Carbohydrates: Some facts and some diet advice

There ain’t nothing wrong with some carbo-hydro-ates, but their might; however be something wrong with the way you stuff your big face with them.

Carbohydrates – What are they for?

Carbohydrates have four main functions:  

- Energy   

- Fibre   

- Vitamins and Minerals  

- Satisfaction   

Energy   

Carbohydrates are the go to fuel for your body. Carbohydrates are made up of different chains of glucose (put simply sugar), which are broken down to provide energy quickly or slowly depending on the complexity of the carbohydrates consumed. More complex carbohydrate sources like porridge take time to release their energy whilst “simpler” carbohydrate sources like white bread release their energy quicker. In addition to providing the physical energy to get yourself out of bed, carbohydrates are also used to fuel the brain.   

Fibre   

Carbohydrates provide a source of fibre to improve digestive health, lower blood sugar and blood cholesterol.

Vitamins and Minerals 

  

Carbohydrates also provide some of the essential vitamins and minerals; this is because the majority of fruit and vegetables are constituted by carbohydrates. That’s right fruit and vegetables are not their own subsection of food, for all you dimwits who say “I’m on a no carb diet” whilst you dig into a giant baked potato and then polish it off with a fruit salad.    

Satisfaction  

I’m not talking about that fuzzy feeling you get inside when you’ve just polished off a “share” bag of Doritos. I’m talking about the ability to satisfy one’s hunger. Carbohydrates have the ability to satisfy hunger more readily due to their low energy density – they basically take up more room in your stomach with fewer calories. However, this is limited to certain carbohydrates (mainly whole grains, vegetables and fruits).

Humans aren’t the only species known to suffer from carb overload

Are carbohydrates essential?

Nope. Despite often being touted as essential and providing all those great benefits above, you won’t cease to exist if you stop putting carbs in your mouth. There are no actual physiological requirements of carbohydrate intake. In fact even the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) Handbook acknowledges this fact. Carbohydrates aren’t “essential” because to be “essential” a nutrient has to be:

-         Required for survival

-         Unable to be produced by the body.

Carbohydrates are not required for survival because your body is so smart, that it can manufacture some carbohydrates(glucose) and also change its main source of fuel. A great example of this is the Eskimos, whose diet consists of 75% fat and the rest protein with very low if any carbohydrates. If carbohydrates were essential those poor fuckers would have been extinct a long time ago. Why no carbs for the poor Eskimos you ask? When was the last time you seen plants when you turned on the discovery channel to watch “Frozen Planet”. 

This chap doesn’t remember the last time he seen a carb and as you can see, he doesn't give a fuck.

So how does the body make glucose? When the consumption of carbohydrates is restricted completely, the body finds alternative ways to get its glucose fix and fuel itself. The two main alternatives are through using fat metabolism and protein metabolism to create fuel.  When fat metabolism occurs fatty acids are broken into ketones and glycerol converted to glucose via a process called gluconeogenesis. When protein metabolism takes place some amino acids (alanine and glutamine) are converted into glucose also via gluconeogenesis.  

So in conclusion you can live without carbohydrates. However you are not an Eskimo and doing so might test your sanity. This is due to the fact alot of the tastiest foods available are unfortunately carbohydrates. This is largely the reason that low carb, no carb and keto diets do infact work, because you’re forced to cut out the foods in your diet which the majority of people tend to over indulge on. If I told you not to eat pizza, pasta, bread, cake, sweets, milk, fruit, chips, etc you’d probably reply “Well duhhhhh, I’ll lose weight because I won’t eat jack shit”. 

Are low carbohydrate diets better than any other diet?

In terms of low carbs, no carbs, keto, carbs are the devil dieting being better than conventional dieting the evidence is mixed depending on the population. A recent study by Hu et al (2012) investigated low fat versus low carb dieting for the average human and found that reductions in body weight, waist circumference and other metabolic risk factors were not significantly different between the 2 diets. These findings suggest that low-carbohydrate diets are at least as effective as low-fat diets at reducing weight and improving metabolic risk factors. Further a study by Stern et al (2004) concluded that low-carbohydrate dieting was similar in benefit in terms of weight loss to conventional dieting. 

