Q & A Thursday: avoiding carbs at dinner
Posted by kathryn in Easier eating and Grains
Kicking off Q & A Thursday this week is a question from Mallika of Quick Indian Cooking: is avoiding carbohydrates at dinner a sensible strategy for weight loss?
I’m finding it interesting how many Q&A Thursday questions are centred around carbohydrates. In the past weeks the carbohydrate focussed topics I’ve covered include the GI of different foods, winter carb-loading, whether rice is a bad food to eat and brown rice vs white rice.
Carbohydrate containing foods
There are a wide range of foods that contain carbohydrates. Some of the grain sources are listed here, while the other main sources include:
- potatoes
- sugar containing foods and other sweeteners – lollies, jam, honey, chocolate, ice-cream, biscuits, golden syrup, etc
- dried fruit
- cassava
- sweetcorn
There are also moderate amounts of carbohydrate in milk, some other dairy products, nuts and sweet potato.
Kilojoule content
As I’ve stated before there’s nothing inherently wrong with eating carbohydrate foods. Many of them also contain some of the B vitamins, minerals, protein and antioxidants – all valuable things in our diet.
The problem comes when you eat too many of them. Meals are often based around the carbohydrate component, particularly at the expense of vegetables. This leads to the consumption of more kilojoules than are needed.
Avoiding carbohydrates in the evening
Along with moving more and watching portion sizes, if you have a few kilos to lose, it’s sensible to reduce your carbohydrate intake in the evening. One of the purposes of carbohydrates is to provide energy. Most people spend the evening at home, relaxing before going to bed and simply do not need a big meal.
For this to be effective, you also need to watch your fat and protein intake, as these will also bump up the kilojoule content of your meal. Use a minimal amount of fat in your cooking and make sure your plate is filled with plenty of vegies.
If you don’t want to avoid carbohydrates altogether, then follow my 50/25/25 rule.
05 July, 2007
Comments
Thanks so much!
No problems Mallika.
For the past few years we have been following the Hay System of food selection which separates proteins and carbs – not eating them in the same meal. This allows the gut environment to produce the dedicated acids (for protein digestion) and alkalis (for the carbs) and helps to avoid all sorts of digestive and toxicity problems. In turn this leads to weight control and enables you to choose when you prefer to eat your protein-based or carb-based meal. Carbs in the evening – usually a fairly light meal, helps us sleep better due, I believe, to the seratonin released when eating carbohydrates.
There are always sceptics who poo-poo these things but our experience has shown us that it works and our gradual weight-loss is proof enough for us.
Silver
I think it’s quite sensible to avoid carbohydrates at dinner, but compensate for the deficit in the morning.
After all, who doesn’t get voracious before lunch? :P
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