Throughout the years fad diets tend to cycle through the media, now more than ever since everyone has access with the touch of a finger. You can find just about anything on the internet to support your views. One ‘fad’ that tends to always be around is that carbs make you fat. This is far from the truth, however, context matters. Say your sources of carbohydrates tend to just be donuts, cookies, potato chips and French fries. Chances are, yes, absolutely carbs are going to make you fat. Like anything, it’s all about choices. You can chose to have your carbohydrates come from highly processed foods, which if your calories are low enough, it may not make you gain weight on the scale. This approach is not ideal for longevity or for your health though. So let’s start going through some of the myths around carbohydrates…

Myth #1 – You cannot lose weight if you’re eating carbs

Carbohydrates tend to get a bad rap in the health and fitness world because a lot of foods that are high in carbohydrates tend to be highly processed foods or foods with a lot of sugar. In this case, if those are your sources of carbohydrates, it will in fact be hard to lose weight. If you’re trying to gain more lean body mass by building muscle and cutting down your body fat, carbohydrates can actually be a great tool. People who are huge supporters of diets like Keto that are very low carb and high fat tend to focus all their time and energy on the fact that when your body doesn’t have the carbs to burn, it burns fat instead. Scientifically, this is absolutely true. However, your body can only do this for so long. The truth of the matter is, you can lose just as much weight eating carbohydrates as you can by cutting them out completely. It’s also much healthier and more sustainable, your quality of life is also going to be much better.

So what carbs should I eat? Glad you asked! The carbohydrates that you digest the easiest. Typically carbohydrates along with dairy are the foods that people tend to see food intolerances with. Someone with celiac disease shouldn’t get their carbohydrates from grains that have gluten, rather, they should resource their carbohydrates from things like sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, and so on. White rice tends to be a very easily digestible food for most people and super easy to make, just stick it in a rice pot and it’s done. Fruits and vegetables are a great source. My biggest beef with diets like keto is it’s hard to have a wide range of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Most fruits are high in carbohydrates due to its natural sugars, along with most root vegetables and starchy vegetables like potatoes. You need a variety of these foods in your diet or you can start to create nutrient deficiencies.

This is by no means medical advice, if your doctor has prescribed you to go on a low carb diet due to an illness like diabetes. Always listen to your doctor before you listen to some advice on the internet.

Myth #2- I don’t want to eat carbs so my body burns fat for energy instead

This is an argument that pretty much anyone who loves keto says. While it’s true that when you’re in ketosis your body starts to use fat as an energy source, the question is, is this the most effluent way to burn energy? I’m sure most of you have heard the term “carb load,” most of the time in the context of exercising. You would usually hear it from athletes like runners and other endurance athletes. Now wait a second, athletes…athletes tend to be pretty fit right? And athletes are loading up on carbs? Yes! The term “carb load” is used by athletes and others. Endurance athletes tend to “bulk” on their carbs before an event such as running a marathon. Now, if you follow all the advice from your friend who is anti-carb then she would probably tell you something like, “oh, you’re running a race tomorrow, you’re going to burn so much fat if you don’t eat any carbs.”

Carbs are the greatest source of energy for our body! Can we live without carbs? Yes, carbs are not completely essential to our diet like dietary fat or protein. But again, is it the most efficient? The reason why athletes bulk with carbs before an event is so that they have the greatest amount of energy before the event. A lot of times when people make the switch to a low carb diet they’ll get what people call “the keto flu,” one of the biggest symptoms of this is lack of energy. Well, you essentially gave this “flu” to yourself by depriving the body of the best energy source. Now this eventually does go away, like anything, your body adapts.

If you’re trying to get stronger at the gym, hit PRs, It would be best not to cut out the carbs for the best energy results.

Myth #3- Carbs are bad for you

I will say, there are definitely way more carbohydrate dominant foods that are bad for you than anything else. Like anything, it’s all about choices. Let’s look at a couple of examples:

A basic 3” diameter chocolate chip cookie has about 20 carbs. A large honey crisp apple has almost 30 carbs. So I should eat the chocolate chip cookie because it has less carbs and therefore, is more healthy, right?

Or let’s take a snickers bar, has about 30 grams of carbs. 2 cups of carrots also have about 30 carbs. So I could eat the snickers or the carrots and it would be the same?

Do you notice how silly that all sounds?

While the carb content may be the same, the chocolate chip cookie and the snickers bar lacks most of the vitamins and minerals that the carrots and the apple have.