Low Carb, High Carb, No Carbs, Good Carbs, Bad Carbs - The Truth

By Author: Mike Geary
Total Articles: 7
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It seems that every so called "health" expert disagrees these days about the topic of carbohydrates and whether the best diet is "low carb", "healthy carb", high carb, or some other confusing gimmick. With this article, I'm going to give you my opinion (a Certified Nutrition Specialist) on the topic of good carbs, bad carbs, low carb, and sort through this mess.

First, I'd like to state that I do not believe in extremely "low carb" diets. It's simply just not a healthy way to eat, and almost nobody can stick to a super low carb diet for life. However, with that said, I do believe that one of the significant reasons that most individuals struggle to ever lose any weight is that they consume way too much processed refined carbs such as rice, pasta, bagels, bread, cereal, muffins, soda, juice, candy, crackers, and other processed junk that is not part of the natural human diet.

If you are consuming excess quantities of any of these types of refined processed carbs (even if you exercise regularly and vigorously), it is nearly impossible to lose any significant body fat over time. Nasty blood sugar swings and insulin ...
... surges (which can stimulate body fat deposition) are only one negative effect of overeating refined carbs... Eating too many carbohydrates also significantly increases your cravings and appetite making it harder to control caloric intake.

Even carb sources that most people think are "healthy" are really just excess calories that do not really contain significant nutrition density... and many types of breads, crackers, and cereals claim to be "whole grain" (made with whole grains does not mean 100% whole grain) through clever marketing although in reality, the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which just spikes blood sugar and stimulates an insulin release. After years of consuming excessive processed carbs, it becomes harder and harder for insulin to do its job and continue dealing with all of that blood sugar, and insulin resistance and eventual type II diabetes can occur in many people.

My opinion on this confusing topic of carb intake is that the majority of individuals struggling to lose weight would finally start to see some weight loss results by focusing on these types of changes to their diet:

1. Reduction in overall grain-based food types in the diet (rice, pasta, cereal, crackers, cakes, cookies, etc) and focus more of your diet on healthy free range, grass-fed meats and eggs, raw grass-fed dairy, and a whole lot of vegetables.

2. Instead of choosing grain for most of your carb intake, try getting the majority of your carbs from veggies, sweet potatoes (or yams), and a variety of berries & whole fruits (NOT fruit juices, which remove the beneficial fiber as well as other important nutrients in the fruit)

3. If you are going to choose to eat grains at all, focus on the most nutrient dense and fiber-rich portions of grains... the bran and the germ. This means that the healthiest ideas are to substitute oat bran for oatmeal, and use wheat germ & rice bran by adding these to your soup, salad, yogurt, cottage cheese, shakes, etc. This way you get all of the most nutritious parts of the grain without all of the excess calories and starches.

4. If you are used to eating large amounts of carbs what you can do to replace that usual food volume is to try replacing those calories with additional healthy fats such as avocados, nuts, seeds, nut butters as well as healthy protein sources such as grass-fed raw dairy and grass fed meat, whole free-range organic eggs, etc. Healthy fats and proteins are important to help satisfy your appetite, control proper blood sugar and hormonal levels, and help you to finally gain control of your weight.

With all of that said about healthy carbs and bad carbs, here is one of my favorite carb sources that packs a nice punch of fiber as well as contains a decent amount of antioxidants, vitamins & minerals...

It is sweet potatoes (and/or yams). I like to slice them into thin strips and sautee them with a few tablespoons of water in a pan for about 5 minutes for a quick healthy carb source for lunch or dinner (baking is a great way to cook them as well, but time consuming at over an hour). I like to finish the sweet potatoes off with a touch of grass-fed organic butter and some cinnamon and you have got yourself a delicous and healthy carb side dish... Enjoy!

Other great carb sources I prefer are quinoa, high fiber brown rice, oat bran, any and all berries and other high fiber fruits, and any and all vegetables.