{"id":2598,"date":"2025-02-18T20:57:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T09:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/optimal-timing-for-eating-carbs-to-avoid-weight-gain.html"},"modified":"2025-02-18T20:57:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T09:57:06","slug":"optimal-timing-for-eating-carbs-to-avoid-weight-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/optimal-timing-for-eating-carbs-to-avoid-weight-gain.html","title":{"rendered":"Optimal Timing for Eating Carbs to Avoid Weight Gain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The key to any successful diet is balance, balance, balance. Carbohydrates, along with fat and protein, are macronutrients that play their own roles in the body. Carbs, in particular, are an important fuel source and serve to transport all kinds of nutrients into your system. As such, there\u2019s no \u201cbest\u201d time to eat them.<\/p>\n

Indeed, they should be consumed throughout the day as part of balanced meals that also include the other macros. By spreading them out, you maintain a constant supply of fuel (blood sugar) and other nutrients to your body. As a side note, balancing snacks isn\u2019t quite as important. I usually suggest people use those to make up for what they might have missed during breakfast, lunch, or dinner.<\/p>\n

Some experts recommend cutting carbs after 6 p.m. While it\u2019s not bad advice, if you consume the same number of calories that you burn each day (i.e. your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE), and your carbs are primarily from fresh fruits, veggies, and whole grains, there\u2019s no reason to employ this rule.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are exceptions. A little honey here and there won\u2019t kill you. A well-balanced supplement might contain a little free sugar and still be beneficial. And if you\u2019re working out, sometimes you need quick fuel \u2014 and sugar is the only way to do that (see section on managing carbs for athletes, below).<\/p>\n

Those carbs won\u2019t be stored permanently as body fat; they\u2019ll be used as fuel and help recharge your glycogen stores \u2014 a \u201cback-up blood sugar\u201d supply stashed in your muscles and liver.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

You may burn less calories when you sleep, but you still burn calories. If you eat an apple before bed, your body will have no problem finding ways to burn off those 120 calories over the next seven to eight hours.<\/p>\n

All that said, there is some indirect sense to the 6 p.m. advice. Impulse snacking often happens in the evening. By \u201cimpulse\u201d I mean foods eaten above and beyond your TDEE, including the bag of BBQ chips you plowed through while binge watching Storage Wars, and the bowl of peanut butter cookie dough ice cream you devoured after your Tinder date went really, really south.<\/p>\n

Most of these sorts of foods involve carbs o\u2019 plenty, so the structure of a 6 p.m. rule may help you think twice about what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

How Many Carbs Can I Eat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So does that mean you can eat all of the carbs you want as long as you don\u2019t exceed your TDEE? Contrary to what the Twinkie Diet guy and the McDonalds Diet guy claim, the answer is no. (For the record, both of them actually tempered their diets with salads or other produce. The press just failed to mention that.)<\/p>\n

First off, you need balance. Carbs, protein, and fat all play different roles. You need all three. If you\u2019re highly active, you probably want your carb intake to make up 50 to 60 percent of your total intake. If you\u2019re training for an endurance event, see the section below called \u201cTips for Managing Carbs for Athletes\u201d for more guidance. If you\u2019re only moderately active, around 40 percent is a better number. If you\u2019re inactive, well, you shouldn\u2019t be, so fix that before I tell you what to eat.<\/p>\n

If you stick to the daily calorie range recommended for weight loss \u2014 based on your activity level (and how challenging that activity is) \u2014 outlined in your Beachbody nutrition plan, all you have to do is stick to the recommended number of green (veggies), purple (fruit), and yellow (other carbs) Portion Fix Containers each day. No adding up grams of carbs, no tracking or logging foods necessary.<\/p>\n

What Type of Carbs to Eat<\/strong><\/h2>\n

And, yes, the quality of those carbs matter. The thing you generally want to avoid is \u201cfree sugar,\u201d defined by the World Health Organization as, \u201call monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices.\u201d You also want to avoid refined grains, as both of these sources of carbs bang up your metabolism with blood sugar spikes, which may cause a host of health issues.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re eating within your TDEE, you won\u2019t necessarily get fat by eating free sugar and refined grains; rather, you\u2019ll miss the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients you\u2019d get from eating good carbs. As mentioned above, the majority of your carbs should come from vegetables, fresh fruit, and whole grains.<\/p>\n

Tips for Managing Carbs for Athletes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Most of the time, if your diet is (say it with me now) balanced, carb loading isn\u2019t too important. Generally, well-fed muscles have enough glycogen to last for 90 minutes of moderately intense exercise.<\/p>\n

However, if you\u2019re eating at a caloric deficit, that duration may be shorter because you\u2019re not recharging optimally. So if you\u2019re lowballing calories while doing an intense workout program, or you\u2019re gearing up for an effort longer then an hour-and-a-half, favoring carbs in your meal two to three hours before starting is a good idea. Keep in mind that if you\u2019re trying to lose weight, this doesn\u2019t mean adding additional carbs to that meal. Instead, it means moving your daily carb intake around so you eat more of them at that time.<\/p>\n

\"When<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re talking competition (anything from a football game to a triathlon) or any seriously long effort (like a 100-mile bike ride or an entire morning in heavy surf), then absolutely throw the previously mentioned 6 p.m. rule out the window and make sure to carb-load the night before \u2014 or possibly even before that. Is that the best way to assure weight loss? Probably not. Is it the best way to assure you have maximum fuel for whatever you\u2019re doing? Absolutely. Because, believe it or not, sometimes looking good in your wetsuit isn\u2019t nearly as important as how you perform while you\u2019re wearing it.<\/p>\n

After your big event, you want to replenish your glycogen. If you\u2019re doing a multistage race or plan on training hard the next day, get on the job as soon as possible by making carbs part of your recovery meal or shake. Otherwise, it\u2019s not a screaming rush; just don\u2019t be afraid to have a little extra pasta or fruit salad for two or three meals.<\/p>\n

The 10-Second Takeaway<\/strong><\/h2>\n

High-quality carbs that come from vegetables, fresh fruit, and whole grains provide vital nutrients and fiber that your body needs to be healthy and perform at its best. So, should you cut all carbs from your diet for the sake of slimming down? No way. The possible short-term boost in weight loss (that will likely be the result of eating fewer calories, versus eliminating carbs) isn\u2019t as valuable in the long run as learning how to incorporate healthy carbs in a balanced way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The key to any successful diet is balance, balance, balance. Carbohydrates, along with fat and protein, are macronutrients that play their own roles in the body. Carbs, in particular, are an important fuel source and serve to transport all kinds of nutrients into your system. As such, there\u2019s no \u201cbest\u201d time to eat them. Indeed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2600,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions\/2600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}