ARE CARBOHYDRATES GOOD OR BAD?

“Low carb is the best way to lose weight!”. “I’ve lost 10 kilos thanks to a high-carb diet!”. “Carbohydrates after 6pm are bad, they make you fat!”.

Carbohydrates are on everyone’s lips, whether it’s in diets, diets or in the food industry. For some reason you just hear “carbs, carbs, carbs” everywhere.

But what are carbohydrates anyway and what do they do?

Carbs / carbohydrates are one of the three macronutrients in our diet. Their main task is to provide energy in different ways: quickly or slowly digested, i.e. digested.

Carbohydrates are made up of sugar, and the longer the sugar molecular chains, the slower they are digested. Long chains of sugar molecules are also called ‘complex carbohydrates’ and short chains ‘simple carbohydrates’.

But what exactly are they? Complex carbohydrates include rice, oatmeal and pasta. Simple carbohydrates are e.g. fruit, table sugar or jelly sweets.

Carbohydrates themselves are not an important source of energy, which means that your body could live and function without them. So, if you want to lose weight, for example, a great way to reduce carbohydrates.

However, it is generally considered:

– To lose weight: Eat less calories than you consume!

– To gain weight: eat more calories than you consume!

– To maintain your weight, eat as many calories as you consume!

In combination with your training, you can get the most out of these energy providers. Before your workout, the extra carbohydrates will be used to provide the necessary energy during the workout, rather than being stored as subcutaneous fat. Long-chain carbohydrates, like whole-grain pasta, should be eaten about 2 hours before the workout. Short-chain carbohydrates, such as banana, can be converted into energy faster and can be eaten 20 minutes before the workout.

Basically, you can eat carbs whenever you want. But proper calorie intake is more important for individual goals. In addition to carbohydrates, other sources of energy are proteins and fats. 1g of protein and 1g of carbohydrates contains 4.1 kcal. One g of fat has 9.3 kcal.

So we cannot say that carbohydrates are bad or good on their own. Depending on their purpose, they can be very useful if used correctly.

First, calculate your total calorie requirement and add at least 1-2 g of protein per kilogram of body weight and at least 1 g of fat per kilogram of body weight. The rest, you can fill with carbohydrates or raise your fat intake.

Everything is learned by doing, because everyone’s body is different and everyone’s lifestyle is different!

We wish you success,

your Butterfly Coach team