It's all over the TV. Commercials that claim that you can now have pizza, pasta, burgers and even chocolate everyday day and you can lose weight. How? Through the miracle breakthrough of The Glycemic Index, the ads say. I will not mention the company's name, because I don't want to advertise for them, but I bet you know who I am referring to. The pictures on the ad show packages of food that seems to be like the food you most likely eat already, and yet, you will lose weight. Now when you look at The Glycemic Index, you will notice that all these foods mentioned above are relatively high on the scale and therefore, the only way a diet plan like this can work is if it is designed to be a caloric restrictive program in disguise. Perhaps the chocolate they sell is made with artificial sugar, but the breads & grains will still elevate your insulin levels, which will not be good long term for most of you. Caloric restrictive programs fail 90% of the time within a year and 95% of the time over a 5 year period because it ends up lowering your metabolism to the point where you will be more susceptible to gaining the weight back, once you go back to a normal diet, which you will. Why am I sure of that, because you will not continue to eat their package food for life, it's too expensive and too restrictive. I believe 75% of the worlds population has trouble with grains, cereals, sugar and starchy vegetables. The other 25% can deal very well with most of these foods, without developing health issues. Of the 75% that have trouble, they will develop everything from hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, fluid retention, acid reflux, polycystic ovary syndrome, high cholesterol, high tryclerides, to cancer and heart disease. Insulin here is the culprit.
What is the purpose of insulin?
What is the purpose of insulin in humans? Your doctor will say that it's to lower blood sugar, but that it is just a trivial side effect. Insulin's evolutionary purpose is to store excess nutrients, especially body fat.
We come from a time of feast and famine when if we couldn't store the excess energy during times of feasting, we would not be here because all of our ancestors encountered famine at one time or another. We are only here because our ancestors were able to store nutrients, which they were able to do because they were able to elevate their insulin levels in response to any elevation in energy that the organism encountered. Even fruits, honey and berries during the summer eaten along with other high fat foods like nuts and seeds.
When your body notices that sugar is elevated, it is a sign that you've got more than you need; you are not burning it so it is accumulating in your blood. So insulin will be released to take that sugar and store it. How does it do this? With glycogen?
Your body stores very little glycogen at any one time. All the glycogen stored in your liver and muscle wouldn't last you through one active day. Once you fill up your glycogen stores, they are carried to the fat cells by tryclerides in your blood and then stored as saturated fat in your fat cells, especially around the abdomen areas.
So the idea of the medical profession recommending a high complex-carbohydrate, low-saturated-fat diet as an absolute plan for weight-loss is ridicules. A high-complex-carbohydrate diet is nothing but a high-glucose diet, or a high-sugar diet. Your body is just going to store it as saturated fat, and the body makes it into saturated fat quite readily.
You may be able to have pizza, pasta, burgers and even chocolate once a week for a treat, for say 1 meal, but to tell people otherwise is in my oppinion a marketing ploy that will attract alot of people into the program, but they will not be well served. The only way I know how to lose weight long term is to eat protein often, reduce high glycemic carbs like breads, cereals, pasta, sugar, potatoes, rice, high fructose corn syrup etc to no more than 45 grams of carbs per day or 15 grams per meal. Please read the books Life Without Bread & Protein Power for reference. Proteins and green vegetables can be for the most part eaten in unlimited portions, but even fruits must be thought of as a treat food, for most people wanting to lose weight.
Christopher Wiechert, C.N.C.
Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility.
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