As you are aware by now, for the past few years, there has been lots of research articles highlighting new truths about fatloss and healthier eating. Carbs have become the new enemy, while eating fats in moderation is actually a good thing. Eating lesser carbs is the secret to losing the fat, but all carbs are not bad. Infact, the body does need carbs to run the engines.
So how do you decide which is a good carbohydrate food and which is a bad one. For that one would need to understand how carbs work within our body once consumed. The carbs that we eat comprise of sugars and fibers among other things. Sugar and fiber have different roles in food. Sugars are rapidly absorbed from the digestive tract raising blood sugar abruptly. Fiber slows the absorption of sugars slowing the rate of blood sugar rise. For a regular lifestyle that the average person has, the increase in blood sugar caused by the sugars is not needed by the body for energy. So, all this excess blood sugar will be converted to triglyceride fat in the liver. Once converted, these triglycerides are transported to the fat tissues for storage. When adequate natural fiber exists in the meal slowing the absorption of sugars, the blood sugar rise is spread over a longer time interval allowing energy usage to keep up with energy intake. The net result is that little or none should be converted to fat.
Two foods can be eaten with the identical calories and grams of sugar, yet they result in very different patterns of energy usage versus fat production. Slowly absorbed carbohydrate is termed “low glycemic” load, while quickly absorbed carbohydrate is termed “high glycemic load”.
The high-glycemic meal results in a rapid blood sugar rise in the first hour which results in a high insulin output to lower blood sugar. As the cell requirements are not this great in the first hour, much of that sugar is sent to the liver and converted to triglyceride for fat storage. This happens aggressively in the presence of high insulin resulting in the blood sugar dropping back to the fasting level in just a little over 2 hours. This triggers hunger and thus a desire to eat again sooner.
The low glycemic load meal can contain the same calories and grams of carbohydrate but in a slowly digestible form. The result is a very gradual blood sugar rise, much lower insulin output and complete use of the sugars for energy rather than for triglyceride production. The gradual absorption of sugars over 4 hours sustaining energy levels suppresses the hunger response for a much longer interval.
Remember, these two meals contain the exact same carbohydrate grams and calories, yet they have much different effects on fat production and hunger response. Given this dynamic, what determines and controls the glycemic load of different carbohydrates is important. The simplest and most useful marker is the sugar to fiber ratio.
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