Balancing carbs in a Healthy Eating Plan

Balancing carbs in a Healthy Eating Plan
Article by Marek Doyle, www.blueprintfitness.co.uk
Carbohydrates are required by the body for energy. They can be split into complex carbs,
such as bread, pasta, rice and potatoes, and simple carbs (sugars), which include healthy
fruit and veg, but also unhealthy yoghurts, chocolate and sugar. In the body, carbohydrates
are stored as glycogen in the liver (around 100g) and in the same form in skeletal muscle
(around 300g in a fullycarbed
average male).
So how do you integrate carbs into a healthy eating plan? When people think of healthy
eating, they tend to just think of fruit, veg, and lowfat
goods. Seems simple, so why does
hardly anyone stick to it? Is it because we just love our junkfood,
or is it because this onedimensional
method never delivers? I suspect a bit of both.
‘Healthy Eating’ is a notion championed by everybody from celebrity ‘diet experts’ to
supermarkets, many of whom stick to the timeold
ideas mentioned above. There is also a
small but increasing number of individuals whose advise opposes the norm, who offer an
alternative view of highprotein,
moderatefat
and controlled carbs. So who do you believe?
Well, the Government’s Nanny State Department are always glad to throw in their two
cents and, in 1992, kindly provided us with a ‘Healthy Eating Pyramid’ to help us become
healthier, adding to previous advice. The decadeandahalf
that followed have seen
obesity levels rise to incredible heights.1. I invite you to spot the connection.
This ‘Healthy Eating Pyramid’ advocates 611
servings of carbohydrates per day and less
than 1 serving of fat per day. This remains the official advice for each and every one of us,
whether we are training for marathons or exercising only when walking to the fridge. More
importantly, where is the essential oil going to come from? [see different article
Overcoming Fat Phobia].
This onedimensional
view is compounded by the recommendations of the RDA
committee; of the calories in the diet, we are told, 60% should come from carbs, 30% from
fats and just 10% from protein. Other popular diet plans like ‘the Zone’ diet suggest a 403030
mix, and the infamous Atkins diet gives no such ratios but proposes a carbohydrate
intake of just 20g per day. There are abundant diet schemes, each offering a different ratio.
With the exception of the Atkins plan and other extreme plans, not one of these is wrong
per se. However, most will not be suitable for any individual simply because they do not
take into account the disparity in requirements from person to person. The failure of these
603010s
and 403030
ratios is that they do not make any reference to the changing
energy requirements that occurs in an individual as their calorific requirements increase.
Eg. A marathon runner in training may require twice the calorie intake of a sedentary
person, yet does not require twice the fat intake. This is why carbohydrate requirement
should always be calculated on the basis of activity level, not as a percentage of calorie
intake. Unlike protein or fat, carbohydrates have just one purpose; energy. Therefore carb
April 2007.
intake and energy requirements should have an exact correlation.
In any case, it remains obvious that there is a massive overdependence
on carbohydrates
in the Western diet. To establish this, we do not need laboratory experiments or case
studies to come to a conclusion. A combination of history and common sense tells us that
our ancestors lived on a diet rich in meat, nuts and veg, seasonally supplemented with fruit
and berries. There was no pasta, bread, cereals… not even rice or potatoes. Compared to
today’s diets, this is a lowcarb
intake, yet this is the balance that we have spent thousands
evolving on. The Governments promotion of carbohydrates was dictated by postwar
politics and the overavailability of grains, and has been compounded by the political
influence of junkfood
corporations, who effectively decide government policy2.
A sedentary person requires between 23g
of carbs per day for every kilogram of lean
mass. On an average 80kg (12½ stone) man in reasonable shape this represents 120g150g
of carbohydrates each day. You can contrast these figures with the RDA guidelines
for a typical male, which provides a whopping 400g of carbohydrates. This is towards the
top end of athletes’ requirements – who need between 46g
of carbs per day, or even more
if they are running long distances – but certainly far too much for the average sedentary
person.
So, having established that the nation consumes more carbohydrates than they require,
what are the consequences of this inbalance? If you take a stroll down any busy high
street, the answer is staring you in the face. Excess carbohydrates readily convert to
subcutaneous (under the skin) fat. Your body can easily convert excess carbs into palmitic
acid, a saturated fat, at a rate of 40g per day on top of normal processes3. One of the
stages in the conversion of sugar to energy is the breakdown of a sixcarbon
sugar into
twocarbon
acetates, but when there is an excess availability of acetates – eg.
overconsumption, or intake of sugary foods they
are strung together to form fatty acids.
Many people struggle to lose weight because they choose lowfat
items that encourage
overconsumption and are often high in sugar.
There has been a growing acceptance as to the problems of excess carbs, which
unfortunately has often resulted in extreme carbcutting.
This also disrupts the body’s
homeostasis and severely hampers healthy metabolism. The Atkins diet is the most
famous example of this naïve way of thinking and can seriously damage your health. As
mentioned above, the optimum daily carb intake varies from person to person, although
the minimum is similar in most people and rests at the 100g mark. This is the amount used
each day by your central nervous system and brain, which both require carbohydrates as,
unlike skeletal muscle, they cannot function on protein and fats alone. Therefore, taking in
less than this minimum amount causes breakdown of muscle tissue and internal organs,
neither of which is conducive to health, performance or weight loss. Bad breath, poor
concentration/coordination
and mood swings are other negative sideeffects.
We are also not just what we eat, we are also when we eat. This is particularly true of
carbohydrates. Two key factors influence when we should be eating carbs, and that is the
ease at which carbs convert to bodyfat and the need to balance carb intake to energy
expenditure. For most people, this means easing off carbs towards the end of the day
(although not cutting them out). This is because you only need a significant amount of
carbs before exercise, so a bowl of cereal before bed will simply result in an excess of
carbs. As we now know, this leads to fat storage. Your glycogen stores are at their lowest
in the morning, so this should be reflected in an appropriate increase in carbohydrate
intake. A bowl of porridge is ideal for this purpose.
Porridge, and oats in general, are an excellent source of carbohydrates as they contain
good amounts of fibre and minimal sugar. The same can be said of brown rice, potatoes,
ricecakes, ryvita bread. Although wholemeal bread and pasta would appear to fit this
category also, they should not be consumed where choice is available as these wheat
products contain phytic acid, a substance known to block the absorption of vitamins and
minerals. Vegetables should be consumed freely as, although they contain simple carbs,
the fibre/vitamin/mineral content is excellent, so you should try to include these whenever
possible.
Like so many issues in health and fitness, information becomes clouded when ignorant
views are promoted by the media and questionable Government policy. However, a logical
look at the issue sees that by taking the diet of our caveman ancestors as a base point,
and by intelligently balancing our consumption to our individual requirements, we will reap
the benefits in the results we get from our nutrition regime.
References
1. Health Survey for England Report (2003).
2. Marion Nestle, 2003. Food Politics.
3. Quistoriff and Grunmet (2003), Transformation of sugar and other carbohydrates
into fat in humans.
Marek is a personal trainer, nutritional therapist and allergist operating in
Kensington, Chelsea, West London and Basingstoke. He is the director of Blueprint
Fitness, www.blueprintfitness.co.uk