The official drawing from a Lightning McQueen bucket

$10 iTunes winner is #2- Jessica

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While I wholeheartedly think that exercise plays a vital role in health, if we really want to point the finger the gold medal goes to: Our diet. We (meaning Americans) eat garbage. We have a diet that is killing us slowly and its becoming a bigger and bigger burden on our already tragic healthcare system.

If you read In Defense of Food you will learn that even diets that are high in saturated fats (fats we’ve always been told are a big No-No) don’t have nearly the rates of health issues as we do. Asians eat starchy white rice day in and day out and they don’t have a fraction of the “western illnesses” either. Our downfall is the refined sugars, flours, food additives, salt etc. So much of what you find in the grocery store is not food. I find that when I go to the store these days I can usually walk past 2 aisles avoiding them completely: chip/soda aisle, crackers/cookie aisle. There is very little I ever buy in those aisles (I’ll admit there are always Oreos in the freezer- but those last us at least 1-2months). There is nothing of value in those aisles. In fact when I went to the store today I decided that I think the Pop Tart probably ties with the Bagel for the most worthless food on earth.

Because Im sure not everyone finds food science as fascinating as I do, lets have a little science lesson.

Carbohydrates are pretty much the mainstay of the American diet these days. This really was fueled with the 1980′/90’s notion that eating a low-fat diet was the way to go. What was fat replaced with? Carbs. Then the 2000’s had us all saying no to carbs and eating our weights in steak and bacon. Now….I don’t know where we are now, worse off than ever? Part of the problem is that we’ve got loads of carbs (sugar) in places we don’t expect them (spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, ketchup, peanut butter, etc). In fact its becoming increasingly difficult to find food that doesn’t have sugar in it.

Carbs can be split into two major categories: simple (this is your table sugar, soda, syrup, juice, and our very very favorite: High Fructose Corn Syrup -aka HFCS) and complex (whole grains (oatmeal, brown and wild rice, quinoa), starchy vegetables (potatoes, squash, yams) and legumes (peas, beans, lentils)). Carbs are broken down by digestion into glucose which is able to enter our bloodstreams (this is what people are talking about when they say “blood sugar”). Once there it triggers the release of, your friend and mine; insulin. Insulin helps glucose get into our cells where its used for energy  (glucose being the body’s primary source of energy).

Once our immediate energy needs have been met, extra glucose still remaining in the bloodstream can be stored in our muscles and liver for later use. If our muscle and liver stores of glucose are full (and most Americans glucose stores are FULL-ULL) but we still have extra glucose floating around in our blood, then insulin says ‘waste not, want not’ and helps our body turn this into fat. To be used at a later time. Except for most of us- there is no LATER TIME because we just keep adding to the fat stores like we’re bears amping up for hibernation. And we keep getting fatter and fatter and fatter. And once those fat cells are created they’re there for life. They can shrink but they don’t go away.

When we eat anything that is just straight sugar (ie the pop tart or bagel, soda, juice) it sends our pancreas into overdrive with insulin! insulin! insulin! Your blood sugar rises rapidly (in the case of juice/soda it rises so rapidly most diabetics aren’t allowed to have it. Like ever. Which is also why if a diabetic is going into shock you give them juice to quickly! bring their blood sugar back up). When it rises rapidly like that you feel all good and energized and your body is still working away with insulin! insulin! insulin! and then….you start to feel crashy and *hungry*. So….you reach for something sugary again. And the cycle starts all over again. You continue to feel hungry and get fatter. Its this roller coaster of sugar highs and lows that takes its toll on your body and, here the science gets more complicated than I can understand (A high flux of fructose to the liver, the main organ capable of metabolizing this simple carbohydrate, disturbs normal hepatic carbohydrate metabolism leading to two major consequences: perturbations in glucose metabolism and glucose uptake pathways, and a significantly enhanced rate of de novolipogenesis and TG synthesis, driven by the high flux of glycerol and acyl portions of TG molecules coming from fructose catabolism. These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding (source: www.nutritionandmetabolism.com)).  Basically, this roller coaster of sugar highs can lead to insulin resistance. Our bodies just weren’t made to handle such an onslaught of sugar in our diet.

Most everyone has at least some vague idea of what a ‘balanced’ meal/snack is. As I mentioned above, when you eat a meal or snack that is composed of carbs/sugar it raises your blood sugar quickly and then it comes crashing right back down. You can avoid these peaks and valleys by consuming protein (and or fat) at the same time (think apple and cheese (squirty cheese does NOT count), banana and peanut butter, cottage cheese and crackers, etc). Diabetics have to eat this way, and really, it makes a lot of sense.

When you include proteins you will stay full longer, glucose levels stay more consistent, your metabolism will work more efficiently, and you will feel like you have more energy for longer periods of time. When you eat carbohydrates and proteins together, the carbohydrates are digested in about two hours, but the proteins take longer to digest. Proteins slow down the digestion of the carbohydrates, and energy from the carbohydrates is released slower (thus avoiding the sugar highs and lows).

When I was looking up info on this (no, not ALL of this info is stored in my brain ready to spew out at any minute) I saw this good analogy: Think of the carb/protein thing like a car on a highway. If you are the only one on the highway you’ll zip on down the road. If you have to compete with traffic you’ll move much slower. The same goes for glucose working its way through your blood stream. Eating protein along with carbs fills the blood stream with traffic that slows down the glucose. And the slower glucose moves through the bloodstream, the better. If it moves through too quickly, your blood sugar levels will dip and you’ll be tormented by sugar cravings and find yourself in a slump.

To sum it up: The reason we are big and getting bigger is because we are consuming far more than our bodies can metabolize.  When you eat foods that are heavy in carbs they raise your blood sugar quickly, wreak their havoc, and then send you crashing back down, reaching for more food. If we ate more well thought out meals our blood sugar would stay constant, we’d feel better, we’d eat less, and, at least in theory, we’d weigh less.

Some numbers:

-We eat roughly 150lbs of sugar a year (this also includes about 30lbs of natural sugar found in fruit). A can of soda has 10 tsp of sugar.  A container of fruit flavored yogurt has 6tsp. A tablespoon of ketchup has a TEASPOON of sugar in it. We should only be eating the equivalent of 8tsp a day.

-Obesity related health issues cost us nearly $150 BILLION every year

-190 million Americans (roughly 2/3 of the population TWO THIRDS) are overweight or obese

-From 1935 to 1996, the prevalence of diagnosed type 2 diabetes climbed nearly 765%

-childhood obesity rates have more than tripled in the last 30 years.

Next….how ( and what) we eat. (This is the last one, I promise).

*Since I lack any sort of credentials in this area, if anything I’ve written isn’t correct- I welcome corrections.

Filed under: Because I'm NICE like that, fitness!