Are carbs healthy?

Every week expert nutritionist and clinical hypnotherapist Lowri Turner answers your health, fitness and wellbeing questions. This week, are carbs healthy?

Q:’ I’m confused about carbs!  Should I eat them or not?And, how much is too much?’

A: Let’s start with what carbs actually are. I see lots of weight-loss clients who tell me they they ‘don’t eat carbs’ when they are actually wolfing down gallons of roasted squash soup and fruit by the punnet.

When most people say ‘carbs’ what they actually mean is starches – bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc. Carbohydrates are a much broader category that includes these foods plus all fruits and vegetables. Salad is carbs, so is a vegetable stir-fry.

To go carb-free is therefore not only pretty difficult but not that healthy. We need carb foods, not just for their calories but for the fibre they provide when eaten in their natural state (fruits and vegetables). Going ‘carb-free’ can make you constipated as well as raising your risk of things like bowel cancer long-term, because of the lack of fibre.

OK, so how much carbs do you need? It depends what you’re trying to achieve. If you want to lose weight, one of the fastest ways is to reduce or eliminate white starchy carbs (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) while keeping plenty of vegetables. Greatly reducing fruit can also take down your overall calorie load quite considerably.

That said, if you do a lot of exercise, doing without starches can be tough. You may need the natural sugars to replenish glycogen stores to power you through your workout.

As a very general guide, I would say, for weight maintenance you can do three to five portions of complex starches  per day . One portion is a teacup-sized portion of cooked brown pasta/rice etc. Add to this, plenty of fibrous, non-starchy vegetables and limit starch vegetables like sweet potato, turnip, swede or squash to one portion per day. If you are a marathon runner or do a lot of cycling you may want to increase both starches and starchy vegetables a bit.

For weight loss, reduce this to one or two portions of wholegrain starches per day, while increasing your vegetables to compensate. Watch your fruit though as fruit is high in fructose, aim to get your 5-a-day fruit and veg fix from veggies rather than fruit if you can, and aim for one to two pieces of fruit a day.

If you have a question for Lowri, please email lowri@lowriturner.com

Lowri Turner is a nutritionist and clinical hypnotherapist. She sees clients in North London. To make an appointment, please email lowri@lowriturner.com or go to www.lowriturner.com