Because of the popularity in recent years of low - carbohydrate diets, we tend to think that carbs make us fat. However, carbohydrates are an essential part of everybody’s diet. Carbs are the same as every other food group – they lead to weight gain only if eaten in excess. Eating too much of anything will cause weight gain, simply because you’ll be eating more calories. Weight for weight, carbohydrates, at four calories per kilogram, contain few calories than fat and the same calories as protein. Unfortunately, we tend to smother our carbs with creamy sauces, butter, cheese and any manner of tasty flavour enhancers. It is these fatty additions that put on the weight, not the carbs themselves.

There are, in fact, two types of carbohydrate – complex carbs and simple carbs. It’s the complex carbohydrates that you should be concentrating on, these are the ones found in wholegrain bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice. These wonderful foods are a source of both starch and fibre, plus they take a long time for the body to process, meaning that you feel fuller for longer.

Wholemeal bread is recommended over white bread, likewise brown rice better than white rice, wholemeal pasta is preferable to white pasta. Generally, a lot of white foods like the ones above are refined and have had a lot of the healthy vitamins and minerals stripped out of them because this gives them a longer shelf life.

How much carbohydrate should you be eating?
We use carbohydrates for energy and the UK government recommend that a physically active person’s diet should be around 60 to 70% carbohydrate. However, there is a calculation you can do to work out how many carbs you should be eating. This is it:

Number of hours exercise per week X your weight in kilograms

So, if you way say 70 kilos and do an hour’s exercise per day, you will need 420 grams of carbohydrate per day. Most food packaging will tell you how much carbohydrate the food contains in 100 grams.

Of course, its far better that you get your carbohydrate requirements from complex carbohydrates and wholegrain foods than from chips and white bread! Don’t forget, either, that milk is a wonderful source of carbohydrates. Full fat milk, however, is also a wonderful source of fat! So try to use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk.