Read Atkins Diabetes Revolution Online
Authors: Robert C. Atkins
CHOOSING GRAINS WISELY
Even unprocessed whole grains are relatively high in grams of Net Carbs per serving. Some are relatively low in GI and GL, however, which is why certain whole grain foods, such as kasha (buckwheat groats) and whole wheat couscous, fall into the “eat in moderation” category on the AGR. For people who need to keep their carbs in the 20- to 40-grams-a-day range, however, eating even these foods may not be possible. If you’re still in the Ongoing Weight Loss phase of the Atkins Blood Sugar Control Program or you don’t have your blood sugar under control, you’ll have to be very cautious about adding grains back into your diet.
Old-fashioned oatmeal and barley,whole grains that are on the “eat regularly” AGR list, are both high in beta glucan, a type of digestible fiber. Beta glucan helps keep the carbohydrates in oatmeal and barley from having a big effect on your blood sugar, and it also helps slow down your absorption of carbs from other foods as well.
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Once you can handle whole grains,a bit of barley is a great addition to soups and casseroles, and oatmeal—the original comfort food—makes a warm and filling breakfast food or snack. The value of oatmeal comes only from whole oats, however. Look for “steel-cut,” “old-fashioned,” or “rolled” oats and enjoy their chewy texture and nutty flavor. The processes involved in making quick-oatmeal and instant-oatmeal products remove a lot of the fiber and beta glucan, which means the carbs enter your bloodstream too quickly. Instant oatmeals also usually have sweeteners and other high-carb additions.
GRAINS FOR BREAKFAST
Many ready-to-eat breakfast cereals claim to be healthful, but a quick check of the ingredients label reveals that they are made mostly from refined grains and added sugars; many also contain trans fats. Corn- flakes have a higher GI than a slice of white bread!
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If your daily carb allowance is above 60 grams of Net Carbs, you might be able to have a good whole grain choice for breakfast now and then. But check the ingredients label, and remember to combine protein and fat with the grains, and watch your blood sugar and symptoms afterward. Good options include Fiber 1, old-fashioned oatmeal, and unsweetened müesli (a mixture of oatmeal, wheat germ, other grains, and nuts). As an alternative you could try one of the low-carb breakfast cereals that use soy instead of grains. What to pour on that cereal? There are several options other than milk,which contains the sugar lactose,making it high in carbs (and many people have trouble digesting it). You can add cream by itself or diluted with water, or use low-carb soymilk or a reduced-carb dairy beverage.
FOOD INTOLERANCES
It’s surprisingly common for people to have an intolerance for grains and yeast, which is used in bread and other grain products as well as in fermented foods such as yogurt. Symptoms may include diarrhea, heartburn, gas and bloating, headaches, chronic tiredness—and unstable insulin/blood sugar. Paradoxically, food intolerances can provoke cravings for the very food that causes the symptoms. In the case of wheat sensitivity (one of the most common),it means frequent cravings for high-carb foods like bread,bagels,and pasta,which aggravate unstable blood sugar.Food intolerances,also known as food sensitivities,can be isolated by keeping a food diary, which will allow you to associate symptoms with eating a particular food. A trial period in which you eliminate the offending food from your diet can help you confirm an intolerance or sensitivity.
If you notice that certain symptoms improve when you’re on Induction—during which you consume almost none of the common offenders—and recur at higher levels of carbohydrate intake, consider eliminating any recently introduced food,which may well be the culprit. After a symptom-free period, it might be possible occasionally to add small amounts of offending foods without symptoms returning.
BEANS AND BLOOD SUGAR
Beans, peas, and lentils—also known as legumes—in all their many colors and flavors,are another delicious source of low-GI/low-GL carbohydrates. (Technically speaking, peanuts are legumes, too, but for all practical purposes they’re treated as nuts.) Like whole grains,beans are rich in digestible and nondigestible fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.
