In this video we'll uncover whether or not carbs are bad for you.
Hi ladies and gentlemen.
I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome back to the channel.
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In this video, we're talking about, "Are carbs bad for you?”
And then we also want to discuss how much - how many carbs you should be eating on a
regular basis.
And so you know, this is a really convoluted topic because there's people who are the ketogenic
diet and say you should have no carbs at all and then there's people who are on the complete
opposite end of that spectrum saying you should eat a lot of carbs and then there's even studies
out there that kind of show you, you know, the difference between those two.
There’s studies saying that if you eat low carbs you’re going to have an early chance
of death and there’s studies saying that you're going to decrease your risk of stroke
and an early death if you actually have a low-carb diet.
So anyway, let's go ahead and try to clear up some of that confusion.
In this video, we're going to talk about a couple studies out there and what we need
to know about them, especially the ones that really go and demonize a low-carb diet and
then we're also going to look at the benefits of a low-carb diet and then from there we'll
discuss good carbs vs. bad carbs and also how many carbs you should eat a day.
And at the end of this video, what I will do is, I'll share with you where you can find
a link to my list of good carbohydrates that you can eat on a daily basis.
So let's go ahead and jump in.
Now when we look at this first study here that I'm going to talk about, it's important
to know that it was done in Lancet, which is a very prestigious medical journal and
so what they were doing in this study is they were looking at these people and seeing well
are carbohydrates good for you or are they bad for you?
And so what happened is a study came out and then all these different news outlets reported
on it and when they were looking to get a lot of clicks are looking to get a lot of
views and so you know they they didn't really dive into the study and give you the truth
behind it I'm just you at a glance gave you their initial thoughts and many of their initial
thoughts were first of all eating a low-carb diet is going to cause early death and then
the other thing was that if you are consuming this low-carb diet that you're going to be
unhealthy and that you should consume a high carb diet.
And some of these different news outlets were even saying that you should be consuming a
diet that is 50% carbohydrates or more and so here's the deal, let's go ahead and talk
about this for study.
So like I said, basically this study said low carb diet equals early death.
And so there are a couple of problems with this study that said a low-carb diet is going
to cause you to have a early death.
Basically when they refer to low-carb, they refer to anything that was 40% and below.
Most people would not consider that to be a low-carb diet.
What is a low carb diet at that point?
And the next thing is that there were a lot of confounding variables and what that means
is that there were variables that they couldn't control within this study.
Because the study even points out that many of the people who were consuming a low-carb
diet were the unhealthy people, the people who were smoking, they weren't exercising,
they were sitting around a lot 0 not moving, they were just living a very unhealthy lifestyle,
they may have already had a condition that they had developed prior to this whole thing
and that they're already facing and so anyway, there's a lot of variables and we know that
that's important because nobody ever had said that following the ketogenic diet or a low
carb diet but yet smoking and doing a whole bunch of things that are really bad for you
is going to offer you good health.
So, you know we have to be aware of that.
And the last thing I want to mention about the study that you know led to it being pretty
flawed is that it was all based on recalls and questionnaires, meaning that when they
were going back and finding the information out as to what these people were eating and
you know how many carbs and all that?
They were basically just doing it off of recall, so how many carbohydrates did you eat a month
ago for dinner?
And then the other thing was is that there was questionnaires.
And so a lot of people tend to put their best foot forward right and then we see this in
many of the YouTube videos we watch or maybe some of the different articles we read or
people you follow online, everybody's putting their best foot forward and so you know there's
no reason to believe that people wouldn't do that as well if they know that the diet
is looking for them to eat low carbohydrate, they're going to say well yeah I probably
didn't need as many as many as you know maybe I initially thought I did and so anyway you
know we have to take that into consideration as well.
So, the recall and questionnaire is basically going to cause a little bit of a problem there
and so there's a lot of flaws in the study and so we have to take that whole thing into
consideration.
Now Lancet did another study and what I’ll do by the way is link both of these studies
below so you can dive into them.
But this study is called the Pierce study and I'm just referring to it as study number
two and basically what they did is they had the complete opposite findings and in this
study they found that if you have a high carb diet you're going to have an increase in mortality.
And they also found that a high-fat diet in this study will decrease your risk of mortality
and decrease your risk of stroke.
And so anyway this is very confusing to the average person who is going and reading these
and what we want to do is make sure we interpret them correctly and understand that there's
a lot of flaws in this one that was saying that a low-carb diet is going to cause an
early death.
So we have to take that into consideration.
So let's go ahead and talk about the benefits of a low-carb diet.
As you know like I said in your heart of hearts you know that eating a high carb diet, high
sugar diet, low quality foods is going to destroy your health.
So let's go ahead and talk about the benefits of low carb diet.
So first of all you’re going to have a decreased chance of getting type 2 diabetes.
So as we eat a lot of carbohydrates, a lot of refined carbohydrates you're going to spike
that insulin, you're going to spike that blood sugar and you're going to eventually get diabetes
that goes along with it.
So a low-carb diet will help to decrease your risk in that.
We're also going to improve our cognitive function with a low-carb diet and also improve
neurological health.
So people who are on a low-carb diet/high fat diet, they’re able to have a lot more
energy to have good thought processes and being able to focus.
And then people who have a low-carb diet also have better neurological health.
It's just like diabetes.
Typically the same people with diabetes have Alzheimers and neurological degenerative disorders.
So when we have a low-carb diet, we’re keeping that insulin low, keeping that blood sugar
low, essentially it’s going to improve neurological function and well being.
