If you want to lose weight, have energy throughout the day, and stay healthy, you need to choose the food you eat carefully. There are many things to consider, like freshness, pesticide and herbicide load, fiber content, and protein count, but perhaps the first is a food's place on the glycemic index chart. This information will tell you how consuming any particular food will impact your blood sugar.
Metabolism is a complex process, but understanding the basics is all that's necessary. When a food is digested, glucose is released into the blood stream. This is a normal process that fuels your body, giving you energy and allowing the body to carry out its many functions. However, extra glucose is a signal to the pancreas to secrete insulin. This hormone causes the extra to be stored, to be burned later for energy or accumulated as fat.
Simply counting calories doesn't take into account the way foods are digested. A bagel, made of white flour and water, is easily digested and quickly turned into glucose. Eating one causes a spike in blood sugar and a fast insulin response. In contrast, a chocolate chip cookie contains sugar as well as flour, so it takes longer to digest. This explains why a Snickers bar is ranked lower on the index than plain popcorn.
Of course, eating peanut-packed candy is not healthy. The total sugar content promotes tooth decay, eventual weight gain, and an addiction to that insidious sweet taste. A better choice is just eat peanuts. They are ranked way down on the chart. Choose dry roast, flavored only with a little sea salt.
Knowing how much impact a food has on your insulin response is important. If you select complex carbohydrates and high protein foods from the chart, all of which have a low number, you can then cross-reference them for fiber content and nutritional value. This is the key to losing weight quickly and safely and feeling good while you're reaching your goal.
It'll be no surprise that you already know to avoid foods that top the chart. Candy, dried fruit, sodas, french fries, and ice cream are obviously not diet foods. However, you may be surprised at some of the foods in the 55 and up range that you should omit or limit. Orange juice, raisins, rice, flavored instant oatmeal and yogurt, and granola are in this too-high range.
Using the chart, you will know to avoid watermelon but that canned peaches might be OK. A plain baked potato is awful, but sweet potatoes are fine. A portion of lentils can be almost as big as you want and the same goes for hummus, but eating both a banana and an apple might be pushing it. Planning a menu will be fun; you may find foods you've forgotten all about that you want to try again.
The index is a useful tool when you want to achieve an ideal weight or eat better. Knowing how a food impacts your blood sugar keeps you on a heart healthy track and reduces the risk of diabetes to almost nothing. Check it out!
Metabolism is a complex process, but understanding the basics is all that's necessary. When a food is digested, glucose is released into the blood stream. This is a normal process that fuels your body, giving you energy and allowing the body to carry out its many functions. However, extra glucose is a signal to the pancreas to secrete insulin. This hormone causes the extra to be stored, to be burned later for energy or accumulated as fat.
Simply counting calories doesn't take into account the way foods are digested. A bagel, made of white flour and water, is easily digested and quickly turned into glucose. Eating one causes a spike in blood sugar and a fast insulin response. In contrast, a chocolate chip cookie contains sugar as well as flour, so it takes longer to digest. This explains why a Snickers bar is ranked lower on the index than plain popcorn.
Of course, eating peanut-packed candy is not healthy. The total sugar content promotes tooth decay, eventual weight gain, and an addiction to that insidious sweet taste. A better choice is just eat peanuts. They are ranked way down on the chart. Choose dry roast, flavored only with a little sea salt.
Knowing how much impact a food has on your insulin response is important. If you select complex carbohydrates and high protein foods from the chart, all of which have a low number, you can then cross-reference them for fiber content and nutritional value. This is the key to losing weight quickly and safely and feeling good while you're reaching your goal.
It'll be no surprise that you already know to avoid foods that top the chart. Candy, dried fruit, sodas, french fries, and ice cream are obviously not diet foods. However, you may be surprised at some of the foods in the 55 and up range that you should omit or limit. Orange juice, raisins, rice, flavored instant oatmeal and yogurt, and granola are in this too-high range.
Using the chart, you will know to avoid watermelon but that canned peaches might be OK. A plain baked potato is awful, but sweet potatoes are fine. A portion of lentils can be almost as big as you want and the same goes for hummus, but eating both a banana and an apple might be pushing it. Planning a menu will be fun; you may find foods you've forgotten all about that you want to try again.
The index is a useful tool when you want to achieve an ideal weight or eat better. Knowing how a food impacts your blood sugar keeps you on a heart healthy track and reduces the risk of diabetes to almost nothing. Check it out!
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