Understanding Carbs to Stay Healthy
Barbara Morris

Low carb diets are popular. How good are they? How healthy are they? It all depends on what you know about the difference between different types of carbohydrates.

Common table sugar represents 20 to 25 percent of the daily caloric intake of Americans who live on the typical All American processed food diet. In the early 1800s average sugar consumption was about 12 pounds per person a year. In 1997, it was 152 pounds per person. Is that too much? You bet it is. Its making us old before we need to be.

Do we need carbohydrates? No, we dont. They are non-essential to the human diet. We do need water, fat, and protein. It is possible to survive for long periods without carbohydrates providing fat and protein needs are met. Fat and protein are broken down to make building blocks of carbohydrates as food and energy. This is something the carb-rich processed foods industry doesnt tell us.

Regardless of what is known about carbohydrate needs, we continue to consume massive quantities of carbohydrates. Therefore, its important to know which carbs are better than others. Its simple: All carbs are broken down into sugar in the body. The key is the rate and the amount that determines the level of sugar in the blood.

Complex carbs such as green leafy veggies, brown rice, potato, whole grain products, and fruits break down slowly. The result is a gradual rise and fall in blood sugar. It is generally understood that most complex carbs are good for you.

Refined, simple carbs such as cake, ice cream, cookies, breakfast bars, so-called cereals, and refined grains break down quickly in the body. This causes rapid elevation of blood sugar levels. These are not good for your health.

It should be understood that while refined carbs should be avoided because they are harmful, some complex carbs such as potatoes are not good because of their relatively fast breakdown.

How do you determine which carbs are really good, and what to avoid? Simple. Become familiar with something called the Glycemic Index of foods. When you look at a glycemic index for foods, bear in mind that the lower the rating, or number, the slower the digestion and absorption process and the better it is for your health.

As useful as the glycemic index is, you will need to learn which foods are good for you.. For example, a cup of low fat ice cream has a glycemic index of 50, which is lower than the glycemic index of a baked potato. Thats because the glycemic index rating of a refined sugar product is lower than that of a starchy food! So, learn to discern the difference between refined sugars and everything else. Just assume that if its made in a factory, its suspect!

Here are some glycemic index numbers for some popular food choices:
Baked Potato: 85; Cheerios: 74; Fanta soft drink: 68; Cheese pizza: 60; Banana: 54; Sweet potato: 54, Low fat ice cream: 50; Carrots: 49; Grapefruit juice: 48; All-bran: 42; Spaghetti: 41; Apple: 38; M&Ms (peanut): 32; Peanuts: 15; Yogurt, lot fat, artificially sweetened:14.

You can see from the above how misleading, yet useful the glycemic index can be.

The bottom is this: Do your homework. Dont rely on advertising or uninformed advice of well meaning friends to give you guidance about healthy eating. Making educated choices about what you put into your body puts you in the drivers seat and allows you to be in charge of how healthy you are, and how quickly or slowly you age.

About the Author

Barbara Morris, R.Ph., is a 76-year-old working pharmacist and recognized expert on unique anti-aging strategies. Author of Put Old on Hold, her message is for Boomers who want to feel and function as a healthy 40 or 50 year old for 25 or more years. She calls it Liberation Living a process she has discovered that bypasses infirmities and indignities of traditional old age. http://www.PutOldonHold.com

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Eating Healthy Myths Destroyed
Dr. Jamie Fettig

All Refined Carbohydrates are Hazardous to Your Health. The average American eats over 300 pounds of sugars each year. Most of this is because of all the sugar that is added to the everyday foods most people eat. Sugars are refined carbohydrates include anything that ends in ose. Sucrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and sugar all count as sugar. An easy way to remember this is anything that rhymes with gross.

I am not talking about sugar naturally found in fruits and other such sources. If nature put it there, it is usually fine. And again, how it affects you will depend more on you individually than the type of fruit itself. Yes, sugar is natural, but it is not fresh. And when you add it to another food, the other food is not pure either.

Refined carbohydrates also come in the form of grains and flours. Most pasta, bread, flour, and other grain-based products are refined, almost to the point of sugar, and to the point where the refined carbohydrates respond in the body the same way sugar does.

There are two big reasons why refined carbs and sugar are so bad, as well as hundreds of smaller reasons. The two big reasons are these:

1.Refined carbs and sugar have no vitamins, minerals, or anything else that is needed to operate and run a healthy body
2.Refined carbs and sugar cause blood sugar levels to be artificially raised and lead to all the problems that come with high blood sugar levels.

First, the refining process takes away all the vitamins and minerals that are naturally found in whatever plant is being refined. There is nothing left but pure carbohydrates.

Why are vitamins and minerals so important for you anyway? Let me give you a little example of why vitamins and minerals are so important. If you want to build a brick house, what do you need? Well, you need bricks and mortar, and wood, and windows and doors. You need some basic stuff to build that house. What if you dont have bricks, or mortar or windows or doors? How well do you think the house will function after you are done trying to build it? Not very well.

Vitamins, minerals and nutrients are like the bricks, mortar, windows, doors, wood, etc. of the house. They are the parts that your body uses to build you. If you dont give your body those key building blocks, things in your body are not going to work very well.

If you try to substitute cheap, not so good imitations, if you tried to build a brick house with a bunch of rocks, the house would not be as good. If you tried to use old, warped windows, the house would not function very well. If you used wood that had holes in it and was not complete, your house would not be very functional. For your body to continue to function at its best and do everything it used to, your body needs to continually be replacing the broken down worn out parts with new parts. And if the new parts, if the vitamins and minerals you give it are not whole, or not enough, your body is going to break down. If you give your body less wood than it needs, so you cannot finish the roof, you might be able to keep the wind out, but when it rains, you get wet.

The second reason refined carbohydrates are not good for you is that refined carbs drastically alter your blood sugar levels. What is the big deal with this? The easiest to show you is what happens to you after you eat. You get really tired and lethargic. You have trouble staying awake and you want to go to sleep. Guess what? The rest of your body is doing the same thing. Your cells are going into a sugar coma. Your mind, which controls everything, is also going to sleep on the job. Your brain is not doing everything it needs to do to keep you functioning properly. And if your brain is not doing its job properly, anything could be going wrong with your body, and often is.

Refined carbs/sugars also are one of the main contributing factors to heart disease and high cholesterol levels, as I showed you earlier.

About the Author

Go to http://www.HealthyEatingDiet.com to get the full e-course. Dr. Jamie wants to help give you Permanent Results with his “non-diet.” He is also giving you dozens of valuable free gifts to “ethically bribe” you into helping him make his new book, “The Ultimate Non-Diet” a #1 best seller. For details on the book go to: http://www.TheUltimateNonDiet.com/free

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There is a lot of attention paid in the Atkins diet plan towards food and cooking. Its true that your food choices on the diet are of utmost importance. But a lot of people make the mistake of ignoring exercise. The newly released Atkins food pyramid shows the importance of exercise. It shows an increase in food options with increased activity. Exercise is important on the Atkins diet, and important for everyones overall health.

Exercise is beneficial to body, mind and soul. It has many major benefits, even at limited levels. It not only burns fat but it boosts your metabolism and increases circulation. Daily exercise helps your body eliminate toxins through sweat glands and lymph systems. It is especially important to all low-carb weight loss programs because it regulates blood sugar levels.

Physical exercise is essential for Atkins diet success. Without exercise, your body isnt configured to process carbohydrates successfully. Research has shown that sedentary individuals have extreme insulin reactions to even moderate amounts of carbohydrates. This means that exercise doesnt only help you lose weight, it will help you keep it off too. Exercise will teach your body how to process the carbohydrates in your diet. When you exercise regularly, youll be able to eat more carbohydrates over time because your body will use them efficiently.

There are two basic types of exercise: aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. The best regimen combines these two forms each week.

Aerobic exercises primary goal is to increase your heart rate. This causes your body to consume more oxygen and it gives all of your cells a fresh supply of oxygen. If youve been without physical activity for a while, many of those cells have been deprived. Aerobic exercise will regenerate them and help you feel better in times when you arent exercising.

If youve been inactive for a while, it may take some time to get used to your new aerobic workouts. You may want to get some advice from your primary care doctor or a professional aerobics instructor. Make sure to start slowly to give yourself time to adjust to your new movements. Its essential that you learn how to stretch and warm up correctly in order to avoid muscle strain. Some good beginning aerobic activities include walking, golf, tennis and dancing. These activities wont cause a lot of strain on your body, but they will get your heart moving. Start slowly and set small goals for yourself. For example, if you are starting a walking program begin by walking four blocks. Then increase your training to five blocks, then six. Your body will respond well to the exerciseafter all your body was meant to move!

Anaerobic exercise includes any activity that isnt technically aerobic. Most of the exercises in this category build muscle mass. Weightlifting and strength training are examples of anaerobic exercises. Working out with weights is an important part of losing weight. As you lose fat, youll need to replace it with muscle in order to stay lean. Dont be afraid of working out with weights. You wont need to become a bodybuilder. Weight bearing exercises like isometrics and resistance training will help improve your bone density, your posture and your fat burning potential.

If an exercise program is not part of your weight loss efforts, you are setting yourself up for failure. Make a commitment to incorporating exercise into your weight loss efforts and youll see the results immediately.

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The Atkins diet principles lay the foundation for a healthy, more balanced way of eating than the standard American diet. Its emphasis is on using good carbohydrates in balance with adequate protein. This is in stark contrast to what most Americans eat on a daily basis. The average American eats lots of processed foods that have hidden sugars and highly processed carbohydrates. This has put most Americans on the road to diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions. What is sad is that diabetes has a predictable set of stages and that they can be easily recognized.

The road to diabetes has to do with something called the glycemic index. All carbohydrates are rated on this index with regards to the level of insulin reaction they produce. Foods that have a high glycemic index rating will cause your pancreas to release a lot of insulin to break down the amount of sugars and carbohydrates (which produce high amounts of glucose). The refined carbohydrates and sugars that make up the vast majority of the American diet rank very high on the glycemic index.

We are able to more readily digest these foods as children, because our bodies function more efficiently in our youth. There may have been side effects, like weight gain and mood swings, but they didnt stand out. As we age, however, these symptoms begin to grow and become more prevalent. The nation-wide obesity epidemic is a result of high-carbohydrate diets and unstable blood sugar levels.

Many people who are overweight are also insulin resistant. Insulin resistance means that the insulin is not doing its job in removing glucose from the blood stream. The pancreas gets over worked and it releases massive amounts of insulin, sometimes 20 times more than the body actually needs. This results in the blood sugar dropping to extremely low levels. This sets off a chain reaction in the body that leads to a release of adrenaline to correct the blood sugar problem.

With age, blood sugar and insulin difficulties become more aggravated. The condition is called hyperinsulinism and is a precursor for type II diabetes. It is normally accompanied by high blood pressure and high triglycerides.

After years of using a high-carbohydrate diet, you will finally become fully diabetic. Insulin is the bodys primary fat creator and extra pounds usually accompany late onset diabetes. Pre-diabetic conditions, if not treated effectively, will lead to diabetes indefinitely.

However, there are easily identifiable warning signs to diabetes that appear early. Your family doctor can perform insulin level tests that will let you know if you are at risk for pre-diabetic conditions, and studies show that low-carb diets like Atkins can help. Controlling your blood sugar is one of the most effective methods to controlling pre-diabetic conditions.

The Atkins diet helps effectively control blood sugar. The combination of proteins, fats and good carbohydrates will keep your body satisfied without the roller coaster effect. Controlling carbohydrates in quantity as well as type will help limit the insulin spikes. This will let your pancreas work in the way that it was meant to be, and it will decrease the likelihood of your developing pre-diabetic conditions. Its a vicious cycle that, if left unchecked, can lead to diabetes later in life. When the Atkins diet is followed effectively it produces stable blood sugar throughout the day and helps you stay off the road to diabetes.

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