Wed May 17, 2006 - Weigh in time

The first picture here is me TODAY at 226.5lbs. The second Picture is me at 195lbs during another weight loss time.

I thought I'd change the "comparison" picture. Reminding me that if I don't make it to 178lbs for the wedding, getting under 200 lbs is good too! and very reasonable as a goal.

Thanks to Joan who posted that encouraging comment on yesterday's blog! I needed to hear that - thank you very much!

As you can see by "results" I managed to get down to 226.5. Still short of what I was hoping for in a goal - but still very happy that the scales went down, feeling more motivated today as a result.

Here is some more "article" information:

CARBOHYDRATES-THE REASON YOU'RE FAT

Over the past fifteen years, our dietary establishment has made a virtual industry of extolling the virtues of carbohydrates. We're constantly told that carbohydrates are the good guys of nutrition, and that, if we eat large amounts of them, the world should be a better place. In such a world, the experts tell us, there will be no heart disease and no obesity. Under such guidance, Americans are gobbling breads, cereals, and pastas as if there were no tomorrow, trying desperately to reach that 80-85 percent of total calories advocated by the high-carb extremists.

Unfortunately, many people don't really know what a carbohydrate is. Most people will say carbohydrates are sweets and pasta. Ask them what a vegetable or fruit is, and they'll probably reply that it's a vegetable or fruit - as if that were a food type all its own, a food type that they can eat in unlimited amounts without gaining weight.

Well, this may come as a surprise, but all of the above - sweets and pasta, vegetables and fruits - are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are merely different forms of simple sugars linked together in polymers - something like edible plastic.

Of course, we all need a certain amount of carbohydrates in our diet. The body requires a continual intake of carbohydrates to feed the brain, which uses glucose (a form of sugar) as its primary energy source. In fact, the brain is a virtual glucose hog, gobbling more than two thirds of the circulating carbohydrates in the bloodstream while you are at rest. To feed this glucose hog, the body continually takes carbohydrates and converts them to glucose.

It's actually a bit more complicated than that. Any carbohydrates not immediately used by the body will be stored in the form of glycogen (a long string of glucose molecules linked together) The body has two storage sites for glycogen: the liver and the muscles. The glycogen stored in the muscles is inaccessible to the brain. Only the glycogen stored in the liver can be broken down and sent back to the bloodstream so as to maintain adequate blood sugar levels for proper brain function.

The liver's capacity to store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen is very limited and can be easily depleted within ten to twelve hours. So the liver's glycogen reserves must be maintained on a continual basis. That's why we eat carbohydrates.

The question no one has bothered to ask until now is this: what happens when you eat Too Much carbohydrate? Here's the answer: whether it's being stored in the liver or the muscles, the total storage capacity of the body for carbohydrate is really quit limited. If you're an average person, you can store about three hundred to four hundred grams of carbohydrate in your muscles, but you can't get to that carbohydrate. In the liver, where carbohydrates are accessible for glucose conversion, you can store only about sixty to ninety grams. This is equivalent to about two cups of cooked pasta or three typical candy bars, and it represents your total reserve capacity to keep the brain working properly.

Once the glycogen levels are filled in both the liver and the muscles, the excess carbohydrates have just one fate: to be converted into fat and stored in the adipose, that is, fatty, tissue. In a nutshell even though carbohydrates themselves are fat-free, excess carbohydrates End Up As Excess Fat.

That's not the worst of it. Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates will generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the levels of blood glucose.

All well and good. The problem is that insulin is essentially a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of fat in case of Future Famine. So the insulin that's stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the accumulation of body fat.

In other words, when we eat too much carbohydrate, we're essentially sending a Hormonal message, via insulin, to the body (actually to the adipose cells). The message: "Store Fat"

Hold one; it gets even worse. Not only do increased insulin levels tell the body to store carbohydrates as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fate for energy. So the excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you fat, they make sure you STAY fat. It's a double whammy, and it can be lethal.

To put it another way, too much carbohydrate means too much insulin, and too much insulin takes you out of the zone. Out of the zone, you put on excess body fat, and you can't get rid of it.

That's the carbohydrate picture in outline. Let's sharpen the focus. The real key to all this is the SPEED at which carbohydrates enter the bloodstream, because that's what controls the rate of insulin secretion. You see, the stomach is basically an indiscriminate vat of acid that takes all carbohydrates - whether they're puffed-rice cakes, refined table sugar, carrots, or pasta - and breaks them down into simple sugars for absorption. What distinguishes one kind of carbohydrate from another is the rate at which the carbohydrate enters the bloodstream.

