Carbohydrates have a bad reputation, especially among people trying to lose weight. The mere mention of carbs conjures images of pasta and bread, while stoking fears of weight gain and diet failure. But what do carbs do? Are they the enemy? Should you eliminate them from your diet? To answer those questions, we must take a step back and better understand what macronutrients are and why they are essential. So, what are macros and micros about carbs?
Carbohydrates, protein, and fat are among the three macronutrients. They are our body's primary energy source and help fuel our brains, muscles, and organs. While there are healthy and unhealthy sources of carbohydrates, not all carbohydrates are bad. The key to a balanced diet and healthy weight management is understanding how to include carbohydrates in your diet according to your needs.
Table of Contents
Do Carbs Make You Fat
What's the Deal with Carbs Anyway?
Carbohydrates are one of the three main building blocks, also known as macronutrients, that make up all food. Protein and fat are the other two. These macronutrients are essential for the body to function. Carbs can be further split into three groups: sugars, starches, and dietary fiber. Sugars are simple short-chain compounds (monosaccharides and disaccharides) found in fruits like apples and the ubiquitously demonized white sugar. They taste sweet and tend to be highly palatable. Starch is a longer chain of sugar compounds (polysaccharides). This type includes bread, pasta, grains, and potatoes. Dietary fiber is the odd one out. It’s also a polysaccharide, but the gut can’t digest it. Remember, almost all foods that people call “carbohydrates” contain a combination of all three types of carbs along with protein and fat. Apart from table sugar, finding something purely a carb is rare. That’s just not how food tends to work.
Good vs. Bad Carbs? Not a Thing
I’m not going to talk about this for very long, because hundreds of articles on the internet give you lists of carbohydrates that you “should” and “shouldn’t” eat, pitting them off against each other like some sort of gladiatorial fight to the death. I’m not going to do that. Of course, certain foods have more nutrients than others, and yes, the fibrous carbs will have the best overall impact on our health. Can you do me a favor, though? Seeing as food doesn’t have a moral value, can we stop using the words “good” and “bad” when it comes to what we eat? It’s not helpful, and I’d argue it harms our relationship with food. It’s possible to recognize the hierarchy of benefit that certain foods have without demonizing others to the extent of exclusion and restriction.
The Real Reason Carbs Can Contribute to Weight Gain
The problem is when you take in too many calories (energy from food and drink). If you eat more calories than your body can burn off, the excess will be stored as fat. This may seem high, but there’s a good reason you need this amount. They are our body’s preferred energy source for supporting daily activities and exercise, and helping fuel the brain. They also provide essential vitamins, minerals, and fibre for our overall health.But not all carbs are equal. Most of us eat too much sugar and processed foods like chips, biscuits, cakes, white breads, and refined breakfast cereals. These are digested quickly, making it easy to overeat them. This can ramp up calorie intake, leading to weight gain.
The Best Carbs For Weight Loss
The best carbs for weight loss or maintaining a healthy weight are not processed. This means whole fruit and veg, lentils and beans, wholegrain and high-fibre varieties of oats, breads, cereals and pasta. These are digested slowly, helping you feel full for longer on fewer calories. In addition to being good for your waistline, wholegrain and high-fibre carbs can help lower your cholesterol and risk of type 2 diabetes and improve your gut health. High-fibre foods should make up a third of your diet. As a guide, a portion of these carbs for one meal should be about the size of your fist. If you are worried about your weight, focus on fiber rather than cutting out all carbs. Simple swaps such as an apple instead of apple juice, popcorn instead of crisps, brown rice instead of white, and oats instead of cornflakes are a good place to start.
Importance of Carbs for Your Body
Carbohydrates Fuel Your Body's Engine
Carbohydrates break down into glucose, the body's preferred source of energy. This is especially true for the brain, which relies on glucose to perform its functions. Carbohydrates also contain fiber, which helps reduce the risk of disease and can even help with weight control.
Carbs provide energy
Carbohydrates are the body's primary fuel source. During digestion, complex sugars and starches are broken down into simple sugars. Glucose is the primary type of carbohydrate used for energy. Glucose gets to cells through the bloodstream, which is why it is also called blood sugar. The hormone insulin helps glucose get into cells. If the body doesn't need the glucose, it can be stored in other forms. The liver and muscles store glucose as glycogen. Glucose can also be stored as body fat.
Carbs protect against disease
Some evidence suggests that whole grains and dietary fiber from whole foods help lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. Fiber also may protect against type 2 diabetes, obesity, and colon and rectal cancers.
Carbs control weight
Evidence shows that eating plenty of whole fruits, vegetables, and grains can help lower the risk of weight gain over time. These foods tend to be low in calories and fiber, which can help people feel full with fewer calories. People may also take in fewer calories if they replace processed foods with high-quality carbs. The fiber in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains may support a healthy gut, which some studies suggest may be linked to body weight and insulin response.
