What Is Carbohydrate? Will Too Much Carbohydrate Make You Fat?

Carbohydrates are bad, aren't they?

Haven't you heard that? "Don't eat carbs..." "Too many carbs..." "You'll get fat..." "No carb, that's the way to lose weight..."

So what's the deal with carbs? Are they really that bad?

Well, the simple answer is that you need your carbs. But you need the right kind. And you shouldn't have too much.

Use your good judgement. For example, a double stack of pancakes with syrup? That may be a bit much.

So what's the bad kind?

There's good carbs. And there's bad carbs. You should eat your good carbs. And not too much bad carbs.

Carbohydrate is just a fancy way of saying sugar. When you hear carbohydrate it means sugar.

There are different kinds of sugar. Simple sugar is what you find in your sugar bowl. It's a white crystal. That's how it looks after it has been processed.

White sugar -- that's your bad carbs. This is your Coke, cookies, cakes, and (sorry) chocolate.

Actually the "three whites" are white sugar, white flour and white rice.

Why are they bad? You get hollow calories -- which turn straight into fat -- but little nutrition. Instead of getting food you need to be strong you get a quick fix and then a crash.

So what's the good kind?

Now, that sugar came from somewhere, right. You get sugar from plants (sugar cane, beets, and honey which comes from bees which make it from plants.)

But in the plant it looks different. In a potato, for instance, there is a lot of sugar. It just looks different.

In a potato the sugar is all joined together, end to end, a million little sugars all hooked together in a row. They call that starch. Or complex carbohydrate. Starch -- complex carbohydrate -- same thing.

In your body it is still sugar. Starch is just sugar that is joined together in a chain. And when you eat starch, whether it is potatoes or rice or yams or whatever, your body turns it into simple sugar.

But look -- in the plant you don't just have sugar. You have B vitamins, and fiber, and minerals, and water and protein. You have everything you need to be strong and lean and healthy.

So your good carbs are what came out of the ground. With the fewest changes possible.

Beets or beet sugar? Eat the beets. Apples or applesauce? Go for the apple. Wheat bread or white bread? Wheat bread is the winner.

What does the word carbohydrate really mean?

They are called carbohydrate because:

So the carbon is hooked to water and that is carbohydrate. All the sugars are made that way -- carbon and water.

So any time you ask what is carbohydrate, think "sugar." Once you eat carbohydrates they become sugar in your body.

Why not cut the carbs?

You've got to have carbs. You use carbohydrates for energy. They are the primary energy source for your body.

When you have carbohydrates you are strong and you can exercise.

But if the carbohydrates are too high, when your blood sugar is too high, you have diabetes and you will get damage to all the organs of your entire body.

And if the carbohydrates are too low you will have low blood sugar and can feel weak and lightheaded, and if it gets real low you can pass out, and if it gets even lower you can end up in a hospital in a coma.

So your body needs carbohydrates. And it controls what it does with the carbohydrates very carefully.

And you need to help your body to control the carbohydrates. You need the right kinds. In the right amounts. So you can be healthy. And strong. And lean.

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