For a more visceral idea if you are overdoing the bread, rice, pasta, chips, and Mountain Dew, see if you notice any of these common side effects of eating too many carbs below.
That knowledge may nudge you to focus on consuming the much healthier variety of complex carbs. Chronic fatigue, or even feeling tired after consuming simple carbohydrates, could be a side effect of habitually eating too many carbs, according to the National Sleep Foundation. What's more, when you eat too many carbs during the day, you may find your sleep disrupted, making you feel exhausted the following day.
Eating too many calorie-dense carbohydrates , like chips, baked goods, pizza, sugary beverages, cocktails, and crackers, can obviously put weight on you. But there's more going on here than calorie overload. To understand how, you have to know how insulin works. When you eat too many processed carbohydrates, many people get an insulin spike—the pancreas floods the body with the hormone to help the glucose enter your body's cells, which lowers glucose levels in your bloodstream.
But when your cells get more glucose than they need because you've eaten way too many carbs, the body converts the excess glucose into fat. In a study in the journal Clinical Chemistry , researchers at Harvard Medical School analyzed data on more than , people who experience high insulin after eating processed carbohydrates and found a strong association with higher body mass. This gives you a burst of energy, albeit only a temporary one. What follows is essentially a sugar crash, leaving you feeling less energized than you were before you ate.
Ever talked to someone who went sugar-free? After a few weeks, they can't even look at a candy bar or can of soda the same way. That's because when you eat sugar your brain releases dopamine, an addicting feel-good hormone, so the more sugar you eat, the more dopamine you crave. It's an addiction—and also actual science: A Frontiers in Psychology review likened sugar addiction to drug addiction, a "habituation" that has contributed to our obesity epidemic.
Because simple carbs break down quickly into glucose, eating white bread has a similar effect on your body as consuming sugar. The more white bread you eat, the more white bread and candy, and donuts, and cookies you'll find yourself craving. You had acne in your teen years, but why do you have it now? Researchers have been studying the relationship between acne and diet for years, and many have concluded that a high glycemic diet i.
In a self-reported study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , for example, researchers identified a correlation between moderate to severe acne and consumption of added sugar, dairy, and saturated fat among young adult males and females. You need fiber in order to keep your digestive system running smoothly, but if you're eating way too many simple carbs, you're not consuming enough fiber to get the digestive job done.
Hello, lack of gut motility and constipation! Bloating is also a side effect of excess carbohydrates: Palinski-Wade says that carbs tend to hold onto water, which is why so many people lose a bunch of "water weight" when starting a low-carb diet. In addition to higher blood sugar levels, which can lead to type 2 diabetes, eating too many carbohydrates can raise your cholesterol levels —which can also cause type 2 diabetes, along with a higher incidence of stroke and heart disease.
We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Eating carbohydrates raises your blood glucose and prompts your body to release insulin. This redirects your glucose to cells.
Examples include desserts; white bread, rice and pasta; and snack foods like chips, crackers and pretzels. These refined carbs are stripped of the outside grain, which contains the fiber and some protein, she says, making glucose levels spike quickly. Carbs that contain fiber like brown rice or protein like legumes raise blood glucose more slowly, require less insulin, and keep you full longer.
But even complex carbs like whole grains, beans and fresh fruit should be eaten in moderation. To increase the amount of fibre in your diet, aim for at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and veg a day. Go for higher fibre varieties of starchy foods and eat potatoes with the skin on. Try to aim for an average intake of 30g of fibre a day. The glycaemic index GI is a rating system for foods containing carbohydrate.
It shows how quickly each food affects the glucose sugar level in your blood when that food is eaten on its own. Some low-GI foods foods that are absorbed slower by the body , such as wholegrain cereals, fruit, vegetables, beans and lentils, are foods we should eat as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
But GI alone is not a reliable way of deciding whether foods, or combinations of foods, are healthy or will help you lose weight. Although low-GI foods cause your blood sugar level to rise and fall slowly, which may help you to feel fuller for longer, not all low-GI foods are healthy. For example, watermelon and parsnips are high-GI foods, yet healthy, while chocolate cake has a lower GI value.
And the way a food is cooked and what you eat it with as part of a meal will change the GI rating. Find out more about the glycaemic index GI. Any food can cause weight gain if you eat too much. Whether your diet is high in fat or high in carbohydrates, if you frequently consume more energy than your body uses, you're likely to gain weight. Gram for gram, carbohydrate contains fewer calories than fat. Wholegrain varieties of starchy foods are good sources of fibre.
Foods high in fibre add bulk to your meal and help you to feel full. But foods high in sugar are often high in calories, and eating these foods too often can contribute to you becoming overweight. Wheat is found in a wide range of foods, from bread, pasta and pizza to cereals, biscuits and sauces. But there's not enough evidence that foods that contain wheat are any more likely to cause weight gain than any other food. Unless you have a diagnosed health condition, such as wheat allergy, wheat sensitivity or coeliac disease , there's little evidence that cutting out wheat and other grains from your diet will benefit your health.
Wholegrain, wholemeal and brown breads give us energy and contain B vitamins, vitamin E, fibre and a wide range of minerals. White bread also contains a range of vitamins and minerals, but it has less fibre than wholegrain, wholemeal or brown breads. Find out if cutting out bread could help ease bloating or other digestive symptoms. Carbohydrates, fat and protein all provide energy, but your muscles rely on carbohydrates as their main source of fuel when you exercise.
A diet that is low in carbohydrates can lead to a lack of energy during exercise, early fatigue and delayed recovery. It's recommended that you base all your meals around starchy carbohydrate foods and you choose higher fibre wholegrain varieties when you can.
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