Fuel Your Body Right: The Power of Proper Food Combinations

When striving to decrease body fat, proper combinations of food are essential. If your desire is to lose body fat, it’s important to never eat a carbohydrate alone.

Why Carbs Alone Lead to Fat Storage

We eat a lot of sugar and refined carbohydrates—white breads, packaged foods, cakes, cookies, and more. What happens when you ingest carbohydrates alone is a spike in your blood sugar level. To bring your blood sugar back to a safe level, the pancreas secretes insulin—the “fat storage hormone.” Insulin coats the glucose molecules and converts them into triglycerides (blood fat), which are then transported into fat cells and stored as fat.

The Role of Protein, EFAs, and Fiber in Fat Loss

The way to avoid this fat-storage process is to stabilize your blood sugar levels. Three key elements help you do this: protein, essential fatty acids (EFA’s), and fiber. When these are eaten in combination with carbohydrates, they help you decrease body fat. Every meal should have a combination of protein, an EFA, and carbohydrates.

Carbs Alone vs. Proper Combination

Let’s compare the fat loss benefits of eating proper combinations versus eating a carbohydrate alone. Orange juice is a perfect example. While it might seem like a healthy choice, if your goal is to decrease body fat, drinking it alone is not a good idea. Orange juice is a high-glycemic carbohydrate with little fat, fiber, or protein. By itself, it will spike your blood sugar, and much of the calories will be converted into fat—especially if your metabolism is sluggish.

But what happens if you eat two eggs and a small handful of nuts with your orange juice? Though your calories are higher, the food in combination enters the bloodstream more slowly, preventing a big spike in blood sugar. This decreases the amount of insulin secreted into your bloodstream. Even though you’ve eaten more calories, they are better used and less likely to be converted into body fat.

The Right Timing for Carbohydrates

The order in which you eat carbohydrates throughout the day is also important. Many programs suggest eliminating starchy or complex carbohydrates entirely, but that’s counterproductive to increasing your metabolism. Carbohydrates are essential to speeding up your metabolism, improving your overall health, boosting your energy, and helping you maximize fat loss. Here’s how to structure them:

• Starchy and Complex Carbohydrates – Eat early in the day – usually before 4:00 PM.
• Selected Simple Carbohydrates – Eat earlier in the day, ideally during your first or second meal, to allow them to be used as energy and to minimize fat storage.
• Fibrous Carbohydrates – High in nutrition and low in calories, these carbs can be eaten at any meal throughout the day.

When you eat the right combinations, you fuel your body to burn fat, maintain steady energy throughout the day, and build a strong metabolism.

Closing Thought

Healthy and lasting fat loss isn’t about eating less—it’s about eating smart. The right combinations of protein, healthy fats, fiber, and carbohydrates can work with your body’s natural systems so that you reach your fitness and fat loss goals.

Action Steps:

1. Review your meals for the week and make sure each one includes protein, an essential fatty acid, and carbohydrates.
2. If your desire is to lose body fat – never eat carbohydrates by themselves.
3. Follow the carb order throughout the day to keep your metabolism strong and steady.
4. Read my February blog for more fat loss signals: 8 Simple Fat Loss Signals for Lasting Results.