This is How to Still Enjoy Carbs on Your Weight Loss Journey.

There's this girl I follow on social media.  She's a successful entrepreneur who's constantly growing her brand. Although I don't follow her very closely, I can say that she's had an amazing journey over the years.  But, there's one thing I notice....every so often she's discussing a new diet plan to help shed some of her excess weight. 

One time she consumed mainly vegetable juices.  Recently she decided to go keto.  But the last time I visited her page, it seemed as if simple carbs had entered back into her life in a big way.

I don't fault her. Carbs are a tough food group to eliminate.  They're filling, satisfying and taste so good.  It's nearly impossible to give up carbs long term. But losing a decent amount of weight requires some form of carb management.   Since the keto diet is so popular, many are opting for carb elimination.  Eliminating carbs works!  But is almost 100% temporary.

You will reintegrate carbs back into your life....and you will likely gain all the weight back once you do.  The true key to weight success, in my opinion, requires carb management, not carb elimination. 
After experimenting with different ways to lose weight, I've come to the realization is that my most effective strategy is to watch my carbs.  I've tried removing carbs altogether and the weight just melted off.    But if I went back to eating like I normally do, the weight came back just as quickly as it left. 

I clearly couldn't go back to eating whatever I wanted.  Something had to change. 

But I wasn't giving up carbs for good. 

Finally, I've come to a workable solution which allows me to continue to lose excess fat without giving up on the carbohydrates I dearly love. 

 When we eat a carb-rich meal, it stimulates our body to produce the insulin hormone.  This trigger causes our body to store glucose as glycogen (in our muscles) or body fat.  It's a naturally occurring process that occurs in almost everyone.

I noticed that, in my life, the heaviest carb meal typically occurred at dinner. I go to bed pretty early so when my blood sugar spiked, I was probably winding down or in bed.  Since our muscles are inactive when we sleep,  most of what we eat for dinner is at risk of being stored.  If my dinner consists of protein and veggies, I don't usually experience weight gain when I weigh myself in the morning. 

Does this mean that I've given up carbs altogether?  Nope!  I still treat myself to high carb foods.  But I manage carbs by consuming them earlier in the day.  That's the secret.  By restricting the excessive consumption of carbs in the last part of the day, you reduce the potential negative impact of your meal.  The true purpose of carbohydrates is to provide fuel for our bodies.   When you think about it, we don't need to fuel up before going to sleep.  But that's exactly what we do so our body has no choice but to store it. 

If you live an active, busy life, your body might have a chance to put most, or all, of that fuel to use during the day.  Even if you're not so active, you can choose to add more activity on days when you go heavy on the carbs. By cutting off carbs after lunch, you can still adjust your day to include a long walk after dinner or an afternoon workout.  For me, a low carb (early) dinner coupled with a long evening walk is a recipe for fat burn.

If eating carbs early in the day doesn't seem convenient or realistic for you, my suggestion is to try to squeeze in a strength training workout prior to carb-heavy meals.  Strenuous exercise causes us to deplete the glycogen stores in our muscles.  So if we load up on carbs, the glucose will be shuttled to the muscles instead of being stored as fat.  If you have time to fit in a gym visit after work (before dinner) that would be ideal.  If a pre-dinner gym visit is out of the question, it's probably best to order a salad and protein for dinner.

I read a few testimonials of individuals who incorporated this early carb lifestyle change after coming off a carb-restricted diet like keto.  For many of them, they were able to continue their weight loss journey while still enjoying the foods they love.  Maybe the weight doesn't come off as quickly as with keto, but this method is much more realistic and easy to maintain longer-term.