bread, brown rice, and sweet potatoes.  These are the types of foods you want to include in your diet.  Since they take longer for the body to process, you’ll feel fuller after eating these carbs compared to simple carbs.  You also want to make sure you get your daily carb intake from a variety of sources.  You don’t want them all to come from pasta or bread. 

If your focus is losing weight fast, you may want to eat the majority of your carbs in the earlier part of your day, especially if you workout in the mornings.  You need the energy and mental clarity to get through the rest of the day, getting enough carbs will help you with this.  Carbs will also replace the glycogen you used during your workout, which is essential for muscle building and repairing.  To get the carbs that you need you could eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast and have some brown rice with chicken and veggies for lunch.  You can snack on some fruit in between breakfast and lunch.  This is an easy way to fit in your carbs early in the day.

The last meals of the day should be when you eat the least amount of carbs.  Since carbohydrates that aren’t used for energy get stored as fat, you’ll want to go easy on them later in the day when you’re most sedentary.  You don’t have to avoid eating all carbs at these meals.  You just want to limit them.  You may also want to focus on the carbs found in vegetables. 

If you want to bump up your weight loss, you can try varying your carb intake.  By changing the amount of carbs you eat everyday, you’ll keep your body guessing.  This will allow you to burn fat faster.  You can also try shocking your system by going low carb for a couple of days.  This will force your body to tap into other sources of energy like fat stores.  You don’t want to do this for more than a couple of days though.  Low carb diets can make you tired and mentally groggy, so you may want to wait until the weekend to try it.

As you can see, carbs are an important source of nutrition and shouldn’t be cut out of any diet, especially if you want to lose weight.  You just need to choose the right carbs in the right amounts and eat them at the proper time of day.  Following these simple guidelines for carbs will help you lose the most amount of weight.