a *LONG* time ago I was a physiology major. Now granted I focused more on cell (meaning chemistry) physiology in the context of marine flora, but ...
There’s three factors in play:
(1) what your body does immediately with low molecular weight, water-soluble sugars (table sugar (sucrose), fruit sugar (fructose), milk sugar (lactose) and metabolic sugars like glucose.
(2) where your body ‘warehouses’ extra carbohydrate energy in the form of glycogen and body fat (mostly a difference in molecular weight, solubility and where certain chemical bonds are; AND where the body goes first for energy, and whether said effort is ‘aerobic’ or ‘anaerobic’.)
(3) how your metabolism is trained or habituated to process, store and ‘retrieve’ carbohydrates (sugars, starches, lipids, oils, fats, glycogen etc). This is where the oddball and/or purposeful diets come in, along with lifestyles. You CAN affect the amount and nature of weight gain/loss by altering what you eat. Go figure.
NET: total calories in (available Calories in the food) minus total calories out will add up to weight gain or loss. period. If you eat less than you ‘burn’ you WILL lose weight.
Pumping in ‘sugar’ in your food has some direct effects that can be more harmful if bad habits persist, and certainly more immediate than eating more complex carbohydrates like starch, oil and fats.
Your body’s metabolism DOES build what might be called metabolic habits, much like arranging workers in shipping and receiving. So what you eat and when DOES have an effect on how your body processes what you eat, how often you get hungry, and where it goes for energy when your body truly gets hungry. It also has an effect on where it ‘warehouses’ the food energy as it digests and processes ALL foods.
Now, DON’T believe the hype about fructose. It is nothing more than a five carbon fruit sugar. It ain’t bad for you. When your body processes ‘sugar’ it ALWAYS produces fructose as a natural part of the process of metabolizing ‘sugars.’
Without opening up your old textbooks (remember the Kreb’s cycle or the Embdem-Myerhoff pathway or the NADH cycle?) I think you can rest assured that ALL sugars, oils, starches and fats, etc ARE INDEED carbohydrates. They have different physical molecular structures, different molecular weights, solubility, bio-availability, etc., and at the front end are metabolized differently. But in the end, go back to 9th grade bilogy and you’ll see it all ends up in the same places chemically when the body ‘says’ I NEED ENERGY.
Eat well, exercise regularly. It never changes. WITH the asterisk that a programmed, controlled diet DOES change your body’s metabolism. Be wary of radically unbalanced diets.
I concur with what Jack and Alloy say in their posts above - read up on the Glycemic Index.
Your mileage my vary, but for testimonials: attentiveness to the Glycemic Index on my father-in-law’s diet for 5 years led to his diagnosis of diabetes disappearing (doc said “he no longer appears diabetic”), and after that convinced me to modify my own diet, I lost 40 lbs over 12 months.
For your ref —> http://www.glycemicindex.com/about.php
Yes. The only thing slowing down the sugar absorption is the amount of fat and fiber that is in/on it.
I saw the following video earlier this year about sugar and calories and it blew me away. Since I saw this, I consider the food pyramid to be a blatant attempt by the government to decrease our life expectancy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ZIKOQkTiM
While all carbohydrates are made of sections, which broken apart and completed with hydrogen atoms would be sugars, that does not mean “Carbohydrates are just sugar by another name”. Starch is metabolized very differently than simple or “complex” sugars (the latter being two bits each of which, again completed with a hydrogen atom on the broken bond) would be a simple sugar, and have very different effects on blood sugar, weight gain and the like. Some carbohydrate molecules are so large as to be indigestible by human beings (for instance cellulose) and are a major part of “dietary fiber” that, while not digested as food, apparently has various health benefits by virtue of absorbing substances in the digestive tract and helping food and food waste transit the digestive tract more efficiently.
The assertion “carbohydrates are just sugar by another name” is analogous to “polystyrene is just styrene by another name”: polystyrene is a non-toxic odorless solid plastic; sytrene is a mildly toxic, possibly carcinogenic liquid with a sweet smell, but the former is a string of the latter (stuck together by bonds where hydrogen atoms got knocked off).
