Carbohydrates (carbs for short) come in two forms: - simple
- complex
Simple carbohydrates: are bad so they are the foods that taste good. (just kidding)
They are all the sweet things, made up of sugars and other sweet tasting substances. Most simple carbohydrates do not contain nutrients, vitamins, or anything else good for you. They tend to fill you up and thus take the place of foods that actually are good for you. You probably guessed them, but examples include pop, candy, cookies, cakes, and so on.
Of the total grams of carbohydrates you consume in a day, it is advisable to keep the number of simple carbohydrates under 10%.
Not all foods with sugars in them are bad. Milk and yogurt, as examples, contain these simple carbohydrates but they also contain numerous other nutrients (calcium and so on) such that these calories are not considered 'empty' calories. Two naturally occurring sugars -- fructose (found in fruits) and lactose (found in dairy products) are good for you because they show up in foods containing other nutrients.All the other 'ose' sugars -- maltose, dextrose, levulose, galactose, glucose and so on are sugars you want to avoid. Looking at food labels, the ingredients are listed in order of decreasing weight, thus the first ingredient is also the most abundant. If most of the ingredients are these simple sugars, you will want to steer clear of it. You also have to be careful of how many sugars are listed. Sugar may not be the first ingredient, but perhaps the next 3 are, so be sure to read the entire label.
Just so you know, sugar is not your enemy. It becomes a problem when it takes the place of other healthy nutrients and vitamins. If all your calories in a day come from sugars, your body is not getting what it needs to efficiently operate. It just so happens that foods high in sugar tend to be high in fat as well.
Complex carbohydrates: are the other end of the spectrum. These are the carbs you are looking for. Approximatel 50% (more on this later) of your total daily caloric intake should be carbohydrates of which 40% should be of the complex variety. These include such foods as grains and legumes. Fruits and vegetables are usually a good source of complex carbohydrates and fiber.
Carbohydrates are your energy source. Your body uses carbs to fuel its processes. Foods high in sugar have a high glycemic index number and result in a lot of insulin being produced. Insulin is a major factor in fat storage and it quickly mops up any sugar in the bloodstream. This causes our blood sugar level to decrease quickly resulting in feeling hungry again. So even though you just had a high calorie meal, you feel the need to eat again relatively soon after and the increased amount of insulin does an efficient job of storing fat. Thus, eating foods high on the glycemic index lend to overeating and subsequent obesity. Foods low on the glycemic index scale such as grains do not cause this increased insulin production by your pancreas. As such you tend to feel fuller longer.
That's great, how many carbs should I eat? We'll get to that in a minute, first you have to learn about fats.
(If you really can't wait, go straight to the carbohydrate calculator.)
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Weight gain
Doesn't Matter
Doesn't matter what you eat as long as you are eating the number of calories required to hit the target weight you want. If you are underweight, just increase your calories to create a caloric surplus until you reach your weight, and then eat only enough calories a day to maintain that weight.
If you are already eating plenty of healthy foods, likely you are getting a good balance of protein, carbs, and fats, so if you want to meet the caloric surplus with sugars, go ahead. However, if you start noticing some extra fat, then realize that you either are not training correctly to convert that caloric surplus into muscle or you are increasing muscle mass, but not at a rate equal to what you are taking in, so excess is being stored as fat.
In this case, you can either continue with your caloric surplus and reach a weight slightly higher than your target and then cut back the calories to come back down - thus ensuring you are maximizing muscle gain, or cut back on the calories, and more gradually reach your target weight without the addition of extra fat.
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