Good evening everyone! After spending last week talking about the processes our body goes through in order to absorb nutrients and digest our foods, I want to use the rest of January to talk about the individual nutrients, starting today with carbohydrates (CHOs). There are many fad diets out there today that use limitation of carbohydrates in order to help us loose weight, but these are not necessarily the best way to go about dieting because our body still needs carbohydrates, perhaps we just need to rethink the way and the amount of CHOs we are consuming. Therefore, it is vital to understand what carbohydrates are, how they work in our body, what they function as in our body, and how carbohydrates are essential for exercise.
Carbohydrates make up a total of about 3% of the body's organic matter. They are compounds that are formed from one atom of carbon and two atoms of hydrogen for each oxygen atom (CH2O). The different carbohydrates are simply formed with different numbers of oxygen atoms. For example, glucose is formed with six oxygen atoms, so it's chemical formula is C6H12O6.
Carbohydrates are categorized into three major classes. The first is Monosaccharide, which is composed of simple sugar units such as glucose, fructose, and galactose. Monosaccharide essentially means sugar. Along with polysaccharides, monosaccharides are the most common type of carbohydrate. All carbohydrates we eat are broken down and absorbed as glucose (a type of sugar) into the body. The second class of carbohydrates are disaccharides. Disaccharides are a combination of two or more monosaccharides. Classic examples of this are sucrose (or table sugar) which is a combination of glucose and galactose, lactose which is a combination of glucose and galactose, and maltose which is a combination of two glucoses. Finally, the last class of carbohydrates is polysaccharide. These are three or more simple sugars. There are two main kinds of polysaccharides: plant starch which comes from vegetables or plant cellulose which contains fiber and animal glycogen.
Once eaten, carbohydrates are digested and absorbed into the bloodstream through the small intestine. The fibers contained in carbohydrates, however, are not digested. Instead they are excreted after everything else is absorbed. When we consume carbohydrates, our body takes in blood glucose. The glucose can then go to one of three places. If our muscles need it, the glucose will create the production on insulin and will go into the muscle. If the muscle does not need it, the glucose will go into the liver, then it will either be excreted through the kidney or it will go into our adipose tissues (or fat cells) to be stored.
Interestingly enough, carbohydrates have a lot to do with the production of insulin because the repeated intake of simple sugars causes insulin production in order to remove these carbohydrates from the blood. Therefore, if you are too low on sugars, you can be hypoglycemic, but if you have too much sugar, you will be hyperglycemic. If a person suffers from repeated bouts of hyperglycemia, where the body is constantly creating insulin in order to get the high amounts of sugar out of the bloodstream, the body will eventually have too much insulin and can become insensitive to insulin. This is called Type 2 Diabetes, or glucose deregulation because the pancreas will stop producing enough insulin since the body is no longer sensitive to it's effects. This type of diabetes used to be called Adult Onset Diabetes (because the patients are not born with a malfunctioning pancreas, as in Type 1 Diabetes, and it used to come about during adulthood), but now 1/3 of all new cases are occurring in children!
Carbohydrates are an important source of dietary fiber; however, it is important to eat the right kinds of carbohydrates in order to get those high in fiber. There are two kinds of dietary fiber: water insoluble fibers like cellulose and wheat bran which are non-digestible, and water soluble fibers such as oats, beans, rice, peas, carrots, and fruits. Having a diet high in fiber tends to lead to less gastrointestinal (digestion and excretion) problems. However, Americans have an extremely LOW average fiber intake. It is recommended to have between 20-35 grams of fiber a day, but Americans generally eat about 12 grams a day! Africans, on the other hand, eat about 40-150 grams a day. In addition to eating more fiber, it is important to gain this fiber from plant polysaccharide sources because these are lower in calories. This is not the case, however, with animal glycogen sources because animal products almost always have high fat intakes. One way to help you see which carbohydrates are in a product by looking at a Nutrition Contents table is to take a look where it says carbohydrates. It will give you a number, lets say 28 grams. Then underneath the main number, there will be a small breakdown, showing how much sugar and how much fiber is within that amount. The sugar amount is the amount of SIMPLE carbohydrates found in the product. The fiber is part of the complex carbohydrates. So simply subtract the grams of sugar listed from the total grams of carbohydrates and the number you are left with is the number of complex carbohydrates found in the product!
Carbohydrates have five main functions in the body. Most importantly, they are a source of energy. This energy, or calories, can be used to contract the muscles in the body and give us the energy to exercise our bodies. For every one gram of carbohydrate, we gain 4 calories. One small difference come with the carbohydrates in alcohol. Rather than the 1:4 ratio, with alcohol, every one gram of carbohydrate gives us 7 calories. Carbohydrates also function as a way to spare our protein (we don't want to use protein in our body, and instead want to save it), a metabolic primer (we need to consume some carbohydrates in order to stimulate fat burning), fuel for the brain, and for glycogen storage (which is converted to fuel in the body to help reduce fatigue).
