The Myth of the Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet

For decades we’ve been told that to stay healthy and slim we should eat a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that (all) fats are bad and carbohydrates are good. But now, with obesity at an all-time high and the number of people with diabetes soaring, it’s become apparent that this approach doesn’t work. The irony is that the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet is one of the major reasons why more people are overweight than ever before.

About Nutrients

At the most general level there are three basic kinds of nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates and fats. While proteins and fats are digested relatively slowly, carbohydrates digest and are absorbed quickly, releasing a surge of glucose into the bloodstream. This sudden rise in blood sugar triggers the release of the hormone insulin, whose job it is to lower the blood sugar level. The insulin works to lower blood sugar by removing it from the bloodstream and storing it as body fat. The resulting drop in blood sugar can trigger feelings of hunger, sleepiness or low energy, which many people respond to by consuming more carbohydrates. Which the body turns into more body fat. And so continues the vicious cycle that is almost guaranteed to contribute to weight gain.

Now I’m not advocating a high-fat diet here. Research into the nature of dietary fats and their effect on our health since the inception of the high-carb, low-fat diet was introduced has shown that the dietary fat issue is more complex than was originally thought. In fact, some fats are good for your health – essential even. It’s not so easy as thinking all fats are bad… some fats are essential for good health, some are good for us, some are bad and some are really bad for our health. And if you haven’t updated your information on dietary fats for some time, the good and the bad may not be what you think they are. But really, this is just a disclaimer, the whole dietary fats story is one for another article. Let’s focus on carbohydrates for now.

All carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the body. And while a small amount of glucose in the bloodstream is essential for healthy brain functioning and energy, eating a diet high in carbohydrates can easily push the blood glucose over the limit, thus triggering the insulin response which ultimately converts that excess glucose into body fat. But this doesn’t automatically mean that all carbohydrates are bad. While there are definitely some “bad” carbohydrates that don’t offer much in the way of nutritional benefits, there are other carbohydrates that contain many nutrients and fiber that’s essential for good health.

What Is The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index measures how much your blood glucose rises after eating a particular food and ranks these foods from 0 to 100 based on the results. You can find a listing of foods and their glycemic index in the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com.

Foods with a glycemic value of 70 or above have a high GI (glycemic index), these foods will cause a rapid increase in blood glucose and insulin levels. Foods that fall between 56 and 69 have a medium GI, and will cause a moderate rise in blood glucose and insulin levels. Anything with a GI of 55 or less will produce only a small rise in blood glucose and insulin, so these are the foods you want to strive to eat more of, while reducing your intake of high GI foods.

How Can A Low GI Diet Help?

A low GI diet can help to control your weight by controlling your hunger. Remember, it’s the sudden rise and fall of blood sugar that makes you crave more carbohydrates. If you can interrupt that cycle, many of your food cravings will disappear.

Processed foods, like white flour, pasta, white rice, and processed cereals rank high on the glycemic index. Since most of the nutrition and fiber have been processed out of these foods they contribute little in the way of nutritional benefits, and the high glucose hit they provide will be turned into body fat, so they are best avoided.

There are however, some high or medium GI foods that are healthy and contain important nutrients essential to a healthy diet. The trick here is to moderate your intake of these foods as well as combine them with low GI foods so that the overall result is on the lower end of the scale. As well as listing the GI of individual foods, the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com also includes some common combinations of foods. If you look up the individual components to see what GI they have and compare that to the combined GI, you’ll start to get a feel for how different foods can influence the total GI of a meal.