FREEKSHOW
12-04-2011, 09:30 PM
Carbohydrates
It is a common thought and concern that carbohydrates are fattening. They are not. Too much fat is fattening. In one teaspoon of fat you will find 36 calories.
In one teaspoon of carbohydrates you will find 16 calories. The amount that is converted into fat is very limited because you burn carbs for energy during
any activity.
For even one gram of carbohydrate to reach adipose storage, it must first not be able to be burned as energy. If there is an overabundance of carbs and
some aren’t used for energy, they are stored as glycogen. If by some chance, the glycogen stores are full and that carbohydrate can’t be used as energy, there
is a chance that that it may be stored as bodyfat. One’s metabolism will affect the amount of carbs left over for fat storage by causing more or less to be
burned. With a decent metabolism and healthy diet, carbohydrates should not be allocated to fat storage. Fats are readily stored as bodyfat. There are four
calories in one gram of carbohydrate; four calories in one gram of protein; nine calories in one gram of fat; and seven calories in one gram of alcohol (hence
the beer gut).
What you burn and when: There are several sources of energy. When a person is doing low-level exercise, such as walking, or maybe performing various
tasks at work (if work is not just sitting in a chair), he burns primarily fats for energy. When doing light to moderate exercise, jogging and brisk walking for
instance, stored fat provides 10% - 30% of your body’s fuel. When you exercise hard, sprinting, running, swimming, you rely mostly on the glycogen stores
in your muscles for the energy. Remember, these are percentages, not amounts. You will burn way more fat if you are active than if you were sitting in a chair.
There is a difference in how the trained and untrained body stores glycogen (glycogen in animals is the same as starch in plants, its one way an animal
stores energy). There is a biochemical change that occurs when a person trains consistently for prolonged periods of time. Well-trained muscles will acquire the
ability to store more glycogen than untrained muscles, about 20% - 50% more. For example, an untrained muscle has about 13 grams of glycogen per 100
grams of muscle. A trained muscle stores about 35 grams of glycogen per 100 grams of muscle. When carbo-loaded (eating a super heavy load of carbs
for a day or so –usually in prep for some event such as a powerlifting meet), a muscle has about 35 - 40 grams of glycogen which is considerably more than
normal of 13 grams. When you have a depleted supply or store of glycogen, you will “crash” and not be able to complete a workout or to train at your best.
Depleted glycogen stores can affect someone mentally and physically due to the fact that the brain uses glycogen too yet it doesn’t have any glycogen
stores. You naturally have about 1,800 calories stored in your body at any given moment as glycogen ready to be converted for energy (not including calories
from fat) in the following breakdown: Muscle glycogen, 1,400 calories - liver glycogen, 320 calories - and Blood glucose, 80 calories. The body doesn’t
use the actual glycogen for energy. Glycogen is broken down into glucose. Glucose is the actual useful form of energy; glycogen is just a storage molecule;
it’s glucose in storage. Glycogen is a polysaccharide consisting of glucose molecules (glucose-glucose-glucose…). These natural stores determine how long you
can enjoy your workout before getting fatigued. Liver glycogen is transported into your blood stream, maintaining blood sugar (glucose) levels needed for
brain food. Foods must be consumed close enough to your workout to supply sugar (energy) to your brain, since unlike the muscles, the brain does not store its
own energy.
So what is the importance of eating complex carbs if they are just converted to sugar? Why not just eat sugar? Well, there is one problem w/ sugar consumption.
It’s quick energy. In other words it’s carbohydrates that are already broken down into their simplest form. Therefore they must be either used then or
stored. Your body will try to use them before it will store them. That’s why you get a “sugar rush.” And that’s also why little kids don’t get candy at night;
they’ll never go to bed. But not long after a “sugar rush,” there will be fatigue due to the role that insulin plays in sugar degradation.
Starting to see how it works? Glycogen in the liver will release sugar during a workout. The presence of these sugars causes the pancreas to release
insulin. Therefore, glycogen is “stored energy.” Glycogen, a complex carb, provides energy after being broken down into sugars without the pancreas having
to release a lot of insulin. There is no sugar rush with the release of glycogen because it is gradual (complex carbohydrates break down slower).
It’s ok to have some sugar during a workout. This is because the work of insulin is virtually a slow process. Another reason one doesn’t want too much
sugar in the body during the workout is osmosis. Water moves from places of lower concentration of solute to a place of higher concentration of solute. In
other words, high concentrations of sugars in your digestive system can pull needed water out of the muscles where the oxygen molecule pulls down a hydrogen
electron down the electron transport chain to make ATP (discussed in detail later) and relocates it into the digestive tract.