Carbohydrates come from a bunch of different sources; such as dairy, fruits, cereals, meats, etc. However, it is important to know the kinds of carbohydrates that come from each one and what we are consuming. We want to consume much more complex carbohydrates, or polysaccharides, than simple sugars. We tend to have this backwards though. It is especially important to be careful of artificial, or chemical sweeteners. In small amounts, these sweeteners are not harmful. However, most products today have been loaded with one chemical sweetener you all will have heard of before: High Fructose Corn Syrup!
So what does all of this information mean for our diets? Unfortunately, unlike lipids and proteins, we do not know an exact amount for how much intake of carbohydrates is too much or too little. We do know that about 50-70% of our total caloric intake comes from carbohydrates. Therefore, we should focus on the types of carbohydrates we are consuming and have a majority of them come from polysaccharides, or complex carbohydrates! It is also important to consume carbohydrates, like any nutrient, in moderation. Over consumption of any nutrient can lead to weight gain!
A lot of information is out there about the glycemic index of foods too. So what does it mean when a food has a high or low glycemic index. The glycemic index is basically another way of saying how fast the sugar is processed and transported into the bloodstream. The higher the glycemic index number, the more insulin the pancreas will create. Soft drinks have the highest glycemic index.
Finally, carbohydrates are also important for exercise and recovery. Before beginning to exercise, it is good to get the blood glucose circulating in order to provide energy to burn, or as a metabolic primer, while you exercise. A really good solution, instead of drinking a exercise drink solution that may actually decrease circulation of blood glucose, is to put a pinch of salt in a glass of cool water. This is enough to keep the blood glucose circulating for about thirty minutes prior to your exercise. Consuming glucose during the workout only really helps in exercise intensities of 60-80%. Use carbohydrate drinks at regular intervals in low concentrations about every 20 minutes. After exercising, it is important to keep as hydrates as possible and maintain/build up blood glucose. In order to do this, you do NOT want to consume high glycemic sugars. You simply want to stimulate the pancreas just a little, so don't overdo it. During this time, there is also a window of opportunity for protein to go into the muscle. Therefore, a great post workout drink is a glass of non-fat milk!
With intense exercise, more glucose and glycogen is going to be broken down to be used as fuel. A lot of carbohydrates will be used during intense workouts, whereas less carbohydrates will be used with lighter exercise. Glycogen can also affect endurance exercise. If the body's glycogen content is higher, the individual will have better and longer endurance than those with low glycogen content.
One final note I want to make about carbohydrates is to all those athletes out there. Ever wonder why many sport teams have a big pasta night the night before a big sporting event? This phenomena is called carbohydrate loading and is intended to help athletes extend their endurance! By consuming a diet of about 70-80% of low glycemic sugars before a big exercise day, the body will shove more CHO than usual into the muscle and liver, allowing the body to extend it endurance level and hopefully increase the athlete's performance!
Well, that's all for carbohydrates. It's a lot of information, but hopefully you all will come away from today's discussion with a little more knowledge on the mysterious carbohydrate. It is important to remember that with all the fad diets out there today, it is never a good idea to completely eliminate one nutrient from your diet. Instead of staying away from carbohydrates, just re-evaluate the kinds of carbohydrates you are consuming and try to eat a majority of complex carbohydrates rather than simple! Happy Eating!
Today's Workout: For today's workout, I participated in my first ever Yoga class! It was a good strengthening workout that lasted for an hour. It is good to alternate the kinds of workouts you do each week. I mostly do cardio type workouts, but today was a good strength conditioning workout and I would love to find a class or a trainer who could help me learn how to do some weight training one day a week. So, if you have a class or gym available to you, try to participate in a yoga class today. If not, grab a mat (or some bare hard floor) and try out some yoga poses like mountain, warrior 1, warrior 2, cobra, and downward dog. Better yet, if you don't have a gym membership or weekly yoga classes you can take at a local studio, grab a DVD yoga workout and try out one of the sessions right in your living room. Today's challenging poses were the Bird of Paradise as well as the full pigeon. See what you can do to challenge yourself today!
Today's Food Tip: Every year, people are finding it harder and harder to eat the correct amount of fruits and veggies. In order to help yourself focus more on eating fruits and vegetables, try to eat one vegetarian meal a day; whether it is one of the three main meals or a snack during the day. OR try to incorporate at least one fruit or one veggie into every meal. Just today I chopped up a banana to put in my cheerios, added a side of salad and a side of corn to a bean and cheese burrito I had for lunch, and chopped up some broccoli into my potato soup for dinner. It is important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables to make sure to make them a priority in every meal!
Today's Relaxation Activity: Today I want to encourage you all to try a relaxation pose we practiced in my yoga class today. To do this pose, lie on your back on a padded surface. Keep your hands palm down at your sides and either have your legs straight out in front of you or do a butterfly pose with them (bend your legs at the knees and bring your feet together so that your knees are pointed to the right and left of you). Put a warm cloth over top of your eyes and clear your mind while you just lie there for a few minutes. You can even listen to some soothing music. Just focus on your breathing and let your body relax, sinking into the floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment