Natural sugar in foods like bread, rice and noodles can raise our insulin levels Just as high as raw sugar in our tea or a spoon of ice-cream!
Why? Because they are all in the High GI range of foods. GI is the measure of sugar in our carbs and starches. GI foods range from 0-55 (Low GI), 56-69 (Medium GI) and 70-100 (High GI). The higher the number, the faster it raises your blood sugar.
Our bodies work off a narrow band of blood sugar. If we upset that sugar balance (say by eating a fast food meal) it would send our blood sugars sky rocketing. This is what we call Hyperglycaemia. The brain says "hmmm, too much blood sugar, let me trigger the release of Insulin to take this sugar out of the blood".
So insulin put this sugar into the muscles where it is stored as energy. Now that there is no sugar in our blood we start to feel a bit shaky, cranky, and we crave those starchy, sugary and carb laden foods to get some sugar back in there again. This is what we call Hypoglycaemia.
Now What if we do not use the sugar stored in these muscles? It will stay there. And what if we keep 'spiking' our blood sugar? Well our muscles will say "Actually I have enough sugar here thank you very much, please take it somewhere else". And where is that somewhere else? Your fat cells of course! Predominantly those fat cells around your waist.
This is why we see an expanding waistline around middle-age. And to make things even worse, fat cells multiply…our body doesn't just make one or two cells, it makes a whole batch, enough for the storage of more fat to come. So it makes sense to stick to a LOW-GI diet, which does not spike your blood sugar levels. This would consist of most fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, nuts, seeds.
Remember, weight gain is reversible and can be kept off long term.
