Which Carbs are good?

I attached an article below that brings to light some of the carbohydrate issue that we all here people talk about.  Have a nice read.

My Take on Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Low Carbs, and all of the Carb BS

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
With so much talk, confusion, and controversy in recent years about "carbs", I wanted to give you my take on good carbs vs bad carbs, low carb, and all the other "carb confusion" out there.  I'll also show you one of my favorite healthy carbohydrate choices.
First of all, although I'm not a "low carb" extremist, I do believe that one of the main reasons so many people struggle to ever lose any body fat is that they are overconsuming processed carbohydrates such as:

• cereals
• pasta
• rice
• bagels
• muffins
• breads (even whole grain varieties are not ideal if you're looking to lose body fat)
• sodas
• juices
• candies
• crackers

It is extremely hard to lose body fat if you're overconsuming any of these types of carbohydrates (even if you workout very hard). In addition to causing wild blood sugar swings and insulin surges promoting direct body fat deposition, eating too many carbs also increases your appetite and cravings.
Note that I didn't include potatoes in the list of processed carbohydrates. Despite the trash talking they get from many fitness professionals, I think  whole potatoes (not fries or chips!) are a nutrient-dense healthy food.
Even carbohydrate sources that most people think are "healthy" really are just excess calories that don't really deliver a whole lot of nutrient density... and many types of breads and cereals pretend to be "whole grain" with clever marketing while in reality the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which is just going to shoot your blood sugar through the roof.
My take on it is that the majority of people struggling to lose body fat would do much better following these types of carb guidelines:
1. Reduce your grain-based carb products in the diet (cereal, pasta, rice, crackers, etc) and focus more of the diet on healthy grass-fed and/or free-range meats and eggs, grass-fed raw dairy, and TONS of vegetables and fruits.
2. Instead of the grains for most of the carbs, try getting most of your carbs from vegetables, sweet potatoes, and a variety of whole fruits and berries (NOT fruit juices, which remove the beneficial fiber as well as other essential parts of the fruit)
3.  If you're going to get any grains at all, focus on the most nutrient dense and fibrous portions of the grain... the germ and bran... this means that the best parts are getting oat bran instead of oatmeal, and using rice bran and wheat germ (beware of gluten in wheat if you have any intolerance) by adding to your yogurt, cottage cheese, salads, soups, etc.  This way you get all of the most beneficial nutritious parts of grains without all of the excess starches and calories.
For best results with grains, try to stick only to sprouted grain products if you're going to eat any grains at all.
4. To replace the void if you're used to consuming lots of bread, pasta, cereals, and other carb sources... try filling that void with more healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, avocados, nut butters as well as healthy proteins such as raw grass-fed dairy and meats, whole free-range organic eggs, etc. Healthy fats and proteins go a long way to satisfying your appetite, controlling proper hormone and blood sugar levels, and helping you to make real progress on fat loss.
With all of that said, here's one of my favorite carb sources that is high in fiber as well as tons of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants:
Sweet potatoes or yams
I always choose the orange varieties instead of the white varieties of sweet potatoes. One of the problems with sweet potatoes is the time it takes to bake a sweet potato for 1 to 1.5 hrs.
I cook my sweet potatoes in a different way that only takes 5 minutes and they come out delicious... and no, I would NEVER use a microwave (I'll talk more about why never to use a microwave to cook your foods in a future newsletter).
The easiest and quickest way I've found to cook up a sweet potato is to slice it up into thin slivers and put it into a pan that you can cover with a lid.  I add a touch of butter, virgin coconut oil (beneficial medium chain triglycerides), and about 3-4 Tbsp of water and simmer with a covered lid for about 5 minutes. 
When the sweet potatoes are soft, then add a little cinnamon and maybe a touch of the natural sweetener stevia (if you want a little more sweet flavor) and you're all set with a delicious healthy carb side dish to go with any meat dish.  Add a side salad and you've got the perfect lean-body meal plan.

Build Hybrid Muscle

This is a great article with relevant information about building hybrid muscle.  Enjoy the nice read...

If you haven't heard guys in the gym talking about G-Flux yet, I'm sure you will soon. What is G-Flux you ask? Although it sounds like it might be a hot new supplement, it's not. G-Flux is actually a training and eating regimen that helps the body to burn fat while retaining-and even gaining-lean muscle mass. More accurately, G-Flux is actually the relationship between energy intake and energy expenditure. The concept of G-Flux was developed by Dr. John Berardi, a renowned human performance and nutrition expert.
You should already know that to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in. In the process though, most guys wind up losing lean muscle mass too-not part of the plan. On the flip side, if you want to gain weight-and muscle-you need to take in more calories than you burn. The typical scenario here is that you also end up adding a few extra pounds of unwanted fat too. Ultimately, we end up living our lives on a perpetual "see-saw," switching from one to another, but never really being satisfied with the results. I have to admit it sucks, in the past I've felt either lean and weak or strong and fat.
That's where G-Flux comes in because it's all about balance between input and output-and keeping it that way. But that's not all-it also calls for you to increase your calorie intake a lot and to increase your activity level by the same degree. G-Flux presents a realistic strategy to do this without overtraining and without burning lean muscle mass. That's the problem with a traditional "calorie deficit" approach to losing fat-you also lose muscle mass along the way.
G-Flux takes a "burn the f at" approach, meaning that your body is burning calories from fat, not from muscle. How does it accomplish this? That's where the increased activity levels come in. And by increased activity levels, I don't mean doing a few extra minutes on the treadmill or a couple of extra miles on the exercise bike. Your approach to increasing your activity level has to be targeted, tough and purposeful, with specific goals in mind. G-Flux has unlocked the secret to achieving the body's ideal state of balance in terms of energy input and output.
If you think about it though, "unlocked," is not really the right word here-"rediscovered" would be more appropriate. Why? Because maximum, sustained effort and varied workouts is at the heart of the G-Flux concept. That should sound familiar-think of the warrior cultures and how they trained. It's the same concept and we already know from history that it works. You know that back then they weren't worried about sticking to a 2,000 calorie a-day diet-they ate what they needed to eat and it was naturally balanced out by the strenuous activities that they engaged in on a daily basis.
So you might think, "What's the difference if I'm eating 2,000 calories a day and burning 2,000 calories a day?" The answer is that there is a big difference. When you boost your caloric intake to say 3,000 a day-and simultaneously boost your caloric expenditure level to 3,000 calories a day, the body undergoes a metabolic shift. All of sudden-even though input and output are equal-you find that your body is burning more fat and gaining lean muscle mass, just like the ancient warriors.
Now, it's a bit more complicated than that. You can't just start stuffing your face with anything you want and jogging a couple of extra miles each day. The foods you eat have to be healthy-think lean proteins, complex carbs and healthy fats-and the activities that you're engaging in have to intense. Again, look back to the warrior cultures and learn from them. You want to be doing the sort of "max effort conditioning" that these guys were doing every day.
The goal is to boost your metabolism as high as possible while simultaneously limiting fat storage. When the body achieves that state of "G-Flux" it increases the mitochondrial density of the muscles-super hybrid muscle, increases the total metabolism and makes the body far more efficient at processing fat. The end result being that you too, can have a warrior physique, just like our ancestors.
Sounds good to me! Eat more, train harder, build hybrid muscle and burn fat faster. What do you think?

Get my free report entitled, The Warrior Physique - Building The Super Hybrid Muscle. Click to learn how you can rapidly build muscle and burn fat at the same time.
Mike Westerdal is the founder of Critical Bench, Inc. A free online weight training magazine.