This is a bit of a gray area, says Bethan Crouse, a performance nutritionist at Loughborough University. She wouldn’t advise the athletes she works with to completely cut out carbohydrates — foods such as bread, grains, potatoes and sweets. “However,” she says, “reducing carbohydrate intake can be beneficial for weight loss, if we can moderate total energy intake.”
Weight loss comes down to energy balance: consuming fewer calories than we burn. There are many ways to achieve this: exercising more, eating less, or choosing foods that are lower in calories. Cutting back on some carbohydrates can be one way to create this deficit, she says. Not because carbs are uniquely “fattening”, but because other macronutrients such as fiber, protein and fat tend to be more filling. “If we spend more of our calorie budget on these foods, we feel fuller for longer,” Crouse says.
This is especially the case when it comes to refined carbohydrates, such as white bread and sweets, which are digested quickly. They can be useful as a pre-workout snack, but they’re less helpful as a staple carb source. Instead, Crouse recommends higher-fiber varieties at mealtimes, such as brown rice and wholemeal bread, which release energy more slowly.
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“You’ll feel much better for eating a balanced, high-protein meal with vegetables and some healthy fats,” she says. “It’s a much better investment of your ‘calorie cash.’”
Crouse recommends consuming more carbohydrates on days when you’re working out: “It reduces the risk of illness and injury, and supports exercise adaptation.” On rest days or less active days, cutting back on carbs can help to reduce your overall energy intake, as long as you still include protein for muscle repair, plus plenty of fruit and vegetables for vitamins, fiber and antioxidants.
In recent weeks the Trump Administration has been demanding that Taiwan transfer half of its chip manufacturing to the US. In an interview with NewsNation, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the US would need 50 percent of domestic chip production to protect Taiwan. He stated, discussing Taiwan’s chip production: “My argument to them was, well, if you have 95 percent, how am I gonna get it to protect you? You’re going to put it on a plane? You’re going to put it on a boat?” The stench of the Trump Administration’s mafia-style notions of “protection” was strong
Every now and then, it’s nice to just point somewhere on a map and head out with no plan. In Taiwan, where convenience reigns, food options are plentiful and people are generally friendly and helpful, this type of trip is that much easier to pull off. One day last November, a spur-of-the-moment day hike in the hills of Chiayi County turned into a surprisingly memorable experience that impressed on me once again how fortunate we all are to call this island home. The scenery I walked through that day — a mix of forest and farms reaching up into the clouds
With one week left until election day, the drama is high in the race for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair. The race is still potentially wide open between the three frontrunners. The most accurate poll is done by Apollo Survey & Research Co (艾普羅民調公司), which was conducted a week and a half ago with two-thirds of the respondents party members, who are the only ones eligible to vote. For details on the candidates, check the Oct. 4 edition of this column, “A look at the KMT chair candidates” on page 12. The popular frontrunner was 56-year-old Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文)
“How China Threatens to Force Taiwan Into a Total Blackout” screamed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline last week, yet another of the endless clickbait examples of the energy threat via blockade that doesn’t exist. Since the headline is recycled, I will recycle the rebuttal: once industrial power demand collapses (there’s a blockade so trade is gone, remember?) “a handful of shops and factories could run for months on coal and renewables, as Ko Yun-ling (柯昀伶) and Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) pointed out in a piece at Taiwan Insight earlier this year.” Sadly, the existence of these facts will not stop the
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