How to Eat Carbs Without Getting Out of Control

Want to lose weight the healthy way? Consider, but don’t eliminate, carbs. Nutrition experts, including the CDC (Center for Disease Control) continue to recommend filling your plate with 1/4 protein, 1/4 healthy starch, and the remaining half should be vegetables which also count as carbs.

That’s a lot of carbs, but this is needed fuel for the body. Just be sure to trade simple carbs like white flour and sugar, for plantbased carbs that contain fiber.

The real reason carbs can be a culprit when it comes to weight gain is that we’ve been conditioned to eat too many of the wrong kinds of carbs. Processed sugar and white flour cause spikes in blood sugar. Think about your mindless consumption of carbs. A customary lunch of burger, bun and fries already shows too many processed carbs that will inevitably tip the health scale in the wrong direction and contribute to declining health.

People who weigh more really do tend to overdue servings of carbohydrates. Example, eating two slices of bread when one will suffice. Get into the habit of having open-faced sandwiches, and halfsandwiches on whole grain bread. Be sure to make healthy veggies a part of your meal.

Here’s another example of over-doing the carbs: choosing soup as a meal starter and eating crackers with your soup, then enjoying a side of potatoes with the main meal. One or the other, but not both, is the better practice if you’re trying to lose weight.

Do a carb check-in over the course of a day. It’s a good way to make sure you’re not losing control when it comes to carbs. There are two types of carbohydrates, simple and complex. Complex carbs are whole grain based.

Anything like whole potatoes, carrots, corn, and other starchy vegetables are considered complex carbs. These vegetables do contain sugar, in some cases high amounts of sugar, especially carrots and white potatoes. But the fiber in these foods actually slows down digestion which means they are less likely to spike blood sugar as opposed to eating processed sugar such as the white sugar found in common cookie and cake recipes or storebought packaged cookies and cakes.

Reasonable portion size goes a long way for being able to deliver needed fuel to the body in the form of healthy carbs. If you were raised on the American diet, you likely have a lot of unaccounted-for carbs creeping into your daily food intake and you don’t even realize it.

How many extra carbs are hiding in your meals? One great example of this is gravy. We typically add flour or another starchy thickener, such as corn starch, to gravies. Then we pour these gravies over starchy sides like potatoes. That’s an extra scoop of carbs that you probably don’t even think about. Or how about ketchup on your potatoes? Another high-carb culprit due to the hidden corn syrup that’s the basis of most if not all ketchup recipes.