Carbs - Good or Bad For You?

Carbs

Are they good or bad? Why 

What kinds of carbs should I eat and what should I avoid? 

How much should I being getting in my diet? 

All of these questions depend on a lot of things that I go over in this short podcast. 

Checkout and learn to enjoy carbs with your goals. 

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the fittest shape podcasts. I'm your host Blake shy, and we are here to wrap it up for week four. We're going to talk about carbohydrates, but before I go in there, I want to take a little bit of a. TV commercial break here. And just give you a little quick advertisement on my coaching service. So I am a remote coach. I have clients all over the country this can be a remote relationship where I can gear a program, both around nutrition and exercise selection, that goes towards your goals. And we base this off of an assessment and a consult where we really get to hone in and get to know. I sit there and listen, I ask questions and we're going to get to know your injury history, your training, age, things of this nature. And then we get to assess you and build a program built around you, your lifestyle, where you're at and how to get you to. So, if you're interested in that, please head on over to my website at Blake shite, S C H E I D t.com on there, you will see a application form. You can fill that out and I will respond to you as soon as I can get back to you and we'll reach out and get started on trying to answer questions and allow you to think through the process of this is a right choice for you and your fitness and health. So with that, I'm going to head into. This week's podcast, which is on carbs, the most misunderstood macro carbohydrates get such a bad reputation and most diets probably in the last decade. So like think, think paleo and keto, like those diets are really popular and they have a very low view of carbohydrates and they almost look at them as the bad thing. If you remove them, you get healthy. The more you eat, the more unhealthy, um, and while carbs. Unnecessary macro for human to survive. There's a lot of misunderstanding on this, awesome tasty macronutrient. And, uh, some of this is understandable, right? Cause a lot of cartridge foods are easy to consume based on accessibility and, and cost efficiency. Right. They have a longer shelf life for, for most of these foods. Um, and they're very tasty. So they're great for consumers. Um, and they're fairly affordable. So that kind of gives a recipe for just over consuming. And you add that on to our seditary world that we live in sitting at computers, driving more, less walking, less movement, and you have a lot of high energy. You know, this carb has really meant for. High energy and you don't have high energy, then that can be a recipe for adding a lot of fat onto someone and becoming unhealthy and causing insulin issues and all kinds of things. But let's pause. Let's not blame all this on carbs. Let's blame it on an inactive lifestyle and let's try to take a relook at carbohydrates, see what they are and how they can be beneficial to you and your goals. Carbs are typically in the kind of dietary world broken down into three main types. You got glucose fructose and lactose glucose is going to be a basic sugar from starches. So think of potatoes, um, rice keenwah beans, things of this nature, right? Really good whole foods, um, and really great sugars that are broken down in the body and use Fredericks. Number two, you got fruit toes, and these are going to be more of your simple carbs and simple carbs are going to be broken down faster than complex carbs or starchy carbs. And this can be fruit, right? It really does mean, when it says simple carbs that it just does break down more simply. This can also be things that are found in candy and things of that nature. Typically a really good fruit toast, carbohydrate would be bananas and oranges and apples and things of that nature. And then you got lactose, which is going to be found in dairy products. Right. Um, when someone says they're lactose-intolerant they, it means their, GI tract does not process lactose. Well, so think of that as. Carb now there's going to be lots of fats and lactose too. Um, so don't get that too confused, but I just wanted to let you know, there's typically three that we break down for the carbohydrates. So you don't have to memorize this or know all the different types of carbs, but what you do need to know are kind of these following. These are like my cliff notes of it, right? Carbs are going to be four calories per gram. So not unlike fats, which you talked last week about that are nine. These are four. So same with protein. They're going to be lower on the calories than fats. No, the difference between glucose, which is a starch and fruit toast, which is a simple carb, um, or simple sugar glucose is kind of. Most basic and utilize sugar that helps with recovery and performance. And this is going to be stored in skeletal muscle. So when we talk about like, you got to get big muscles, you want to get bigger muscles, you want to grow and get stronger and bigger. You want to eat glucose, think of rice and beans and sweet potatoes. Like those are, those are the country kind of carbohydrate puts you some, some country strength on you. That was stupid, but you know what I'm saying? Like you just think of country strong, you think of, you know, meat and potatoes or rice and potatoes and meat. Um, that's kind of where that comes from. And there is some real science by that and then think of fruit toast, mostly stored in the liver, not the skeletal muscle. So number three, Well, it's not essential for the body to function. Carbs are essential for performance athletes like CrossFitters. So anyone who is exercising in general really should be having good carbohydrates in why? Because an inadequate amount of carbs, um, can cause low energy, low performance. And, and like the worst case scenario is adrenal fatigue. So, if you have any symptoms that would suggest you have adrenal fatigue, you know, you'd go see a doctor. As a trainer, it's out of my scope of practice. Right. We