Elizabeth Wells - Keto Diet For Beginners: The Complete Guide To Losing Weight Fast And Living Healthier With Ketogenic Cooking

Doctors, nutritionists, and other scientists have long proclaimed that carbohydrates should form the basis for peoples energy intakes. Recommendations are traditionally that carbs should comprise sixty percent of the calories consumed. One reason is that they are easily digested and converted into energy. They are turned into glucose, a type of sugar that is the bodys main source of energy. Low-carbohydrate diets are oftentimes touted as being unhealthy and even unnatural to the bodys balanced state of being, but this logic begins with faulty thinking about carbs.

Why Carbs Are Bad

Traditional advice says that in order to lose weight and reduce blood sugar levels, you need to cut down on the calories that you consume. While this approach makes sense in terms of basic arithmetic, it doesnt take into consideration the bodys complex chemistry and metabolic processes.

During digestion, carbs are broken down into glucose, which is absorbed into the blood. Glucose is also known as blood sugar, and it provides energy for cellular function. Excess glucose is stored as glycogen as a back-up energy store. Glucose is the primary energy for the brain and almost every metabolic process in the body, so nutritionists tend to see it as being incredibly important.

Insulin is a hormone that the body releases to enable the cells to absorb the glucose. When blood sugar levels are high, more insulin is released. However, chronically high levels of insulin lead to something called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance occurs when cells no longer respond to normal amounts of insulin in order to absorb glucose and require increasingly higher amounts. As the body secretes more and more insulin to enable the cells to absorb the glucose, they become increasingly resistant and higher and higher levels are needed. Left unchecked, insulin resistance leads to Type 2 Diabetes.

High levels of insulin lead to chronic inflammation, which is behind nearly every chronic disease. Type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, and high blood pressure are just a few examples.

When insulin is released, cells quickly absorb the sugar in the blood (as long as insulin resistance is not present). What this means is that when the glucose is absorbed, blood sugar levels go up. This is the sugar high that many people experience after eating a lot of carbs. When insulin is released in response to the elevated blood sugar levels, they drop. This is the sugar crash that follows the sugar high, and it leads to fatigue, lack of clarity, and irritability, amongst other things. Additionally, the sugar crash creates a false feeling of hunger, leading people to think that they need to eat more carbs. The negative feedback loop created is very difficult to get out of. Carbs are needed to constantly offset the negative effects of carbs. Does that sound like an addiction?

Actually, it is. Sugar is as addictive, if not more addictive, than many illegal drugs, including cocaine and heroin. It activates the pleasure center in the brain, the same center activated by consuming illegal drugs, and getting off of it involves a detox process and even symptoms of withdrawal.

Sugar addiction is not limited to eating sweets. Because of the chemistry of carbs and how they are processed by the body, all carbs turn into sugar when digested and create the same metabolic reaction. Bread, pasta, oatmeal, and breakfast cereal all have the same effect on the body as a slice of chocolate cake served with a scoop of ice cream.

But what about whole grains and the glycemic index? The glycemic index is a measure of how quickly carbs are broken down into the simple sugars that the body uses as glucose. It was created for the South Beach Diet, which followed some of the low-carb advice of the Atkins Diet but allowed people to eat whole grains. The logic is that because whole grains are broken down more slowly than their refined counterparts, they are perfectly fine to consume.