Your 3-step plan to keep the carbs and still lose weight
Carbs are bad! You need to go low-carb or you’ll never lose weight!
Considering the scare tactics surrounding carbohydrates in the media , it’s certainly understandable if you think you need to avoid them at all costs to be successful on your WW journey.
But here’s the truth: Carbs are an essential part of a healthy diet, including one geared toward weight loss.
Why low-carb diets “work” — at first
The anti-carb trend has been around for a while, with people crediting their weight-loss success stories to cutting back (or cutting out) carbs from their diet. In reality, most of those results are probably related to eliminating a food group. When you delete most or all of an entire food group you are left with far fewer foods to choose from, so you’re likely to eat less overall.
Moreover, following a highly-restrictive approach to weight loss is very hard to sustain – and doesn’t help people learn healthy habits they can stick with for life. When you go back to eating carbs, the weight comes back, too. Here’s why:
The main source of energy for your body comes from glucose, which is broken down from the carbohydrates we eat. The body stores a small amount of this glucose in the form of glycogen, and when you reduce the amount of carbs in your diet, the body uses up these stores of glycogen for energy.
When the body uses glycogen, it sheds some water with it. This water-weight loss is reflected when you step on the scale. However, once you consume carbs again, these short-term effects are reversed, as the body replenishes its glycogen stores (and stores water with it).
Instead of learning healthy habits for life, you’re simply learning how to cut out a food group--one that’s essential to good health. Having sources of carbohydrates every day is recommended by doctors and borne out by scientific study. And with your WW plan, you can keep carbs and still achieve your weight-loss goals.
If you are trying to avoid carbs because you are worried that it will affect your weight loss, rest assured that there is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that restricting carbohydrates results in more weight loss in the long run. Ultimately what drives weight loss is sticking to your SmartPoints Budget.
Your carb-savvy plan
WW Freestyle embraces carbs, meaning they can be a regular part of your eating plan—but it also steers you toward the healthier varieties. If you check out our ZeroPoint™ foods, you’ll find many sources of carbs that are rich in nutrients like fiber, vitamins and minerals. When choosing from all the other carbs out there, lean on the SmartPoints® system. It’s designed to guide you toward healthier options which are lower in sugar, and higher sugar ones in moderation.
Choosing carb sources from among your ZeroPoints options, as well as those lower in SmartPoints, will help you incorporate healthier carbs into your diet while still sticking to your SmartPoints Budget. So, how can you get started?
Review your typical week and choose two instances where you can incorporate ZeroPoint or low SmartPoint carb sources. Use the three suggestions below — as shared in your Weekly — for inspiration:
Swap and save SmartPoints on snacks and drinks. Here are just a few ideas:
- Use veggie rounds instead of crackers, and bell pepper slices instead of fried tortilla chips.
- Have a chopped apple and peanut butter instead of a cookie.
- Make frozen banana “nice cream” instead of scooping out ice cream.
- Swap sugary soda or iced tea for sugar free versions.Switch in more ZeroPoint foods as your go-to choices. ZeroPoint foods are typically full of fiber and nutrients , and include vegetables, fruit, peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas and fat-free plain yogurt. Experiment with cauliflower-crust pizza, veggie “noodles” and more.
Have fun with ingredients. If you have a sweet tooth and love cooking at home, test out options to replace table sugar into your recipes. Mashed banana, ripe berries or grated apple all work, as well as sugar alternatives, like stevia. And spices can amp up sweetness without sugar. Try the classics, including nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, or do-it-all pumpkin pie spice.