Turn your body into a fat burning machine Part 3

As the saying goes "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Carbohydrates can be your friend and your enemy. Your body needs carbs for energy to fuel your workouts, but they can be your enemy when it comes to fat storage and health risks such as diabetes. We will learn how to keep a wary eye on them so they can still be your friend but realize they have potential to be your enemy when it comes to your health and your waistline. This concept can be a bit confusing at times, but I will try to keep it simple. I still remember the day this clicked in my mind. I was sitting in either Biochemistry 2 or Physiology 2 at Parker College of Chiropractic and we were learning about the body's response to both hormones Insulin and Glucagon. The instructor summed it up by saying Insulin is a fat storing hormone and Glucagon is a fat burning hormone. Here's a picture to demonstrate the process of carbohydrate digestion into glycogen and fat storage.

In the picture above we see that when we eat carbohydrates in food whether they are good or bad the body breaks them down into glucose; it doesn't discriminate. If you eat a lot of carbs in one sitting you are going to have a lot of glucose in the bloodstream. Glucose is a sugar and is the body's preferred source of energy because it's quick and efficient! Having too much glucose in the blood can be harmful to your body though and it's the reason why people with diabetes have to have limbs amputated, go blind and go on dialysis. So the pancreas responds by producing insulin (fat storing hormone) to convert the excess glucose to glycogen to save it for stored energy later. Glycogen is basically a bunch of glucose wrapped up in an box and stored in the closet for later use. As we see in the picture above, it is stored in the liver and the muscles. But the liver can only store about 8-12 hours worth of glycogen and your muscles can only store about 20 minutes worth of glycogen. So if you eat a large carbohydrate meal and your glycogen stores in your liver and muscles are full, your body is forced to store the glucose as fat and we don't want that!

Now that we know how the body stores excess carbohydrates as fat we need to limit the amount of carbs to only enough to supply energy for our physical activity. Most authorities suggest limiting your daily carb needs to 50%. This is good starting point and over time you can whittle this down to what works best for you. A good breakdown is to take in about 20% of your calories from good fats as we discussed 2 days ago, 30% in proteins and 50% in carbs. Again, try this for a month and see how it works for you. If you are having difficulty losing body fat still, it probably means you are taking in too many carbs, so cut it down to 40% and try that for a month.

Here is a simple meal plan for you to try out if you want to stay around the above percentages. My suggestion is that you eat some complex carbs with a protein in a 3:1 ratio of carbs to proteins for breakfast. As an example this could be a bowl of oatmeal, 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites scrambled and some cantelope. That would be about 45g of carbs and 15g of protein and some healthy fats. This would provide some fuel for a pretty good start to your day. At lunch try to cut down that ratio to 2:1. A tuna sandwhich with some salad is a good example of a 2:1 carb to protein meal. By dinner time a good chicken or steak salad would provide a solid meal with proteins and limit the carbs since you don't need much more fuel for anything. If you workout in the evening after work a good idea is to have an apple and some protein about an hour before to give you a little boost so you can make a maximum effort.

Tomorrow we will discuss Glucagon, the fat BURNING hormone!