Now, more than ever, it is important to educate ourselves on the fundamentals to help us choose the best carb foods for weight loss. Every day we are surrounded with advertisements tooting so called healthy foods, often fueled by the latest fad diet.
Carbohydrates are often categorized as simple carbs and complex carbs. If your diet is high in the former this can result in a cycle of short bursts of energy followed by sugar crashes which is when you suffer from cravings, mood swings and that lethargic feeling. Simple carbs include sucrose (table sugar), glucose, fructose (fruit sugar), and lactose (dairy sugar) and are not the best carb foods, especially for weight loss.
Complex carbs, however, are digested more slowly than simple carbs are thereby releasing energy much more steadily. Examples of complex carbs include bread, pasta, rice and vegetables. While it may be necessary to reduce your overall carbohydrate intake, having less simple carbs is much more important, because of their effect on your energy levels.
However, fibrous carbs such as green vegetables are one of the best carb foods you can eat for several reasons and you should endeavor to eat lots of these carbs. They are very low in calories, and in some cases even contain negative calories , which means that they contain so few calories that your body actually uses more calories to digest and process these foods.
When you choose the best carb foods to help you drop the fat, you should also ask yourself whether the food is natural or highly processed/refined. Simple carbs such as fructose which is what is in fruits, or complex carbs such as potatoes and fibrous vegetables are examples of the former. Sucrose, your average table sugar, and other refined sugars such as glucose and dextrose, as well as highly processed starchy carbs such as white bread and white rice, would come under the latter category.
Refined carbs are a terrible choice of food, and have little or no benefit to your body. Not only do these foods have many of the healthy nutrients sucked out of them, they are digested and processed by your body very quickly, like simple sugars are, which explains why you feel tired and lethargic after a typical Western lunch, especially when it s washed down with a high-sugar beverage.
You can also refer to the GI (glycemic index) values for another tool to help you choose the best carbs to help you lose weight and have more energy throughout the day. The glycemic index shows the impact foods have on your blood sugar. If the GI value is low, such as with lentils, it will not have a great effect on your blood sugar and you will have a relatively steady release of energy.
High GI foods on the other hand, such as white rice, unless eaten with a low GI food to balance the overall GI value of the food, cause your energy levels to shoot up and then shortly after drop right down. Not only does this sugar crash affect your mental performance and focus, as well as cause hunger and cravings, but the release of insulin which happens as a result sets your body up for fat storing, and limits its fat burning capacity.
It is also important to remember that refined carbs and sugars especially are very bad for your health, unless there is a need for them, which may be the case with athletes. On top of this, the GI values are very high, and we already have too much in our diet. What s more, when you add unhealthy fats to the equation, this can result in immediate fat gain. Fried foods, pastries and ice cream are examples of such foods.
What you need to keep in mind is that the best carb foods have little or no refined sugar and very little fat content. I would strongly recommend you keep away from foods high in refined sugar, and more so if combined with unhealthy fats. The shocking thing is that many fat-free and low fat foods are packed with sugar, which grossly misleads the general public. Also stay away from high-sugar beverages such as sodas, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks as much as possible. Joseph Cole has blown the whistle on the weight loss industry. Find out why 95% dieters fail within one year, why fat burning pills are a complete waste of money and why you don t need to count calories to lose weight. Download his brand new revealing industry report for FREE right now at: http://www.theantidietplan.com/1
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