Good Carbs & Bad Carbs: How to Tell
Good Carbs & Bad Carbs: How to Tell
Nov 21st, 2009 | By Coach Nancy | Category: Nutrition & Weight Loss
If you are carrying more fat than you want I can almost guarantee you that how much fat you are eating is only a part of the problem. The other part is that you are eating too many simple carbs.
Now I’ve talked before about how simple carbs are either sugars or starches that get quickly turned into sugar and cause problems with your blood sugar levels. This in turn causes your body to have to produce more insulin. The more often you eat simple carbs and the longer period over which you do it affects your body’s ability to use the insulin to manage the blood sugar levels, becoming less effective over time and, thus requiring more and more insulin to be produced. I’m going to skip over all the metabolic reactions that happen but the net effect is that all this insulin causes you to pack on the fat – especially around your abdomen. Not a pretty sight (just look at my before pictures).
The worst of the bad carbs tend to be breads, cereals, pasta and potatos – also known as starchy carbs. Fruits are a mixed bag (some good – some bad) and veggies are almost all good. So let’s focus on the starchy carbs.
Lately you may have heard a lot of commercials for carb based foods like cereals and breads brag that they are part whole grain and that is good for you. The truth is that most of these products still carry very little whole grain. And they just won’t help with keeping your blood sugar levels constant. For that you need to look for the one key ingredient that works….
Fiber
It’s fiber and it’s ratio to the total carbs you need to be focused on. For any cereal or bread based product you want to see at least 33% of the total carbs (look at the grams on the ingredients label) come from fiber. The fiber will slow the carbs impact on your blood sugar levels which in turn, keeps your body from producing too much insulin and becoming insulin dependent.
When you find breads and cereals that meet this ratio, they are then OK to eat on your ‘clean’ eating days. However, even if they do meet this 1/3 fiber/total carb ratio, you may have only 1 serving per day.
