Navigating Nutrition Vol #3

"The one thing you need to know about Carbs."

By Dan Jimenez, Co-owner/Coach

If protein is the building block of muscle,

What’s the deal with carbs?
“Are they good?”
“Are they bad?”

Think of carbohydrates as fuel for activity
When carbs are ingested, they are converted to sugar.
That sugar is called, Glucose.

Glucose is then divvied up into 3 areas:
1. Used as energy immediately.
2. Stored in your muscles as Glycogen (a group of glucose molecules).
3. Converted to fat and stored in your fat cells.

“So, do carbs make you fat?”

Yes.

And, No.

It depends on the amount you’re ingesting.

“Well, how many carbohydrates should I be eating per day?”

If carbs are fuel for activity, then it would make sense to adjust them based on activity level.

Here are some guidelines that you can’t go wrong with:
          - Low or no activity days (normal life) = 50g - 100g
          - Days you get a medium to hard workout in = 100g - 150g    
           - Big activity days - Efforts over 2 hours = 150g - 200g                                          (Ex- 14’ers, endurance, two-a-days, etc…)


***NOTE: If you are a smaller person, or are not sure if your activity qualifies as “hard enough”…. use the lower end of the guidelines.

Start there, and you can always adjust as needed.

If you’re not sure what to do next, where to get your carbs from, how to measure, or just want to dial it in….


Schedule a nutrition session with one of our coaches.

Just click here, and we’ll take care of you.