DietAI transforms calorie counting with our AI calorie counting app. Take a picture of your food, and our app instantly analyzes your meals from a simple photo, delivering accurate calorie and macro information without manual logging. Beyond photo recognition, the app provides comprehensive progress tracking, personalized nutrition insights tailored to your goals, and convenient barcode scanning for packaged foods. Whether you are trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or simply maintain a balanced diet, DietAI makes nutrition tracking effortless by eliminating the tedious aspects of traditional food journaling. Download now to effortlessly track your calories and macros with DietAI, the AI-powered app that makes logging meals as simple as snapping a photo. Download today for 80% off!
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8 Myths About Carbs Debunked
1. Carbs Make You Gain Weight
Choosing the right carbs is key. “Aim to eat complex, whole grains instead of refined grains,” says Holmes. “Whole grains are less processed and contain more fiber, which makes you feel more full, which is an important key to maintaining a healthy weight.” Our body weight is dictated by the number of calories we consume daily versus the number of calories we expend. Consuming too much of anything (even healthy foods) can result in weight gain if we consume more calories each day than we expend.
It’s essential to focus on the quality as well as the quantity of carbohydrates that we take in each day. Limiting simple carbohydrates and emphasizing complex carbohydrates in our diet decreases our risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. “Weight gain is not due to carbs themselves, but from the over-consumption of any type of food,” Holmes explained. “Aim to eat complex, whole grains instead of refined grains.
Whole grains are less processed and contain more fiber, which makes you feel more full, which is an essential key to maintaining a healthy weight.” Limit refined grains like chips, crackers, white bread, and pastries. Weight loss is best achieved by limiting overall calories, consuming a sustainable diet of whole grains, lean proteins, low-fat or fat-free dairy products, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables.
2. Carbs Stop Fat Burning
This statement is an oversimplification. While it may be correct that when you eat carbs, you temporarily stop burning fat, this is because you have carbohydrates available that need to be burned. Dietary fat is far more likely to be stored as fat than carbohydrates. When you eat too many calories, the fat you eat will be stored first, and the carbohydrates will be burned first.
3. Fruit Causes Weight Gain
Fruit indeed contains carbohydrates in the form of natural sugar, which is much different than added sugars found in many processed foods. Added sugars contribute to weight gain and increase the risk for chronic diseases like diabetes. Holmes explains, “According to The 2020-25 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the top source of added sugar in the American diet is sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, and sweet snacks, which are low in nutrients and can contribute to obesity, increasing heart disease risk.
They are also commonly found in food sources such as juice, snacks, and sweets. The recommendation is to limit added sugars to less than 10% of daily caloric intake. But, don’t give up your berries and bananas! Fruit is an essential part of a healthy diet. Fruits contain fiber, which helps with weight control and digestive health, as well as many vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.”
4. Carbs Make You Hungry
Carbs high in fibre (complex carbs, aka ‘good’) will fill you up, as fibre can slow down the rate at which food leaves your stomach. The ' blood sugar rollercoaster ' is a simple way of looking at appetite control. When you eat carbs, your blood sugar rises; you get hungry when it comes down again. Refined carbs, or ‘simple’ carbs, make your blood sugar go up and down faster.
Sounds simple. Actually, no. There are so many other factors that go into appetite regulation. For instance, the simple carbohydrates in foods like biscuits, cakes, and sugary snacks taste good, stimulating neurological pathways in our brain that tell us to eat more. Other things that influence your appetite are activity levels, genetics, meal composition, emotional eating, and body fat levels. Funnily enough, a potato raises your blood sugar very quickly but is ranked as the most filling food on the satiety index (which measures how much a food makes you feel full), further highlighting that there is far more to your appetite than the raising and dropping of blood sugar.
5. Low-Carb Diets Are Best For Weight Loss
No evidence supports that following a low-carb diet is the most effective weight-loss strategy. If carbohydrates are minimal, weight loss likely results from calorie restriction and loss of water weight, not from the decrease in carbs themselves. “This diet is also difficult to sustain long-term and weight gain will likely occur once discontinuing the diet,” Holmes said. “Carbohydrates are the primary fuel source for our brain. Severely restricting carbs can have a negative impact on health as the body will switch to a state of ketosis, when the body burns fat as fuel instead of glucose, which can lead to dehydration and a chemical imbalance in the blood.”
