Carbs 101 (carbs and exercise)

Simple carbohydrates are basically sugars, and they are to be reduced as much as you feel comfortable with. Complex carbohydrates are actually what you should be using for your primary energy source. Why? Because of how your body processes them. Simple carbohydrates your body can break down quickly, and thereby flood your body with a lot of energy quickly. however, the disadvantage to this is that if you don't use that energy ASAP, your body will then take it and convert it into fat, to store. This is not good if you're trying to lose weight. Complex carbohydrates take your body longer to break down and conver to energy (a few hours, as opposed to just one hour at most). As such, they don't flood your body with a ruch of energy right away so your body can use the energy as it's provided, instead of having to turn a lot of excess energy back into fat. This is what you want your body to do; not make new fat. In short, you should not try to eliminate all carbohydrates from your diet, because you'll be taking out your primary source of daily energy. Instead, you should modify your diet so that the carbohydrates you DO eat are complex ones, not simple ones.

Yes, that's very true. Weigh****chers is teaching me that things like brown rice, oatmeal, and other whole grains are not evil.