If you are anything like most women, you want to know how to burn carbs and eat them too. Carbohydrates in moderation provide our body essential energy, and despite most diets suggesting to cut out carbs completely, it’s not the ideal answer to your weight loss goals.
The fact is, cutting carbs out of your diet is a short term fix, it’s 100% not sustainable long term. Far too often people go on crash diets by cutting out carbs, lose a ton of weight and then put even more weight back on when the diet becomes unsustainable.
Carbs have had such a bad reputation over the years for weight gain, cellulite and acne. But the fact is, carbs are not your enemy, well… not all of them anyway! It really depends on how, when and what type of carbohydrates you consume.
This article will educate you, so you don’t have to starve or deprive yourself of food, and show you how easy it is to burn them.
What Are Carbs?
Carbohydrates are one of three main nutrients found in all foods. Along with fat and protein, it’s all about moderation. Carbohydrates break down into glucose, and provides your bodies energy. You can find carbohydrates in bread, pasta, and potatoes.
What Carbs To Avoid
Many diets suggest cutting out carbs, however, carbs are crucial for providing energy. The key is to identify good and bad carbs, tailor your diet and food choices around a healthier choice.
Complex carbs: Carbs found in whole foods, fresh and unprocessed. This includes whole grain, sweet potato, nuts, seeds, beans, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Complex carbs are a healthy choice of carb in moderation, made up of fibre and/or starch.The carbs take longer to digest, leaving you fuller for longer, resulting in eating less and weight loss.
Simple carbs: Is an unhealthy option, they are processed, refined and stripped of their healthy nutrients, minerals and fibre. Simple carbs are unhealthy, and made up of refined sugars, you can find them in sodas, baked treats, cereals, fruit juice, and white pasta, bread and rice. The carb digest quickly, leaving you hungrier faster, risking you to eat more and gain weight.
How to burn carbs
There is absolutely no need to cut carbs out, eating healthy carbs in moderation, will give you the energy to be active, then burn carbs and lead to fat burn faster.
Your muscles burn carbs and fat when you exercise. A low-intensity workout will burn fat, and a lower intensity for a longer period will burn carbs.
It’s near impossible to determine the exact breakdown of carbs vs. Fat burn. Calories are a combination of both, and will help measure your success while working out. However, what we do know is that consuming more carbs than what your body burns will result in fat gain.
5 Natural Ways To Burn Carbs
We naturally burn off carbs by keeping active throughout the day; if we eat too many carbs without burning them off, it will lead to fat gain.
Here are a few natural ways you can burn carbs:
Mix up your exercises routine
It’s good to mix up your routine with high intensity and low intensity workouts. High intensity such as HIIT classes will burn fat, while low intensity such as jogging, running, cycling for longer periods will burn carbohydrates. Doing both each week will help you to lose weight faster.
You Portion control
To give you a rough guide, it’s recommended that 1/2 your plate to be vegetable or salad, 1/4 to be protein and the other 1/2 to be complex carbs; such as whole grain rice.
Balance your diet
Our bodies are extremely intelligent, and will adapt to unhealthy habits quick. But the good news is that they will also adapt to change quickly but introducing healthier eating habits.
A high-carb diet will educate your body to use carbs for energy as a primary source, this isn’t good as it means that you won’t burn fat, as you are simply just burning carbs as you eat them.
However, carbs in moderation, including lots of protein and healthy quality fats will provide your body with the right fuel to burn fat and effectively lose fat fast.
Avoid sugary drinks before a work out
This includes sugary protein shakes, bars and other energy sources. Our bodies use glucose as the prime source of energy when exercising. Should you drink a sugary protein shake or bar pre-workout, you risk your body using the sugar from the pre-workout snack or drink, rather than the stored fuel that will burn fat.
Strength Training
Carbs provide the fuel your body needs to lift weights and tone your body. If you don’t include the right amount of carbs in your diet, your body will use the energy from proteins and healthy fats, therefore, preventing the protein and healthy fat being used to build new muscle tone.
Eat more regularly
Consider eating 4-6 smaller meals per day, rather than 2-3 large meals. When you eat smaller meals, it’s easier for your body to digest and burn off the carbs. It’s also a good idea to eat carbs first thing, and avoid lots of carbs in the evening. This way you can burn the carbs throughout the day and avoid the risk of not being able to burn the carbs when you sleep, which can cause the carbs to store as fat.
How to burn carbs – Conclusion
Embrace healthy complex carbs in moderation, in addition with an active lifestyle. Our body needs carbs to provide us energy, and to be healthy and fit.
If you are looking for more ways to improve weight-loss, consider a detox or affirmations to speed up weight loss fast.
I want to burn carbs and eat them too!!