It is a common thought and concern that carbohydrates are fattening. They are not. Too much fat is fattening. In one teaspoon of fat you will find 36 calories.
In one teaspoon of carbohydrates you will find 16 calories. The amount that is converted into fat is very limited because you burn carbs for energy during
any activity.
For even one gram of carbohydrate to reach adipose storage, it must first not be able to be burned as energy. If there is an overabundance of carbs and
some aren’t used for energy, they are stored as glycogen. If by some chance, the glycogen stores are full and that carbohydrate can’t be used as energy, there
is a chance that that it may be stored as bodyfat. One’s metabolism will affect the amount of carbs left over for fat storage by causing more or less to be
burned. With a decent metabolism and healthy diet, carbohydrates should not be allocated to fat storage. Fats are readily stored as bodyfat. There are four
calories in one gram of carbohydrate; four calories in one gram of protein; nine calories in one gram of fat; and seven calories in one gram of alcohol (hence
the beer gut).
What you burn and when: There are several sources of energy. When a person is doing low-level exercise, such as walking, or maybe performing various
tasks at work (if work is not just sitting in a chair), he burns primarily fats for energy. When doing light to moderate exercise, jogging and brisk walking for
instance, stored fat provides 10% - 30% of your body’s fuel. When you exercise hard, sprinting, running, swimming, you rely mostly on the glycogen stores
in your muscles for the energy. Remember, these are percentages, not amounts. You will burn way more fat if you are active than if you were sitting in a chair.
There is a difference in how the trained and untrained body stores glycogen (glycogen in animals is the same as starch in plants, its one way an animal
stores energy). There is a biochemical change that occurs when a person trains consistently for prolonged periods of time. Well-trained muscles will acquire the
ability to store more glycogen than untrained muscles, about 20% - 50% more. For example, an untrained muscle has about 13 grams of glycogen per 100
grams of muscle. A trained muscle stores about 35 grams of glycogen per 100 grams of muscle. When carbo-loaded (eating a super heavy load of carbs
for a day or so –usually in prep for some event such as a powerlifting meet), a muscle has about 35 - 40 grams of glycogen which is considerably more than
normal of 13 grams. When you have a depleted supply or store of glycogen, you will “crash” and not be able to complete a workout or to train at your best.
Depleted glycogen stores can affect someone mentally and physically due to the fact that the brain uses glycogen too yet it doesn’t have any glycogen
stores. You naturally have about 1,800 calories stored in your body at any given moment as glycogen ready to be converted for energy (not including calories
from fat) in the following breakdown: Muscle glycogen, 1,400 calories - liver glycogen, 320 calories - and Blood glucose, 80 calories. The body doesn’t
use the actual glycogen for energy. Glycogen is broken down into glucose. Glucose is the actual useful form of energy; glycogen is just a storage molecule;
it’s glucose in storage. Glycogen is a polysaccharide consisting of glucose molecules (glucose-glucose-glucose…). These natural stores determine how long you
can enjoy your workout before getting fatigued. Liver glycogen is transported into your blood stream, maintaining blood sugar (glucose) levels needed for
brain food. Foods must be consumed close enough to your workout to supply sugar (energy) to your brain, since unlike the muscles, the brain does not store its
own energy.
So what is the importance of eating complex carbs if they are just converted to sugar? Why not just eat sugar? Well, there is one problem w/ sugar consumption.
It’s quick energy. In other words it’s carbohydrates that are already broken down into their simplest form. Therefore they must be either used then or
stored. Your body will try to use them before it will store them. That’s why you get a “sugar rush.” And that’s also why little kids don’t get candy at night;
they’ll never go to bed. But not long after a “sugar rush,” there will be fatigue due to the role that insulin plays in sugar degradation.
Starting to see how it works? Glycogen in the liver will release sugar during a workout. The presence of these sugars causes the pancreas to release
insulin. Therefore, glycogen is “stored energy.” Glycogen, a complex carb, provides energy after being broken down into sugars without the pancreas having
to release a lot of insulin. There is no sugar rush with the release of glycogen because it is gradual (complex carbohydrates break down slower).
It’s ok to have some sugar during a workout. This is because the work of insulin is virtually a slow process. Another reason one doesn’t want too much
sugar in the body during the workout is osmosis. Water moves from places of lower concentration of solute to a place of higher concentration of solute. In
other words, high concentrations of sugars in your digestive system can pull needed water out of the muscles where the oxygen molecule pulls down a hydrogen
electron down the electron transport chain to make ATP (discussed in detail later) and relocates it into the digestive tract.