Carbohydrates Play an Important Role in Weight Loss

There are so many fad diets on the market today. Many have you eliminate carbohydrates from your diet all together. However carbohydrates play an important role in weight loss. Your muscles need carbohydrates for energy and to rebuild. As your muscles rebuild and grow in size, in other words gain more volume, you lose more weight by having those larger muscles burn your body's fat stores.

Sure the Atkins diet and every other fad, no carb diet out there will help you lose weight. You will lose weight not only in the decrease of amount of bodyfat but also in muscle volume and size. Although part one of this equation, losing the fat, is good, part two is terrible.

The last thing you want is to lose muscle volume. As your muscle volume decreases so does their need for more energy which in turn reduces the amount of body fat they need to burn. Forget all the fads and depriving your body of the much needed carbohydrate energy source.

I am going to show you why eating carbohydrates is important, how much you should eat and that eating them will help you lose weight, not gain. There are two types of carbohydrates you need to concern yourself with. They are called simple and complex carbohydrates. Let's start with the simple carbohydrates also known as monosaccharide. These are your sugary carbohydrates.

Examples would be glucose(dextrose), fructose, xylose, and ribose. These have also been labeled in the past as the "bad" carbohydrate. Yes they can be bad in large quantities and from the wrong source. For example, apples contain fructose which is a simple carbohydrate; however an apple is a good source of many nutrients, so it is ok to eat an apple as a source of your carbohydrates with one of your meals. Soda on the other hand contains sugar and a lot of it.

Soda also contains no nutritional value. If you drink a lot of soda you are taking in way too many simple carbohydrates and that will lead to weight gain. Cutting out soda in your diet alone will help you reduce 5 to 10 pounds by itself.

Complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides are your "good" carbohydrates. They consist of food items such as oatmeal, brown rice, yams and other potatoes, wholegrain cereals and breads, corn, bread and lentils. These are the carbohydrate sources that are essential to assisting your muscle growth. As we stated before muscle is very important because the more volume of muscle that you have the more fat you will burn. As you already know you should be eating six meals a day spread out every two and a half to three hours.

Each meal should consist of equal portions of protein, carbohydrates and green vegetables. Each portion size, to make it easier for measuring purposes, should be about the size of your clenched fist. Now that you know what the carbohydrate sources are, and how much to have of them, there should be no reason for you to follow one of those fad diets. Eat the amount of carbs you are supposed to have along with your protein and veggies, combine that with a good workout routine and you will soon see your body fat melting away.

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the senior editor for Weight Loss Nation, an online resource where you can learn more about weight loss, fitness, nutrition and exercise.