Why low carb/no sugar?
In my next few posts, I'm going to go through the rationale behind why I've decided to do what I'm doing. I'll keep each explanation short, but if you want to know any more, please don't hesitate to ask!
Why low carb and why no sugar?
Essentially, these are the same thing. As I said in an earlier post, all foods are divided into three groups of macronutrients: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. We absolutely need both proteins and fat to live. We don't need carbohydrates, which are just long chains of sugars. The body uses these sugars for quick breakdown into glucose (blood sugar), and uses that for energy. However, in the western diet, the majority of the carbs we eat have had their fibres stripped away, which makes them absorb very quickly and for the blood sugar to spike, which in turn produces a spike in insulin.
Insulin is the key behind all of this. Dr. Fung talks a lot about how weight issues are not about an imbalance of calories, but an imbalance of hormones. Simply put, when too much sugar is coming in, the insulin level rises and tends to stay high - it gets used, and then the body replenishes it to its former, high level, rather than to a normal level. The job of the insulin is to take the calories from food and push it into the cells. When it's consistently too high, the cells become resistant to the insulin and stop accepting the sugar. The sugar then gets turned into fat and stored for long-term energy supplies, and the body responds by producing even more insulin to address the problem. It's a vicious cycle: because the blood sugar is low, the person has less energy and the body produces even more insulin, causing more and more fat to be produced and less and less ready energy in the form of blood sugar.
People have literally written entire books about this and that's a very quick and unscientific overview! The solution is to allow the blood sugar to run down far enough that the body will remember its long-term energy stores in the form of fat and switch over to burning fat rather than blood glucose, which is called ketosis. Ketosis is completely healthy and something that the body is designed to do, from the early days when food wasn't always available. Ketosis is the goal of the ketogenic diet. The key is to cut back on all sugars severely. The daily maximum is around 50g if you want to stay in ketosis; hardcore folk draw the line at 20g. That applies to anything made with flour (pasta, bread, couscous, any wheat products, refined grains, etc), root vegetables, and all sugars, including honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, corn syrup, fructose, sugar alcohols, stevia, and all sugar replacements such as aspartame and sucralose.
Why no sugar substitutes? Put simply, because they don't satisfy the craving and quite possibly lead to worse cravings for sweet things, and they still cause an insulin reaction despite not being actual sugar.
Another way of getting the body to burn fat rather than blood sugar is through intermittent fasting, and I'll talk about that in a later post!
Why low carb and why no sugar?
Essentially, these are the same thing. As I said in an earlier post, all foods are divided into three groups of macronutrients: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. We absolutely need both proteins and fat to live. We don't need carbohydrates, which are just long chains of sugars. The body uses these sugars for quick breakdown into glucose (blood sugar), and uses that for energy. However, in the western diet, the majority of the carbs we eat have had their fibres stripped away, which makes them absorb very quickly and for the blood sugar to spike, which in turn produces a spike in insulin.
Insulin is the key behind all of this. Dr. Fung talks a lot about how weight issues are not about an imbalance of calories, but an imbalance of hormones. Simply put, when too much sugar is coming in, the insulin level rises and tends to stay high - it gets used, and then the body replenishes it to its former, high level, rather than to a normal level. The job of the insulin is to take the calories from food and push it into the cells. When it's consistently too high, the cells become resistant to the insulin and stop accepting the sugar. The sugar then gets turned into fat and stored for long-term energy supplies, and the body responds by producing even more insulin to address the problem. It's a vicious cycle: because the blood sugar is low, the person has less energy and the body produces even more insulin, causing more and more fat to be produced and less and less ready energy in the form of blood sugar.
People have literally written entire books about this and that's a very quick and unscientific overview! The solution is to allow the blood sugar to run down far enough that the body will remember its long-term energy stores in the form of fat and switch over to burning fat rather than blood glucose, which is called ketosis. Ketosis is completely healthy and something that the body is designed to do, from the early days when food wasn't always available. Ketosis is the goal of the ketogenic diet. The key is to cut back on all sugars severely. The daily maximum is around 50g if you want to stay in ketosis; hardcore folk draw the line at 20g. That applies to anything made with flour (pasta, bread, couscous, any wheat products, refined grains, etc), root vegetables, and all sugars, including honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, corn syrup, fructose, sugar alcohols, stevia, and all sugar replacements such as aspartame and sucralose.
Why no sugar substitutes? Put simply, because they don't satisfy the craving and quite possibly lead to worse cravings for sweet things, and they still cause an insulin reaction despite not being actual sugar.
Another way of getting the body to burn fat rather than blood sugar is through intermittent fasting, and I'll talk about that in a later post!
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