Going low carb is all the rage at the moment and it’s actually for good reason. Turns out that carbs can do a fair amount of damage in our bodies and that they might just be responsible for a lot of health problems that you had just kind of accepted as par for the course.
For instance, carbohydrates are well known to cause a spike in blood sugar. This is because carbohydrates are essentially foods that provide the purest kind of sugar and this then gets absorbed very quickly into our body. This in turn causes a spike and that is followed by a spike in insulin – the hormone that is used to regulate and control blood sugar levels. This then causes the energy to be taken up and unless you need it right away, it will be stored as fat.
The high amounts of sugar in your blood can cause damage until that point though, causing inflammation and more. In the mouth it can lead to the proliferation of bacteria that leads to bad breath and even lost teeth. And in the gut it can cause a range of digestive issues. It also causes inflammation which can lead to a range of other health complaints, as well as potentially causing brain fog and more.
And if you keep repeating this process over and over, eventually you are left with low insulin sensitivity that can eventually become diabetes. So in short, there is plenty of reason to avoid sugar.
Now compare this with consuming fat. That contains sugar and energy too but it is in a less available form. It takes much longer to be absorbed in the stomach and then it slowly enters the bloodstream. This doesn’t create a spike but provides us with just enough energy for whatever tasks we’re engaging in. As a result, we don’t feel high and then crash and we are less likely to store that energy as fat! Plus we feel fuller for longer.
None of this is to say that carbs are good and you should only eat protein and fat. In fact, all major food groups have some important role in the body. They are all there for a reason. What I want you to take away from this instead is simply that you should aim to eat fewer carbohydrates than you currently are and that this could result in some great health benefits.
But if you can’t eat carbs, that means no bread, it means no potato, it means no chocolate bars… Hmm, if only there were a way to have your cake and eat it (literally!). Especially seeing as carbs aren’t bad for you as such.
Well, that’s where the slow carb diet comes in. This is basically a diet that consists of carbohydrates that are slower to be absorbed, along with foods lower in carbs. We’ll learn more about this as we go but suffice to say that low glycemic index means that the carbs behave a lot more like fats. So what can you enjoy in a low GI diet?
1. Oats
Let’s start with one of the most ‘classic’ examples of a low GI food to help you ‘get it’.
So porridge oats are oats you can have for your breakfast. These don’t exactly taste sweet but they’re a great source of energy and they work first thing in the morning. Thing is, they’re very high in fiber and because of this, they take longer to digest. The sugar content is released much more slowly and thus they behave more similarly to fats.
This is what is meant by low GI and oats are one of the best options out there to start your day right!
