I've been reading some GI books, because I'm trying to write a diet plan to introduce my sweet-toothed diabetic father in law to low carbing, and he needs a very gentle induction. (If I told him it was all banned he'd run a mile, and I'm hoping to gradually convince him).

Anyway in Brand-Miller's book there's a big table comparing her GI diet with low carbing. Of course low carbing is made to look bad, but there's two points not explained in the text that confuse me. One is that low carbing, to paraphrase, will make you thick, and the other is that it, to quote, "worsens glucose tolerance". Can anyone explain what the second thing means? And the first thing, well it just sounds silly to me, but it's an arguement I'd not heard before.

Makes you thick? I very much doubt eating certain foods can change the actual shape of your body. It can't remove fat from some areas and not from others to make certain areas thicker.

As for glucose tolerance, that's something that entered my head too. I've noticed that when I'm totally on plan for ages and I have something I would have eaten in my previous WOE, I get headspins and my body can't tolerate it the way it used to.

I figure it just means that if you're body is not exposed to blood glucose ups and downs, then it wont react properly when they do happen. Which is the same regardless which food property you omit. So if it's definitely for life, I wouldn't worry about it.

e

maybe your f-i-l could figure out what he would miss the least & cut back on it. Slowly, one thing at a time, until the carbs are drastically lowered
Also check out www.mendosa.com - a good source of information for diabetics

Ah, the glucose tolerance thing. So that's why I got palpitations when I ate a chocolate bar!

And thick, well I meant mentally impaired, or stupid. I guess it must be an English-ism. Anyway, I read around a bit and got that part explained anyway.

Thanks.

And thanks for the mendosa site, it's very good!

The way I make diets acceptable to myself is by figuring out what good treats I can have on the diet. After that it is a cinch.

Ahhh, I guess people I know say "thick in the head" or "dense". Maybe we're a bit thick and need things explained

e

Isn't one of the arguments against low-carb that it 'starves the brain of fuel'? Maybe that's where she got the idea that it makes you thick.

Just thinking out loud.... cause I'm 'thick'

It is, indeed. I'm sure she is basing her argument that low carbing makes you 'thick' on the assertion that the brain needs a certain amount of glucose to function and when the body is in glucose-burning mode, that much is true. What she is neglecting to note, however, is that the majority of the brain can and does function just dandy using ketones in lieu of glucose and that small part that can only use glucose is easily supplied through gluconeogenesis so there really is no need whatsoever to ingest carbs or sugar to prevent your brain from dying or being damaged.



The assumption here is that this is a bad thing. The fact is that the human body was not designed to ingest large amounts of glucose in the first place and certainly not the high GI stuff so prevalent in our diets today, so I would say that rather than a 'reduced tolerance' for it, we are simply returning to our normal tolerance for it. Strangely enough, in previous attempts at quitting smoking, I found that abstinence from nicotine greatly reduced my tolerance for that substance, too, but I wouldn't use that as an argument against quitting.

Lol, I was looking up hyperglycemia just now, and look what I found, from nearly 3 years ago. So it's double not true that low carbing is bad for the brain

High Blood Sugar Shrinks Brain

see also
http://www.med.nyu.edu/news_and_vie...003/memory.html
http://www.defeatdiabetes.org/Articles/memory030310.htm

I have to totally disagree with lc'ing making one slower mentally. I have a friend who is a diabetic.. shows marked loss of mental alertness when she eats high carbs. Mental clarity and energy are often two of the very things mentioned when people start lc'ing.. AFTER the initial detox to get rid of all the high carb induced sludge of course.