why are Carbs considered ‘fattening’ when they have the same caloric count as proteins ?
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They aren’t.
What matters is energy intake vs energy burnt that’s all.
The anti carb speel is just another fad diet.
Not all carbs are the same so lumping them together as all bad is in a word stupid. A lot of the confusion about how much to eat is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what the 2000 calorie a day “need” really is.
2000 calories is not a biological fact needed for life it never has been.
2000 calories is the average food need for a manual industrial worker from around 1990. It was used as a base line to show everything else on a nutritional label and became the standard when the FDA started requiring nutritional content labels.
Why is obesity a problem? To be blunt? we currently eat to much for our level of activity so we get fat. On average? a modern north American person is 300-500 calories in surplus per day.
The FDA labeling program caused this epidemic because it put it in our brains that we need 2000 calories to live so by default you’re chronically over eating.
Why is it false? We live very sedentary lives. We are no longer a world of manual industrial workers.
You do not need 2000 calories to sit behind a keyboard.
You do not need 2000 calories to sell something.
The amount of food needed depends on what you do.
You should always tailor your food intact to activity. Lazing around the house does not require as much fuel as a day spent hauling roofing shingles.
The number of calories a person needs has never been universal making it appear so was a huge mistake. They were well intentioned showing how much of every nutrient you need but it messed things up so badly.
A 2000 diet calories would have been a starvation diet for a medieval peasants. They ate 4000-4500 calories a day to keep warm and due to the amount of labor. Their diets were largely carbs yet they were not fat nor were they always hungry.
Why did they need more food? they did a hell of a lot more physical work than we do and spent more time out doors so they burnt more fuel.
The key to staying in shape is to tailor your consumption to your activity level.
Ignore the fads.
Think on what you’re going to be doing and eat accordingly that’s it that’s the secret.
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