How exactly does high-carb food affect our bodies? Does high-carb food help maintain good overall health? If so, then why is it that high-carb food has been linked to diabetes and various heart diseases? To clarify it once and for all, we will answer these questions here.
Good Carbs and Bad Carbs
Carbohydrates are a tricky business because there are good carbs and bad carbs. Basically, when our body intakes food, it breaks down the carbohydrates into sugar, which becomes glucose. The glucose is the primary factor responsible for giving our body the energy it needs.
If carbohydrates actually contribute to giving us energy, then how can it be bad? Well, that’s because the nutritional value of carbohydrates differs from one food type of food to another. Good carbs are those that are high in fiber, as well. Fiber is what helps slow down the process of breaking down the carbohydrates, regulating the sugar level that your body receives.
On the other hand, bad carbs do not have as much fiber as good carbs, which means that the body breaks the carbohydrates down easily. The body then receives a sudden spike in glucose. When the body digests sugar very quickly, your sugar level will rise and will also cause inflammation to your arteries.
When your heart’s arteries are inflamed, it will be difficult for blood to reach your heart. This means that the amount of blood that your heart pumps will dramatically decrease. Furthermore, since your blood carries oxygen, narrow pathway arteries will make it harder for your oxygen-rich blood to get to different body organs.
Additionally, bad carbs do not digest properly, and some of them turn to fat. Being overweight is one of the main reasons lots of people are afraid of high-carb food. However, if you understand the difference between good and bad carbs, it would be rather easier for you to maintain your weight or lose some of it.
Tips on Losing Weight
There are many methods and techniques you can find online or in various written articles that discuss how you can lose weight. Since you can easily get your hand on those guidelines, we’ve decided that we’d discussed some of the lesser-known tricks that you can do to lose weight.
Drink Water Before Meals
Water helps in dramatically increasing your body’s rate of metabolism. For one to two hours, your metabolism is increased by almost 30% when you drink water. This helps in burning more calories when you drink water around half an hour before any meal.
Avoid Soda
We already know that sugar is bad, but there is perhaps nothing worse than liquid sugar. This liquid sugar commonly found in soda is single-handedly the biggest contributor to obesity, having been linked to up to 60% increased risk in children if they are served soda daily.
You’re probably thinking that as an alternative, you’ll have fruit juice instead. However, sugar in liquid form is found in lots of fruit juice, as well, and the amount of liquid sugar in fruit juice is almost the same amount found in soft drinks. Whole fruits are fine since the carbs in whole fruits are complex, but fruit juice uses simple carbs with no nutritional value.
Additionally, this sugar liquid is not just damaging your body but is also causing cavities which result in tooth decay. If you wish to live a holistically healthier lifestyle, you should never forget about your teeth as well. Make sure that you know where to find a clinic for dental care and hygiene.
Drink Coffee
Drinking coffee also helps with reducing weight. Caffeine helps in boosting your body’s metabolism by up to 11%. It is also filled with other antioxidants that are beneficial for your health. Caffeine increases fat burn-up by almost 30%. However, it’s important to note that adding sugar or other calorie-loaded ingredients will cancel out these benefits.
Use Smaller Plates
This quite simple trick is being used recently by a lot of people. Although it is not proven to have a significant effect on everyone who does it, it wouldn’t hurt to try. Using smaller plates can somehow have a psychological effect on you and make you a bit conscious of your eating habits. Because of this, you may find yourself digesting fewer calories as you are well aware of what you put on your plate.
There are many things that we want to achieve in this lifetime, but all of these dreams and endeavors will not be possible without a healthy body. That is perhaps the exact reason why people would go to extreme lengths to guarantee that they live a healthy lifestyle. Maintaining a proper weight is one of the things that will help ensure this.
