The new ‘Super Carb Diet’ is proof that cutting carbs isn’t necessary for weight loss
For years, the diet industry has promoted the idea that carbs are ‘bad’ for our waistlines.
If you want to be slim and fit, say goodbye to rice, potatoes and pasta (ignoring the fact, of course, that professional athletes often a mix of fast and slow release carbs into their diets).
That is, until now.
Because someone’s come up with the ‘Super Carb Diet’, which promotes the eating of ‘fibre-dense’ carbs.
It’s the brainchild of former Biggest Loser trainer, Bob Harper, who has written a book entitled ‘The Super Carb Diet: Shed Pounds, Build Strength, Eat Real Food’.
The principal is simple: adopt a maintainable, healthy, balanced, whole foods diet rich is complex carbohydrates like brown rice and sweet potatoes, which will keep you fuller and more energised for longer.
What it doesn’t mean, however, is gorging on things like bread and biscuits; we’re talking about eating non-processed carbs here.
Bob took up the diet after suffering from a heart attack in 2017, and says that the diet has given him the energy to recover properly and maintain his weight – and has the added benefit of not being too heavily protein-based (which can be hard to digest).
He tells Eat Well that his typical day of eating looks like this:
‘I tend to not have my first meal until after my yoga class in the morning or my CrossFit workout. After that, I will have my first meal which could be a nonfat Greek yoghurt with fresh berries and a teaspoon of nut butter. I will add extra berries since I’m not likely to add any veggies to that meal.
‘Lunch will usually be a BIG salad with plenty of peppers and chicken. I’ll add a quarter of an avocado and use balsamic vinegar. Dinner is when I do most of my cooking, I love to cook! I’ll always roast up some veggies and put them on the brown rice, and my protein will more than likely be a white fish or a chicken breast. Sometimes I will go all veggie and grain and make an eggplant steak (one of my favourites).’
Hardly sounds like rocket science, but that’s the thing – there is no secret to healthy eating. It literally is just a case of eating a balanced diet, ensuring that you get a bit of protein, carb and fat, and don’t go too mad on the sugar and salt.
If you want to lose weight super quickly…and probably put it all back on even faster (and more besides), cut out carbs. If you want to reduce your body fat and sustain it as part of a healthy lifestyle, then cutting out whole food groups isn’t going to work.
Prior to his heart attack, Bob was on a paleo-type diet, rich in protein and fat and very low in carbohydrate, and he says that its high-fat content left his body feeling off-balanced.
The fact is that not alternative diets work for everyone (in fact, they work for very few); while Bob doesn’t claim his previous diet caused his heart attack, it is irresponsible for the diet industry to keep trying to push people into adopting these high X, low Y eating systems. Very high fat and protein might work for some folk, but cutting out complex carbs means that you’re probably missing out on a whole host of vital vitamins and minerals.
The Super Carb Diet simply sounds like your bog standard healthy eating regime, but maybe in these days of extreme fitness, dieting and wellness, even common sense needs a marketable label.
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