Is a Carb a Carb?

Are 50 grams of sugar more fattening than 50 grams of rice? Are whole grains always better than refined grains? Should you limit your fruit intake to avoid fructose overconsumption? Sure enough, not all carbohydrates are created equal. There are many methods in use to classify carbs and even terms for specific kinds of carbs.

Take sugar for example. Sugar is widely believed to be excessively fattening. That is, many people believe that calorie per calorie sugar is more fattening than other carbs. Others point out all carbs end up as glucose in your body and cite the truism that a calorie is a calorie. Those arguments are often countered by theories involving insulin and the ”˜a calorie is a calorie’ slogan doesn’t mean all calorie sources have the same effect on your body composition. Foods differ in their effects on your metabolism and their ease of absorption, which is one of the reasons why protein is less fattening than fat, calorie per calorie.

Rather than having a theoretical debate on the issue, which seems to be what most people in the fitness industry like to do, I’d rather just look at the empirical facts. People know me as an academic, but I’m also a pragmatist and I ultimately only care about results. Since I’m mainly interested in bodybuilding, I will look specifically at the effects of different types of carbs on your body composition.

Read the full article on SimplyShredded.

Note: The in-text references were omitted on SimplyShredded, but the order of studies in the references section exactly follows the order I mention them in the text (i.e. the 5th finding I discuss is reference #5).