can see some of the signs that would be, be bad, right? If you low libido, right? Your, your moods are really, really depressed and, and low. Um, Or, and you're not getting any hunger cues. You're just not hungry, lethargic. Right? Those are all kind of signs that maybe you should go get checked out for either low testosterone. If you're gentlemen or maybe adrenal fatigue, a gentleman or, or lady. Um, last one also, it's also important to get adequate amount of carbs post-workout to help, um, with the central nervous system, right from Susa, go from a simple. Fight or flight, which is what happens in the workout to a more relaxed person, pathetic. You want to get good amount of carbohydrates in post-workout. Now we've discussed a lot here. Um, you know, I, I want to just give some quick recommendations that I kind of see in the coaching world, uh, with my clients quite a bit. And then just ask you some good questions to kind of follow up on, but number one, this is what I recommend. Most of your carbs should be starting. All right. And they should be starchy, complex carbs. So I said this a couple of times now, but just think rice potatoes, keenwah beans, things like that. If you stick to that, you'll, you'll kind of avoid a lot of the bloatiness that a lot of people tend to think and feel, uh, you'll get more micronutrients out of those um, so that'll be helpful, for performance recovery. Um, and even just growing muscle, if that. Keep your fruit toast, carbs to real foods like fruits. All right. So if you're gonna go kinda more in the sweet route, make it more fruit, uh, if you're a competitive CrossFitter or training for any kind of competition, power lifting, you know, endurance training, up your carbs to at least 30% or more of your. All right. I would say that'd be on the low end, especially if you're closer to competitive season where you're actually in, in season for your sport, um, this'll help with performance and recovery more than you realize they're they're your friend. And just like to get on my CrossFit, you know? Um, so box, I would just. You cannot try to look good and perform well at the same time. That's not really, you got to pick one and CrossFit is a performance sport, um, that you're trying to get stronger, faster and more efficient at. And so carbs are going to be your friend in that. And that's why paleo has kind of tampered off on CrossFit because here we were not getting enough carbohydrates and pushing our training to a high intensity, training and that caused a lot of people to get injured, her, um, not recover well. And even in worst cases, scenario, you know, adrenal fatigue and this other stuff, uh, low T levels meshing your hormones up. So do not do that If you're really worried about body composition and she's keeping it clean carbs, you know, don't go eat pizza, go eat, uh, chicken and rice and sweet potatoes. Right. So, um, and if you're a weight loss client, don't be afraid to add good carbs into your diet. Uh it's it's going to help you perform with higher energy, which that higher energy can help you burn more fat and up your neat and preserve muscle, right? With adequate amount of proteins, obviously. Uh, but there's no studies that have shown. People on low carb or high fat or high, high carb and low fat diets, uh, that anyone benefits one more than the other. They've done a lot of short term studies that have shown that higher fat diets help people with their triglycerides and. Cholesterol and other things like that and weight loss, but all in all, you can lose as long as you're in a caloric deficit and you are balanced and you're getting enough adequate protein, your going to be fine. Um, is what most of the research shows. So I would say if you're a weight loss client, figure out what works best for you. If you don't know if it's something, it could be just as simple as this is what fits into. Food prep better. This is what simpler for me for shopping. This is what foods I like better. Uh, you can be a higher fat or higher carbon off of that. As long as you're in a caloric maintenance or caloric deficit, you will hit your goals. Typically stay around 20 to 30% though, right? Unless you have some sort of insulin response issues, um, stay in there now, what are some key starchy carbs you keep in your diet. Right. Is it rice as a chemo, as a sweet, like, think about that. What are some of those starchy carbs that you do keep in your diet? Number two, are you higher on carbs or fats and why? Like, have you even considered it? And it doesn't have to be a really complex answer. It can be as simple as this is just what fits better for me. But think like, I need you to start thinking in those terms, because lots of people don't even have that as a category. And then how do you feel when you eat carbs? Do you feel. Bloated. Do you feel good? Do you feel like you have more energy? Like when I was training heavy, heavy lifting back in November, December, I was going for one rep. Max is and things like that. And I have a high training age, so I can really push it there. But like when I went low carb in the post-Christmas and I could feel, so I felt so much weaker, it was like amazing. I didn't feel any aesthetically. Um, I felt a little bit more like I had more brain power when I went to my creativity work and my program work, but I, I felt weaker in my lifts. So just things to pay attention to. And then number three, last one, what's one carb you're willing to add in your diet and for what purpose to be. I just liked that Carmen is tasty. Could be, I think that'll help me perform better. I'm going to add that in and I won't feel bloated. It could be. Maybe I've been scared of carbs and now I don't need to be. And I'm going to try to add this in and just pay attention to where my calories are. So hope this is helpful. Again, if you're interested in any coaching with me, head on over to Blake, shai.com, fill out the application form and please share like, and give us a great review on our podcast. Fit shite. And thanks for this hope. This was helpful. Look forward to giving you guys more great material in the near future peace.