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Do you have a sense that avoiding carbs is eating \u201cclean?” Do you figure that anything with bread or flour in it is junk food? Is sugar something to be avoided at all costs? If so, we need to have an intervention. Carbs\u2014including sugar\u2014are good, actually. And avoiding them can do more harm than good when it comes to health and fitness.<\/p>\n
To find out how much carbohydrate you’re actually getting, any nutrition app (like Cronometer<\/a>, which is free) can keep track of how many grams of carbs you get throughout the day. If you use an AI-based tool, like the chatbots built into many wearable apps these days, make sure to double-check against the food’s actual label to be sure it’s tracking the grams of carbs correctly. <\/p>\n Don\u2019t confuse low-carb diets with healthy eating<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve often said<\/a>, the things we do to lose weight are not the same as things that make us healthier. You can lose weight on a low-carb diet, and that\u2019s fine. But that doesn\u2019t mean that avoiding carbs is going to make you healthier in general.<\/p>\n And in fact, a lot of the downsides of dieting can be improved by allowing yourself more carbs. The fact that low-carb and higher-carb diets can both work for weight loss<\/a> does not mean that they are equivalent in every way. People who eat more carbs tend to have less fatigue during exercise and get to be more flexible in their diet, whether they are trying to lose weight or not.<\/p>\n Carbs include sugar, starch, and fiber<\/p>\n Before we get deeper into this subject, let\u2019s talk about what carbs are. Pretty much everything we eat can be categorized as a fat (including oil), a protein, or a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates, or carbs, include:\u00a0<\/p>\n Sugars, including table sugar, glucose, and fructose. There are naturally occurring sugars in fruits, vegetables, and milk.<\/p>\n Starches, which plants use as a form of carbohydrate storage. White bread and white rice are examples of foods that contain a lot of starch without much else.<\/p>\n Fiber, which our bodies can\u2019t completely digest. Different types of fibers are found in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and beans.<\/p>\n You may hear about \u201ccomplex\u201d carbs. To a biochemist, starches and fiber are both complex carbs. But the term has been misused to mean \u201cfoods with fiber in them,\u201d like fruits and whole grains. White bread is full of complex carbs, so don\u2019t take this distinction too literally.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s important to remember is that sugars and starches can both be broken down to create energy for our body fairly quickly. Fiber slows down this process, but so do fats and protein. So if you need fast energy when you\u2019re in the middle of a run, you may prefer sugars or starches. If you want a full meal that you can digest over time, giving you all its various healthy benefits, foods with fiber, protein, and fats will be good for you\u2014but these meals can include sugars and starches in the mix as well.<\/p>\n Sugar isn\u2019t poison or toxic<\/p>\n It\u2019s not great to get a lot of added sugar in your diet; that much is true. And most Americans do get a lot of added sugar in our diet, far more than our bodies can put to good use. I\u2019m not endorsing that excess. (Most of us would probably be better off if we cut out at least some of that sugar.)<\/p>\n But I am saying that we need to pay attention to why too much sugar is bad, and not overreact by demonizing sugar or saying it\u2019s poison, it\u2019s toxic, and that it needs to be eliminated. There\u2019s absolutely no reason to believe those myths. Too much sugar is bad for us because sugar is a dense source of \u201cempty\u201d calories<\/a>. But our bodies can deal with a moderate amount of sugar just fine.\u00a0<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re an athlete\u2014even a recreational one, somebody who likes to jog and lift\u2014you may find that simple carbs like sugar help to fuel your workouts. That, in turn, lets you do more quality exercise. Take marathoners as an example: sucking down packet after packet of sugary gels is not natural or normal; but neither is running 26.2 miles at a steady pace without stopping. The one fuels the other<\/a>. Even if you want to make an argument about what humans evolved to do, you\u2019ll need to come to terms with the fact that hunter-gatherers eat a lot of honey<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carbs can reduce fatigue before and during workouts (and maybe also in your daily life)<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever felt pooped during a long workout, you might chalk that up to the workout itself. But people who are either dieting or who are choosing to eat \u201cclean\u201d may feel this way because they\u2019re short on carbs.\u00a0<\/p>\n What do you think so far?<\/p>\n I say this based partly on research that has shown fueling to make a huge difference for endurance athletes, as in my example above about marathoners. That much is scientifically established.\u00a0<\/p>\n The other part is a mostly anecdotal, but strongly supported-by-anecdote observation, that people who eat carbs before their workout tend to feel more energetic in those workouts. It\u2019s why the best stim-free preworkout, if you want to avoid caffeine, is called eating a damn snack<\/a>. If you\u2019ve been doing fasted cardio<\/a>, or you\u2019ve been eating keto all day long and then trying to grit your teeth through a workout when you\u2019re exhausted, try having some carbs before your workout. You\u2019ll feel a world of difference.<\/p>\n