Carbohydrate Fuel and Glycemic Load
There are three main energy producing nutrient food fuels for the body: proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Today, we will discuss carbohydrates. While there are different types of carbohydrates, generally speaking, all carbohydrates are made of sugar.
The most important, practical designation for carbohydrates is simple versus complex. Simple carbs are single sugar molecules or short chains of sugars linked together. Some examples of simple carbs are sugar, honey, fruit and fruit juices. Complex carbs or starches are longer chains of sugars bonded together. Examples include vegetables, breads, cereals and pasta.
While most people know to avoid simple sugars when possible, they might not know the special danger to the body that lurks in a simple carbohydrate called High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). While simple sugars should be limited, HFCS should be totally avoided as it builds insulin resistance and leads to a cascade of negative biochemical consequences.
There are a myriad of studies showing that High Fructose Corn Syrup increases obesity and insulin resistance, stimulates the liver to produce dangerous triglycerides, promotes the destructive glycation of proteins and is associated with increased rates of carbonyl compounds which are blamed for diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage. Even worse, a pilot study of High Fructose Corn Syrups manufactured in the U.S. showed trace amounts of mercury.
Selecting low glycemic carbs minimizes the fluctuation of blood glucose and insulin levels and is considered the key to long-term health, reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes and sustainable weight loss.
Glycemic load is a way of expressing numerically a specific foods effect on blood-sugar levels. Each food has a number which is a lab value estimate of how likely the food is to raise your blood sugar. If a food is under 10, like nuts, asparagus, celery, cucumbers and low-fat yogurt than it is a great food choice. Foods with values between 10 and 20 like brown rice, oat brain and popcorn are moderate. Foods over 20 like white bread, chips, and jelly beans are foods that should go on the rarely to seldom eaten list.
As a rule of thumb we like to tell people who are attempting to lose weight to try to keep the total grams of carbohydrates under their pounds in body weight. If you weigh 130 pounds, you would want to try to eat less than 130 grams of carbohydrates, most of them from the low to moderate glycemic load lists. You don’t need to chart each food you eat but keeping rough estimates in your daily journal will be a huge help in monitoring and managing your return to superior fitness.
Another rule of thumb is to try to eat as many grams of protein as you do carbohydrates and if you get within about 20% of that figure, you can record that as a successful day.
On workout days, modern sports science now tells us something that may be different from what you have been previously told. Study after study has been showing that it is best NOT to eat prior to exercise. Eating before exercise is actually detrimental to performance and, perhaps, to your health. For example, during digestion, blood flow is diverted away from your muscles and brain and into the organs related to digestion. Further, there is a faster shift from burning carbs to burning fat during exercise when there was no pre-exercise meal. Also, ingestion of both carbohydrates and certain types of popular proteins before exercise has been shown to raise plasma cortisol levels significantly which can have an adverse impact on fitness and on health, in a variety of ways.
The critical meal for you to focus on is the post exercise meal which ideally has about 80 grams of carbohydrates and 20 grams of protein. The carbohydrates should be low glycemeic load, complex carbs and the protein should be non-denatured native whey. Your post workout meal should be eaten within a two hour window following exercise, but in a perfect world, it could be started around 15 minutes following exercise.
In summary, today’s small change, which we will emphatically shout, is to avoid any and all foods with High Fructose Corn Syrup in them. The skills to start putting into your day are to avoid processed foods, avoid foods that contain added sugar, choose fresh fruits and drink less soda. If you are able to do that, you will have a real jump start on losing weight and increasing health. And, begin estimating and learning the glycemic load of the foods that you commonly consume. Keep a daily food journal to track your progress. There are a great many different websites that can help you. We suggest http://www.nutritiondata.com/ but any similar site will do.
