Trying to make sense of low GI and low carb...

[Spiral]

I was considering going the low GI way before signing up and posting here, but reading all the success with low carb here... and working out that things don't necessarily fit the accepted pattern because we are all differnet :?

Since diagnosis I've cut out added sugar to anything, stopped eating bread, potatoes and lots of pasta. I have started eating more oats, german rye breads and considerably smaller portions of pasta (my 12-year-old's favorite food). I have had some pretty positive progress with the weight falling off and the fasting BG falling and my diet has improved in leaps and bounds

But I'm not quite sure what I'm doing :? :shock: How do the different approaches fit together? I have seen glycaemic load mentioned too... I'm getting more confused.

 

[the_anticarb]

I'm no expert but I've gone the low carb way with tremendous results, I think the view there is that sugar is sugar whether it's bound up in long molecules (starch) or not, it still has to be released into the bloodstream eventually whether it is quickly (high gi) or slowly (low gi). So I just try and keep my overall carb count down to around 50g or less per day, and that's worked for me. Means I don't have to worry about matching my bolus insulin to my meals I(I don't take bolus insulin anymore)
I think GL is just the 'realistic gi' as it takes into account portion size eg if you have a little bit of sauce with your meal, the sauce will have a high GI but GL takes account of the fact that you'll only have a little bit therefore effect on your bg is lower.
A lot of people have had success with low GI though so if that works for you then it's great.

 

[cugila]

Hi Spiral.

The glycaemic (blood sugar) response to carbohydrate foods is less pronounced when carbohydrate foods are eaten with proteins and/or with fats; this is usually the case with most snacks and meals.

The glycaemic response from a cheese sandwich is slower and lower than the glycaemic response to eating the same amount of bread only; the glycaemic response from eating a baked potato is slower when it is eaten together with baked beans. The other factor that needs to be considered is the amount of carbohydrate in a typical portion of food consumed.

The Glycaemic Load (GL) is a measure of the total glycaemic response to a food or meal calculated with the GI figure and the amount of carbohydrate in a serving. In practice, the GL is a marker for the blood glucose effects of foods/meals consumed. The small amount of carbohydrate in a typical portion in some high GI foods, such a carrots or watermelon, gives them a low GL figure.

Ken.

 

[fergus]

It sounds as if you're already making great strides there Spiral, so very well done.
There was a debate some time ago about the relative merits of low GI and low carb approaches. It got a little bit heated as these things often do. Perhaps the main outcome was that those who did things their way believed in it more strongly than they did before!
Low carb has been a great success for me. Without wishing to be critical of a low GI approach, it does have weaknesses that need to be resolved in my view. I'm unconvinced that lowering the GI of carbohydrates by adding saturated fat, which is why ice-cream is low GI for example, should make it a better food choice. (This was one reason one of the initiators of the low GI idea, Gerald Reaven quickly gave up on the idea.) I don't think GI gives a full picture of carb metabolism either, since the numbers given refer to a 2 hour time frame and many of us know that some low GI foods can still be releasing glucose into the bloodstream after this point.
I'm more comfortable with simply eliminating the problem foods from my diet- there aren't that many of them to be honest - so that I guess my diet is inevitably very low GI by default.
Said too much already. Low GIers, please don't take offence, if it works, do it.

fergus

 

[hanadr]

Hi Spiral
Look on David Mendosa's website( It's vast) He has written on both the topics you are interested in.
I essentially eat very reduced carb, but use GI information if I set out to "stray". It's worth knowing about.

 

[Trinkwasser]

IMO the basic problem is that Type 2 is a whole bunch of similar but different diseases, and your response may well differ depending on level of insulin resistance, how far your beta cells have disintegrated, whether you have leptin resistance, if your incretin system is broken or not . . .

. . . try doing this and see what occurs from different food choices at different times of day

http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -test.html

 

[phoenix]

I'm unconvinced that lowering the GI of carbohydrates by adding saturated fat, which is why ice-cream is low GI for example, should make it a better food choice.

I don't think many would dispute that

Some high fat foods have a low GI. Doesn't this give a falsely favourable impression of that food?
Yes it does, especially if the fat is saturated fat. The GI value of potato chips or french fries is lower than baked potatoes. Large amounts of fat in foods tends to slow the rate of stomach emptying and therefore the rate at which foods are digested.............. It is important to look at the type of fat in foods rather than avoid it completely. Good fats are found in foods such as avocadoes, nuts and legumes while saturated fats are found in dairy products, cakes and biscuits. We'd all be better off if we left the cakes and biscuits for special occasions.

from FAQs http://www.glycemicindex.com/ (I've omitted one sentence for brevity and to avoid a controversy over saturated fat)
The above link also gives an explanation of glycemic load.

 

[Spiral]

Wow! Thanks for the responses. This is making a bit more sense now. And there are some very useful resources too

I essentially eat very reduced carb, but use GI information if I set out to "stray". It's worth knowing about.

Cheating! I like it

I have bought a few books from both camps and someone on another non-diabetes board said that her approach was low carb/low GI together.

It was all making sense until Blood Sugar 101 said that diabetics were different to the normal people the tests were done on :shock: :shock: :shock: And then that made sense too... :?

I think I'm taking a low carb/low GI mediterranean approach at the moment, although without the fish etc as I am a "proper" vegetarian (see my definition on the food board). I have not started to test my blood sugar yet as I'm totally bewidered by the products available to do that. I guess once I have made that decision things will become clearer about what works for me.

I think the other thing that puzzles me is how my own particular version of diabets affects all this and how much work I have to do. I fit a fairly typical T2 picture (family history, obese, 46 etc etc) but I think it was picked up very early in the process (thanks to some chest pain I had in January, which turned out to be muscle pain from and injury combined with an anxiety attack because of the high levels of stress in my life at the moment). The cardiac clinic has confirmed there is no evidence of heart disease.

I was insulin resistant about 3 years ago. I have had a dry mouth consitently for about 18 months, and I put that down to something else as I have had this problem on and off over the last 10 years, but this symptom has improved in the last couple of weeks

Having reviewed the figures I have from the blood tests, none of my figures at diagnosis seem to be as high as some of the others I have seen on here (hoping that simply means vigilance rather than vigilance AND huge amounts of hard work on the diet front). My fasting BG was 8.7 on the first test, down to 6.9 about 3 weeks ago (a period of about 8 weeks), and I think the figure of 7.7 was given for an HbA1c at around the same time, this will be re-tested in early June. I want to join the 5% club.