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| A man's view of a lady's mag. |
This past week I attempted to track the glycemic indexes of the foods I ate, and calculate their glycemic load. Why? To see how hard sugar is rocking my world, or, more specifically, how my diet is affecting my blood sugar. If the indexes and loads are too high, I'll have sugar highs, sugar crashes, and leave myself open to diabetes in the future. If they are low, I should feel good and prevent unnecessary fat storage.
I have found this process frustrating. I know I'm eating a good diet, but I want to confirm it with happy numbers. Unlike counting calories, counting glycemic indexes and measuring loads is a lot more vague and controversial. I've visited a lot of Internet resources over the week, and was surprised the best one, with the densest amount of scientific information and least amount of hand-holding and quasi-spiritual hoo-ha was from Self Magazine! I never read this, um, lady-mag but it seems they acquired this dense straight-up nutrition website and branded it for the weight-loss set. Regardless, their page of the Glycemic Index was easily the most straight-forward and, better yet, had the best criticism of it, too. A lot of the criticism touched upon the issues I've been running into all week; it can be found here. Excerpts below (italics mine for commentary/clarity).
Limitations of the Glycemic Index and the Glycemic Load
Some proponents of the Glycemic Index (including many diet books authors) would like you to believe that GI and GL are all that matters when selecting which foods to eat. In reality, diet is a more complex issue than that. We agree that the Glycemic Index is a marvelous tool for ranking carbohydrates (and much better than the old "simple" and "complex carbohydrate" designations). However, there are also many limitations to GI and GL, which are explained in this section. Consider this the warning that those diet book authors don't want you to hear...
- Scarcity of GI data: Although methods for determining Glycemic Index have been in existence for more than 20 years, GI values have so far only been determined for about 5% of the foods in our database. Seemingly similar foods can have very different GI values, so it's not always possible to estimate GI from either food type or composition. This means that each food has to be physically tested. GI testing requires human subjects, and is both relatively expensive and time-consuming. The fact that only a very limited number of researchers currently do GI testing compounds this problem. Food manufacturers continue to introduce thousands of new foods each year. Since GI testing is neither required nor common (at least in the U.S.), this problem is likely to get worse rather than better.
- Wide variation in GI measurements: The (Glycemic Index table) shows a single value of GI for each food. In reality, though, the measurements are not so precise. Reported values are generally averages of several tests. There's nothing wrong with that methodology, but individual measurements can vary a significant amount. For example, baked Russet potatoes have been tested with a GI as low as 56 and as high as 111! The GI for the same fruit has even been shown to increase as the fruit ripens. This amount of variation adds a great deal of uncertainty to GI calculations.
- GI values affected by preparation method: The Glycemic Index gets even trickier when you take into account the changes in value that occur in response to differences in food preparation. Generally, any significant food processing, such as grinding or cooking, will elevate GI values for certain foods, because it makes those food quicker and easier to digest. This type of change is even seen with subtle alterations of the preparation, such as boiling pasta for 15 minutes instead of 10.
- GI values affected by combination with other foods: While tests for Glycemic Index are usually done on individual foods, we often consume those foods in combination with other foods. The addition of other foods that contain fiber, protein, or fat will generally reduce the Glycemic Index of the meal. The GI of this "mixed meal" can be estimated by taking a weighted average of the GI's of the individual foods in the meal. However, this averaging method may become less accurate as the total percentage of carbohydrate decreases. Therefore, foods like pizza often create a higher glycemic response than the simple weighted average of the ingredient GI's would predict.
- Individual differences in glycemic response: The rate at which different people digest carbohydrates also varies, so there are some individual differences in glycemic response from person to person. In addition it has been shown that one person's glycemic response may vary from one time of day to another. And finally, different people have different insulin responses (i.e. produce different levels of insulin), even with an identical glycemic response. This fact alone means that a diabetic can not rely completely on the Glycemic Index without monitoring his own blood sugar response. (This, of course, is a limitation of any food index, and not a specific limitation of GI.)
- Reliance on GI and GL can lead to over consumption: It's important to remember that the Glycemic Index is only a rating of a food's carbohydrate content. If you use GI and GL values as the sole factor for determining your diet, you can easily end up over consuming fat and total Calories. See example below...
