Macro-Cycling Part 3 of 5

In the last post on Macro-Cyling we talked about protein.

Hopefully you learned something.

All joking aside, protein is important.  What are also important are carbohydrates and fats.  These are the other two major macronutrients that people need to be aware of.  Fats, which are also called lipids serve a number of functions in the body.  While this is important to keep in mind (and surprising to many) we won’t go into any more detail here.  We’ll talk about those in the next section.  For now, I’m just going to hit you readers with some knowledge about carbohydrates.

What are they?

Carbohydrates are the body’s main energy source.  Plain and simple.  While there are many other important things to learn about them, that is the main thing to remember.  There is very little that carbs do in terms of restructuring blood plasma or proteins or rebuilding muscle.  Those are tasks assigned to protein.  Like protein though, carbohydrates are primarily composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.  Unlike protein, they lack nitrogen.

It was during the early nineteen hundreds that the role – and benefit — of carbohydrates was first understood.  Researchers realized that people who consumed carbohydrates before working were able to do so for longer periods of time.  Not only were these people able to sustain a workload for a given time period, but that time period was greater than it was in control subjects.  Additionally, the amount of work that could be completed by these individuals in a given period of time (intensity) was increased.  While many studies since have illustrated an ergogenic ( a substance that positively affects mental or physical performance) effect from carbohydrate intake that includes increased muscle gylcogen levels which improve aerobic endurance performance, other effects have been seen as well.  Namely, it is also assumed that high muscle-glycogen concentrations attained through carbohydrate consumption can aid in other exercise that is high in intensity but shorter in duration, such as weight lifting.

Ok so…?

So carbohydrates are important.  Whether your friend who is going “low carb” agrees or not, the facts are there.  We need carbs.  They are crucial for everything from burning fat, to building muscle, to providing energy to our cells — without which we couldn’t even exist in the first place!  Below are a few more important nuggets.

Carbs are stuctured into three groups based on the sugar (saccharide) units they contain.  While this may seem a little bit complex, even pointlessly so, it is interesting to learn that this is what makes fructose different from sucrose or lactose different from glucose.  These are all things that peole talk about quite a bit, whether they are exactly sure about it or not.  People might know about fructose because, well it sounds like it’s origin — fruit.  Or they think they know a thing or two about lactose because supposedly it’s in milk.  These are good points, and they are on target.  Digging a little deeper though and learning a little more helps you understand how these compounds work, and how they can help your body burn more fat, and build more muscle.

Monosaccharides are the first type of carb.  They are single sugar molecules.  Basically they contain one sugar unit.  Examples are glucose, fructose, and galactose.  Glucose is important because it is the most common monosaccharide.  It’s with the help of glucose that many larger sugars are built.  Without getting to technical, what is important to realize about glucose is that it is what we call “blood sugar.”  Additionally, it is the main source of energy for cells.  Also important, it is a major component of glycogen, which is a polysaccharide (containing many sugars) stored in muscle and liver tissues.

Glucose is not found in stores.  In foods, it is normally combined with other monosaccharides to form things like sucrose.

Does your head hurt yet?

Here is another thing that glucose does that most people can relate to.  It is put into sports drinks like Gatorade.  If you ever read the label of a drink like this you’ll probably see “dextrose” written.  That is what glucose is called in that form.

Glucose does another thing that is very important — it helps keep people alive.  Isolated glucose is used in intravenous fluids as a way to provide people with vital nutrients when they can’t physically eat them.

Starting to see the importance of carbs yet?

Let’s talk about fructose.  Like glucose, fructose is a monosaccharide.  Chemically, it has the same formula as glucose, but because the atoms are arranged differently, it tastes sweeter and is processed differently by the body.  It accounts for the sweet taste of honey.  And of course, it can be found in fruits and vegetables.  In the body though, it causes less insulin secretion than other sugars, which has turned the heads of many researchers.  While some scientists theorize that fructose is an ideal source of energy for endurance aerobic endeavors, the caveat is that large doses have been shown to cause gastric cramping.

Finally galactose is the third monosaccharide.  It is simple in its composition and not as important as the first two.  Essentially, it combines with glucose to form lactose, or milk sugar.

Since monosaccharides only contain one sugar unit, it’s natural to assume that there must be something out there called a disaccharide.  Truth be told, there are three types of disaccharides.  Basically to make one of these bad boys you just combine two monosaccharides together.

The most famous disaccharide is sugar.  Although most people don’t think of table sugar as a carb that is really what it is.  Combine glucose and fructose and you get this wonderful conveyor of cavities.  While most of sugar’s sweet flavor comes from fructose, glucose is important as well.  To make sucrose naturally people grab the syrup of the sugar cane (glucose) and some sugar beets (fructose) and crystalize them to form brown, powdered, or white sugar.