WAIT!
Simple Carb’s are the subject of your ire.
Complex Carb’s are differnet!
Think “vegetables”, which are “complex carb’s”
Cut the “simple” breads and starches, and increase the “complex”!
The food pyramid brought to you by Archer-Daniels- Midland and Con-Agra. Back in 50’s and 60’s it was common knowledge that carbs were side dishes not the main course. Your main dishes were protein/fats, food the stuck to your ribs and filled you up.
And sure, fruits and veggies are god for you, but remember: the fruits we eat today are modified from their wild forms and have a much higher sugar content.
Please read Gary Taubes' book, How We Get Fat. The first part lets you know that all of the "studies" that you think "prove" that low-fat is the way to go, well, not so much. He has actually read the studies and finds that a lot of the time the researchers tell a different story from what the actual results of the study were; and, then put it in the short summary at the end of the study. The short summary is all the media ever reads, and that is what you hear about. Again, very much like "global warming", these "scientists" begin with an assumption and then either cherry-pick or outright lie about the findings of their study in order for it to fit the agenda/narrative.
The second part of the book is really a great explanation of how one's body processes food. Dr. Atkins was correct. The problem is the carbs, NOT the fat. It is an easily accessible book to people without a science background,and is very informative. I think Mr. Taubes' book has really started people re-evaluating what the government has been telling us for decades (as we have all been getting fatter for decades).
My reaction after reading the Taubes' book was anger. I was angry that I have been lied to by everyone for decades. My husband read the book after I did, and had the same reaction.
Yup, carbs are death.Go paleolithic, eat fruit vegetables and no carbs like potatoes and you’ll feel much better. No bread.
Yes, carbs have always been sugars. Never understood why so many were oblivious to that fact. If nothing else just take a look at Moochelle’s caboose. Atkins knew what he was talking about and low carb diets work.
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Everything you just realized is correct. All carbs, whether processed into candy bars or “pure whole grains”, are converted into sugar in the body. If they’re not burned immediately, they’re stored as fat. It’s the foundation of the Atkins diet, although he wasn’t the first to have those realizations, just the first to popularize them. If you want to get more into the science of why carbs (and more specifically, grains - even whole grains - and legumes) are fundamentally bad for us, start by reading “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf, and continue your education in paleo/primal/low-carb diets from there.
There is no doubt in my mind of the direct relationship between the popularity of the grain and carb heavy low-fat “food pyramid” diets of the last 30 or so years and the massive increases in obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other so-called “diseases of affluence”.
I have been eating this way since late last January. Lost 37 pounds on Atkins, but I slowed it way down because I lost that weight in about 3 months. It scared me and all my friends kept asking what was “wrong” with me. It’s amazing how people think that way.
Added nuts and legumes lately, but very judiciously. It appears I’m gonna have to back those off a little, it would seem I have a very low carb tolerance and more than about 50 grams per day will make me gain weight.
Keep it up friend, good luck!
According to my specialist that cares for me with my long time 41 years) type 1 diabetes, yes all carbs no matter where them=y come from do the same thing to the body.Some are absorbed at a slower rate but yes a carb is a carb is a carb...
bfl
The word is finally getting around. I was turned onto Atkins in the seventies but found the diet too harsh. Now, I just cut out anything made of wheat or with sugar (except special occasions, of course).
Cholesterol's fine and my weight sticks right to where it was when I graduated high school 40 years ago. Having pizza tonight -- crust is made of cauliflower rice and mozzarella cheese. It's surprisingly good.
In general, the more physically active you are the less you need to “count carbs”, you will “burn” more of them up before they pile up as fat and excessive “blood sugar”; and conversely the less physically active is your lifestyle, the more you might need to “count carbs” and sugar content of what you will consume.
Most diabetics learn that when they are looking at food content labels, they need to add the grams of carbs and sugar together.