What Are The Best Carb Foods for Weight Loss?
Walking down a supermarket aisle or ordering a meal while you’re health conscious can easily leave you in a state of confusion. We’re constantly bombarded with conflicting messages and labels, such as “fat free”, “low fat”, “low carb”, “sugar free” and so on, and you may wonder how you choose the best carb foods to eat.
Fortunately, with the right information, choosing the best carb foods can be quick and easy. Put simply, the best carb foods are natural, and are picked from the ground or grown off a tree. Examples of such foods include oats, barley, beans, rice, yams, potatoes and other vegetables.
The best carb foods are never refined or processed. This way you get “the good stuff” including the protein, fiber, minerals and other nutrients that help support your body. Foods such as white bread and white rice have been processed and bleached to the point where they have lost their goodness, and are basically a waste of calories. The best carb foods to have as alternatives would be whole-grain or whole-wheat breads and brown rice. Pasta can also be substituted with whole-wheat pasta.
I always say that the best carb foods are anything but highly processed and refined carbs. This is especially the case if your goal is to lose fat or even just to have stable energy levels. Processed and refined carbs are digested quickly, raising blood sugar levels and causing insulin spikes which promote fat storage.
Aside from this, the best carb foods are also high in fiber. High-fiber carbs include green vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, greens beans, lettuce, etc. These are the best carb foods to eat when losing weight since they are high in fiber, which promotes healthy digestion and fills you up quickly, contain a wide range of vitamins and minerals that are good for your body, and are very low in calories which means it is almost impossible to overeat on high-fiber vegetables.
Another way to determine what the best carb foods are is to refer to the GI (glycemic index) values, which indicate the effect the food has on your blood sugar levels. Normally, the best carb foods have a low GI value, meaning the nutrients are absorbed slowly and your blood sugar level doesn’t rise high causing an insulin spike, like high GI foods would cause.
Examples of low GI foods include sugar-free yoghurt, grapefruit, red lentils, butter beans, fettucine pasta and wholemeal spaghetti. These are some of the best carb foods you can eat. High GI foods would include white rice, baguettes, corn flakes and jelly beans. Without a shadow of a doubt, these are anywhere near as healthy as the best carb foods mentioned in this article.
A common misconception is that carbs are bad for you and make you fat. This is nothing but a long-lasted rumor. The truth is that the best carb foods mentioned here are very good for you and are your body’s main source of energy. However, in a world plagued with junk food outlets and supermarkets selling supposedly healthy foods which are in fact full of sugar and chemicals, it is important to educate yourself so you can benefit from the best carb foods and avoid the hype.