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And when the sunspots are ready and the hemlines have shortened enough, the cyclical nutritional messages are handed to us by experts as if we're stupid grunting cavemen and cave women who can only handle two-word sentences: One year, it's "Fat bad.
" The next year, it's "Carbs good.
" Then, it's "Fat bad.
Carbs bad.
Protein good.
" Uggggh.
Okay, grunting Grog and Grogette, let's get the skinny on carbs and fat and expand beyond two-word bits of wisdom: "Carbs Grog's friend.
Carbs Grogette's friend.
" Got it? We all need carbohydrates.
Naturally, casting the entire realm of carbohydrates in a nutritionally discriminatory act is unwise and socially unjust to the carbohydrates themselves.
But we shall overcome one day, this day in fact, through this article: Carbohydrates, naturally, should not be seen as the menace to one's well being or anything like that.
In fact, carbs should be seen as your friend, a helpful and quick energy source for your explosive energy needs! Don't blame it on your friendly carbs.
Blame it on that dirty rotten scoundrel: Insulin! The real culprit is the insulin found in our body.
Its job is to take care of our sugar intake.
Unfortunately, it often does too good a job and overcompensates, leaving us with a sugar deficit.
Naturally, all we want to do is take care of that deficit by eating the same sugars of which the insulin just disposed.
Okay, so who is this dirty rotten scoundrel called insulin? What's insulin? Insulin is a naturally occurring hormone secreted by your pancreas.
(The pancreas is an organ which produces both hormones to regulate your body and a juice to digest your food.
) How does insulin work? When your blood sugar is low, certain cells in your pancreas called "beta" cells secrete insulin.
The insulin then informs all of its target cells as well as the liver to "uptake" sugar (or store the sugar by absorbing it into your cells and liver).
Why "uptake" or store sugar? Three reasons: First: you decrease sugar in your blood.
Second: you give your cells more energy (sugar is what powers your cells).
And third: you give your liver sugar (in the form of glucose, which is the sugar that results from photosynthesis in green plants) to store as a special form of energy called "glycogen.
" Think of glucose as sugar Lego blocks and glycogen as something you snap together out of a bunch of glucose blocks.
You can remember the two this way: "Glucose" is often called blood sugar or corn sugar or plant sugar, while "glycogen" is often called animal starch.
Your sugar is absorbed by cells and your liver which bunches sugar together.
What happens next? When this internal balance called homeostasis happens, you sense less sugar in your blood and send signals to make up for this deficit by eating more carbohydrates.
You start wolfing down yet another sugar-glazed, jelly donut! "Sorry: Your storage account has reached its limit.
Store more as FAT: Click here now:" Your liver and all the cells that took up your sugar have already maximized their intake.
Your cells can't eat another bite and your liver is bored out of its skull of playing with glucose Lego blocks to build glycogen.
But inspirational hope springs eternal and there is always a way, although you may not agree with the solution your body has for you: Store the carbohydrates as fantastically flabby, unfirm FAT! What does this mean for your goals for weight loss, weight management, and dieting? It means you're not going to win the game of eating sugar, storing it in cells and your liver, then eating more sugar because you get the signal that your blood sugar is low, only to have your second round at the all-you-can-eat dessert buffet immediately transform itself into fat.
So don't play the game.
WARNING! Don't even think of pushing that START button, Buster! Serious, dudes and dudettes, think about it: This is a vicious cycle where you are unlikely to come out a winner.
Let's say you eat a scoop of everybody's favorite complete food: Ice cream.
(Of course, you do know that I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
) As you digest and get rid of the sugars you ingested, the insulin will reduce your blood sugar level so much so that you not only want ice cream again, but you want TWO ice cream scoops because of the overcompensating of the insulin.
(You I, and we all scream for more ice cream!) If you stick to your cravings (which is really just following your instincts), and don't do any exercise to work off the sugars other than lick your ice cream cone really hard, then you will slowly save up the carbs as fats.
Oh joy, you've finally overcome that poor savings habit! In that case, your savings may not be as friendly an energy source but they sure will be a lot more visible source -- not only to you but everyone else! Don't push that START button!
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