When people talk about getting leaner for summer and going on a mission to reveal that rock hard six pack abs buried under a comfortable layer of cushion, 8 out of 10 times you’ll hear people announcing that they will either eliminate carbs, fats or both these macronutrient groups from their diet all together. And of course, this time they will stick to the plan until the goal is reached! If this sounds like you, listen up my friend. I can guarantee that if you want the rest of your life to be a miserable experience and if you want to be known as the guy or girl who’s a pain in the ass to be around because they’re always in a bad mood, then I indeed highly recommend that you eliminate all forms of carbs and/or fats from your diet immediately!
For the rest of you who want to get rid of those extra pounds that make you look softer and doughier than you wish to be when you look into the mirror, yet want to make both your life and fat loss journey an enjoyable experience, then I strongly suggest that you don’t eliminate carbs and fats from your diet. On the contrary, I advise you to load up on carbs and fats, since they are actually very important macronutrients for our bodies to function at their best. People always need a black sheep to put the blame on. When it comes to fitness and nutrition, things aren’t any different. People love to demonize either carbs, fats or both of them. Because carbs and fats don’t have a lawyer to defend them, I will take that role upon myself and will be carbs and fats lawyer during this trial. I will teach you why carbs and fats are not public enemy number one, why you should not abstain from them and why it’s absolutely highly recommended to eat a decent amount of both carbs and fats if you wish to transform and maintain your physique in an enjoyable and sustainable way.
The demonization of carbs and fats
During the 90’s people were slamming low fat potato chips down their throats and they binge watched Will Smith’s new big hit series, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Why the low fat chips and not the regular ones you might ask? Because somewhere in the back of their minds, they believed that eating dietary fat made you fat. This one of the biggest nutritional myths that haunted the 90’s and caused lots of people, ranging from body builders to desperate housewives, to avoid using any cooking oils. People who were nutritionally woke were eating bland, dry foods such as boiled chicken breast with a side of boiled brussels sprouts and boiled rice. I love all those ingredients, but I can guarantee you that I need a healthy amount of butter or olive oil to make these things taste good. The sad thing about all of this, is that despite the 90’s having ended for quite a good amount of time now, a lot of people still believe this ‘eating-fat-makes-you-fat-myth’ today. Sadly, despite eating bland and tasteless meals, a lot of people don’t take into consideration the most important weight loss factor and don’t lose any weight on a low fat diet.
The 90’s came to an end and the year 2000 opened its doors for the nillies. While a lot of people still maintained their false nutritional beliefs about fat being an enemy during, a new villain entered town. That villain’s name was carbohydrates. It suddenly hasn’t been the first time in history that people believed that carbohydrates were the root of all evil and made you fat, but low carb diets people the hype again. Nutritional wizards had suddenly come to the realization that they should spread the message that weight maintenance and especially fat storage was largely dependent on blood sugar level and insulin regulation. They preached that as your body digests the carbohydrates you ate, blood sugar levels rise and insulin gets released and that this caused all foods to be stored as body fat immediately! While it’s true that insulin does play a role in fat storage, it’s not all that black and white and people completely missed the point of the research. This is the period in which paleo and primal diets started to dominate the scene. While it certainly wasn’t a bad thing to focus primarily on micronutrient rich, unprocessed foods, cutting out all carb sources certainly isn’t the answer.
Why carbs and fats are essential to our health, our performance and quality of life
Before you buy into any fad diet trap, hear me out. Carbs and fats are not the enemy and are necessary if you want to maximize your health and quality of life. Carbohydrates are your body’s preferred source of fuel to perform any activity. Carbohydrates help to replenish the body’s glycogen stores. Having well filled glycogen stores will make a massive difference in your workout performance or any other physical activity for that matter compared to performing those same activities with empty glycogen reserves. Not only are they helpful in optimizing your performance, they are extremely important for adequate recovery from your workouts and therefore they also massively impact the way you feel. What a lot of people don’t know is that eating a good amount of carbs on a regular basis helps to regulate cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone and is the antagonist of testosterone. When cortisol levels rise, testosterone levels drop. Obviously, this is something men don’t want to happen. Your hormonal profile is the mirror of your health. When you eat sufficient amounts of carbohydrates to fuel your workouts and daily activities and to ensure proper recovery from those workouts and daily activities, you put your body in a state where cortisol is kept low and testosterone levels are kept high. As a result, you will feel amazing, perform amazing and be a happier human.
Obviously, there are plenty of carbohydrate sources ranging from natural and unprocessed to extremely highly processed. For fat loss purposes, one isn’t necessarily better than the other when the law of thermodynamics (calories in vs calories out) is respected. The major difference between them are the micronutrients they contain and the effect they have on your body’s health state. Fruits for example, are packed with vitamins and are a gift of God to nourish our bodies and to take care of any micronutrient deficiencies. These micronutrients are building blocks your body uses to create hormones and regulate countless of processes that take place in your body. When people are getting in a sufficient amount of calories, macronutrients and micronutrients, the body is provided with the necessary building blocks to operate in an optimal fashion. This will be reflected by an optimized hormonal profile, feeling great and energetic, feeling fueled and having good workouts, sleeping well and feeling refreshed after a good night’s sleep and having a great sex life. Great micronutrients rich carb sources are a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, roots and tubers. Fantastic starchy carb sources that will be responsible for replenishing your glycogen stores are potatoes and sweet potatoes, white rice and quinoa.
