Distributing carbohydrates well when you eat is essential to avoid gaining weight. The famous saying “have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper” is one of the popular sayings that it tells us how we should distribute food throughout the day.
Juan Antonio Madrid, a professor at the University of Murcia, ensures that in order to lose weight and adopt a healthy and balanced diet, it is not only important to control the amount and type of food we eat, but also when we ingest it.
How to distribute carbohydrates correctly?
The time of day or night we eat It will affect how we take advantage of and metabolize food. First, appetite changes throughout the day and night, according to circadian rhythms.
However, these rhythms are progressive, thus the body does not reset itself at a specific time by converting unused carbohydrates into fat. For example, the carbohydrates consumed at dinner will replace the glycogen spent during the day in our daily activities.
This is as long as we have had some physical activity during the day and have not replaced it with other meals later. If we take in an excess of carbohydrates with half-full reserves, we will save the excess fatwhether it’s at night or not. As, It is very important to know how to distribute carbohydrates well in our meals.
At breakfast, favor the intake of carbohydrates
During the day there are two distinct phases: activation and recovery. Both would be marked by sunlight and they would last about 12 hours each.
Rubén Bravo, nutrition expert and spokesperson for the European Medical Institute for Obesity (IMEO), says that carbohydrates are preferable in the morning for a question of “energy requirement, given that they provide more energy and faster than fats or proteins.
Additionally, it recommends that carbohydrates come from whole grain products, ie those obtained from the whole grain of the cereal and found in:
- Bread.
- Pasta.
- Whole grains.
On the other hand, they recommend instead focusing so hard on how you distribute your carbohydrates it is more convenient to consider the starting situation of each person.
We also find publications, like the one in the magazine Nutrients, who state that the intake of carbohydrates in the morning is better tolerated in diabetic subjects than the intake at other times of the day.
During snacks before eating
In addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner, it is advisable to adapt what we assume mid-morning and in the afternoon at our own pace.
In the middle of the morning, a good way to distribute carbohydrates correctly would be, for example, to eat a fruit together with a yogurt. Contains carbohydrates and proteins, which it allows to attenuate the sudden rise of insulin for the sugary rush of fruit.
What seems clear is that earlier meal times promote weight loss. This is evidenced by A study published in Nutrients. This could be due to the body’s increased ability to metabolize carbohydrates as a function of the time of ingestion and circadian cycles.
Carbohydrates during physical activity
When playing sports, or even during the time you exercise, HE they demonstrated that it is advisable to eat foods that provide carbohydrates with a good glycemic indexthat is, the intensity with which hydrates raise blood sugar.
However, it is recommended to do this 30 minutes before starting your workout. Some foods that contain carbohydrates with a good glycemic index are fruits, oats and quinoa, among others.
On the other hand, once the exercise is over, protein intake is suggested to facilitate muscle recovery.
After 6pm, no simple carbohydrates
Avoid carbohydrate intake after 6pm It is a fundamental measure to distribute carbohydrates well. In this part of the day, the body enters the previously mentioned recovery phase.
From 18:00 protein and fat intake is recommendedwhich are nutrients that promote cellular recovery.
To make it happen, you can have a yogurt with nuts for a snack, and for dinner you can have a oily fish or lean animal meat, such as chicken or turkey. However, accompanying these meals with a small intake of carbohydrates is not excessive.
However, one must avoid the consumption of simple carbohydratesas the body quickly turns them into fat.
Properly manage the distribution of carbohydrates
Distributing carbohydrates well does not mean that you stop consuming them. They are essential nutrients to provide energy to the body. As, experts suggest increasing your intake in the morning and decreasing it in the eveningin any case avoiding simple carbohydrates, i.e. those found in industrial confectionery.
The post How to distribute carbohydrates well? first appeared on research-school