Back from vacation and it's taken me a little bit to get back in the swing of things. Seriously, how do pregnant people work full time?! Finally arrived to my second trimester, feeling good and looking forward to the increased energy everyone keeps promising I'll get.
Anyways, to continue in my basics series I thought I'd address carbs. I had a professor that wouldn't let us call them carbs in her class because of the negative association that dirty little word had. We were instructed to call them by their full name, carbohydrates. I'm going to rebel this entire blog post and use carbs. So what's the big deal about these guys? Seems like these days everyone's avoiding them. Low carb this, no grain this… I kinda feel bad for the little guys.
So what are carbs? Get ready for the boring science part…. Carbs are manufactured by plants and are a major source of energy. In nutrition they're categorized as monosaccharides, disaccharides and oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. So what does that mean? Well… a lot of it is structural chiral carbon stuff… which I don't even like thinking about because it just brings back nightmares from organic chemistry. Personally, I don't think this part is really important for your every day person just trying to eat a healthy diet… but it is important to know the terms and know that those things are carbs. Basically monosaccharides are single chains that are the building blocks for the other categories. The monosaccharides you're probably most familiar with are glucose, galactose, and fructose. When these guys combine in different ratios and patterns that's how you get your more complicated saccharides.
Sorry if that put you to sleep… I may have dozed off once or twice myself there. Back to the stuff that hopefully actually interests you. Why are carbs important? There's a specific type of monosaccharide that has a long, scientificy (yeah, totally just made that word up) name… for the sake of making this easy we are gonna refer to it as it's street name, blood sugar. Our brains depend on a regular, predictable supply of blood sugar… in fact, it's the only thing that feeds our brain because it's the only thing that can get past this blood brain mechanism our bodies have. So basically what I'm saying is… if you don't eat carbs your brain won't get fed and will have problems functioning correctly. Now, our bodies do have mechanisms to oxidize fat and make these things called ketones that our brains can use when we are in a pinch… but it's not something you want to do to it on a regular basis. Trust me, just eat your steady supply of carbs.
So why don't people like carbs? Why are they avoided like the plague? Well… I think it's because people don't know how to use carbs the right way. There's two types: simple carbs, and complex carbs. Hopefully you're somewhat familiar with that. Your simple carbs are your refined sugars, white breads, white pastas, everything that tastes good pretty much. Complex carbs are your veggies, whole grains, etc. Simple carbs take little digestion. They enter the blood stream quickly and cause your blood sugar to spike high and then drop. Complex carbs take a little more digestion and absorption. When they hit your blood stream they don't cause the rise and fall the the simple carbs cause. One of the keys to weight loss and maintaining healthy weight? Healthy blood sugar. You want that sweet spot, the not too much of a rise or fall with your blood sugar. This is part of why eating often is important. Your body and your brain will thank you and function better.
When a dietitian gives you a meal plan, chances are you'll see 40-50% carbs. That does NOT mean you get to go eat a whole bunch of simple carbs and live it up. You'll feel gross and probably see an increase in weight gain (which is why people really have an issue with carbs). However, if you make most of those carbs complex carbs like veggies and whole grains you will notice yourself being fuller longer, less cranky, and honestly probably pooping better (surprisingly pooping hasn't come up much in my blog yet… but it is a staple in my conversations. Healthy input means healthy pooping). All that can equal weight loss too, added bonus.
Lets talk about one thing real quick. Fruits. Okay, some people put these in the world of simple carbs and need to be avoided. Me? I think that's a little harsh. I mean fine, take away my cake and ice cream… but a banana? Get real. Fruit has natural sugars and a lot of other added bonuses like antioxidants. I don't think they need to be avoided… unless you're in some kind of super strict body building champion competition and know what you're doing. But for every day life, I'd say you can eat fruit with no worries. If you have Diabetes, it's a little different, we can chat about that outside of the blog. Other than that eat your fruit and your veggies and your carbs!
Send me your questions. I know this stuff is a little complicated and I know I didn't address everything I could have, but I don't want this thing to get too long and boring. I promise after this basics series we will move on to some more fun topics.
Thanks for reading,
Leslie
