THE TRUTH ABOUT CARBOHYDRATES
Carbohydrates are the main macronutrient that is consumed, and there is debate surrounding the effect it has on our health. One look at the Food Pyramid and we get the idea that carbohydrates should be the primary food group in our diet. And it makes perfect sense; with the healthy fruits, vegetables, satisfying breads and pasta! And of course the high fat foods like butter and oils are way at the top; indicating they are not a major part of a “healthy” diet.
And then there’s the food manufacturers bombarding us with products that are fat-free, sugar-free, low calorie, etc. They are very good at convincing us that these products will help us to lose weight and be healthy. And we believe them because they must know what they are doing, right? We don’t examine the ingredients, and even if we did; it’s nearly impossible to even pronounce what’s listed anyway. But we shrug our shoulders and think “whatever is in it must be safe or they couldn’t possibly sell it to the public.” Well, if this is your rational, you are misguided.
The next time you are grocery shopping for a fat free product; check to see what was added to make up for the missing fat. Because the food manufacturers are very smart; they know that a product that naturally has fat in it will not taste as good without it. So they cleverly substitute another ingredient so that you will like the taste enough to keep buying it. Most often, at fat-free product will have added sugar. A sugar-free product will have added sugar too, but in a form that you don’t recognize as sugar: like high-fructose corn syrup or dextrose.
It’s all a ploy to sell their products by tricking you into believing you are doing something healthy for your body.
Ok, let me get back to explaining how your body processes carbohydrates so that you will be an informed consumer and have the right tools to go after your health goals!
Carbohydrates are digested and turned into glucose (blood sugar). Even while you are chewing your food, your pancreas starts to pump out insulin to unlock the cell doors to receive the glucose. This is important because a high level of glucose roaming around in the blood is very damaging to the body. And can lead to diabetes or complications from it.
- The major exception is fructose (i.e., fruit sugar); which cannot be made directly into glucose.
Most of the fructose we eat; whether as sucrose (table sugar), high-fructose corn sweetener, or in natural fruits and fruit juice, gets made into fat by our liver. This is because our body can’t convert fructose to glucose.
So you’ve just enjoyed a fantastic spaghetti dinner, now what? Well, after your cells have been fed, and their back-up supplies have been restocked, your liver (and to some degree your fat cells) go to work converting what’s left into fat.
But wait, another reason you may be heavier after that high carbohydrate meal is because your cells have stored some of the glucose as glycogen, (the back-up supply), with 3 grams of water. Yup, each gram of carbohydrate is stored with 3 grams of water. Now you know why the scale fluctuates from one day to the next.
Your skeletal muscles and liver are the primary storage sites of glycogen; however, these organs have a maximum storage capacity of about 400 and 100 grams, respectively. And unless you are very active and eat sparingly, it’s very likely that these storage sites did not require much replenishing following that meal. So you have just gained weight and probably feel bloated to boot.
One final consideration regarding this carbohydrate rich spaghetti meal is that because it stimulated so much insulin release, your fat cells have stopped releasing fat and have gone into storage mode. So not only are you storing water, you are also storing fat.
It all seems so unbelievable, and yet for many of you, it explains everything.
The bottom line:
Insulin release from the pancreas is what causes fat to switch from supplying energy (emptying out our fat deposits), to storing fat (growing our fat deposits). And the primary stimulator of insulin release from the pancreas is dietary carbohydrate. In contrast, an equal amount of dietary energy as fat has almost no affect on insulin levels.
A low carbohydrate diet switches the body’s fuel use to fat.
*Also see Glycemic Index