Carbohydrates: Good or Bad?

Author's Bio: Marcie Vaske, MS, LN, CNS

Hi, and welcome back to our channel.

Today we're going to discuss carbohydrates and answer the question of are they good or bad?

First, we'll talk about the benefits of carbohydrates as well as different types of carbohydrates and how you can add carbs into a balanced approach for your meals. And then answer the question,

Is there different timing that could be involved when eating carbohydrates?

But first, before we dig into the topic, my name is Marcie Vaske and I'm a functional licensed nutritionist with Oswald Digestive Clinic. And I'm going to link our free guide, which is Five Ways to Improve your Gut Health.

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

So let's dig back into our topic of carbohydrates.

Are Carbohydrates Good or Bad?

And carbohydrates are neither inherently good or bad, but rather the impact on our health comes down to the quality of the carbohydrate. First, we have complex carbohydrates, which are commonly found in whole grains as well as fruits and vegetables and are usually typed as good carbohydrates. And then we have more simple carbohydrates, which would be sugar, or you can find it more in processed foods, which is not going to be the best type of carbohydrate.

Benefits of Carbohydrates

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And carbohydrates are really our body's primary source of fuel. They help to support our brain, our kidneys, our heart, our muscles, as well as our nervous system and our digestive system. If you've ever done a low, low carbohydrate diet or taken carbohydrates out of your diet, you can end up with symptoms of maybe fatigue, headaches, dizziness, feeling weak. And so that alone shows you how important carbohydrates are in our daily diet.

So the different types of carbohydrates is complex carbohydrate, which will be found in our whole grains, our vegetables, and our fruits. Those types of carbohydrates also help to slow down our digestion, which in turn helps our blood sugar.

And then we have those simple carbohydrates, which are typically found in processed foods or refined sugars, white breads, things of that nature. And that simple carbohydrates actually digest very quickly, which has more of an impact on our blood sugar. Due to that, we oftentimes, if our diet is higher in simple carbohydrates, it can increase our weight. And in addition to that, can increase risks of heart disease, diabetes, because of the inflammatory effect it has on our body.

So now that we know the two different types of carbohydrates and how their impact is felt within our body, is there, the question of carbohydrate intake as well as the impact on our health overall and impact of carbohydrates on our health has really come down to the type of carbohydrate that you're consuming. And in your meals, you may have heard that eating carbohydrates after 8:00PM is going to turn into weight around the middle. But really, our body can process carbohydrates just as it can process any of our macronutrients. It really comes down to how many carbs are in balance with our proteins and our healthy fats within our meal. Also, how many carbohydrates are you eating daily? So if your carbohydrate intake is higher than your other macros, which is protein and fat, can that be an imbalance? Yes, definitely.

So how can we balance these carbohydrates out in our daily food intake?

And the best approach is to keep it in moderation with the amount of protein you ingest as well as the fats in the meals. So for example, if you're going to do a sweet potato, usually a typical serving of a sweet potato would be a half a cup, and that would be paired with four or five or six ounces of protein and then some healthy fats.

Now, if you did rice, that could be either a third to a half a cup. You're really looking at the amount of carbs that that particular food has. So overall, it's really more about the amount that you're intaking and what then it's doing to your blood sugar. If we were to eat a far more amount of carbohydrate versus protein and healthy fats, that could increase our insulin.

Now, of course, like I said, that complex carbohydrates also contain fiber, and due to that fiber content that helps to slow down our digestion, which then keeps our blood sugar more stable. Let's say you're eating a high amount of cereal and maybe you had an egg and then there's some fat in the milk that you are eating the cereal with, oftentimes cereal is going to contain a lot more of those simple sugars, which would increase your blood sugar and then create more of an impact on your overall health.

So we've talked about the different types of carbohydrates, how to put them together within a meal.

So what are the very best carbs to consume?

Because we want to keep carbohydrates in our daily diet to give us what it helps to support our brain health, our muscle function, our heart function, also our blood sugar. And so you want to maintain more of the complex carbohydrates which can be found in those whole grains. So grains like quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat, couscous, or in star or vegetables such as sweet potato, white potato, beet root. Those are going to help to have a nice amount of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and also some fiber in addition to that, complex carbohydrates can also be found in fruits, right? So bananas, apples, oranges, any strawberries, you're going to get those minerals, antioxidants, vitamins as well as some fiber. And then beans.

Beans are also a good choice for a carbohydrate. They're rich in fiber and in other vitamins and minerals. Now, the complex carbohydrates are what we want to consume primarily in our diet. And of course, there are going to be the simple carbs that come into effect too in the way of refined sugars in processed foods. If your diet is high in processed foods or sugary drinks or sugary foods, you are increasing that insulin in glucose in your body, which is not going to do us any favors. When we have high amounts of simple carbohydrates in our diet, we are more inflamed, our joints might hurt more, our guts might not feel very good. And so by reducing those or eliminating those simple carbohydrates, you're going to find much better blood sugar balance and much better nutrition overall.

So how many carbohydrates do you need in a typical day?

And usually you want to keep the carb content at about 150 grams a day. And that's really going to be for an average person who is doing some working out eating whole healthy foods. If you are an athlete, your carb content could go much higher. And if you're very sedentary, your carb content may have to be lower. So it's really understanding where you are and what your needs are.

Now again, keeping those complex carbohydrates in will help support your blood sugar. If you're getting too many of those simple carbs, you may end up with more blood sugar issues, blood as far as insulin resistance, and even turning into type two diabetes. So by using more of those complex carbs of grains and starchy vegetables and beans, that can help really support all of those putting you at less risk for any kind of blood sugar issues.

What is the importance of carbohydrate timing?

And as I said initially, if you have carbohydrates in the evening, that doesn't mean that your body is going to completely turn them into fat by morning time. And so, as I said a moment ago or earlier, that having that better balance is really an overall amount is more important and more impactful. Now, we do know that within our circadian rhythms, our body starts slowing down in the evening, we start feeling tired.

So if you're eating high amounts of simple carbohydrates, this can become a very big issue, but it can be an issue anytime of day. So if you're going to do carbs at night as, or even throughout the entire day, make sure they're complex carbohydrates. This way your body is digesting it more slowly, you're getting more nutrients and your blood sugar is staying more stable.

Oftentimes, it does feel better to eat an earlier dinner. So maybe you're aiming to eat your meals at five and no later than six so that you have time to digest the food and your body has time to process it and use it the way it needs to. And of course, always be mindful of the amount. So portion control, making sure that your amount of carbohydrates isn't much greater than the amount of healthy proteins that you're consuming and healthy fats. And if you are concerned about blood sugar issues, using a glucose monitor or a continuous glucose monitor can give you a lot of great insight into how your body is using complex and simple carbohydrates.

So I hope that this topic kind of opened some doors for you, gave you some more information as far as what kind of carbohydrates do you need, what should you stay away from, what is really the importance around keeping carbs in our daily diet, and how can you balance them. I think that there's no reason to get rid of all of the carbs that you're consuming if you do it in correct way of balance.

So thanks for watching today, and if you have questions, leave comments below as well. If you would like to make an initial appointment, I will link our website here where you can do so.

Thank you for watching. Bye-bye.

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If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic. We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.