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Q&A of Carb Intolerance
“Insulin resistance equals carbohydrate intolerance
In the body, excess carbohydrate calories cause insulin to be released which stops the fat burning process. Cells in our muscles and liver (and other tissues) also down-regulate their normal response to insulin causing a condition called insulin resistance. This causes blood sugar levels to increase and other problems associated with metabolic syndrome. In this way, insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome can be more accurately described as carbohydrate intolerance. If you have this condition, you tend to divert a greater percentage of the carbohydrate you eat into fat. Over time, this causes collateral damage that ends up as metabolic syndrome” Dr Jeff Volek PhD
The most important thing you need to know about Carbohydrate Intolerance, is that it will always negatively affect the quality of your life!
Carbohydrate Intolerance or CI is a sign of your times: When the average person consumes about 160 lbs. of sugar a year, Vs the 1 lb. our bodies are genetically designed for, it can only mean trouble!
Carbohydrate Intolerance is the premise for many serious health conditions.
Because of the difficulty in a true medical diagnosis, especially in the early stages, CI can easily develop in devastating conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
Luckily it is much easier to detect and fix this problem from the nutritional perspective than from the medical.
Here are a few things the people often ask me about CI and how to resolve it:
Q: How can carbohydrate cause so many problems, when they are a necessary part of your diet?
A: Actually Carbohydrates are absolutely not necessary in our diet. They are considered necessary because in our modern society we have reduced our metabolism to running on sugar alone.
Imagine you bought a hybrid car but did not know it. You would just put gas every day, without knowing that the car could run much more efficiently on electricity.
This is just the same for your bodies. You just did not know that your body could run on an alternative fuel, making carbs completely irrelevant!
Another important fact to keep in mind is that the most nutritionally dense foods are NOT fruits and vegetables. They are organ meats, eggs, fish oils and raw dairy.
So you will never be nutritionally deprived on a well-balanced low-carb diet.
Q: Why have I not heard about this before?
A: Unfortunately awareness of this problem is just reaching the majority of the people. Carbohydrate restricted diets are now at the forefront of the latest medical and scientific research.
In June 2014 Time magazine published the cover story cover story “Eat Butter: Scientists Labeled Fat the Enemy. Why they were wrong”, then in the online Times : “Ending The War On Fat”. Bringing this awareness to a larger public.
Medical doctors who preach the gospel of low-fat, whole carbs diets, are just following a standard of care based on 50 years of flawed science.
Hundred-thousands of years of traditional foods and native wisdom are based on the solid knowledge that fat is the basis of a healthy diet. We are just now rediscovering these principles and looking at them through the new light of modern research, which gives us the scientific explanation of why it works.
Q:Is there a more accurate way to test for Carb Intolerances?
A: There are several ways: Your doctor can prescribe a glucose tolerance test, a fasting insulin level, or a hemoglobin A1C test.
You can also test your glucose levels at home with a glucose meter. I give all the details about how to do that in my Healing Foods Method Program.
Q: Are all these symptoms really caused by carbohydrates?
A: The way carbohydrates can cause such a variety of symptoms is by promoting inflammation in the body. This keeps the body in a constant state of immune response, meaning the body constantly feels like being under attack by some foreign agent. As you can imagine, this situation can lead to all kinds of problems and dysfunctions.
The good news is that inflammation can easily be lowered with the proper dietary protocol.
(If you are experiencing really severe symptoms, you should visit your doctor for an evaluation and a diagnosis.)
Q: If I scored very low on the test, is it ok for me to eat sugar, bread and pasta?
If you have scored 0 on the test, you are one of the few lucky individuals that can tolerate carbs relatively well. I say relatively because I used to be like that until the age of 40, just to become extremely insulin resistant in the short span of 5 years.
This means that you might see no effect to eating carbs and sugars liberally now, but in reality you are setting up your system for major future problems.
Another factor to consider is that your individual body might respond in it’s own unique way to the carbs, and then create a completely different set of problems (Ex. Cancer, Parkinson’s etc)
In general I would recommend staying away from sugar and processed carbs as much as possible as a preventative measure.
Q: Are some carbohydrates healthier than others?
Yes, absolutely! Dark leafy greens are carbohydrates too!
Most low-carb vegetables are included in a LCHF / Keto diet. Also there are a variety of flour and sugar substitutes that can be used on such a diet.
In the meal plans I create I am able to convert most beloved recipes into Keto recipes, so that the patient on the diet would not ever feel deprived.
Q:What is the main benefit of switching to a LCHF / Ketogenic style diet?
A:This kind of diet will manage your carbohydrate intolerance without any medications. The two main benefits are : returning blood sugar to normal parameters and lower inflammation in the body.
Q: How do I get started with a Ketogenic diet plan?
A; An easy way to see if the ketogenic diet and lifestyle is right for you is to use my Keto Paleo Meal Plan. This is a week’s of recipes with wholesome ingredients and ketogenic ratio macros already calculated for you! It includes a shopping list and a guide to good and bad foods.
Q: What if I scored high in the test and would like to know more about your program for health and weight loss when you are carb intolerant?
A: Just fill out my inquiry form for The Healing Foods Method and we can talk about the options I offer to get you healthy and back on track!
can you lose weight if you stick to this diet I have been on many diet since I’ve been diagnosed insulin resistance and have not lost any weight I’m on metformin
Debbie,
weight loss depends on many different factors, not just eating Ketogenic ratios. Eating keto has the benefit of reducing your appetite and cravings, also maximizes the efficiency of fat burning, but the mechanics of weight loss in the body remain the same as with any other diet.