Happy Halloween!!!

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” -Maria Robinson

Happy Halloween everyone! Candy everywhere but I got rid of most of mine. I might make a goodie bag for the mailman and garbage man. It would be a nice thing to do and it gets rid of the candy right?

I came close to my goal but only by eating what I shouldn't be eating.

And speaking of what we shouldn't be eating this whole low/no carb thing is for the birds because of the simple and complex carbs. For example a banana has 31 carbs but it's fruit it is supposed to be good for you but when you look at the numbers 31 carbs can make a huge difference.

Ah, but wait there's more. Read on my friends.

Complex carbs (pasta, potatoes, oats, vegies and grains) must first be broken down into simple sugars and then those simple sugars have to be converted to glucose before they can be absorbed into the blood.

This is good because the longer it takes for a carb to be broken down into glucose, the better. Why? Well a carb's rate of absorption into the bloodstream produces a proportionally strong release of the hormone insulin. Rapid absorption of glucose causes rapid secretion of insulin. This in turn signals your body to store fat. And this is followed by fatigue and cravings for more carbs due to the blood's sudden depletion of glucose.

In other words if a carb is broken down too fast it becomes your body's version of a catch-22. This is probably why my nutritionist friend told me that she always writes a diet for someone who wants to cut carbs as if they were a diabetic so they looked more to the glycemic index which makes perfect sense. Doesn't it?

No? Well there is more.....

Many simple carbs actually absorb at a much slower rate than many complex carbs. Most fruits, for example, contain fiber that slows down the digestion process. Also, sugar that comes from fruit and dairy must be converted to glucose before it can be absorbed into the blood causing yet another slowdown in the digestion process.
You will actually feel satisfied longer by eating an apple vs. an equal-sized bowl of pasta. Because even though pasta contains complete carbs those carbs are still broken down into glucose faster than the apple's sugar.

Translation: the longer it takes to turn carbs into glucose the better chance we have of burning off said carbs as energy before they hit the bloodstream and are stored as fat.

So the moral of this story kids is not so much to worry about carb numbers (in my humble opinion) but to rely more on the glycemic index. This measures the rate of absorption of carbs. A carb that has a low glycemic index absorbs slowly which is good. The higher the number the faster it absorbs which is bad.

There is only one exception to that rule of good vs. bad glycemic index numbers. Within 45-60 min of a workout (this number varies by source) you want to have a lean, complete protein (30-50g) along with carbs high on the glycemic index (30-60g). Because the carbs with the high glycemic index will rapidly absorb into the bloodstream and as the glucose causes an insulin spike the insulin will help shuttle the protein into the muscles repairing and building new muscle.

So there ya have it kids. Our carb lesson for the day. So we need to study the charts we have of the glycemic index and use that more as a reference than the carb numbers I'm currently counting.

And you thought I wasn't learning anything on this diet. Now if Damon the hottie cabana boy were here he would have had flowcharts, and graphics with colorful diagrams (he tends to go a bit overboard but he loves his graphics. You know what they say, men are so visual ;-)

Numbers for today

Calories 2116
Fat 92
Carbs 249
Proteins 69
8oz. glasses of water 0