Are All Carbs Created Equal...?

Are all carbs created equal?

When you are chasing the physique of your dreams, and spending hours in the gym each week I can’t stress how important understanding your nutrition is!

We’ve all heard the term 30% training and 70% nutrition. While I prefer to think of it as 100% commitment to the entire process, training, nutrition and mindset. The point is if you are eating the wrong foods, you are not going to achieve the results you truly want, and it’s as simple as that.

For so many people who are getting into health and fitness and trying to make healthier nutrition choices, a common problem I always see is confusion over the differences in carbohydrates. This problem is often made worse by these fad diets that we all see on TV and in gossip magazines promoting ketogenic diets where carbohydrates are completely cut from the diet in order to lose weight fast. Ok, so yes this tactic may work in the short term, however it is not a sustainable or healthy way to go about things. 

The way I always recommend my clients, is to learn and understand what carbohydrates are, the ones to include in the diet, and the ones to avoid.

This brings me now to what are carbohydrates and why are they important?

Carbohydrates are one of the three major macronutrients our body needs to function, and one of the primary sources of energy production. Once carbohydrates are digested by the body they are converted into glucose and ready to be used as energy. Excess glucose is able to be stored in various places around the body until the energy is required. However the body is only able to store a certain amount of glucose, if there is a surplus of glucose it will be converted to fat for long-term storage in the body.

Not only is glucose the preferred fuel option for the body during physical exercise, the brain and other vital organs rely heavily on glucose supply to be able to function optimally.

Now you may think a carb is a carb… However this is far from the case.

Carbohydrates come in two forms, complex carbs and simple carbs. Also known as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ carbs.

We will start with the Simple Carbohydrates.

A simple carbohydrate generally is where the food has been heavily refined so that it has a short chain of sugar molecules, usually only one or two molecules. This makes the carbohydrate simple to digest and provides instant energy but wears off quickly. You will notice this when you have a soft drink such as Coke for example. The Coke will give you a quick sugar hit that is quickly digested and converted to glucose for the body to use as energy. Insulin is then released from the pancreas and this tells the body that it has just been fed, which stops the body from burning fat as fuel and onto the nutrients that have just been ingested. Also just like how insulin opens up muscle cells for nutrient delivery, it also opens up fat cells for nutrient storage to begin.

As you can see from this, spiking your insulin levels other than at times of exercise is a bad idea as it is directly promoting nutrients to be stored in the fat cells.

Pre and post workout spiking the insulin is however a good idea, as it opens the muscles cells for nutrient delivery that you should be fueling your body with around your workouts, but this topic is a blog post for another day!

Because most of these simple carbohydrates have been so heavily refined, they do not contain the vitamins, minerals and fiber that are found in the complex varieties. It is for this reason that simple carbs are often referred to as ‘empty calories’ due to the fact they have minimal nutritional value…if any.

While simple carbs are generally bad, there are however a couple of food types that fall into this category but act differently once inside the body and offer plenty of nutritional benefits. These are fruits and certain vegetables, so don’t go thinking that because they are technically listed as a simple carbohydrate that they should be avoided.

For individuals who are on serious fat loss nutrition plans (I’m talking getting below 10% body fat) I would recommend limiting fruit to 1 piece per day and preferably post workout, and opting for more low energy vegetables instead, due to the high fructose content found in fruits.

For the majority of people, even those on diets a couple of pieces of fruit a day is fine.

Simple carbs to avoid are:

• Fizzy drinks (Coke, Pepsi, and Lemonade etc.)
• Lollies (Candy)
• Chocolate
• Artificial Syrups
• Sugar
• White Bread
• White Pasta
• Pastries and Desserts

Complex carbohydrates are considered the ‘good’ carbs because of the fact that they are made up of long and complex chains of sugar molecules. This chain of sugars can be anywhere from three to hundreds of molecules long. This means it takes the body much longer to break them down and be released into the bloodstream for energy, and because of this they will keep you feeling fuller for longer. Unlike the simple carbohydrates which have refined or processed sugars, the sugar found in complex carbs are naturally occurring sugars and are far better for the body.

When consuming a healthy diet, the vast majority of your carbohydrate intake should be coming from the complex category. Not only are these slower digesting carbs, but they also contain high amounts of vitamins, minerals and fiber which are highly important for our health.

Sources of complex carbs:

·   Whole Grains – such as Brown Rice, Corn, Wheat, Oats, Quinoa etc.
·   Whole Grain Bread and Pasta
·   Nuts, Seeds and Legumes – such as Lentils, Kidney Beans, Split Peas, Chick Peas, Soy Beans etc.
·   Vegetables – such as Sweet Potato, Onions, Green Vegetables etc.

For people trying to gain lean muscle, you should be aiming for a serving of one of the above with each meal, plus a high quality protein source to give your body the best chance for growth.

Now that you have a basic understanding of the different carbohydrate types and how they digest, you will be able to make wiser choices next time you are at the supermarket. It may take a little time reading the labels until you are totally familiar with what carbohydrate is what type, but the more you do it the easier it becomes.

