Not a lot of people know this, and I’m probably going to get myself in trouble for saying this.
But deep down inside the human body is a little switch.
And at exactly 3 pm every day this little switch turns itself off.
It truly is one of the most amazing secrets of the body.
It knows when you’re in a different time zone or even when it’s daylight savings time.
The only time it tends to have trouble is if you are standing with one foot on either side of the international timeline.
If you’re closer to one side it’ll go with that.
But if you manage to get yourself dead center you may feel a slight pain in your stomach as the switch starts to overheat.
Do you see how ridiculous this sounds?
In all seriousness though if you expand the question a little, people who swear by this theory may actually have a case to argue here.
Now with my super sarcastic response out of the way let’s break it down a little.
Your body does not know it’s 3 pm, let’s be clear on that.
Let’s also clarify carbohydrates as well.
As I’ve spoken about in the past, not all carbs are the same.
Your body is not going to process them all the same.
So while it’s fine to have more fruit and veggies later in the day.
Remember that carbs are our body’s preferred energy source.
And what our body doesn’t need to use it stores for later as fat, the body’s second favorite energy source.
So as we get later into the day and the demands on our energy levels are getting less, our body is using less and less of the carbs we’re giving it.
So you see there is some merit to that thinking.
It is a smart choice to eat your heavier carbs earlier in the day, to give you the fuel you need to get through the afternoon.
And have more vegetables later in the day.
And it’s not a crazy change to make, who doesn’t like rice, pasta or potatoes with their lunch?
Steak and salad for dinner sound alright to me.
What Makes You Gain Weight Carbs Or Calories?
Eating more than the burn makes you gain weight.
If you eat more calories than you burn you will gain weight.
But on the flip side, you could eat exactly the right amount of calories to maintain your weight.
But if too many of those calories come from carbs you will store more fat.
You see calories are broken down into macronutrients.
Protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
If you don’t get the ratios right, your body will store fat.
You need to get enough protein in your diet to at least maintain muscle mass.
I have a great article that breaks all this down for you.
So, carbs or calories will make you gain weight if you’re eating too many of them.
Tracking what you eat is the best approach to manage your weight in my opinion.
If you don’t know what you’re putting into your body how are you ever going to make the right changes to your diet?
And it’s really not that hard to do so, you can do it on your phone and it won’t even take more than 5 minutes a day.
So jump on over to my article that will teach you how to track your food the simplest way you can.
Remembering as well that how we train plays a big part in what we can and can’t eat.
The more calories you burn in the workout the more room you have to play with.
If you’re interested in some new ways to train, or if you are brand new to exercise my free EBook is a great little resource for you.
Follow this link to get yourself started with your new fitness journey.
Should I Count Calories Or Carbs?
Both are effective methods for losing weight when you do them correctly.
And both have their pros and cons.
So let’s look at calorie counting.
First, you work out how many calories you need per day using an equation based on your age, height, weight, and fitness level.
You then take off 200-300 calories and now you know your calorie deficit.
Next, you start reading nutrition labels and going online, and finding out how many calories are in each serving of your food.
And you stick to those numbers.
But it’s a whole lot easier using an app like myfitnesspal.
They do the math for you, they have all the nutrition information stored in the app, you just log what you eat.
The problem with tracking calories is you might not actually be eating that healthy.
You might not be getting all the nutrients that your body needs, leading to all sorts of health issues.
So just looking at that counting calories gets us halfway there.
Not a bad start considering we had no idea what we were doing before right.
Ok so what about counting carbs?
If eating too many carbs leads to our body storing the excess as fat, then cutting them back must be the go right?
Yes and no. Once again it’s a good start, but it’s only half the solutions.
Let’s say you drop carbs and start eating only fats and proteins.
Steak and eggs all day sound pretty good huh?
Fats are higher in calories than carbs.
So if you don’t know what you’re doing you may end up blowing out your calories by 100s or 1000s!
Now we’re going backward.
So what’s the solution? 1+1=2 just like 50%+50%=100%
If we take our 2 half solutions and put them together we might just have a problem solved.
Let’s track our calories and our carbs.
Or better yet, let’s track our calories and our macronutrients.
And my favorite app is just the place to do it!
Myfitnesspal tracks your calories and your macronutrients.
And this my friends is how you win the weight loss challenge.
Getting your diet right and finding an exercise routine is 2 out of 3 pieces of the problem.
The final step is the most important, and everyone just skips over it and wonders why they keep going round in circles.
You need to build the habits required for the discipline it takes to achieve the body and lifestyle you want.
I put all 3 together in The Grizzly Method.
To find out how I can help you take back control of your health and fitness, book your FREE evaluation call now!
To help get you started here’s a video I made giving you 3 high-protein breakfast options!