You're right. I tend to avoid rice because it's relatively high in carbohydrates. But the Asians thrive on it and didn't get obese till they started eating like we do. It must be the combinations of foods that matter as much as the choices.
Amazing, isn't it, how little we know?
Do not discount physical activity.
When you earn your living pedaling a pedocab for tourists, you can burn a buttload of calories. Same goes for planting and harvesting crops by hand. Many countries in Asia still use good old-fashioned stoop labour to plant and harvest that rice. No, I am not advocating stoop labour, but I am saying that a good deal of exercise will go a long way to making one lean.
Nah.
Carbohydrates aren’t the enemy that fad diets make them out to be. Your body most readily makes use of carbs for energy use.
About 90 percent of weight gain is pure calories.
The key, for carbohydrates, is to stay away from unprocessed carbs. They tend to lack nutritional substance and they’re high in calories.
A shorthand way of thinking about it is to stay away from white carbohydrates: white bread, white crackers, etc.