Should I eat less carbs later in the day?

Should I eat less carbs later in the day?

Hey Jeff,
While this type of diet does work for some people, I don’t think it is necessary for most of us. Remember, carbohydrates are the main energy molecule for our body, so depriving ourselves of this for the majority of the day can have some deleterious effects.

I believe this strategy of eating all of your carbohydrates early in the morning, and not eating any past an arbitrary time arose from the thought that carbs=weight gain, so limiting carbs will limit weight gain.

However, it is not carbohydrates that cause weight gain, but eating too many of the wrong kind. Therefore, rather than limiting all carbohydrates, I would recommend limiting refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white bread, etc… These are carbohydrates with a very high glycemic index score, meaning that they are metabolized into glucose and absorbed into the blood stream very rapidly. This causes a large insulin release, which will result in the sugar being rapidly cleared out of the bloodstream, leading to low blood sugar…followed by hunger.

The hunger may drive some to eat refined carbs, and, well…you can see how this can turn into a messy cycle. Instead, you can replace those “bad” carbs with “good” carbs such as fruit and whole grains. These have a much lower glycemic index score, and more of a time release property to them. I think that trying to cut out sugar and white bread will work much better than cutting out all carbs after a certain time.

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