being stable...can we say no to GLYCEMIC HIGH

it's only been an hour and i'm blogging again! ha. i've always been told to pace myself. do i ever listen, of course not. lately i have started this new motto: just do whatever makes you happy. this is a slight variation of my last motto: just do it. sometimes i just do it regardless how it makes me feel, now the new motto is a better version in which i only do things that make me feel good and about myself. anyways, off on a tangent. what i really wanted to blog about in this post is the importance of keeping a steady state of glycemic level. i'm a bit of a patho nerd so i'll be doing a lot connecting fitness, food, and fun times with the body! the answers to the mysterious WHYS???

Glycemic index is a measurement of how carbohydrates effect our blood sugar level. people think that only diabetics need to worry about controlling glycemic levels, but WE all need to worry about that! dun dun dun... our body is constantly trying to adjust what we put in our mouth, especially carbs! my friends all know that i'm a carb lover and often i like to commit CARBO-CIDE (love this saying from the movie BRUNO. booyahshaka respeck...wait that's ALI G). It wasn't until last Wednesday sitting in class when everything made sense. I'm taking a pharmacology class right now and the teacher is just phenomenal in making that light bulb switch to ON! so let me turn you on...

when we eat a carb loaded meal aka. pasta, cake, muffins, starbucks holiday lattes, buttered mash potatoes, tons of free bread that comes before your meal at a sit down restaurant ( i can go on forever bc these are the things i dream about...in fact i'm drooling right now), it goes into our stomach for digestion. Carbs are broken down and enters our blood stream. In a psychological stand point, our brain is telling us gosh that really hit the spot, but physiologically it is on freak out mode, calling out SOS MAYDAY MAYDAY. The brain activates the pancreas to produce insulin! Insulin is the only hormone that can bring the sugar in your blood stream into the adipose (fat) and muscle tissue to be used for energy.

so what's the big deal:
* it's great that we have our buddy insulin to help us get rid of this massive amount of sugar in the blood stream, but what this really means is that we are really in a state of GLYCEMIC HIGH. sounds like fun, but it sure isn't for your body. Take this for an example: have you ever gotten hungry one hour after eating something high carb (for me it is pho: my favorite vietnamese noodle soup, i get bloated too, but that's not the point)? This is caused by an overproduction of insulin. you end up going into a hypoglycemic state (hypo meaning low). you can actually have low blood sugar. Then you end up eating to compensate for that.
The take home message is that you don't want your body to overproduce insulin and have this high and low dipping of blood sugar level (UNSTABLE GLYCEMIC LEVEL). when you maintain a normal glycemic level, your body is happier. it will produce the right amount of insulin to get rid of the sugar and store it appropriately for energy production. the sugar you don't use ends up wherever fat loves to hang out.

*the above explanation goes for the same question people often wonder about: why do I wake up being super hungry after eating late at night. booyakasha...you got your answer!

*the other side of this is not eating any carbs. that brings me to fad diets: atkins, 600 calories HCG shots or droplets, paleo. C'mon guys people DIE(T) from diet. not exactly...but die from starvation. You need CARBS! That's how you get your energy.  this is what happens when your body goes into a starvation phase. your brain senses carb deprivation...MAYDAY MAYDAY we need energy! it starts the process of muscle and fat breakdown. To some people, the light bulb in their head is saying hey not bad, i'm breaking down my fat, but really you are wasting away and losing muscle. The scary thing is that you will be in a state of metabolic acidosis. Seriously, you don't want to go there and i'm sure you don't want me to go there with my patho freakiness. Fat and muscle breakdown causes your body to produce a lot of bad acid and this can really mess you up! trust me on that. Your body will end up storing more fat bc it doesn't know when the next time its going to get carb to make energy. Bottomline: when you are doing one of these low carb diets, you are really doing harm to your body. So what about this is appealing: storing more fat and looking pudgy, but the scale says i'm 10lbs lighter, being in an acidosis state where you can't think right, your tired all the time, and  possibly can cause damage to the body.

hmmmm....why don't we cut the word DIET out of our vocabulary completely. One of my favorite people in my life right now made a comment the other day: it's not a diet, it's called "FUNCTIONAL EATING!!!" so here's another letter F word you should store in your vocab bank: FUNCTIONAL! (thanks S.H!). Eat to maintain a stable glycemic level. some food i've been really into lately are QUINOA (say what??? KEEN-WA) and AGAVE NECTAR. Quinoa is a kind of grain that is high in fiber, good source of iron, and has all 8 essential amino acids. Agave nectar comes from the agave plant and is a natural sweetner. Guess what: these two products all claim to maintain a STEADY STABLE Glycemic state. there you go!

sorry for a long post! lots to say. just a teaser: i'm going to be blogging about my quinoa and agave adventures. Like Frank's hot sauce...i put that sh*t on (in) everything.  future blogs will include my exercises too. woo! i can't wait.