Carbohydrate-Guide

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p align=”left”>The idea that eating fat can help you shed bodyfat may be a bit disorienting in view of the prevailing negativity surrounding fat. But without dietary fat, your fat loss efforts will surely come to failure so you had better banish the fat phantoms from your head . The idea that eating fat can help you shed bodyfat may be a bit disorienting in view of the prevailing negativity surrounding fat. But without dietary fat, your fat loss efforts will surely come to failure so you had better banish the fat phantoms from your head. First, it cannot be overemphasized that: WHETHER OR NOT DIETARY FAT IS FATTENING DEPENDS ON YOUR HORMONAL STATE. If you are a sugar-burner, your metabolism is geared toward carbohydrate utilization and incoming dietary fat gets channeled to adipose tissue to be added to your fat stockpile.

By contrast, as a fat­burner, the sugar-burning (glycolytic) pathway is suppressed and the fat-burning (lipolytic) pathway is activated. Consequently, incoming dietary fat gets burned at a high rate along with its biochemical sibling - body fat. This does not mean that a fat­burner does not use both glucose and fat, but that the relative reliance on each of these fuel sources is skewed toward fat and away from sugar.

Healthy eating calls for moderate fat intake and an emphasis on good fat. But first, let’s examine the relationship between dietary fat and fat burning. For one, fat helps you get into, and stay in, a fat-burning mode. In other words, dietary fat facilitates the metabolic shift from sugar burning to fat burning. Additionally, fat is essential to defeating cravings, which, otherwise, will likely defeat you.

I find it fascinating to observe how nutrition myths get to the point where they become, supposedly, common knowledge. One such myth is that we need carbohydrate for energy. The perpetuation of this myth is partly attributable to commercial considerations. High-carbo drinks and bars, which bring-in a fortune each year for the companies that manufacture and sell them, are comprised mainly of high fructose com syrup, one of the cheapest food ingredients known to man.

Alternatively, many of these ingeniously marketed “performance” foods contain maltodextrin or glucose polymers which, despite the impressive, high-tech-sounding names are basically dirt­cheap, nutrient-deplete, laboratory-manipulated starches.

The most insidious aspect of the myth that you need carbohydrate for energy is that it is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you regularly consume a high quantity of carbohydrate, you become a sugar-burner; and as a sugar-burner, your body relies heavily on sugar and is inefficient at burning fat for energy. So, in a twisted way, you do need carbohydrate for energy - if you buy into the concept that you need carbohydrate for energy!

This is not to say. that carbohydrate cannot be beneficial. But the importance of carbohydrate as a fuel source has been grossly overblown by mistaken “experts” and clever marketing folks.

The traditional Eskimo diet is virtually devoid of carbohydrate, particularly in winter, and yet their metabolism continues humming along just fine. There are “essential amino acids,” and there are “essential fats,” discussed below; but there are no “essential carbohydrates” (if you ever hear that term, check your pockets, because someone is trying to get your money).

The actual amount of carbohydrate required by human beings is zero. By contrast, a certain amount of protein and fat is required; without it, your health unravels like a ball of yarn and you die. Above these minimums (and, of course, a certain amount of vitamins, minerals, and water), you must provide your body with energy in order for it to function properly. As a strict matter of survival, it does not matter whether energy enters your system in the form of protein, carbohydrate, or fat. Your body is capable of utilizing any of these macronutrients for fuel.

The adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecule is the fundamental energy unit for all living things from single-celled algae to human beings. Your body needs ATP to execute the functions necessary for survival, as well as any other activities. The notion that glucose (derived from dietary carbohydrate) is necessary for energy fails to appreciate the fact that free fatty acids (derived from bodyfat and dietary fat) can, like glucose, be broken down to ATP.

Free fatty acids are the superior of the two fuel sources for 95% of your daily activity. In terms of our current discussion, free fatty acids yield more ATP than does glucose. Thus, the million-dollar question becomes: from what will you derive your ATP, glucose or free fatty acids? The answer is simple: if you are a sugar-burner, then primarily from glucose; if you are a fat-burner, then primarily from free fatty acids.

Cravings are the undoing of anyone trying to adhere to a dietary plan, so keeping them in check is imperative. However, cravings are like the villain in a low-budget horror movie - they have a tendency to keep creeping back from the dead. But fear not, the satiating power of fat, along with subdued insulin levels, and stable blood sugar, would keep cravings in the grave.

It is one of the more basic, but overlooked, facts of human metabolism that the body strives to store that which is in short supply. This is another example of the innate “intelligence” of the human body. For example, you may have heard that the more water you drink, the less water you retain, and vice versa. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it makes perfect sense from the standpoint of survival.

This counterregulatory dynamic is a central feature of human metabolism. The same principle applies to protein: when abundance prevails, the body uses some protein for “optional” processes (like building muscle) and wastes, or excretes, the remainder. But when protein scarcity prevails, the body becomes much more conservative with the precious little it receives. In this scenario, no protein is excreted and muscle growth ceases and then is rolled-back as the body breaks down muscle to get the amino acids that are not being provided in the diet.

The same feedback phenomenon that applies to carbohydrate, protein, water, and calories also applies to fat. Tightly restricting fat consumption induces aggressive retention coupled with fat cravings to get more of it into the body. Conversely, when fat is abundantly available, the body is more liberal in burning it for energy.

Hence, once again, we see that human physiology does not conform precisely to the laws of logic which, in this case, would suggest that the less of something you consume, the less of it you store. Rather, the human body has its own agenda, governed by the drive to survive not logic, and this dynamic must be accounted for if your fat loss efforts are to be successful.