5 Reasons why Carbs Are Essential | Forget the High Protein, Low Carb Diet

Avoid Those Mood Swings:

Eating carbs such as sweet potatoes and bran releases energy slowly.  Stabilising your energy levels throughout the day stops you from suffering from an energy crash and mood swings.

Boost Your Brain:

Want to be stupid? Of course not! So don’t ditch the carbs…  the brain needs at least 130g of Carbs per day to perform efficiently.  According to the Institute of Medicine memory and thought functions are affected if you starve yourself of carbs.  A study in the journal Appetite found that people on a low-carb diet suffered from poor memory retention and mental reactions.

Power Your Workout:

Carbs are the best and most efficient energy source; they are stored in your muscle as glycogen which your body uses as energy.  Active men require 7g of carbs per kilo of body weight per day.

Improve Endurance:

A low Carb diet will significantly impair your ability to perform endurance challenges.  A Loughborough University study found that athletes who ate 2.5g of carbs per kilo of body weight 3hrs prior to exercise improved their endurance by 9% more than those who skipped carbs.

Recover Fast:

Taking onboard 1g carbs per kilo of bodyweight in the hour after your workout will help restore your body’s glycogen levels and help to lower the levels of stress hormone cortisol to prevent catabolism (the breakdown of muscle).

By Mike Buss.

Tags: Carbohydrate, Carbs, diet, food, Protein

Category: Nutrition, Nutrition (weightloss)