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GI diet?

There is no Spoon

Well-Known Member
Messages
733
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi just a question to broaden my knowledge.

I understand the concept behind GI diet eat food that takes longer to digest, and there fore a slower increase in blood sugar, which in turn avoids peeks in bg which should lessen the amount of insulin flooding your system.

BUT my reading of that is sugar does you harm so eat it slowly and you will be able to eat even more sugar.
In the list of good food less than the 50 GI units cake, jam & Mars bars.

Anyone have a better understanding of it, are there subtleties and nuances that I am missing?
 
I *think* one of the ways sugar does you harm is that it requires the pancreas to quickly release a lot of insulin which puts a strain on other parts of your body such as your heart. By eating food with lower GI, the pancreas does not need to react as fast which puts less strain on your body.

Not sure how this is translated for people with type 2 diabetes.

And there are other ways in which sugar does you harm such as tooth decay, weight gain, etc. so concentrating only on low GI gives you part of the picture.
 
The alternative version, according to the body-building inventor of the "Carb Nite" system, John Kiefer, is that low GI allows your body to "bathe" in insulin for a much longer period. He believes a "quick and dirty" blast of insulin to control BG faster has metabolic benefits that a "slow stew" doesn't.
 
helensaramay said:
Not sure how this is translated for people with type 2 diabetes.
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Basicly high bg means thicker gloopier blood, which puts a strain on the heart as it has to work harder to pump it round the system.
Unfortunately the heart is a muscle too, which can be Insulin Resistant so it's not getting the energy from the blood properly which in turn makes it harder for it to pump the gloopier blood round the system which leads to nerve damage in eyes feet etc..

Which would lead to the assumption that not adding sugar to the blood is the way to go, GI is adding more sugar over a longer period of time.

Which seems counter-intuitive.
 
Which is why a lot of us think that the whole GI isn't really effective for Type 2.
 
In testing my bg for the last two years with different foods I have discovered a few things.
Low GI or not, any grains spike me. If it is a food that is considered low GI it can keep my BG up for four hours or more. And hunger returns with vengeance. With LCHF I’m rarely hungry.
FBG will be higher.
 
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I dont pretend to understand most of it, but I think a carb is a carb, slow or fast, it still requires insulin and affects insulin resistance. Whether I have a long slow peak or a fast quick peak, my body still has to do the same work eventually to deal with the carb.

happy to be corrected if i have misunderstood.
 
Nope I think you have got it quite correct there.
 
One point about the GI index is that these foods were tested in isolation. We do not tend to eat foods in isolation. If we have bread, we put butter on it. Our meals contain a whole variety of different food stuffs. The way round it is to use the GL (glycaemic load) and calculate this. (GI x carb grams / 100). Now who on earth made that up, and who on earth has time or inclination to work it out??
 
My personal list of things to ignore seems to have grown. They are: CICO, BMI, GI, GL, TC, LoFat. Lo Salt, Wholemeal and David Dickinson.
 
bulkbiker said:
Which is why a lot of us think that the whole GI isn't really effective for Type 2.
Click to expand...
Sorry all I didn't make my stance on this clear in the initial question.
I 100% think GI is a bad idea for all of us.

With 2 caveats.
1. a paper I read Keto vs LCFH vs GI in the treatment on NADFL which concluded GI had greater cardiovascular benefits in T2 .
2. The perceived possible benefit of GI diet to a non diabetic person in lowering bg to reduce blood pressure.

I think GI is a bad idea for us and is just a slightly better version of the old way of thinking eat Complex Carbohydrates as they don't do as much harm as quickly as non complex carbs.
But there still doing harm.

The question is before I dismiss it completely out of hand as an old idea that is just wrong,
is there something I am missing?
 
lucylocket61 said:
Whether I have a long slow peak or a fast quick peak, my body still has to do the same work eventually to deal with the carb.
Click to expand...
Think of a rush hour traffic jam.
The roads are congested as every body it trying to get to work for 9am.
IF we split the working day in to 3 starting times 8am, 9am and 10am and in this example now there would be no traffic jam because 2/3 of the cars are of the road at any one time even the return journey.

Same amount of cars doing the same journey every day just spreading the work load out. This even cuts down on pollution as cars are not stuck sitting in a traffic jam with the engine on.

This as I understand it is the concept behind GI lessen the work load at any one time, which sounds logical but if your eating more sugar over a longer period of time aren't you relay increasing the work load but just spreading it out so it doesn't seem like it.

BUT I completely agree with you, your still putting carbs in, it's much simpler not to.
 

There's only one thing I would add to your analogy. The longer (more spread out) the traffic is the longer timeit takes for the pollution to clear even if that pollution is at a slightly lower level.
 
Guzzler said:
longer timeit takes for the pollution to clear even if that pollution is at a slightly lower level.
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Agreed. the next sentence went on to say that.
Doing more work for longer but it doesn't feel like it which is even worse.

If were sticking with the trafc jam analogy people would be able to drive faster which means burn fuel at a faster rate = topping up more often. Increasing the over all workload.

Isn't this the upping insulin injections to deal with carbs paradigm.
 
bulkbiker said:
Which is why a lot of us think that the whole GI isn't really effective for Type 2.
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely sure it's effective for all type 1s either. The more I see, read and test the more I (personally) am convinced lowish carb is best.
 
Aye but to add a complexity, having T2 is like driving on the motorway on a friday evening before the Bank Holiday monday, negotiating roadworks and diversions and having dodgy fuel. Best to stay at home and dip your nets.
 
Guzzler said:
Aye but to add a complexity, having T2 is like driving on the motorway on a friday evening before the Bank Holiday monday, negotiating roadworks and diversions and having dodgy fuel. Best to stay at home and dip your nets.
Click to expand...
You forgot to mention that the car we're driving only barely passed it's last MOT.
 
Having travelled quite a lot around the main arterial highways of our country, slowing traffic down, has a bad effect on how close traffic is to each other, when a motorway stretch such as junctions 16-18 on the M6, is now in the process of 'smart' motorway construction, the traffic even during the night is slowed down to 50mph. For health and safety reasons. What this does is put all the traffic bumper to bumper, instead of using different speeds to guarantee space on the outer lanes, vehicles going different speeds stretch the distance and find space to overtake and alleviate going as fast as the vehicle in front

This is what happens when low GI carbs are eaten, the slowness doesn't help your health, as it is stretched out longer in a queue. The longer the sugar rush if you will, the longer the glucose is higher than what you were before the meal.
For some of us, an intolerance to certain foods will spike you regardless!
It doesn't matter wether it is low GI or not!.
 
Lamont D said:
For some of us, an intolerance to certain foods will spike you regardless!
It doesn't matter wether it is low GI or not!.
Click to expand...

OK can we draw a line in the sand here so far everyone is on the same side GI is not a good idea. I though I was clear in my original post this is also my opinion. (Although I do appreciate the exclamation marks )

GI not a good idea side III GI has some subtleties and nuisances side
ME. & Everyone else III Nobody what so ever.
all in agreement. III (this side is very empty if you have some understanding to
so far. III share I would like to hear it.)

Thanks.
 
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