Maybe it was Dr. Atkins, a yoga teacher, someone in your CrossFit box, or some other jerk trying to sell you something; but somebody scared you into thinking that sugar—what carbohydrates break down into during digestion—is poison. Unless you’re some kind of fitness model on the day of a photo shoot (you’re not and it isn’t*), you have no reason to fall victim to “carb-o-phobia.”
Let’s be honest. Somehow, everyone in the world except Americans manage to eat rice, bread, pasta, and grains as a staple of their diet without becoming morbidly obese. French people really do carry unwieldy baguettes home for dinner in tote bags, Italians really do eat more pasta than any other country—by a lot, and the entire continent of Asia is fueled on refined white rice. They’re not pretending to be cavemen, enduring juice cleanses, and whining about the headaches, lethargy, and foggy thinking that come with zero-carb diets.
Their secret is portion control. In other countries, life isn’t a never-ending Olive Garden bread basket and all-you-can-shovel-in pasta bowl. Remember, the portion sizes you get in a restaurant can be four times larger than what you’d eat at home. So, let’s all detox from this ridiculous line of thinking together and fall back in (moderate) love with carbs.
*If you’re in the 0.0000001% of people who have been a cover model, sorry, and good for you. You look great.