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2006/05/12, 02:50 PM
Please correct any mistakes I have made.
The whole point of keeping track of sugar is to predict the ammount of insulin in your blood, because too much too often leads to insulin resistance (which is a bad thing).
Insulin tells your cells to suck in glucose, fats, and proteins. Being able to determine when this happens is beneficial, since it's most effective after you workout, because your muscles are starving for nutrients. Excess insulin at inappropriate times, can lead to unwanted fat gains.
The glycemic index was the first measurement to try and keep track of the insulin, and it measures how much your blood sugar rises, after you eat a particular carbohydrate. However, it was determined that blood sugar levels don't always mean an increased surge in insulin.
The glycemic load takes the glycemic index into affect and tells you how much sugar is in a serving of a specific food. This is important, because some foods with high glycemic indexes have low glycemic loads.
Like apples.
I got most of my info from these:
http://www.freetrainers.com/FT/jsp/Message.jsp?f_ix=15&t_ix=887
http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm
Now, an apple according to www.nutritiondata.com has 17g of carbs with 13g of that being sugar. Coincidentally, I like eating apples far more than I like eating plain oatmeal.
So the question is, are there other reasons for avoiding unprocessed sugars, or would eating 5 apples be a good source of carbohydrates? (Provided you brush and floss regularly)
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