Lactose, as mentioned earlier, is the second disaccharide.  Lactose is formed from pairing glucose with galactose, and ultimately, it is only found in mammalian milk.  Maltose, the third disaccharide, is created by combining two glucose molecules together.  It occurs primarily when polysaccharides are broken down during digestion.

Any beer drinkers out there?

Maltose is produced during the fermentation process of alcohol and is the main carb in beer.

Although this info can get a little bit mind numbing, remember that these are the more important aspects of carbohydrates.  Learn this stuff and you’ll know most of what you need to know to use carbs to your advantage.  Whether you’re trying to tone up, lose weight, or just get fit it’ll help in the process…

We’re not done yet, though…

Sorry to disappoint, but there are few more important things to review.  What haven’t we gone over?  Specifically, polysaccharides, the glycemic index, and — most important of all — the body’s carbohydrate requirements.

First off, polyaccharides -

As you may have guessed by the prefix, polysaccharides are carbohydrates that are comprised of many sugars.  Also know as complex carbs, these may contain up to thousands of glucose units.  Basically they’re huge.

And they’re important.  Some of the most significant ones are starch, fiber, and glycogen.  Starch isn’t what you spray on your shirts.  Its the storage form of glucose in plants.  Vegetables have a ton of starch, as do grains, nuts, and legumes.  While starch is great by itself, it can’t really be utilized for energy until it is broken down into glucose components.

Dietary fiber is also a crucial component of the diet.  And guess what?  It’s also a carbohydrate.

Finally, glycogen is found in muscle and liver tissues in small amounts and is a temporary source of stored energy.  There is never a ton of glycogen in the foods we eat.  Basically we get our glycogen from glucose.  Glucose enters the muscles and liver and if it is not metablized for energy, it is synthesized to form glycogen.  Two thirds of the glycogen in the body is stored in skeletal muscle and the reamining third is found in the liver.  The process just mentioned of converting glucose to glycogen is called glycogenesis.  While this may seem a bit complex, it is a very crucial occurence within the body.

So what do I eat?

While many people traditionally believe that breads, cereals, pasta, fruits, and starchy vegetables are the ideal sources of carbohydrate, especially for athletes, it should be understood that variety is always key.  Mixing various types of carbs, both sugars and starches, are effective at supplying glucose and glycogen.

The other thing to be aware of when looking at carbohydrate consumption is the glycemic index.  This “index” is basically a measurement of how much a food raises blood sugar levels.  Each food, just about every food out there, has a number assigned to it that tells you its glycemic index.  Basically, the higher the number, the more that particular food raises blood sugar.  The lower the number, the less that particular food raises blood sugar.  Examples of high glycemic foods would a Doughnut, or a kaiser roll.  Rice Krispies, surprisingly, have a higher glycemic index than doughnuts.  Examples of low glycemic foods are peanuts  or low fat yogurt with artifical sweetener.  While these two groups of foods are on the extreme ends of the spectrum, there are tons of foods in the middle with a more steady effect on blood sugar.  An example of a food with a moderate glycemic index is Oat Bran.

Ok so…?

The point is that it is often important to measure the overall effect that a food has on blood sugar whether you are looking to lose a little weight, or tone up.  It’s especially important to be aware of the glycemic index when you are trying to totally overhaul your body, i.e., lose a ton of weight or add a bit of muscle, but it’s not the only thing that matters.  What’s more, the glycemic index of a food can actually vary based on a number of factors such as eating habits, and exercise habits.  I’ll expand more on the glycemic index in the final part of this post where I talk about how to put Macro-Cycling into action.

I’m not finished yet, though.  One more thing….

Carbs are important.  We’ve established that.  So the big question is, if they’re so important, how many do I need?

Basically the bare minimum that the body needs before it starts acting funny (going into ketosis) is 50 to 100 grams per day.  Keep in mind, this is relative figure.  While that is generally the lower limt, there are people who purposely avoid carbs (low carb junkies, dieting bodybuilders) and will sometimes let their body slip into ketosis.  While this isn’t a fun place to be, (and can result in a very onery individvual) it can be helpful for fat loss.  While 50 to 100 grams is the absolute lower limit for carbs, an upper limit for consumption would depend on each individual’s needs.  Generally, the more active you are, the more carbs you require.  By the same token, monitoring carb intake is very important if you have specific goals regarding fat loss, building muscle, and increasing your metabolism.  We’ll get into the specifics of how to do this in the final post.