I’m here to clear up a misconception: not all carbs are bad and Atkins isn’t about avoiding all carbs. Vegetables contain carbs. Fruits contain varying amounts of carbs. Whole grains contain carbs. It isn’t necessarily carbs that wreak havoc on your waistline and your health, as long as you watch the quality and quantity of carbs that you consume and their potential impact on your blood sugar. It’s the carbs that convert to spikes in blood sugar in your body that you should watch out for.
No matter where the sugar comes from, any excess sugar in your blood stream that isn’t used as energy is stored as fat. Whether the sugar comes from candy or a bagel, it has the same effect on your body’s blood sugar. And waistline. And health. While some people process the sugar in carbs better than others, if you have insulin resistance, the effect is even more profound. The sugar you consume and the carbs that convert to sugar can affect your blood sugar and are likely to be stored as fat, leading to a host of health conditions such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, type-2 diabetes and heart disease.
It’s time to stop thinking of sugar as just that white stuff sitting in your sugar bowl or the stuff that makes that candy, cookies, donuts and sugary cereals so sweet. Our bodies are built to only circulate the equivalent of only two teaspoons of sugar but eating a bagel has the same effect on your blood sugar as eating seven teaspoons of sugar and a cup of white rice has the same effect on your blood sugar as eating more than eleven teaspoons of sugar.
Meanwhile a ½ cup of broccoli has the same effect as a quarter teaspoon of sugar, and a ½ avocado has the same effect as less than a quarter teaspoon of sugar. You can enjoy a hearty breakfast with scrambled eggs, sliced avocado and salsa, with barely any effect on your blood sugar, leaving you feeling satisfied and in control of your hunger. On the other hand, if you chow down on that bagel (thinking it’s a smarter choice than a donut), your blood sugar will spike and then fall, and your hunger and cravings will return shortly. Carbs are not the enemy here. The effect they have on you blood sugar is.