This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at C Mich chapter.
Watching what you eat with no knowledge of nutritional information can be just as dangerous as cutting things out of your diet without knowing the pros and cons of doing so.
Cutting carbs out of your diet means cutting out a lot of energy. Carbs are broken down into glucose (sugar), which your body uses for energy, and they also contain important vitamins and minerals.
Low-carb diets seem to be really popular when it comes to slimming down, but why cut out all carbs when not all of them are bad for you?
Part 2: Complex Carbs vs. Simple Carbs
The carbs found in high processed, refined foods are what we call simple carbs. White bread, fruit juice, candy, cake, and milk are all simple carbs that are hard for our bodies to digest. They are empty calories that get stored in our bodies as fat and offer no real nutritional value.
Ultimately simple carbs give us a sugar high, which we eventually crash from, leaving us hungry again in a short period of time.
The good carbs, complex carbs, are found in leafy vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds. These are high in fiber which makes you feel full for longer, and they help stabilize blood sugar. You need complex carbs in your diet to help your brain, muscles, and other things function properly in your body too.
One thing I don’t understand about the residential dining halls on campus is why they use simple carbs for everything. White pasta and white bread are always available, plain bagels outnumber the wheat, and brown rice is rarely seen.
Eating complex carbs is not that complex.
Carbs have four calories per gram, so if the nutrition label on whatever you’re eating says there’s 40g of carbs in it, you know that that food has 160 calories from carbs. (40×4)
Would you rather eat 160 calories that have no nutritional value, or calories that offer sustainable energy and help your body function properly?
A lot of problems can come from a low carb diet too.
Bad breath, constipation, fatigue, kidney and bone problems, and an increased disease risk for almost everything are just some of them.
Over 50% of your total calories should come from healthy carbs, so learning the good ones vs. the bad is very important to your overall health.
