ELIMINATING EXCUSES | fitness

This week’s focus is carbohydrates’ role in nutrition.

Low carb diets like the Atkins diet have helped many people lose significant amounts of weight over the years. I acknowledge this fact and by no means intend to slander these diets. However, with the popularity of low carb diets, I feel that carbohydrates have been unfairly labeled as “bad for you/leading to fat.” I will review some of the key roles that carbohydrates play in the body’s functioning so that you can keep these in mind as you think about your carbohydrate consumption.

Carbs are
- the most efficient nutritional source for the body’s energy needs since they are more easily converted to glucose than fat and protein (remember that glucose is the body’s fuel. every cell in the body uses glucose for fuel.)

- stored in muscles as glycogen; and glycogen is the energy source of muscles (also, glycogen helps make muscles look full and hard).

- the prefered energy source that is converted to glucose when glycogen and blood sugar are low. This fact is critical to those of you looking to develop muscle. When carbohydrates are restricted from the diet, only protein and fat are available to the body as energy sources. The process of using stored fat as the preferred energy source is called ketosis. This explains why many people burn fat on low-carb diets. However, the body may not go into ketosis but rather use protein as an energy source. When this happens the protein comes from the diet or from the body breaking down muscle. This explains why some people on low carb diets also loose muscle mass. So for those of you that are looking to maintain or gain muscle mass, know that carbohydrates are crucial to muscle maintenance and development.

Please keep these facts about carbs in mind as you manage your nutrition and train towards your fitness goals. DO SOMETHIN’!

***information source: Macrobolic Nutrition by Gerard Dente with Kevin J. Hopkins

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