Were you asked to give-up your favourite FOOD?

"Long-term change comes from eating and doing what you love “ Never from being forced to do what you don't."

- Prabal Arora

Bread, pasta, cereal, rice, mashed potatoes, fruit and vegetable - all yummy foods. If you like those particular foods, and they can all be broken down into one group, pretty much it's called carbohydrate. The interesting thing here is that when I say pasta, rice, cereal, fruit and vegetables, many of you would have thought yummy, then your favourite foods.

If you were to eat a bit of carbohydrate, then a lot of other people would say, "Oh, you can't eat those, they'll make you fat". Well, one of the foods which makes us fat, how do we know which one? Is it carbohydrate? If we look at the countries that eat large amounts of carbohydrate! For instance, Asia, where rice is a staple part of the diet; the Mediterranean, where pasta and bread are very stapled parts of the diet! Yummy fruit and vegetables are recommended all over the world, and yet they have carbohydrates as well.

So how do we know? Isn't it all very confusing? Well, not really. It's quite simple. If you overeat anything, you'll get fat anyway. We all know that because most of us, at some stage in our lives, ate too much food and got some extra squishy bits. We also know that if we then exercised and burnt some of those calories, we could remove some of the squidgy bits from our body and lose weight.

Whenever you are in doubt, start workout

- Prabal Arora

Do you wonder what's making us FAT?

Interestingly, fat has 9 calories per gram. Carbohydrate has 4.5 calories per gram. So the number of calories in carbohydrate is half of that. So is it carbohydrate that's making us fat or is it fat? Is it fat, or is it food that's making us put on weight? Which one do we have a look at first?

What gives you energy to Exercise and live a Healthy life?

Well, the next question to ask is what gives me the energy to exercise? Because if I want to get rid of the squidgy bits of my body, I have to move a little bit more. Put my body into a fat-burning state so that I become a fat-burning machine to burn fat faster. The only way to do that is to get puffed and to lift heavy things. These are the two things that make your body a fat-burning machine.

What if you knew that you couldn't be alive without Carbohydrates?

Interestingly, the only energy source for my brain to have energy, the only thing it works on, the only thing it runs on, the only petrol source for my brain is glucose. And glucose is simply a breakdown of carbohydrate. When you eat carbohydrate, your body breaks it down into a substance called glucose and feeds your brain to function. So, if you don't have carbohydrate, your brain doesn't work. Now, the question is that if your brain is not working, how well is the rest of your body working? And the answer is you would be dead.

Do you wonder how crucial Carbohydrates are for your Body?

So, is carbohydrate essential? One would suggest yes. Because if your brain is not working, wouldn't you be dead? Second question – Where do Muscles get energy from to be functional? Isn't a substance called glycogen that feeds muscles with energy? You can only store about four 400 to 500 grams of glycogen in your muscles and liver. And that's used for the energy to exercise, for your muscles to move. If your brain runs on glucose and your muscles run on carbohydrates, which is glycogen, then isn't it essential for your body?

Well, here is the question. If you cut out the carbohydrate, will you be able to think properly? Will your brain work, and won't you die without it? So then perhaps it's not carbohydrate itself that makes us fat. Isn't the carbohydrate in larger amounts that makes us fat? Well, is it possible that all food, if we overeat, makes us fat? And of course, the answer is yes. So how do we know how many carbohydrates to eat? Don't we want to have full stores of carbohydrates so that our body is feeling energetic all the time, the brain is functioning really well, and our muscles have got the energy to take us out to exercise and turn our body into a fat-burning machine?

So you want to make sure that your carbohydrate stores are always full. So you must have around 400 to 500 grams of carbohydrates stored in your liver and muscles to make sure that your brain and muscles are working. Isn't that exciting?

Is it Carbs turning into Fat, or is it Fat coming from food?

So if you are too fat, a little bit less or have maintained the same weight for a very long time, then obviously you've got the balance right. The only question we need to ask then is, do you have lots of energy? If you don't have very much energy, do you have enough glucose for your brain to function and glycogen for your muscles to function?

If you want to lose weight, look at across the board where you can cut out some calories? Here is an interesting question. If you tried to lose weight, would you have a look at the fat calories, which is the stuff that sits underneath your skin and has 9 calories per gram? Or do you have a closer look at carbohydrate, which has only 4.5 calories per gram and has to be turned into fat? Now, what your body will do as it's an intelligent machine, it will turn carbohydrate and protein into fat if it has, to give you the energy and it accumulates as squeegee stuff underneath your skin.

It means if you overeat, your body will quite happily turn carbohydrate and protein into fat. But that process is complicated. It uses energy. Your body requires calories to turn protein and carbohydrate into fat. And when you eat fat, it's already fat. So, is it fat that is making us fat coming from carbohydrate or is it just we're eating too much food? The questions that you have to ask yourself – Do I have the energy to exercise? Do I feel energetic and excited to get out of bed in the morning? Am I happy with how I look in the mirror? If I followed a diet plan, can I continue with it for the rest of my life?

"Decrease fat to get your tummy flat."

- Prabal Arora

Now you know what's sitting under your skin?

So what is it that's getting onto our body and what is it that's coming off? Well, it's obviously not carbohydrate. When you squeeze the squishy stuff that sits between your muscle and your skin, that isn't carbohydrate sitting under there, that's fat. And if you had it sucked out, it would look exactly like that. It would look like fat. It would be yellow and lumpy and look like a lump of butter. The only way to get rid of that is to exercise with energy, which brings us to exercise hard. Get puffed, lift heavy things — the heavier you lift, the more of a fat-burning machine you become and the energy for that comes from carbohydrates.

Don't eat at all and your clothes will feel small

Questions are the Answers

So rather than looking carefully at carbohydrate, perhaps have a little closer look at how much fat you're eating. And if somebody had told you what to eat, they should have asked these questions first. How old are you? Are you male or female? What speeds up your metabolism? How much exercise do you do? How much energy do you need to get you through your day? Do you have the energy right now before anybody tells you that you should cut out carbohydrate or not eat that as it's bad for you?

They need to have asked you a whole series of questions. First, I tell you what to eat. Of course not. Can anybody else tell you what to eat? No. Unless they've asked you those questions. Won't you ensure the fitness professional or the dietician you choose, the person who's giving you information about food, has asked you a long series of questions before they start telling you what you can and can't eat?

Aren't Carbs very essential for your body?

And here is another quick reminder. The stuff that sits between your skin and your muscle - it's fat to burn away. Isn't it clear that if we want to turn our body into a fat-burning machine, it requires the energy which comes from carbohydrate, which is glucose in carbohydrate? So, shouldn't you be very careful about cutting out carbohydrate because it can affect your health in the short or long run?

You need carbs

Eat everything but EXERCISE “ My Mantra of remaining FIT & Strong

- Prabal Arora