{"id":823,"date":"2026-09-21T08:33:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/?p=823"},"modified":"2026-09-21T08:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:33:26","slug":"eliminate-carbohydrates-to-lose-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/eliminar-carbohidratos-para-perder-peso\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliminating carbohydrates to lose weight: why it&#039;s a mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00ab&quot;I want to lose belly fat, so I&#039;m going to give up bread and carbohydrates.&quot;.<\/em> You&#039;ve probably heard this phrase more than once. Or maybe you&#039;re the one who, every time you decide to lose weight, starts by doing exactly the same thing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u274c Out with the bread.<\/li>\n<li>\u274c No pasta.<\/li>\n<li>\u274c No rice.<\/li>\n<li>\u274c Potatoes out.<\/li>\n<li>\u274c And at night, no carbohydrates whatsoever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Eliminate carbohydrates to lose weight<\/strong> It seems like the quick fix\u2026 and that&#039;s precisely the mistake I want to debunk in this article.<\/p>\n<p>For a few days it seems to work. The scale drops quickly and you think, &quot;See? The carbs were the problem.&quot; But as the days go by, you start to get tired of eating the same thing all the time, you crave certain foods more, and then the weekend arrives... And that bread you&#039;ve been avoiding all week seems to be calling your name.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that probably <strong>You never needed to eliminate carbohydrates to lose fat.<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Carbohydrates don&#039;t make you fat simply by eating them<\/h2>\n<p>Let&#039;s start with the most important thing: eating carbohydrates doesn&#039;t prevent fat loss. To reduce body fat, you need to maintain a <strong>caloric deficit<\/strong>, That is, consuming less energy than your body uses over a period of time.<\/p>\n<p>And that deficit can be perfectly achieved by eating:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\ud83c\udf5e Bread<\/li>\n<li>\ud83c\udf5a Rice<\/li>\n<li>\ud83e\udd54 Potato<\/li>\n<li>\ud83c\udf5d Pasta<\/li>\n<li>\ud83e\udd63 Oats<\/li>\n<li>\ud83c\udf2f Tortillas<\/li>\n<li>\ud83c\udf4c Fruit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, quantities matter. But they matter just as much as with any other food. The problem isn&#039;t that you ate a piece of toast. The problem arises when your overall diet regularly provides more energy than you need.<\/p>\n<h2>\u00ab&quot;But when I cut out carbohydrates, I lose weight very quickly.&quot;\u00bb<\/h2>\n<p>That&#039;s true. And this is precisely what makes many people think that carbohydrates make you fat.<\/p>\n<p>When you drastically reduce carbohydrates, your body&#039;s glycogen stores decrease, along with some of the associated water. That&#039;s why you might see a rapid drop on the scale during the first few days.<\/p>\n<p>But be careful: <strong>Losing weight and losing fat are not exactly the same thing<\/strong>. Part of that initial drop may be water.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#039;s why the opposite can also happen. After several days of eating few carbohydrates, you go out to dinner, eat pizza, pasta, or some other salty food, and the next day you weigh a kilo more.<\/p>\n<p>Did you gain a kilo of fat during dinner? No. Your weight can fluctuate due to fluids, glycogen, salt, and the food you&#039;re still digesting. Don&#039;t interpret every change on the scale as fat gained or lost.<\/p>\n<h2>If you want to &quot;tone up&quot;, carbohydrates can be your allies<\/h2>\n<p>Many women come to my office saying, &quot;I don&#039;t want to get strong, I just want to lose belly fat and tone up.&quot; And to achieve that look we usually associate with being &quot;toned,&quot; we need two things: <strong>reduce fat and maintain or build muscle mass<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Here the <a href=\"\/en\/strength-training-for-women\/\">strength training<\/a> It&#039;s essential. And to train well, you need energy. Carbohydrates are an important source of fuel, especially during high-intensity activities.<\/p>\n<p>If you follow an extremely restrictive diet and arrive at the gym without energy, you will probably train worse, lift less weight, and find it difficult to progress.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the goal shouldn&#039;t be &quot;how can I eliminate all carbohydrates?&quot;, but rather: <strong>\u00ab&quot;How many carbohydrates do I need and how can I distribute them?&quot;\u00bb<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>You also don&#039;t have to remove them at night.<\/h2>\n<p>Another classic: &quot;I don&#039;t eat carbohydrates after 6:00 PM because they make you fat at night.&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Your body doesn&#039;t have a clock that automatically converts 9 PM rice into fat. What matters most for fat loss is maintaining energy balance over time, not whether you ate a potato for dinner.<\/p>\n<p>You can have an omelet with bread for dinner. You can have potatoes with your fish. You can include rice. And you can still lose fat.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, if including an adequate amount of carbohydrates at dinner makes you enjoy your food more and allows you to maintain it for months, it&#039;s probably much more helpful than forcing yourself to eat salad for dinner every day.<\/p>\n<h2>The problem starts when we divide foods into &quot;good&quot; and &quot;bad&quot;.\u00ab<\/h2>\n<p>Bread = bad. Rice = fattening. Pasta = forbidden. Potato = lots of carbohydrates.<\/p>\n<p>But then Saturday arrives and we want to eat everything we&#039;ve been avoiding since Monday. And we&#039;re back to the same cycle:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Restriction \u2192 anxiety about eating \u2192 excess \u2192 guilt \u2192 &quot;I&#039;ll start again on Monday.&quot;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That&#039;s why we often don&#039;t need a stricter diet. We need a diet we can maintain.<\/p>\n<p>Because maybe you can live two weeks without eating bread. The question is: do you want to live like that for the rest of your life? Probably not. So maybe it makes more sense to learn to include it in your diet.<\/p>\n<h2>Not all carbohydrates are the same.<\/h2>\n<p>Just because you don&#039;t need to eliminate carbohydrates doesn&#039;t mean you have to eat any amount of any food.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the same to base your diet on fruits, potatoes, legumes, oats, rice or whole grains as it is to base it mainly on pastries, cookies and highly processed products.<\/p>\n<p>Not because there&#039;s a magic carbohydrate that makes you lose weight. But because certain foods also provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and can help you achieve a more nutritious and satisfying diet. And that makes it much easier to maintain your goal.<\/p>\n<h2>Stop wondering what food you need to eliminate.<\/h2>\n<p>If you want to lose fat, you probably don&#039;t need another list of forbidden foods. You need to learn how to eat them in the right amounts.<\/p>\n<p>Because you can lose fat by eating toast for breakfast. You can lose fat by eating rice. You can lose fat by eating potatoes for dinner. You can lose fat by eating pasta. And yes: <strong>You can lose fat by eating carbohydrates every day.<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The key is that your diet is adapted to your needs, that you consume enough protein, that you train, that you stay active, and that there is a calorie deficit that you can actually maintain.<\/p>\n<p>Because cutting out carbs might seem like a quick fix. Learning to include them while you&#039;re working towards your goal is what will prevent you from having to start another diet next Monday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can we learn to include them together?<\/strong> I&#039;m Marina, <a href=\"\/en\/about-me\/\">Dietitian-nutritionist and online trainer<\/a>I work on plans with all the foods you like, in the right amounts. <a href=\"\/en\/switch-now\/\">See the results from our clients<\/a> and write to me.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eliminating carbohydrates to lose weight is not the solution: they don&#039;t make you fat. You can eat bread, pasta, and rice in a calorie deficit and still lose fat. No myths.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[21,22,20],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nutricion","tag-carbohidratos","tag-hidratos-de-carbono","tag-perdida-de-grasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgofit.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}