Before 1980 no one bothered to ask about the entry rates into the bloodstream of various types of carbohydrates. When this question was finally studied, the implications should have turned the nutritional community on its head. Somehow supposedly "simple" sugars like fructose were entering the bloodstream at far SLOWER rates than supposedly "complex" carbohydrates like pasta. This fact has major consequences if you ever hope to reach the Zone.

The entry rate of a carbohydrate into the bloodstream is known as its gycemic index. The lower the glycemic index, the slower the rate of absorption. Believe it or not, refined table sugar has a lower glycemic index then typical breakfast cereals. Actually, the carbohydrate that turned out to have one of the highest gycemic indices - that is - the fasted recorded entry rates into the bloodstream - was the basic centerpiece of many weight-reduction programs; puffed-rice cakes. In fact, puff-rice cakes have a much higher glycemic index then ice cream, which is supposed to be the weight watcher's worst enemy.

Say it ain't so.

What determines the glycemic index? The primary factors are (1) the structure of the simple sugars in the food (2) the soluble fibre content, and (3) the fat content. I'll com back to the fat content in a moment; for now let's talk about the other two.

How does the structure of the simple sugar that makes up the carbohydrate affect the sugar's rate of entry into the bloodstream? Remember that all "complex" carbohydrates must be broken down into simple sugars for absorption. There are only three common sugars that comprise all edible carbohydrates, and each has a different molecular structure, which ultimately determines its rate of entry into the bloodstream. Glucose is the most common of these sugars, followed by fructose and galactose.

Glucose is found in grains, pasta, bread, cereal, starches, and vegetables. Fructose is primarily found in fruits. Galactose is found in dairy products. However, while all of these simple sugars are rapidly absorbed by the liver, only glucose can be released directly into the bloodstream. This is why glucose-rich carbohydrates like breads and pasta virtually sprint from the liver back into the bloodstream, while galactose and fructose, which must first be converted to glucose in the liver, enter the bloodstream at a slower rate.

For fructose especially, this is a very slow process. That's why even though they're primarily made up of simple sugars; fructose-containing carbohydrates (primarily fruits) have a very low glycemic index compared to glucose and galactose-containing carbohydrates.

What about the fibre content? Fibre (which is non-digestible carbohydrate) is not absorbed, and therefore it has no effect on insulin absorption of other carbohydrates into the bloodstream. The higher the fibre content of a carbohydrate, the slower the rate of entry into the bloodstream. Remove the fibre of the carbohydrate and the rate of entry accelerates. So fibre is a significant factor in controlling the speed at which the body absorbs carbohydrate. In effect, fibre acts a control rod to prevent a runaway rate of carbohydrate absorption. (this, by the way, is the same reason there are control rods in nuclear reactors - to prevent potentially dangerous runaway reactions.)

That's why the recent popularity in juicing (the removal of fibre from fruits to make easy-to-drink juices) has been a disaster. Juicing simply removes a primary control rod (i.e. fibre) from the carbohydrate, meaning that the carbohydrate enters the bloodstream too fast.

When a carbohydrate enters the bloodstream too fast, the pancreas responds by secreting high level of insulin. While that brings the blood-sugar level down, it also tells the body to store fat and keep it stored.

So too many high-glycemic carbohydrates can not only make you fat, they will also keep you that way. A complete listing of the glycemic index for of carbohydrates is given in Appendix H; you can use these simple rules to determine whether a carbohydrate's glycemic index is high or low. Virtually all fruits (Except bananas and dried fruits) and virtually all fibre-rich vegetables (except carrots and corn) are low glycemic carbohydrates. Virtually all grains, starches, (potatoes), and pasta are high-glycemic carbohydrates.

Ironically, high-glycemic carbohydrates like grains, breads and pasta are the base of the new supposedly healthy "food pyramid" established by the U.S. government. Yet these are precisely the types off carbohydrates that promote increased insulin levels - can have exactly the wrong effect. Instead of burning off your stockpiles of stored fat, you're actually increasing them. Instead of getting leaner, you're getting fatter.

The next time you reach for a fat-free puffed-rice cake, you may want to keep that in mind.