subject: Carbohydrates - What They Are and Why They Should Be a Part of Your Diet [print this page] Carbohydrates - What They Are and Why They Should Be a Part of Your Diet
What is a carbohydrate?
A carbohydrate is an organic compound that consists of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. One tends to differ between two main categories of carbohydrates: Simple and complex.
What is the function of a carbohydrate?
The main function for carbohydrates is to serve the storage of energy, like glycogen and starch, within the body. It is the most common source of energy for living organisms.
Are carbohydrates necessary?
No, carbohydrates are not necessary, per se. The body can get all its energy from other sources, namely protein and fats. Protein actually contains 10-15% more energy than carbohydrates, and fats contain twice as much.
Which types of food contain a lot of carbohydrates?
Foods that are rich in simple carbohydrates are things like fruits, sweets and soft drinks. Complex carbohydrates are found in large quantities in foods like bread, pasta, rice, bran, potatoes, beans, et cetera. Ergo, the healthiest form of carbohydrate is - you guessed it - the complex carbohydrate.
How much should I eat?
The advice on this differs from place to place, but a good guideline is usually between 50-60% of your daily intake of dietary energy. The rest should then come from protein and fats. Make sure to differentiate between the healthy types of carbs, found in fruit, pasta, bread, et cetera, and the unhealthy ones found in sweets and soda.
Make sure to keep your daily intake of sugar below 10% of your total dietary intake, preferably a lot less than that. Also, excess carbs can lead to obesity, so if you want to keep fit, or lose weight, you'll want to monitor your intake carefully.
I hear a lot about low-carbohydrate weight-loss plans, are these good for me?
It depends on the layout of the plan, naturally, but they can be quite harmful to you. Many of these plans are high in things that are bad for you, like saturated fat and red meat. This would increase the risk for heart disease, and even some types of cancer.
What happens when I have eaten carbohydrates?
Regardless of what kind of carbohydrate source you've ingested, the end product of your carbohydrate intake that ends up in your bloodstream is glucose - also known as blood-sugar. As such, the point of carbohydrate intake is to increase your blood-sugar levels.
When your blood-sugar levels are elevated, something tends to happen in a healthy, normally functioning individual: The elevation in blood-sugar levels stimulate your pancreas, and it begins to create insulin.
Insulin regulates energy metabolism in the body. It causes cells in the liver, fat tissue, and muscles to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscles. It can also stimulate cells to absorb more nutrients. This leads to increased storage of amino acids, the body's building blocks, in the cells. This, in turn, leads to more muscle mass.
However, if your body feels that the levels of blood-sugar are too high, it will decrease your insulin levels, turn extraneous carbohydrates into fat. If you are anything like me, this is not something that you want. It also absorbs the carbs into the cell and turns them to glycogen. Glycogen is the building block of the body's energy source - Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, commonly called by its acronym ATP.
So, what should I do about it?
Well, firstly, you should eat smaller meals spread out over the day. The body can only healthily absorb so much carbohydrates and protein that the meal is made worthwhile. This means that even if you eat a truckload of healthy food, but only eat once a day, the only thing that is going to happen is that your body turns carbs into fat, lowers your insulin production which makes you less energy efficient, and means that your body starves for the remainder of the day once the food has been digested.
So, it is therefore advisable to spread out your meals as much as possible. It's better with 5 or 6, even 7, smaller meals, with carefully balanced protein and carbohydrate content.
Also, make sure to have a high amount of glycogen to function optimally. When you exercise, you burn ATP, which lowers your glycogen storage. This, in turn, lowers your physical performance. It is therefore vital to not only keep yourself stocked up on carbohydrates, proteins and healthy fats, but on glycogen.
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