How To Live A Healthier Life: Carbohydrates

What are carbohydrates? A carbohydrate also known as a carb is sugar that provides the body with energy. Now you might be saying to yourself why wouldn’t I need to consume a lot of Carbs in my diet if my body is going to get energy from it? Good question, let me break down the process of carbs and how it can affect us. Carbohydrates come from pasta, bread, fruit, candy, soda, wines and beers. Now when we consume things with carbs in it our body turns them into glucose (sugar) our body then uses the glucose as an energy source. But we as people eat a lot of candy and we drink a lot of soda and our serving sizes are humongous so when the body uses the needed glucose it is redirected to the liver to be transformed into glycogen. From there the glycogen it is then placed in our muscles for storage for the next time our body needs it for anything that is physical. One of the reasons when your trying to lose weight people say build muscle is because the more muscles you have the more glycogen can be stored. But a lot of people are either to lazy or to busy to work out so what happens is the glycogen that is stored in the muscles gets to be to much and our muscles can’t handle that so they need to put it somewhere else. So the muscles kick it back to the liver to be turned into triglycerides which is another way of saying fatty deposits.
Now our body places the fat every where leading to our current obesity problem as well as cancer, stroke and heart disease.
Simple carbohydrates are also called simple sugars. Simple carbohydrates include: fructose (fruit sugar), sucrose (table sugar) and lactose (milk sugar), as well as several other sugars. Simple carbohydrates are great sources of quick energy. Example: Fruit contains natural fruit but refined sugar is found in sweets, pizza etc…
Complex carbohydrates include fiber and starches. They can be found in vegetables, bread, rice, oatmeal, whole grains, peas and beans. Complex carbohydrates take longer to be digested, so your body needs more time to release these carbs into your blood as glucose. Example: cakes, biscuits, white bread
So when eating carbs try to stay away from consuming a lot of unhealthy carbs such as sodas, beer and wines. And know the serving size of the plates that you’re eating will help you to gain, maintain or lose the weight.