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What happens when you eat too many carbohydrates?
By Christina | October 13, 2008
You would think the answer to this is, you store a lot of carbohydrates. You have probably heard that the night before a marathon, adventure race or other endurance event you need to load up on the carbs. Actually, that’s not the case at all. So, what does happen when you overload on carbs?
Interestingly, the body can only store a limited amount of carbohydrates. Be it in the liver or the muscles there is only so much “carb saturation” that is going to take place before the balance is stored as an unusable, excess calorie, weight gaining by product. The average person can retain approximately three to four hundred grams of carbs in the muscles. Unfortunately, you cannot access those. The other storage site is the liver which can house sixty to ninety grams. This is where carbohydrates are accessible for glucose conversion. This is equivalent to about two cups of cooked pasta and it represents your total reserve capacity to keep the brain working properly.
Unfortunately for those of you who love a dinner of rice, pasta, bread, or other carb, once the glycogen levels are to capacity in both the liver and the muscles, what’s left will be converted into fat and stored in the adipose tissue, or fat cells. You may be thinking, carbs are fat free so why should I worry about excess carbs, they won’t make me fat? Sadly, once they are rejected by the liver and muscles, they are stored as fat and so all your efforts to eat low fat or fat free are down the drain, sabotaged by what you thought was a safe food.
The news gets worse though, any food that is high in carbohydrates will generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the levels of blood glucose. Hmmm, so far it doesn’t sound so bad. Keep reading…
Insulin is essentially a storage hormone, one of its functions is to use the excess carbohydrates and save them as fat in case of future famine. So the insulin that’s stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the accumulation of body fat. The message your body is receiving when you eat excess carbohydrates is: “Store fat.”
It gets even worse. Not only do increased insulin levels tell the body to store carbohydrates as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy. So the excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you fat, they make sure you stay fat. It’s a double whammy, and it can be lethal.
The next time you pile on the rice or pasta think about what you are really telling your body, “Hold on to the fat and never let go.”
Topics: General, Nutrition | 13 Comments »
March 12th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
this is really good reliable info. thanx =]
September 9th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I have a question:
What would happen to your body if you had “NO” carbs for a couple months, then, you go out and drink two sugar beverages?? I did this and the symptoms were HORRIBLE utter and total nightmare!!!!
January 10th, 2011 at 8:59 am
omg…i never knew that! thanks for sharing that information with everyone!
i’ll go low on carbs and go high on fruits and veggies instead 
January 26th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Thanks Christina. Your writing has great informations that I need.
But I love rice though and I eat it every day (a lot).
May 8th, 2011 at 5:33 am
well, ive been recently suffering from anorexia,
and the food they have me eating most proberly the best in my eyes, like i have alot of muesli bars EG: future bake yoghurt coated apricot muesli bars is what ive been having and i hav to eat 3 main meals and 3 snacks. i was just wondering if the amount they are making me eat is wayyyyyy tooooo much ????
October 19th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
hi i copyed and pasted al this info for school. dont sue.
October 19th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
is this about food
October 19th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
i love to eat but im not fat
October 25th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
THANK YOU THANK YOUU.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Actually the entire reason that runners and rowers load up on carbs the night before a race is because we need the stored energy for the race the next day. It is true that insulin is released to lower the blood glucose levels however we eat because it is stored and then the next day we are able to break it down and use it as energy. So carbs are extremely necessary for people who have extreme workouts within 24 hours.
February 6th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Thank you so very much for your detailed answer to my problem. However, I eat a lot of Carbs, and I wish to know how long I will stay fat for? I will cut down my Carbs intake, but how long should I lower it for?
February 20th, 2012 at 12:00 am
so, does that mean that I am all fat and no muscle? because I’m about the minimum weight to be considered ‘normal’ for my age and height, and i eat mostly carbs all day, but not enough food overall to gain much weight.
September 3rd, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Take magnesium, zinc, calcium,Vitamin d, potassium & phosphorus suplements together in the right balance( & some others that i cant remember to balance out vitamins) ALso iodized salt wich is most table salts. & then have an extreme work out for a couple ours to use up carbo hyrates, then store some more. the only reason the carbs in muscle aren’t being used is because you’re not extensivly using your muscles. potassium & salt need to be balanced to carry nutrients to the blood, iodine is so your not sluggish phosphorus is really important for nutrients going to your blood, but you need salt,just not too much. when you crave salt your body is telling that potassium & salt are out of whack & you NEED salt you salt freaks. without carbs your muscles wont be active unless your eating all day anyway. vitamin a is important for alought. too much vitamin d makes you sick if its continued & desroys the calcium stored in bones,muscles, & teeth. to sum it up, look up all the nurients & amounts of them that you need (more nutrients needed than listed) & you can eat lots of carbs if you workout everyday. get sleep cause lack of sleep makes you just as fat as eating carbs & junkfood all day with no exercise. If you feel bad or lack enegy it could be lack of sleep and certain nutrients, too much of others, or the imbalence of esential nurients. without carbs you also lose mucle tone anyways so your muscle will look like fat. salt comes out with perspeation so if you do heavy workouts for 30 minutes to a couple hours get some salt in you & some stuff comes out in urine so you’ll need to reingest it when staying hydrated, or because you drink lots of water to stay full or fill up faster.