On the plus side, beans are very low on the GI ranking, and their high fiber content means they also have a very low GL. In the AGR, some beans, including bean products such as tofu (bean curd) and unsweetened soymilk, fall into the “eat regularly” category. A few that are slightly higher on the GI/GL rankings, including roasted soybeans, chickpeas,and kidney beans,fall into the “eat in moderation”category. The beans to avoid are baked beans and similar dishes—but not because of the beans. Baked beans, barbecued beans, and similar dishes contain molasses and other added sugars that add a lot of empty carbs, which can put you back on the insulin/blood sugar roller coaster.
On the negative side, beans are relatively high in Net Carbs, meaning you need to keep your portions to a ½ cup or so—and only if your daily carb threshold allows it.Your best bet is to find ways to use beans in small portions. For instance, add some chickpeas to a tossed salad, lentils to a beef-vegetable soup, or cooked black beans to a pork and veggie stir-fry.
THE GRAINS—AND MORE—TO AVOID
Review the AGR list for grains on pages 471–472.A lot of these grains, including brown rice and brown-rice cakes, are in the “eat sparingly” category. On the AGR list for vegetables on pages 468–469, you’ll also see that sweet corn and white potatoes in any form (French fried, baked, mashed) are in the “eat sparingly” column. All these foods are very high in carbohydrates and relatively low in nutrients; their GI rankings are very high, and so are their GL rankings. Even once you have reached your weight goal and normalized your blood sugar, we advise that you still treat these foods as very rare treats—in the same category as birthday cake. They can never again become a regular part of your diet without your suffering immediate consequences. Nearly eliminating these foods from your diet may take some getting used to, but as you continue to feel the improvements in your health the ABSCP brings, you’ll find there’s little room on your plate for low- quality carbs.
STARCH-BLOCKING BEANS
An extract made from white kidney beans is now widely sold as an over- the-counter “starch blocker.”These heavily advertised products claim to “neutralize” the starch in high-carb foods. All you have to do, the ads claim,is take a couple of these pills at the start of a meal,and they’ll block your absorption of about 75 percent of the calories you eat from carbohydrates. Starch-blocking products do contain a substance found naturally in white kidney beans (as well as some other beans and also wheat) that inhibits or blocks amylase, the enzyme your body uses to break down carbohydrates in your intestinal tract. In fact, the starch-blocker supplements work in a similar way to the prescription drug acarbose (Precose or Glyset).
Both the supplements and the prescription drugs have serious drawbacks. They’re not meant to aid weight loss—they’re designed to help control blood sugar—but that doesn’t stop unscrupulous manufacturers from pushing the supplements as a way to lose weight while eating all you want of anything you want. No studies of acarbose have shown that the drug causes weight loss,although a few studies have shown that some people with impaired glucose tolerance are less likely to become diabetic if they take the drug.
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The side effects of blocking carbohydrate digestion can be very unpleasant.Severe cramps,diarrhea,and gas are likely. Many people using acarbose experience flatulence. Dr.Atkins never prescribed acarbose.Why take a costly drug with nasty side effects when you can benefit your health considerably more by controlling the carbs in your diet to begin with?
WHAT’S YOUR CARB IQ?
1. Which beans are preferable?
2. Which grains should you choose?
3. Which fruits should you choose?
Answers a,1.
strawber-
c,raspberries;b,apple;a,3.buckwheat groats.c,oatmeal;
old-fashioned
b,barley;a,2.kidney beans.c,chickpeas;b,lentils;
d,blueberries.
ries;
The amount of sugar we consume in this country is incredible. In one year, the average person eats about 150 pounds of added sugar!
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Sugar comes in all different forms: table sugar (sucrose), high-fructose corn syrup, honey, and maple syrup, to name just a few. Unfortunately, almost all of that sugar, no matter what its form, is consumed in low- quality, high-carb foods or soft drinks. All those sweet, nutritionally empty foods go a long way to explaining our frighteningly high rates of obesity and diabetes. It also helps explain why today’s kids and teenagers are at such high risk of becoming overweight—an outrageous situation that grows more dire with every passing year.