6. Carbs Make You Tired
People often complain of the ‘carb coma’ - that 3 pm slump after lunch due to eating too many carbs. This feeling is called ‘postprandial somnolence’ and is simply more energy and blood being directed to your digestive system, so you feel tired. When people cut out carbs, they often say they’re not exhausted after meals. But they have probably reduced the total energy of that meal, thus resulting in less postprandial somnolence. Studies have shown that higher-fat meals can make you feel sleepier, possibly attributed to the hormone cholecystokinin, which is needed for fat and protein digestion.
7. You Shouldn’t Eat Carbs After 6 pm
The notion that after 6 p.m., your body turns all carbs into fat is false. Scientists are currently studying ‘chrononutrition’ – ‘chrono’ being Latin for time-related. This study looks at the effects of meal timing on metabolism, and emerging data show that meal timing can affect your body’s response to calories. There is a lot of conflicting information about whether the time of day you eat matters, but there is a lack of solid data from human studies. The best advice is to ensure you are eating an appropriate amount of calories and eating these whenever it fits best in your lifestyle. Adherence to any diet is the number one factor dictating success, so don’t get too hung up on timings.
8: Carbs Are Addictive
There is no evidence that any one food is addictive. What can be addictive is people’s behaviours around food. Conditioned responses, like the 11 a.m. snack, eating on the sofa, and eating due to emotion, are the habits that could be considered addictive, but again, the science is inconclusive.
How to Eat Carbs on a Diet
1. Count Carbs with the DietAI App for iPhone and Android
The DietAI app takes the hassle out of counting carbs on a diet. To use the app, simply snap a photo of your food. The AI behind the DietAI app instantly analyzes your meal, delivering accurate calorie and macro information in seconds. You can also track your progress over time, log your meals without the tedious manual entry, and get personalized nutrition insights that align with your goals. Download the DietAI app today for 80% off!
2. Choose Whole Fruits Over Fruit Juice
When you eat whole fruits instead of fruit juice, you get the added benefit of fiber, which can help slow the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream. Even if it’s 100% juice, fruit juice can cause spikes in blood sugar levels because it’s so high in sugar and low in nutrients. For example, making one cup of orange juice takes about three oranges. That’s an awful lot of sugar to consume at once, and you’ll miss out on the fiber that comes with eating the oranges.
3. Rethink Your Drink
Sweetened beverages are a significant source of added sugars in the diet. These drinks include soda, sweetened coffees, sweetened teas, and energy drinks. Eating too many sugary carbs can spike blood sugar levels; drinking them can do the same. To cut back, try mixing half unsweetened tea with sweetened tea, drink sparkling water with a splash of juice, or order your coffee with less sweetener. When in doubt, hydrate with water.
4. Go for Whole Wheat Pasta, Tortillas, and Bread
When choosing grain-based foods, always go for the whole grain variety. For example, choose whole wheat pasta, tortillas, and bread over their white counterparts. Check the ingredient list and ensure whole wheat flour is listed as the first ingredient on the packaging—not enriched, unbleached, or multigrain flour. Some breads may have seeds or oats on the outside of the loaf, or caramel coloring may be used to make them look like whole wheat.
5. Mix White and Whole Wheat Pasta
If you have picky eaters at home, try mixing white pasta with whole wheat pasta to help them transition to the healthier grain. Start with half white and half whole wheat, and gradually increase the ratio of whole wheat to white until they eat only whole wheat pasta.
6. Choose Oats Instead of Sugary Cereals
Many breakfast cereals can be surprisingly high in sugar and low in nutrients. Instead of reaching for these boxed cereals, choose oats instead. Old-fashioned or steel-cut oats are a great whole grain option. Get creative with overnight oats or baked oat bars to start your day.
7. Try Different Grains
Explore worldwide grains like quinoa, farro, bulgur wheat, barley, and millet. They cook much in the same way as rice and pack a nutritious punch along with extra flavor.
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Download DietAI Today for 80% Off!
The terms "macros" and "micros" refer to the two different classes of nutrients that comprise food. Short for macronutrients, macros include carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. These nutrients provide the bulk of our food’s caloric value and are the nutrients the body requires in the highest amounts to function properly. Micronutrients, or micros, are vitamins and minerals. Though they’re present in food in much smaller quantities than macros, they’re essential to a well-balanced diet and support numerous bodily functions.
DietAI transforms calorie counting with our AI calorie counting app. Take a picture of your food, and our app instantly analyzes your meals from a simple photo, delivering accurate calorie and macro information without manual logging. Beyond photo recognition, the app provides comprehensive progress tracking, personalized nutrition insights tailored to your goals, and convenient barcode scanning for packaged foods. Whether you are trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or simply maintain a balanced diet, DietAI makes nutrition tracking effortless by eliminating the tedious aspects of traditional food journaling. Download now to effortlessly track your calories and macros with DietAI, the AI-powered app that makes logging meals as simple as snapping a photo. Download today for 80% off!
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