What is a "Healthy" Carb?

As endurance sports athletes, we hear a lot about good and bad carbohydrates (CHO). So what the heck does that mean and what exactly does CHO do for us?

Carbohydrates are the foundation of any diet for an endurance sports athlete- they provide a rapid source of energy to support your daily activity and training, in addition to replenishing your muscle and liver glycogen stores. Failure to replenish your CHO stores WILL compromise your training, making it harder and harder to recover until you reach a state of burnout. 60% of your daily diet should be carbohydrates.

There are two main types of CHO: simple CHO or sugars (one or two molecules) or complex CHO or starches which can contain thousands of molecules. The old rule of thumb was: simple carbs are bad, complex carbs are good is an outdated concept. The current scientific data suggests we should be far more concerned with the quality of the CHO we ingest, placing an emphasis on wholesome CHO instead of refined CHO.

Wholesome CHO contains vitamins, minerals and fiber where refined CHO in processed food have a much poorer nutrient content, leading to empty carbs. The main thing that we want to be concerned with how the CHO affect our blood sugar and blood glucose levels. Current research indicates that each carb has it own blood glucose profile, based off a ranking system that describes the blood glucose profile- the Glycemic Index (scale is 0-100).

In general, CHO that his high on the glycemic index is >70, medium glycemic index CHO between 50-70 and low glycemic index CHO being <50. style="font-style: italic;">High Glycemic Index:
Instant rice, baked potato, wheat bread, waffle, watermelon, white bagel, pinto beans and black beans

Medium Glycemic Index:
Pineapple, couscous, raisins, brown rice, sweet potato

Low Glycemic Index:
Grapefruit, peaches, apple, whole wheat spaghetti, kidney beans, yogurt, skim milk,

To check the glycemic index of a food that you like, please go to:
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
And click on the “GI Database” tab on the left.

If you can slowly switch the majority of your carbohydrates to low and medium glycemic index CHO, you will see your energy levels increase dramatically during the day and the quality of your training sessions increase dramatically.