Carb timing is all about the time of day that you eat carbohydrates. This simple principle can instantly improve your health and fitness and you can do this right now. With an understanding of the basic biology you can make carbs your friend and not your foe.

Carbs and You

You can store up to 2000 Calories of carb energy. It takes many, many hours of high intensity exercise to use up 2000 Calories of carbs. The carbs you use during exercise are topped up when you eat food containing carbs. When you eat more carbs than you can store the excess carbs are converted to body fat.

What happens when you eat carbs?

As soon as sugar or starch meets the saliva in your mouth, your body starts to release insulin. You digest the carbohydrates and they enter your blood as blood sugar. Insulin sends this blood sugar into your carb stores until the stores are filled up. With no more room in your carb stores, the remaining blood sugar could be harmful so insulin converts it into fat for storage as body fat.
Important note: you cannot burn fat and store fat at the same time.

It’s easy to over do the carbohydrates.

Cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and rice, pasta and potatoes for dinner, that is simply too much.
Let’s have a look at a day’s food for a typical person:

Breakfast of porridge oats, milk and berries = 300+ Cals of carbs
Lunch of a simple sandwich (2 slices of bread), a fruit smoothy and a fresh apple = 450+ Cals of carbs
Dinner of spaghetti Bolognese and fresh fruit for pudding = 400+ Cals of carbs
Total = 1,180 Cals of carbs

This is far too much. The lunch of 450 Cal is plenty (that is approximately 115g of carbs).

Carb Timing to the rescue.

Save your carbs for lunch time.
This is the solution and the healthiest way to eat. You naturally restrict your carb intake to a sensible level. For example, if we keep lunch from the example above you will enjoy 450 Cal as opposed to 1,180 Cal. Remember, we said insulin stops you from burning fat, so saving your carbs for lunch restricts the amount of time that insulin can interrupt your fat burn. You then have the rest of the day and night to burn fat which is the ideal way to fuel your body and achieve a superb state of health. Read more here on being a good fat burner.

Photo Credit: Megan Taylor

Remember that carbs spike insulin, insulin spikes fat storage and halts fat burning. Excess carbohydrate gets turned into body fat. So, take my advice and save your carbs for lunchtime to instantly improve your health. Replace your carb based breakfast and dinner with low carb, high fat meals. Check out my articles under the Food category for more delicious ways to start and finish your day for enhanced fat burning.