- Example - How the Glycemic Index can encourage overeating: Apples have a GI of 38, and a medium-size apple, weighing 138 grams, contains 16 grams of net carbohydrates and provides a Glycemic Load of 6. This is a low GL, and most would consider the apple to be a very appropriate snack. But now look at peanuts. A 4-oz serving not only weighs less than the apple, but has a much lower GI (14), and provides an even lower GL of 2. Based on Glycemic Load alone, you would have to believe that the peanuts were a better dietary choice than the apple. But if you take a look at the Calories contained in these two foods, you'll see that the apple contains approximately 72 Calories, while the peanuts contain more than 500! Those 400+ extra Calories are NOT going to help you lose weight.
How you like them apples? Several sources, some conflicting, imply that drinking certain alcohols before a meal can reduce total glycemic load up to 15%, which lends some credence to that Drunk Frenchwoman's diet that was so the rage a few years ago.
I will certainly not be attempting to count glycemic indexes and loads again, but it was an eye-opening process.My eating is going well, I think -- my indexes and loads were relatively reasonable, an my favorite regular indulgence (dark chocolate chips and peanuts) has a shockingly low glycemic index. I think it makes sense for me to throttle back a little on my carbs over all, and perhaps use my new knowledge of high glycemic/low glycemic foods to bolster kind of what I already knew: fruit and fresh juice is all good in reasonably large quantities, while candy and potato chips should perhaps be limited. D'oh!
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Skin legions, brain damage and reduced fertility is so sexy when packaged in a phallic bottle and squirted into...yeah, enough said.
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It's always disturbing when you find out something you ate plenty of during your life turns out that it's probably pretty toxic, but as profits need to be made, the joke is on you. It seems that most other countries have banned the use of brominated vegetable oil, but due to loop holes within the the law, industry has been able to continue to use the stuff as an additive in drinks and sodas to keep citrus flavors from separating.
Brominated vegetable oil contains bromine, the element found in brominated flame retardants, used in things like upholstered furniture and children’s products. Research has found brominate flame retardants building up in the body and breast milk, and animal and some human studies have linked them to neurological impairment, reduced fertility, changes in thyroid hormones and puberty at an earlier age.
Yummy! The "expert" industry opinions have been brought into question by the FDA for over the past three decades but due to a lack of resources, no new tests have been done...and to hell with the rest of the (evil U.N.-dominated) world who already figured it out. USA! USA!
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I had a check up at the doc on Tuesday. While my blood pressure is slightly high it's moderately improved over the past year (during which I've consumed a liberal amount of salt). My weight is different on his scale, and seeing how my numbers matched up with his about a year ago, I think my Tanita scale may be giving me some vanity numbers. That, or my afternoon weigh-in differs from a foodless morning one. But none of this bothers me much. Because: Who cares? But when I had my shirt off and was going to lie back on the doctor's table, I noticed a weird bump emerge on my tummy, right side as I was going back. It flattened again when I was fully back, and soon after the doc took his fingers and pushed and poked me all over my midsection, which didn't hurt a bit. I'm so used to my midsection being a smooth (but kinda hairy) round dome, that one my 1-pack chooses to show itself, it's quite startling.
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Well, maybe not this startling.
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AVERAGE WEEKLY COUNT: 2639
Uggg. Too high, but hopefully still effective in losing some weight on January 1st...
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MONDAY COUNT: 2355
First day trying to track glycemic numbers, finding it a lot trickier to be specific like with calorie counts. Regardless, a good eating day. Lifted weights, limited due to cracked barbell (which is being replaced at the end of the week), but still got in the push/pull/sit ups, and focused extra on the one-handed lifts, which were mostly arm and shoulder things...
AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 50 cal, GI 60, GL 6
Tea was oddly sweet. In a rush to make the tea over the weekend while B was out of town, I used a 1/2 cup measure instead of a 1/4 cup measure in sweetening the gallons. I guess it's a proper beginning to an attempt to measure glycemic load.... Can't find a straight answer on the glycemic index of green tea, but I suspect it's close to zero. However, the 16g of sugar dissolved in the pint definitely is not zero, he he.