Just like carbs, fats are very important to optimize your health when consumed from the right sources. Fats also play a major role in testosterone synthetization and to make you feel good. The reason a lot of people demonize fats is because they are more calorie dense on a gram to gram basis when compared to protein and carbohydrates. Fat provides an amazing fuel source for the human body and when obtained from mainly quality saturated fats (yes, you read that right) and mono unsaturated fatty acid sources, you will do your body a favor. Remember that quality carbohydrate sources contain vital micronutrients for the body? Well, carbs aren’t the only ones who are packed with micronutrients. There are certain vitamins and minerals which can only be found in fatty acid sources. These are the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Rob your body from these and your health will take a hit. They are essential to make our body as strong as possible. Your body needs fat to synthesize testosterone. Want to have problems in the bedroom as a man? Stop eating fat and you’ll notice a decrease in libido and sexual performance. As a result of lowered testosterone levels, you’ll simply feel like crap. Having lower testosterone levels will simply make you feel less good. It will make you feel tired and sluggish. Amazing fat sources for optimal health and testosterone levels are grass fed butter, eggs, quality dairy such as cheese and yoghurt, coconut oil, olive oil, avocados and quality meats such as grass fed beef.
Both carbs and fats play extremely important roles in our bodies. We need them to obtain optimal health, to let our bodies operate in an optimal way, to fuel our workouts and recover from them. We need them to have a strong libido and well-functioning reproductive systems and to simply feel our best and to perform our best in every aspect of our lives.
The real reason why carbs and fats are perceived as evil
People love put the blame on external factors for the things that go wrong in their own lives, even when the fact of matter is that they themselves tend to be responsible for the choices that lead to negative situations. The true reason why carbs and fats are being pointed at as the bad guy, is because foods that tend to be high in both carbs and fats are simply delicious and cause a drug like effect of happiness in our brains when we consume them. As a result, people have trouble resisting the temptation to eat more and more of those foods and they overeat… by a serious amount of energy and it happens of a regular basis. What happens is that all those extra pieces of pie, pastry, candy, chocolate, you name it, end up in a huge calorie surplus for a sustained period of time. This is the fast lane to being overweight. A lot of restaurants such as fast food chains have been searching for that specific flavor combination to keep your brain hooked on their products. That’s why you enjoy their food, but never seem to feel satisfied and are always thinking about ordering another burger or another portion of fries. A lot of the problems people think are associate with carbs and fats aren’t actually caused by the consumption of these macronutrient groups in and of itself. High blood pressure, diabetes, erectile problems and other common complaints are a side effect of being overweight and not getting enough physical activity. Those are the two major culprits of most modern diseases. If people would simply learn how to manage their weight by keeping track of their calories or learning about portion control if you don’t want to count calories and do some form of physical activity on a regular basis, then a lot of the problems people deal with would be easily solved.
Weight maintenance is all about calories in vs calories out. It’s all a game of energy balance. Macronutrient groups by themselves don’t make people fat. People become fat because they eat too many calories, because they consume too much energy on a frequent basis. There’s nothing magical about carbohydrates, nor is there something otherworldly about fats. They are just energy sources and in many cases people use them to create food combinations that taste amazing. So there’s absolutely no reason at all to ban carbs, fats or any other macronutrients out of your diet. The key is to balance things out and take responsibility for the amount of calories you put into your mouth on a daily basis.
The right approach to eating carbs and fats
As I’ve mentioned before. If you want your body to operate in an optimal fashion, wish to optimize your hormonal profile, have fantastic workout and simply want to feel amazing, then take my advice to heart and eat your carbs and fats! What you need to realize is that you will do your body good if you stick mainly to carb and fat sources that nourish your body and don’t contain any garbage that may harm it. This will give your body the building blocks it needs to continue to operate its vital processes and will cause you to feel satiated faster when compared to eating a diet full of processed, micronutrient void garbage.
Focus on eating quality carb sources such as fruits, vegetables, starchy tubers such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, roots, wild rice and quinoa. Quality fat sources will be products like olives and olive oil, coconuts and coconut oil, grass fed butter, ghee, eggs, avocado, quality dairy products such as natural yoghurt and cheeses. Combine these quality food sources with the principle of calories in vs calories out, respect your protein intake and pick up a weight training routine. I guarantee you that you will be able to rock the body of your dreams without having to live a miserable life void of carbs and fats.
Obviously I’m not saying that one can never treat himself with something sweet. Staying in shape is all about balance. Remember that I said that products which are the combination of carbs and fats give a heavenly flavor that has our brains hooked? Well, what I do and what has helped many people is to adopt the 80/20 approach. 80 percent of my daily calories comes from quality, micronutrient dense food sources that will take care of my health. Like many people though, I have a sweet tooth and I definitely enjoy something sweet on a daily basis. I leave a little room in my daily calories each and every day for something sweet such as a magnum ice cream or snickers ice cream… I’m a sucker for ice cream, even during the winter months. I also love pastry and chocolate, so it’s always a battle between pastry, ice cream or chocolate. Usually I’ll alternate between the three of them.
My daily diet consists of about 2500 calories. About 2000 to 2200 calories come from the combination of quality protein sources, quality carb sources and quality fat sources. That leaves me with a 300-500 calorie room to fill up with a heavenly treat so that I can end my day with a smile. The key to maintaining results in the long term is balance. Nobody can go into extremes all the time without feeling like shit. You can have your cake and eat it too, you just have to find the discipline to control your portions and stick to your calorie target for the day.