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The trick of athletes to eat carbs without gaining weight

Although not extensively researched, many athletes swear that a diet that combines carbohydrates and sports helps improve their performance and also sharpen the brain and increase alertness.

The problem is that until that happens, you may experience some unpleasant side effects at all

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• Carbohydrates

• sport

• Exercise

Walla!

health

Wednesday, 09 June 2021, 06:02 Updated: 07:00

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The link between carbs and exercise can be deceptive.

If you eat too much of them - gain weight and impair fitness.

If you eat too little - there is not enough energy and the muscles do not heal fast enough.

Therefore, it is not always easy to understand how to treat them when you want to build an effective menu for exercise.

Today we know that carbohydrates are just as important for gymnasts as protein, but for those who have not studied the field, it is not always easy to understand how to walk the fine line between their excessive consumption and starvation of the body.

This is the reason that has led to the development of a new trend in recent years, which is especially common among athletes.

It is a diet regime in which carbohydrates are eaten in cycles - that is, more on days of exercise and less, or almost not at all, on days of rest.

The method has become especially popular in recent years, thanks to its ability to provide the energies needed for training, without gaining weight or suffering from the negative consequences of increased carbohydrate intake.

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To the full article

What do the studies say?

Carbohydrate diet is a relatively new trend - so not many studies have been conducted on it directly.

However, it is largely based on insights that already exist in the scientific literature and relate to how carbohydrate intake affects the body.

For example, studies have found that consuming carbohydrates before and after exercise may improve performance and help build muscle by replenishing glycogen stores in muscle tissue.

Other studies have found that eating carbs at these times helps regulate the activity of the hunger and satiety hormones - ghrelin and leptin.

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On the other hand, studies on limiting carbohydrate intake suggest that the action may encourage the body to burn more fat to produce energy, which helps in weight loss and toning the body.

In addition, it may improve insulin sensitivity, which can reduce the risk of diabetes and obesity.

Without bread.

A smart move or not?

Man eating salad (Photo: ShutterStock)

As we understand, a carbohydrate diet is based on a lot of research, some of them large and well-known, but not on a comprehensive study that directly examined the impact of such a regime on health in general and physical fitness in particular.

It will probably take time for experts to assess whether this is a smart move or not.

Birthmarks are especially challenging

The Healthline website, which has extensively reviewed most of the scientific work done on the subject, emphasizes that "although the evidence behind this method supports its effectiveness, it should be tried carefully because no direct research has been done on it." And in the absence of direct research on the method, in the days of the Internet one can certainly learn from the experience of those who have already decided on their own initiative to be experimental and update the world on conclusions. Gabi Landswork is one of those experimenters - and she wrote extensively about the effects of this diet on her body in an article for Business Insider.

She said she experienced a "dramatic improvement" in exercise performance, results and concentration level, both in physical activity and in other activities. In addition, she said she stopped feeling hungry during the day and did not think about food all the time, as she was used to in the past.

So where's the catch?

Well, all this good happened only in the third week.

Until the positive effects came - she dealt with quite a few unpleasant feelings at all: "For the first two weeks, most of the time I felt exhausted and drained of energy ... waking up in the morning felt harder and throughout the day I just wanted to go back to bed. ".

And if that wasn't enough, she kept feeling that her mouth was dry and that she had to drink.

At first you will feel tired.

Yawning Woman (Photo: ShutterStock)

The phenomenon that Landswork describes is not unusual at all.

Many who have experienced the method talk about the same feelings and in fact are exactly what underlies the warnings of experts against diets that call for limiting carbohydrate intake, like the ketogenic diet.

This phenomenon even has a name - "keto flu", or in the more professional version - ketosis.

In such a situation, the brain treats the decrease in carbohydrate intake as an emergency and makes changes designed to reduce non-essential energy expenditure.

It can cause flu-like symptoms - but it is a phenomenon that is expected to pass as the brain gets used to the new condition.

So how do you do it right?

If you are willing to go through a not-so-simple adjustment period and eventually (perhaps) enjoy the benefits of carbohydrate cycles, you should know that there are lots of different versions of this method. And again, these would mean that you have to spend for these processes. We can not, of course, recommend or recommend them. And in any case, in any such dramatic change that you plan to make - it is best to consult a doctor and nutritionist.

One of the common methods of managing such a menu is to divide the week into days of strength training, aerobic activity and rest days. On rest days, consume more fat and less carbohydrates (30 grams at most). On days of aerobic activity it is better to consume an equal amount of fats and carbohydrates (100 grams), and on days of strength training increase carbohydrate intake to 200 grams and reduce fat intake.

And if this seems extreme to you - you are absolutely right.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), if you consume 2,000 calories a day, you should have 300 grams of carbohydrates.

But if you have difficulty adhering to the strict rules of this diet - there are plenty of things you can do to reduce the harmful effects of carbohydrates on your health and fitness.

The best thing you can do in this regard is to prefer complex carbohydrates found in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and at the same time reduce as much as you can in eating simple carbohydrates found in sweets, soft drinks and basically anything else you already know is harmful to your health.

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