BREAKFAST: 10:45am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal, GI 55, GL 14
Hmmm, glycemic index and load numbers are estimated if I were not to have used a 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar and 1/2 tbsp of butter in this recipe. Regardless, surprised how high this super-healthy breakfast is.
PM SNACK: 12:45pm, momma salad, 100 cal, GI 39, GL 5.5
Ugg, again I'm finding GI to be up in the air and open to debate. And I'm ignoring the other veg, the red pepper, onion and cuce, which is only 40g total next to carrot's full 200 g....
LUNCH: 2pm, sauteed shrimp (GI: 0), quinoa (GI: 35, GL: 20.3), steamed string beans (GI: "low"), 7oz diet coke (GI: 0), 630 cal,
So that was a pretty blood-sugar friendly meal. Everything was low or no on the index, except for carb of the meal, quinoa, which at the quantity I ate it (double the suggested serving) came in at the border of a medium and high glycemic load.
DINNER: 6:15pm, brisket, potato latkes, roasted brussel sprouts, 1 glass red wine, cookies & truffles, +/- 1200 cal
I'm not even gonna try to figure out the glycemic numbers. Suffice to say, the sweets were 60+, the latkes were probably 60+, the brisket and brussels were probably on the opposite end....load, ugg, I did not measure quantities, as I was cooking for family, guests and several children...
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TUESDAY COUNT: 2550
Funny, based on too much work, I've estimated that today's glycemic load was about 85, but what the hell does that mean? I guess it's one of those things a nutritionist can recommend a number for an individual, but a few different website meekly assert a load under 100 a day is considered healthy.
I had a check up at the doc today, my blood pressure is slightly high, but moderately improved over a year ago, and that's with quite free amounts of salt in my diet. My weight different on his scale, and looking at my numbers and his, I think my Tanita scale is giving me some vanity numbers. Regardless, I have lost weight this past year undeniably, and my muscles are on the verge of being visible.
AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 50 cal, GI 60, GL 6
BREAKFAST: 10:30am, smoothie, 400 cal
Mixed a new batch of fruit, and did a full calorie count of it and the smoothie parts. Due to chia replacing flax and a few other tweaks, my new estimation of the smoothie is 400 cal up from 375. Gotta keep it honest! Tried to figure out a glycemic index/load, but there are no solid numbers. Yogurt is very low, though I could not find a number for my full-fat fage, though 0 fat is 8, so full fat must be lower, and it's already low. All the fruit used seem to have estimated indexes between 20 and 55, most on the lower end, and based on the relatively reasonable calorie count, the load can't be too huge. Ugg. I want numbers!
PM SNACK: 12:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal, GI 39, GL 5.5
LUNCH: 1:30pm, double quarter pounder, 12oz diet coke, 750 cal, GL 18
PM SNACK: 6:15pm, kale/beet/ginger/carrot/apple juice, 150 cal, GI 0/64/0/43/38, GL +/-30
Trying to figure out the GI/GL of this small glass of fresh juice is annoying. Recorded amounts, which helpe with the calories, but there were few hard numbers for the GIs. Tasted quite strong, had to dilute with 1/3 water.
DINNER: 7:30pm, broiled sole in butter, whole wheat cous cous, roasted asparagus, 650 cal, GI 0/?/?, GL 0/18/3
The nutrition data website gives load for servings of certain foods, but no index, so I have to estimate the load based on the quantity I'm eating. And they just have cous cous, not whole wheat cous cous. And I suspect the butter I'm using brings it down....
EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, dark chocolate chips, peanuts, 450 cal, GI 23/0 , GL 14/0
Surprised how glycemic-friendly my decadent slightly guilty snack is. Still, calories, yo.
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2310
Due to cooking sweets in class today, I can't say this was the greatest eating day but I was able to keep quantities to a reasonable amount. Surprisingly high glycemic loads of what I assumed to be relatively healthy breakfast and lunch. Before a dinner that included 4 ornate desserts, my load was already over 100.
AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 50 cal, GI 60, GL 6
BREAKFAST: 9am, kolon bloe with whole milk, 300 cal, GI +/-45/27, GL 27/30
I was surprised my super-hippy healthy breakfast cereal didn't tout a glycemic index number on the packaging or the website, but it seems most breakfast cereals, due to their grain-based nature, are super high. My brand, and the super-healthiness of my preferred cereal, has more soluble fiber and stuff in it, so the diabetes folk say "in moderation" to it rather than "less often". So I'm guessing a moderate GI of 45. Still, that brings the GL of this bowl to a heavy 57 -- I guess spiking blood sugar is one way to help wake up in the morning.
