Carbohydrates are probably the most commonly eaten type of food in this world.

People trying to lose weight often blindly eat a lot of carbohydrates without noticing the consequences.

But for people who have a moderate to fast metabolism, it is fine to eat carbohydrates, and even refined carbs won’t make them fat, including me.

But for weight loss, sugar and carbs are the enemy, not fats, and I’ll explore the reason for this in this article, and also why people trying to lose weight can survive without carbs.

Your metabolism is a major factor

Most people trying to lose weight think that carbs are necessary, which is only fine to a certain degree.

If they have a slow metabolism (which is virtually all the cases for people trying to lose weight), eating white rice would put fat on them.

If they have an even slower metabolism, eating potatoes regularly could still put some fat on them.

Unfortunately, people rather demonize fats when it comes to fat loss.

Although it has more calories, they take longer to digest and release energy over a longer period, which prevents cravings and fat gain.

Instead of demonizing all fats, they should demonize refined oils and processed fats, but not all fats are bad.

But the reason you may deny that is because you’ve been tricked into calorie counting.

So first, you must know how people gain weight and fat.

One way someone’s weight changes is through calories

Virtually everyone knows that you can gain weight when on a calorie surplus. This is mostly fat because the excess energy that your body doesn’t need is stored in you as fat.

If you want to get bigger, this isn’t a good way to do it, as consuming more calories often means you must eat ultra-processed foods and sugary foods, especially if you have a fat metabolism.

Anyway, the opposite way to this is a calorie deficit.

Related article: Is a calorie deficit the best way to lose weight?

This is when you burn more calories than you consume.

However, this doesn’t just result in you losing fat but your body also breaks down skeletal tissue since your body hasn’t been taught to only use fat as energy.

So you lose muscle tissue and water weight as well as fat.

You often opt for low-calorie foods that are not necessarily healthy, because sweeteners and chemicals are most likely present in that food that spike your insulin, and that’s another way to gain or lose fat, insulin control.

Another way someone’s weight changes is through insulin

People think that the only way someone gains or loses weight is through calorie surpluses and deficits, but it’s not true.

Because consuming carbohydrates high on the glycaemic scale will result in fat gain.

The process works like this:

1. You eat a carbohydrate.
2. It directly raises your blood sugar regardless of its glycaemic index (this isn’t bad).
3. Insulin is released in the blood to deal with the glucose and decide whether to store it to use straight away or for later use.
4. The higher the glycaemic index of the carbohydrate (a figure used to measure how quickly foods that contain carbohydrates raise blood glucose levels) the quicker it’s broken down, releases energy and is removed from the blood and stored in you for later use.
5. Due to this, a small quantity of that high GI carb’s energy will be released, but quickly, which gives you a lot of energy (a spike) for a small period, then a crash, which causes cravings. This is because before most of the energy could even be used, insulin (a hormone) removed it from the blood.
6. It’s hard for you to access this energy if you continue eating high-GI foods because you haven’t taught your body how to access its fat stores.
7. This is why whenever you go on a calorie deficit, you may think that you will lose fat alone, but you’ll lose muscle tissue and water weight as well.

Some things you should remember

• Foods containing carbohydrates are given a GI value, but foods that have little or no carbohydrates such as cheese, meat, fish and eggs will have no GI value.

• Not all carbs have a high glycaemic index. For example, a boiled sweet potato has a gi (glycaemic index) of 41. So if you ate a boiled sweet potato, it would get released slowly, and its energy would be released for a longer period, which means most of it would get used before it was stored in you, meaning less of it would be stored on you for later use.

• Refined carbs and ultra-processed foods often have high GIs. For example, white rice has a GI that ranges from 64 to 89, and it’s classified as a high-GI food. So if you ate white rice, it would get released relatively quicker, meaning that little of the energy would be released before it got removed from the blood by insulin to store on you for later use. And because it also releases energy quickly, you’ll get a spike.

An analogy for better understanding

If you were only trying to warm up your hand, and you put your hand on a relatively warm radiator that you had 60 seconds to use, your hand would be able to stay on the radiator for longer because it’s not too hot.

So your hand would be able to stay warm for longer, and you would barely waste any of the radiator’s heat (which represents low GI foods). 

Also, the energy that goes to the surroundings would prolong the heat on your hands (which represents your ability to use your fat stores).

