Of all the different macronutrients, carbohydrates have created the most confusion. You see, because of their effect on insulin it’s easy to single them out.
The bad news here is that if your carbohydrate intake isn’t optimized your training and life will go downhill.
So here is how to optimize your carbohydrate intake:
1. Don’t take supplements during exercise: This technique only applies to endurance athletes that train for hours on end. If you are training for one hour or less, carbs during exercise will do more harm than good. So don’t buy into the seductive marketing claims.
2. Drastically increase your consumption of vegetables: Vegetables are the most underrated performance enhancers out there. You see, vegetables will mechanistically slow down the rate at which digested carbohydrates enter your blood stream.
3. Eat right after you exercise: There is a short window here where your active tissues will absorb a lot more carbs than usual. And taking advantage of this is a great way to saturate your muscles with carbs which in turn will allow you to exercise harder the next time you are in the gym.
4. Have slow digesting carbs before your training: This is one of the simplest, yet most effective things you can do to enhance your performance. You see, by having carbs before exercise you prevent blood sugar crashes and extend your work capacity.
5. Never let your carb intake drop below 40%: If your carb intake is less than 40% of your total caloric intake, your training will suffer. Even worse, you will run the risk of burning excess muscle protein for energy. This in turn will decrease your ability to eat carbs with minimal fat gain.
6. Focus on legumes and beans: Too many experts are under the false assumption that whole grains are healthy. The truth is that you only should have whole grains during times of heavy exercise. Otherwise, the bulk of your intake should come from beans and legumes.
Carbs aren’t bad, don’t buy into this faulty assumption. How you manage your intake is what makes the difference. So act on this information now, don’t wait for all the stars to be aligned!
Author Katherine Crawford, a fitness physiologist and former arm fat sufferer, instructs on how to do upper arm exercises. Unearth how to get sexy arms by exploring her blog with shake weight reviews now!
