How Many Carbs You Should Eat Per Day to Lose Weight, Gain Muscle and for Maintenance
If you want to start an argument about diet, bring up carbs. (Or gluten, but that’s a topic for another time.) People are passionate about carbs. Love them or hate them, you need to eat them. Your body needs carbs to function, and that need becomes even greater as soon as you start assessing your health and fitness goals. Want to gain muscle? Adjust your carbs. Want to lose weight? Yep. You guessed it. Adjust your carbs. It’s even important to know how many carbs you need to consume if you’re just trying to maintain a healthy weight.
The source of your carbohydrate content is just as important as how many carbs you eat. The bourbon and bacon diet, while carbohydrate free, is going to do your body a lot more damage than a boatload of carbohydrates from a fresh salad. You can get carbs from fiber or you can get carbs from sugar. When it comes to where you find your carbohydrates, be careful.
Here’s how you can tailor your carb intake for weight loss, muscle gain or simple maintenance.
Carbs For Weight Loss
Carbs and weight loss have a complicated relationship. They’ve been vilified, glorified and vilified all over again, all in the name of losing a few pounds. The fact of the matter is, you need carbs. That’s the plain and simple truth. It’s how many carbohydrates and from which sources that matters.
There are a lot of benefits associated with a diet low in carbohydrates. According to one study published in Obesity, the participants who were eating a low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet high in fat with adequate protein experienced less hunger compared to those eating a low fat diet. Plus, according to Authority Nutrition, a low carb diet can lower your blood sugar, lower your blood pressure, reduce your triglycerides, raise HDL (good cholesterol) and improve the pattern of LDL (bad cholesterol).
Low carbohydrate diets are more effective when it comes to weight loss than a low fat diet. Exactly how many carbs you need to lose weight is largely personal, however. People who do a lot of exercise or have more muscle will require more carbs than a desk jockey who’s packing a few extra pounds around the middle. According to Authority Nutrition, aiming for around 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrates a day from healthy sources (read: not brownies) is a great option if you want to lose weight while still allowing for some carbs in your diet.
Carbs To Make Gains
Watching your carb intake isn’t just good for folks who are looking to lose a few pounds. One of the pleasant side effects of eating a lower carb diet is that your food automatically shifts to include healthy fats and lots of protein that’s going to help you build lean muscle. By cutting out crappy, carb-filled foods you’re leaving a lot more room in your diet for the good stuff. You can’t completely cut out carbs, though. Remember. You need them. The right carbs are going to help fuel your workouts and promote the right kind of growth.
“The fact is,” says BodyBuilding.com “every serious bodybuilder and lifter has been sidetracked and horribly misguided on the ‘zero or low carbohydrate’ kick. Not only is this a whole lot of nonsensical marketing schlock anyway, but also going low carbohydrate is absolutely disastrous for athletes who want to build muscle faster.”
You. Need. Carbs. Carbohydrates are your body’s principal source of fuel. If you want to have a successful workout, you need some amount of carbohydrates. The source matters. Carbs from a Snickers are not the same quality as the carbs from quinoa. Exactly how many carbs you need to consume, as with weight loss, is dependent on you, your activity level and your goals.
According to CompleteHumanPerformance.com, most bodybuilders aim for two to six grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight (one to three grams per pound). Endurance athletes need a little more to keep them fueled – about five to seven grams per kilogram if they’re training at a moderate pace. How much you need to meet your goals is largely dependent on the workouts you’re doing.
Carbs To Maintain
All of this information about carbohydrates is great, but what if you don’t want to gain muscle and you’re happy with your weight? How many carbs do you need if you just want to maintain? Not to sound like a broken record here, but this depends on your activity level, too. The gist of it is the more active you are, the more carbs you need.
According to LiveStrong, you need to get between 45 and 65 percent of your daily calories from carbohydrate sources. If you’re following the recommended 2,000 calories per day, this works out to about 130 grams. Once again, the source of your carbs counts. Getting too many carbs from sugars is going to have an adverse effect on your health. Make up those carb calories from foods high in fiber. This is going to do your body much more good than carbs from sugar ever would.
When you’re trying to work out how many carbs your body needs to meet you goals, whether weight loss or muscle gains, you need to consider how much activity you’re doing and where you’re getting your carbs from. Choose good, healthy sources and remember that the more you move, the more your body is going to need carbs to fuel itself. Don’t be afraid of the right kinds of carbs. Your body needs them. Just keep your eye on where and how much you’re getting and you’ll be able to adjust your carb intake to help you achieve your goals.
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