Food, Glorious Food.

Right now I'm reading The South Beach Diet by Dr. Arthur Agatston. I'm not one for fad diets, but I like a lot of things that he has to say about healthy eating and making smart choices. I also learned all about how your body processes and absorbs food- I had NO idea about ANY of this! I found it fascinating, so you all have to hear about it. If you already know or don't care, don't read it! :)


So you eat food. Carbohydrates are converted/broken down into sugar, which equals energy for your cells. You need insulin to absorb the sugar into your cells so you can use it for energy- it's like a key that unlocks the cells. Your pancreas makes insulin according to your blood sugar levels. Your cells absorb the sugar/energy and you can run around chasing toddlers.

The more processed a food is, the less work your body has to do to get the energy out of it. The less work your body does in breaking down the food once you swallow it, the more energy can be stored (read:fat) because it doesn't use up energy as it breaks down the food you ate. For instance, if you eat cooked broccoli, it has already been steamed and made soft and warm, and stripped of some of its fiber/nutrients and stuff. This is what your body would have to do if you ate it raw. So your body doesn't have to work as hard to break down the cooked broccoli as the raw broccoli. This is true for any food that has been processed in some way before you ate it.

Carbohydrates can be good or bad. For example, eating a slice of white bread vs. eating a slice of whole wheat (with the grains and stuff showing). The white bread is made of white flour, which is really wheat stripped of some of its parts and ground up really fine. It's REALLY easy for your body to process white bread- it's practically like eating pure sugar from a glycemic index point of view. (NOTE: glycemic index is a measure of how difficult it is for your body to convert it to energy/sugar. They give each food a number to show which affects your blood sugar levels differently.) The whole wheat (meaning made of wheat that hasn't been processed to death, you can see the grains in the bread) is better for you because it hasn't been. However, if you ate the bread with some butter or oil, it's actually better for you (glycemic index talking) than if you had eaten the bread plain. Dr. Agatston talks about how if you eat carbs with a fat or a fiber, it slows down the speed at which the carbs are broken down, and slows the rate at which sugar is released into your blood. So eating a baked potato (lots of carbs, lots of starch) with sour cream and butter helps balance your blood sugar so the sugars are absorbed more slowly. Or eating chicken or fish, plus a salad and veggies with your pasta helps to slow the rate at which your body breaks down and releases sugars from the carbs in the pasta.

Here is the problem. Say you have waffles with butter and syrup for breakfast. Lots of carbs and sugar. Your body breaks down those carbs pretty quickly (making you hungry more quickly too, i might add), so the amount of sugar released into your bloodstream goes up really quickly (not to mention the syrup which goes straight to your bloodstream, as it needs no processing by your body to be used as energy). Because your blood sugar level goes up so dramatically and quickly, your pancreas pumps out a ton of insulin to correct that. That means that your blood sugar shoots up, and then the sugar is absorbed quickly so it drops down. When your blood sugar drops, then you have cravings for more carbs and sugar because that's what your body needs ASAP. Your body knows you need it quick so it can keep functioning, so that's what message it gives your brain- more sugar!

In contrast, if you ate eggs with peppers and mushrooms (veggies have a very low glycemic index, which is part of why Dr. Agatston's diet recommends the 2-week veggie thing) and some canadian bacon (he says its better than regular bacon), and maybe a slice of whole-wheat toast with butter. You fed your body protein, fiber, fat, along with some good carbs. So your body breaks it down more slowly, keeping you feeling full longer, and raises and lowers your blood sugar more gradually so you don't crash out at 10:00.

So when a person is overweight, the reaction their body has to this process is slightly different. Consume food, breaks it down into sugars, same as before. The pancreas detects the level of sugar in your blood and sends out insulin, but in this scenario, the amount of insulin an overweight person's body has to produce is much higher (depending on how overweight they are). This is because when your body stores fat, it doesn't make new cells to store it in. It just adds it to the ones that are already there, so your cells grow larger and larger. When your pancreas produces insulin, it has to make more than a normal person's body because the cells are so large they don't recognize the normal amount of insulin. So their blood sugar levels drop much more quickly because by the time the cells recognize the insulin and accept the sugar there is so much insulin the sugars are absorbed really quickly. This leads to the crash and crave cycle- your body needs more sugar NOW.

I just thought all this was really interesting to read about. I also learned more about Type 1 and 2 diabetes, but I won't get into that right now.