Eat Carbohydrates to Lose Weight

Why Do We Need to Eat Carbohydrates?

We technically don’t need to eat carbohydrates to survive. We can get everything we need from fat and protein. But are we just trying to survive, or are we trying to optimize our health? The reason you should eat carbohydrates is because it provides your body with glucose. Glucose is the brain’s preferred source of fuel, and it’s the body’s main energy source for weight training and other high intensity exercise.

Now, your brain is going to get its glucose whether you eat carbohydrates or not. It can either get it from the protein you digest, or it can break down the protein your muscles are made up of. Your body gets glucose from protein through a process called gluconeogenesis. However, this process if very inefficient. Compared to carbohydrates, it takes much more protein to get an equal amount of glucose. Being that protein usually costs several times the amount that carbohydrates do, it makes sense to just skip gluconeogenesis and go straight to the most efficient method of glucose production – breaking down carbohydrates.

What Do Carbohydrates Do?

Carbohydrates have numerous benefits. They are involved in several important body functions. You may have heard the saying “fat burns in the flame of carbohydrates”. What this means is carbohydrates are needed to fully metabolize fat. The incomplete burning of fats result in ketone bodies. You might have heard of ketone bodies from the popular Atkins Diet. The premise of the diet is that by eating little to no carbohydrates, your body will begin to use ketone bodies for fuel. Ketone bodies can be used as fuel, however, carbohydrates are still your central nervous system’s primary fuel source.

You should also eat carbohydrates because they spare protein. This makes sense, since in the absence of carbohydrates, your body uses protein for glucose production. In other words, your body prefers carbohydrates. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t wait until there were no carbohydrates available to use protein as fuel.

Why is sparing protein so important? As you know, protein also plays a role in many vital functions. But most importantly, you muscles are comprised of protein. In the event that carbohydrates are lacking in the diet, and your body has to turn to protein to produce glucose, where do you think this protein is going to come from? Well, there are two places – diet, and muscle. If you are ingesting enough protein to both support protein synthesis (build muscle), and provide a source of glucose, you will be fine. It will be an expensive, inefficient way of reaching your goals, but it will work. However, if you don’t eat enough protein, your body is going to feed on itself by breaking down muscle tissue to fuel vital body functions.

There are too many benefits to carbohydrates to list. For further reading, see:  benefits of carbohydrates.

Do you really want to take a chance at losing muscle? You need muscle to burn fat. Why would you want to sabotage your weight loss efforts by taking away carbohydrates from your diet?

How Many Carbohydrates Per Day?

If you’re trying to figure out how many carbohydrates to eat per day, you’re not alone. There is no one size fits all requirement. Eat carbohydrates in excess, and it gets converted to fat and stored. Eat carbohydrates in too little of quantity, and your body starts to break down protein and muscle for glucose. So how are you supposed to navigate through this delicate balance?

Your intake is going to be highly dependent on your activity level. People that are working out at close to maximal heart rate for extended periods of time have increased demands for glucose. A diet of 50-60% carbohydrates is not unheard of for athletes. What do your workouts look like? Do you do an hour workout and then sit behind a desk the rest of the day? If so, you need to eat carbohydrates to fuel that workout, and then minimize them the rest of the day. If you burn 400 calories during your high intensity workout, then eat 400 calories worth of carbohydrates timed around your workout. The rest of the day, keep your carbohydrate intake low, and eat more healthy fat and protein meals.

If you don’t do much in the way of high intensity exercise, you don’t need many carbohydrates. Why would you eat a particular fuel if you have no intention of using it? If most of your activity involves walking or other low intensity exercise, most of your meals should be comprised of fat and protein. The opposite would apply if you spend the majority of your day training. Athletes usually fit into this category. A high percentage of their diet needs to be carbohydrates, and their meals are mostly going to be comprised of carbohydrates and protein throughout the day.

Don’t be afraid to eat carbohydrates. They have their place in your diet. Omitting a macronutrient from your diet can limit your food choices and make it harder to stick to your eating plan. By giving your body all the macronutrients it needs to be efficient, and eating them in the right quantities, you give yourself the best chance to lose fat and build muscle.