Therefore it could be concluded that low fat, low carb and conventional dieting are all very similar for weight loss. However, anecdotally having tried each method conventional dieting is superior in my opinion. This is because you can enjoy all foods and make variance from day to day instead of sticking to a dogmatic regime. Low carb and low fat dieting do have their benefits and therefore can be used in certain situations. Let’s however ignore low fat for now. 

Low carb based dieting does have an application for a certain growing population – the obese (see what I did there). A study by Samaha et al (2003) showed that low carb was superior to low fat dieting for obese subjects (mean body mass index of 43) for weight loss. However the reasoning for this is possibly because the majority of these fatties had broken their response to insulin (39% had diabetes and 43% had metabolic syndrome). Basically years of overindulging (on a regular basis) had damaged the ability of their bodies to recognise metabolic signals. This had led to their bodies’ inability to process carbohydrates effectively and therefore caused them to get greater results from lower-carbohydrate dieting. So if your obese or think you might have developed some form of insulin resistance, low carb based dieting may indeed be of benefit to you. 

Advantages to eating carbohydrates whilst dieting

Dieting with the inclusion of carbohydrates does have its advantages for those whom haven’t gone and broke their bodies’ ability to process carbohydrates. Carbohydrates have a muscle sparing effect, when the body is low on energy it may try to produce energy via converting amino acids to glucose (via gluconeogenesis). Carbohydrates prevent this action as they can easily be broken down and converted to glucose. Carbohydrates therefore spare dietary protein from oxidation, meaning these proteins can be stored. Furthermore glucose provides the key fuel for exercise and in the absence of carbohydrates (such as a low carb diet), the body will need to utilise a different source to synthesize glucose. The body will actually convert amino acids to glucose for exercise fuel. These amino acids will come from either dietary protein, amino acids from the cellular amino acid reserve, and from muscle tissue. In the case of the latter one will experience muscle loss. During dieting keeping as much muscle mass as possible should be part and parcel of your goal, lest you lose muscle and fat and look like a smaller version of your current self. Hence why exercise is heavily endorsed during dieting - to aid in the preservation of muscle.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that long-term exposure of cells to ketones (i.e., fuel utilised during low carb, no carb, ketogenic dieting) may retard insulin-induced activation of the insulin surface receptor. This will cause one to become extremely sensitive to carbohydrates when they begin consuming them again which may lead to their fat cells thinking Christmas came early as they fill back up. 

Diet Recommendations

You can still have your cake, and eat it (pun intended). By following a simple scientific, mathematic rule:

Calories out > Calories in

It’s the reason why weight watchers has stood the test of time and not fallen out of favour like the other fad diets which come and go, year in and year out; with some prior overweight celebrity whoring it out its like it’s the second coming of Christ. Weight watchers is based on some simple science - If you eat less than your body requires for the day, your body will be required to utilise other resources such as unwanted body fat. The bigger a deficit you create through putting less calorie laden objects in the big hole in your face, the more your body has to resort to other resources. Over a good solid period of developing this said habit, one loses weight and increases their sense of fulfillment, through looking less like Jabba the Hutt and more like an actual human. 

Babe..the pig.

                                      

I am not however advocating everyone whom wants to lose weight join weight watchers, as I hope anyone with a functioning brain can count their own calories. Either by spending a little of the time they would usually spend eating by counting them up, or even better using the wonder of technology through an app such as; MyFitnessPal to do all the hard work for you.

The whole "a calorie is not a calorie" crowd may get slightly butthurt at the advocation of simply counting calories. I do acknowledge that calories that come from carbohydrates or protein or fats all serve different functions in the body, however at the end of the day a deficit will lead to weight loss and a surplus will lead to weight gain.

References

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/176/suppl_7/S44.abstract
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=717452
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022637
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=717452

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohydrates-do-you-need.html