But if you put your hand on a hot radiator, your hand would get hot very quickly, and it would burn your hand (which represents high GI foods).

You would remove your hand very quickly from it, and you would only stay warm for a short period, and soon after that, it would get cold (which represents a spike in blood and energy crash).

The point is that you wouldn’t even be able to warm up your hand properly before you automatically remove it from the radiator because the nerves in your hands would send a message to your nervous system that the object is too hot (represents insulin).

Although most of the heat energy went to your surroundings, it wouldn’t be effective on your hand as there wouldn’t be much heat on it that could be prolonged by the surrounding heat. (represents an inability to use your fat stores).

Explanation

If you didn’t understand, your hand represents the energy (calories) being used by your body, the radiator is the food (whether it’s high GI or low GI), the communication between the nerves in your hand and your nervous system represents insulin, the 60 seconds you have to warm up your hands represents the amount of energy the food has (calories), and the surroundings represent your fat stores.

However, if you have a fast metabolism, your situation has changed.

A fast metabolism means that your body is very good at burning calories and using energy from the food you eat.

But people trying to lose weight in most cases have a slow metabolism.

What does this say about food in general?

This means that if you controlled your insulin, any food you consumed would have its majority used as energy immediately by your body.

For example, you could eat 6000 calories of avocados and only burn 1000 calories, and not gain much weight, if not ANY weight as fat.

Related article: Best healthy & quick dinner recipes

This is because most of the energy from the avocados would be stored to use straight away and not on you for later use.

You wouldn’t even be hungry that day, and the energy would be released over a long period.

However, if you ate 500 calories of white rice, and burned 1000 calories that day, in half of the cases, your weight would stay the same, or you would gain a higher proportion of fat, but in the other half of cases, you would lose weight very slowly.

Overall, it depends on your metabolism.

But regardless, controlling your insulin is the most efficient way to lose fat.

What does this say about carbohydrates?

If you’re trying to lose fat, controlling your insulin is your best bet, which means cutting out refined carbs first.

Here’s the process you should take on your fat loss journey:

1. Refined carbs are often high on the GI scale, so cutting them out will prevent your body from storing more fat.
2. Next, you must cut out ultra-processed foods, a more subtle form of carbohydrates. Even ultra-processed protein sources such as whey protein and things like microwave sausage rolls have added sugars to them that are high GI. So although you’ll get your protein, the sugars will spike your insulin, even if it’s a small amount.
3. Simultaneously increase your healthy fat and animal protein intake.
4. Do this for 21 days, and if you’re not satisfied with the weight you’ve lost, or it at a slow pace, cut out carbohydrates in general (like potatoes, brown rice etc.). Also, doing some light cardio, like walking or light jogging can speed up this process too (only after you’ve been fat-adapted though) but it’s unnecessary.
5. After you’ve lost weight you’re satisfied with, you can slowly bring in the carbs again. First bring in whole carbs, like potatoes and brown rice, and if you want to, although I don’t recommend it, you can bring in some refined carbs, like white rice, and bread.
6. If you think you’re gaining weight again, repeat this whole process.

What about fruit?

The same rule applies to fruit since it is a carb source with natural sugars like fructose. Although the sugars are natural, it is still a carb that raises your blood sugar when you eat them.

This doesn’t mean all fruits are bad for weight loss, but if the fruit has a high GI, like a very ripened banana which can have a GI as high as 85, you may want to avoid it.

Opt for low-GI fruits, like cherries, which have a GI of 22, or oranges, with one of 42.

Once again, if you have a slower metabolism, eating higher GI fruits will affect your weight more than someone with a relatively faster metabolism.

Conclusion

So high GI carbs are bad for weight loss, and low GI carbs are ok.

The key to the quantity of carbs you consume and whether you should even eat them is based on your metabolism.

If you have a very slow metabolism, your body is very efficient at storing energy for later use, so in that case, you should temporarily cut out all carbs, which include fruits.

But if you have just a slow metabolism, but not too slow, you can have whole carbs, but still not refined carbs.

Furthermore, there’s a study you can read that explains the ongoing conflict of the carbohydrate-insulin model (controlling insulin for fat loss) and the conventional model (calorie deficit), and the reliability of each route.

You can read the study here: The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity: Beyond ‘Calories In, Calories Out’