Another great way to remember things, is ‘if the food product is not going to go off and start rotting in a few days, it should probably be avoided’. Foods in their natural form are not meant to last, think fruits, vegetables and meat. This however does not apply to rice and beans etc. which will last a long time.

I hope this makes some sense to you all, and it gives you some clarity on which carbohydrates to be filling your shopping trolley up with!

If you would like more info on this topic, or you need some help achieving your goals, head on over to www.danwhitehandfitness.com

Alternatively email me at dan@danwhitehandfitness.com

Until next time!

Dan Whitehand

Why I love to train my body and push my limits...

Hey Guys,

So today I just want to write up on why I love weight training and pushing my body to it's limits.

It really isn't just about looking good at the beach or any superficial reason like that (although that is always a good bonus!).

Training your body and being serious about it, takes a lot of discipline, focus and patience, but by going through this it provides you with discipline, focus and patience in all aspects of your life, not just in the gym.

To successfully train your body into achieving great results, you must first train your mind to be mentally strong to push you through those days where you don't feel like hitting the gym, or those days at the gym where you're really struggling and want to just go home, even those last reps on each set where the pain is excruciating and all you want to do is drop the weights.
Pushing through on those days, and those last few reps, is what transforms you from average to great.

Anybody can go to the gym when they feel like it, and lift some weights until the pain starts then put it down.
It takes true determination and desire for success to actually turn up when you're tired or you don't feel too good. To push through those last reps when the muscle is burning so bad, but you know that this is where the growth comes from.
This is not for the weak minded.
This is hard, and that's why I love it..I mean if it was easy, the whole world would be walking around with amazing physiques right?

When you're in the gym, and you have giving it your all for the entire session, you get a release of endorphins that give you such a natural high, it would rival any chemical drug out there, and this natural high is as addictive as anything, and all you have to do to get it, is sweat for it.
You get this endorphins rush from a thing called 'the pump' (where your muscles are so inflated with blood and nutrients that you look pumped up) and if you've never experienced it, you don't know what you are missing...you've got to experience it!

Waking up the next morning after a killer gym session with DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is one of my favorite feelings. Yeah sure it can hurt sometimes, but it's not a bad pain, more of a satisfaction pain, because you know your body is about to grow and get stronger than it was yesterday.

Pushing beyond your comfort zone is the only way you grow in life, whether it's physically in the gym, mentally, emotionally etc. It is the corner stone of growth.

Yeah sometimes you may push your limits and fail...but if you never push yourself to your limits you will never know how far in life you can go...

Hip Flexors and why we should all be stretching them

Talking from experience here, I am telling you of the importance of stretching out your hip flexors on a regular basis.

Sitting down all day leaves the hips in the flexed state, which in turn will overtime lead to a shortened/tight hip flexor. Because as we know when a muscle is flexed or contracted it is shortening. Take the bicep muscle for example. When the elbow flexes the bicep muscle contracts and shortens, in turn bringing the forearm up closer to the shoulder.

The job of the hip flexor muscles is to flex the hip joint, which brings the leg up. Every step you take when walking is activating the hip flexors. When you are seated the leg is up, therefore the hip is in flexion.

A lot of people these days have jobs that require them to sit for long periods of the day, soon as they finish work they get into their car to drive home, which again puts them in the exact same position, and then the vast majority of the population will go home and sit on the couch and watch tv all night, again putting those hip flexors in that shortened state.

With these muscles in a shortened state for such long periods of time each day unless they are stretched out, muscle imbalances are going to eventually occur, leading to poor posture, injuries and/ or lower back pain.

Tight hip flexors will lead the glutes and hamstrings to become stretched and weak, and not used efficiently in functional movement. This then requires the quadriceps to take over the workload and do most of the work in basic movements like walking, standing, sitting etc. This will also then lead to tight quadriceps muscles.

Over time with the hip flexors and quadriceps being tight, and having weak glutes and hamstrings will cause the pelvis to tilt forward, creating an anterior pelvic tilt.

An anterior pelvic tilt is where the rear of the iliac crest (pelvis) sits noticeable higher than the front. Making it look like its sloping downwards, if looking from side on.

If this is left unattended it will lead to lower back pain in individuals due to the back extensors becoming so tight, and also creating lordosis in the lower spine, which is where the spine becomes over-arched.

Although this issue is much more common in sedentary people who do no physical activity, it can still affect people who are regularly active.

If you do have tight hip flexors you will notice it majorly affecting your squat performance as hip mobility is key for glute activation of the squat. With tight hip flexors it is highly likely that the deeper your squat goes, the further forward you will be leaning putting additional stress on the lower back. The more you lean forward during a squat motion the more it takes the work away from the glutes and slams the quads with having to do the majority of the work.

If you have noticed you may have this issue the good news is that its muscular related and fairly easy to correct, with some basic stretching exercises of the tight muscles, and strengthening exercises of the tight/weak muscles to bring that even balance back.

The muscles that are going to be tight and require stretching and foam rolling are the hip flexors, mainly the psoas, quadriceps and the back extensors.

The muscles that will require some strengthening will be the glutes, hamstrings and the abdominal muscles.

If you would like more information on this issues, or techniques in correcting these muscle imbalances shoot me an email at: dan@danwhitehandfitness.com