After fats, which are public enemy number 1, public enemy number 2 is choosing bad carbohydrates. The trick is to PCOS (pick carbs of substance) instead. Good carbohydrates are a good source of fiber and essential vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, many people suffer from PBC (picking bad carbs). Way too often, PBC sufferers try to restrict themselves from carbohydrates, placing false blame on all carbs for their weight gain. This is not so.
Carbs are broken down in the body to glucose. Whether a carb is good or bad depends on how quickly it is broken down. The slower the breakdown, the better the carb. Those who suffer from PBC, are unable to cope with the sudden rapid influx of glucose
into the blood stream, which is what happens if carbohydrates are broken down rapidly by your digestive system.
Since bad carbs result in a rapid influx of glucose into the blood stream, it wreaks havoc with insulin response. Your brain gets a signal that there’s too much glucose in the blood too quickly, and sends a message to the
pancreas to send insulin into the blood to move the glucose out and into your cells. When this pattern happens too often, the ‘door’ to your cells get stuffed with glucose and isn’t able to close, thereby being left ajar. When that happens, excess glucose backs up in the blood, and more insulin is sent to the pancreas to try to move it outand so on and so on. Excess glucose in the blood, and excess insulin in the blood, are stored as fat.
Good (complex) carbs take longer for your body to digest and, therefore, because the breakdown of the food into glucose takes so much longer you have a steady trickle of glucose going into the blood instead of a rapid influx. This process doesn’t tax your insulin resources. If you want to slow down a good carb, (fruit, vegetable, whole grain) even more, link it with a protein or a dairy product.
Glucose is the body’s main fuel supply. In fact, the brain can only run on glucose; it can’t burn fat or protein to keep functioning. A PBC sufferer needs the same amount of carbs as recommended for the rest of the population. She just has to differentiate the good carbs from the bad.
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Lori Boxer is the director of Weight No More Diet Center, with offices in Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey.