AM SNACK: 11:15am, momma salad, 100 cal, GI 39, GL 5.5
LUNCH: 12:30pm, veggie burger sub, doritos, 20oz diet coke, 760 cal, GI?/72, GL +/-23/36
G measure of sub guestimated based on info from other fast food veggie burger sandwiches.
SCHOOL DINNER: 6:30, 2 slices of streetza, samples of flan, caramel brownie, cake, picarone, +/- 1200 cal, GI/GL ???? high
Ate a lot of sugar. Feel weird, I've felt this way before but I'm paying closer attention this time. Slightly head-achey, run down but energized at the same time. Insulin in full effect!
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THURSDAY COUNT: 2645
AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 50 cal, GI 60, GL 6
BREAKFAST: 9:45am, steelcut oatmeal, 375 cal, GI 55, GL 14
LUNCH: 1pm, chicken sausage, steamed string beans, baked potato & butter, 7oz diet coke, 780 cal, GI 0/15/85, GL 0/41/277
Huh? 277 GL for 2 small white potatoes? I know they're high, but.... I think according to this, the equation is grams of carbs x index, divided by 100. I think instead of grams of carbs, I'm doing total weight. With a little internet thinkin', a baked potato is actually only 21% carbs, so adjusted for that, the load of my 2 small baked potatoes was 58. Still high, and could ruin a day where I was trying to stay under 100, but not pure glucose. This counting GIs & GLs just got more annoying.
PM SNACK: 4:30pm, carrot cucumber red pepper tomato apple celery juice, 190 cal, GI 49/15/15/15/38/15, GL oh i give up.
Made some crudite for Edie's Hannukah party at school, took the left overs home, threw them in the juicer with a couple of tiny apples. Definitely weird tasting, tastes like salad but....liquidy. Apples added 100 cal to this +/- 12oz drink, but added a lot more in drinkability.
DINNER: 6:30pm, 3 slices streetza, a few chocolate coins, +/-800
According to diabetes sites, pizza has a relatively low glycemic index, around 30. I know grain is high, but I guess the fatty cheese, oils and tomato sauce slows it down. Did not weigh the pizza, or the 3 or 4 hannuah gelt I ate....
EVENING SNACK: 9pm, dark chocolate and peanuts, 8:30pm, dark chocolate chips, peanuts, 450 cal, GI 23/0 , GL 14/0
Measured out the same amount as Tuesday just so I wouldn't have to do the damn glycemic calculations again.
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FRIDAY COUNT: 3335
Went out in the evening and just ate whatever. Didn't go crazy but damn if it didn't add up.
AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 50 cal, GI 60, GL 6
BREAKFAST: 10am, fage yogurt with honey and almonds, 420 cal, GI negligible/69/negligible
Despite using honey in my breakfast yogurt (and enjoying the hell out of it), this was probably a very low glycemic meal, due to only using 12g of honey, about half the "suggested serving", and only serves to balance and tame the sour tang of the yogurt, not disguise it or eliminate it.
PM SNACK: 12:15pm, apple beet carrot ginger kale juice, 280 cal, low indexes, low loads
Out of momma salad until next week, worked through the fruit & veg drawer and juiced it. Surprised how caloric it is, mostly from the apple and carrot (185 cal from those two alone). Beet is not as horrible as I thought it would be, and gives an awesome color. 10g of ginger for 12 oz of juice (and watered down with another 4oz) is still too much ginger, it seems.
LUNCH: 2pm, chicken teriyaki meatballs, roasted broc, quinoa, pickle, 7oz diet coke, 945 cal,
q 86g, bric 160g, 9 meatballs
PM SNACK: 6pm, small cup of ice cream, 240 cal, blah blah blah
PM SNACK: 7:30pm, popcorn, "medium" diet coke, 600 cal
DINNER: 11pm, pastrami sandwich, pickles, water, +/- 800 cal
Tempted to get fries, but the calories and the glycemic load, who needs it...
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