And the next here is hormone balance, ok?
So the more carbs we eat, we’re going to have more insulin spikes and so we want to
make sure that for a hormone balance perspective that were not consuming a super high carb
diet.
It’s going to improve our digestion.
It's going to give you less cravings because the more sugar you eat the more cravings you
have, just simply because the sugar acts like a drug on the brain.
Basically it’s going to boost up that neurotransmitter dopamine.
It’s going to activate that brain reward cascade and as a result, the more sugar you
have the more sugar that you crave and so decreasing the amount of sugar you're consuming
is going to be really powerful.
The next thing here is you're gonna have more energy.
We've talked about this many times in other videos that having high fat diet/low carb
diet is going to give you more energy because fat is a more sustainable energy source.
People who are using sugar as an energy source have a lot of highs and lows and so that's
not good.
And the last thing here is going to be a decrease in metabolic syndrome.
So things such as heart disease, things such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance
- you're gonna have a much lower risk of that if you're following a low carb diet.
Now let's go ahead and talk about these good carbs versus bad carbs.
Now just like anything there's going to be good quality and bad quality foods and so
even when it comes to carbohydrates we need to make sure that we're differentiating between
good and bad carbs.
You know there's so many diets out there that just give you the number of carbs that you
should eat but they don't tell you to make sure that you're eating high quality carbs
and so this is really important because there's a huge difference.
When we look at good carbohydrates they're nutrient dense, they have benefit to the body,
they don't raise insulin as much, they don't raise blood sugar as much but when we look
at some of these different bad carbohydrates they lack nutrients, they're empty calories
in many cases, they have the fiber stripped away from them so they just act completely
different on the body, the blood sugar, the insulin and so it's very good to make sure
that you know the difference between them.
And so when we look at good carbs we're looking at sweet potato.
You know choosing sweet potato over white potato is a really good decision the next
is going to be butternut squash black beans blueberries you know really high nutrient
dense high antioxidant low glycemic index fruits are really great - blueberries, green
apples, grapefruit, and then these are just some quick examples.
Okay now to give you examples of you know bad things is going to be your pasta, your
white bread, you know the crackers and cookies and snack bars.
Once again these don't offer you nutrients but they offer you a lot of carbohydrates
and just because the nutrients are stripped away the fibers are stripped away what they're
going to do is really just skyrocket those blood sugar levels and also your insulin levels
so we have to make sure that we're making better choices because there's so many diets
out there as I mentioned that just don't differentiate between good and bad carbs.
They just tell you you know keep your carbs at this level but they don't tell you that
you need to make sure along with that that you're making good carbohydrate choices.
Let's go ahead and talk about how much okay?
Now when we look at the ketogenic diet, on average you're gonna want to be at 50 grams
of carbohydrates or less okay and this is just following kind of a standard keto diet
now.
If you're someone who has insulin resistance or you have you know diabetes, you have a
health condition that you're looking to get under control then you're gonna want to even
take that down further.
You know you go 25 grams or less you're gonna see a lot better results and so when we look
at carbs once again 50 grams are less on average but 20, 25, 20 grams or less if you have some
sort of health condition you're trying to overcome and that's gonna be very powerful.
Now though I love the ketogenic diet, I also love a low-carb diet and the reason for that
is because it's more sustainable for many people and you know I work clinically with
a lot of people and I know that it is you know following the ketogenic diet is way too
much for a lot of people and I say that because you know people will tell me they followed
the ketogenic diet and I'll ask details and I can you know, you know find out very quickly
that they followed a high-fat diet that was not keto at all.
They just added in a lot more fats and then you know a lot of people they will you know
try it for three days and give up and so here's the deal when we look at all these different
articles and videos on the internet, it's very quick to think that the ketogenic diet
is something that everybody is easily doing and following but what I can tell you is that
though the ketogenic is very powerful, it's very hard for many people to follow and so
that's why I also love a good low carb diet because you're going to see great results
with it as well.
Now on a low-carb diet you're going to want to consume between a 100 and 200 grams of
carbohydrates.
Okay now that also I understand that's a big variation from 100 to 200 but it really depends
on a lot of different factors.
So let's say average is 150 grams on a low carbohydrate diet okay?
Now whether you're a small petite person or you're a bigger person, that's going to make
a difference.
Whether you're an athlete or someone who doesn't exercise at all makes a big difference.
And so what you want to do is look at that goal and say okay if 150 grams is average
then where do I need to be and I think that if you go ahead and play with that a little
bit and you you know try a 100 grams and you try upwards of 200 grams you're gonna find
out real quick where you need to be and if you're consuming you know down until it towards
the lower amount you feel great and you're you know shedding fat and you're you know
getting the results that you want to see then stay there but if you're actually able to
go and consume 150 grams and feel really great and stay healthy and look healthy and feel
healthy then that's great as well so anyway the ketogenic diet is powerful, the low carb
diet is also very powerful and more sustainable for most people.
I also wanted to mention to you that when of course you're following these diets they're
always eating high quality carbohydrates, never low quality carbohydrates and what I'll
do is I'll put a list of the different carbohydrates that I recommend good high quality nutritious
carbohydrates that I recommend.
There'll be a link in the description below so we can email you that list of good carbs
that you can eat so other than that be sure to put any questions you have in the comment
section below and I'll get back to you.
Also be sure to subscribe to my channel here and give this video a thumbs up.
I'd greatly appreciate that and then check out my other videos on the ketogenic diet
and all the ways that you can improve your health I'll see you in the next video.