Sugars of all sorts, with a few exceptions, raise your insulin and blood sugar levels almost instantly. That’s not a good idea for anyone, but it’s especially risky for people with the metabolic syndrome,prediabetes, and diabetes. Fortunately, today’s sugar substitutes include some good-tasting, safe alternatives. On the Atkins Blood Sugar Control Program (ABSCP), you can easily eliminate added sugar (as opposed to naturally occurring sugars in vegetables, fruits, and other carbohydrates) from your menus and still enjoy a healthy, varied diet.
BREAKING THE SUGAR ADDICTION
For some people, however, sugar is more than a sweet taste—it’s an “addiction.” Here’s what happens: When your blood sugar drops, you instinctively seek something rich in carbohydrates—usually a sugary snack—to bring it back up.That’s the insidious beginning of the sugar addiction that plagues so many of us today. If you have the metabolic syndrome,prediabetes,or diabetes,you’re a lot more likely to have unstable blood sugar. When your blood sugar drops, you may feel tired, irritable, or shaky, or experience mood swings—feelings you know you can soothe by eating high-carb foods. But when you bring your blood sugar back up by eating those foods, you’re likely to overshoot and have your blood sugar spike higher than normal (hyperglycemia). What happens then? You might feel better for a couple of hours, until the extra insulin your body pumps out causes your blood sugar level once again to drop too low (hypoglycemia)—and the roller-coaster cycle starts all over again.You end up craving and eating sugary foods as a way to treat your blood sugar swings and the many symptoms that come with them.
By controlling your carbs and sharply reducing the amount of sugary foods you eat, as you do on the ABSCP, you break the sugar cycle. You don’t get the ups and downs that make you crave high-carb foods, your energy stays steady, and mood swings end. Your blood sugar is under control—and that helps you get other aspects of your health under control as well.
COPING WITH CRAVINGS
When you switch to the ABSCP, you’re giving up added sugar, including natural sweeteners such as honey or molasses. You can still enjoy plenty of delicious treats, but the sweet taste will come from substitute sweeteners and from the naturally occurring sugars found in low-GI fruits such as berries. When you start the program, however, you’ll be cutting back considerably on even those foods as part of the overall process of learning to eat in a healthier new way—and unlearning old eating habits.
As you go through your first few weeks without sugar, you may have cravings—sometimes very strong cravings—for the sugary, high-carb foods you’ve left behind. It’s a common experience for people starting out on the controlled-carb path. Most people are able to master the cravings with a few simple strategies. Look back at Chapter 17 for some good carb-craving busters. To quell the specific need for something sweet,try either a drink sweetened with your favorite sugar substitute (tea and decaf coffee are good appetite quenchers) or, if you really feel yourself in danger of straying, opt for a low-carb treat. Try a small amount of sugar-free gelatin with real whipped heavy cream (you can sweeten it with a substitute sweetener). If you simply must have chocolate, your best bet is a low-carb protein bar. Be aware, however, that eating low-carb sweets instead of high-carb ones won’t necessarily help you break your carb addiction.
The good news is that these intense early cravings are temporary. As you progress on the ABSCP,you’ll find that your sugar cravings will quickly diminish or even vanish. Once you’ve gotten your blood sugar under control by following the program, you’ll probably find that you’ve gotten your sweet tooth under control as well. People who follow the Atkins Nutritional Approach (ANA) or the ABSCP, generally find that most cravings vanish by the end of the first week. They lose their taste for sugary foods—cookies and candy seem unbearably sweet and even small portions of the acceptably sweetened products are more than enough.
For those rare cases where sugar cravings continue to be a problem, supplements of the amino acid L-glutamine can help. Dr.Atkins often recommended one or two tablets 30 minutes before meals.
HIDDEN SUGAR
Think those cookies sweetened with concentrated fruit juice instead of white sugar are somehow “healthier”for you? Think again. Sugar is sugar, whether it is called fructose, sucrose, glucose, or lactose. Ditto for words like
syrup
or
concentrate.
Every teaspoon of sugar contains 4 grams of carbohydrates and has a glycemic index rating of 100. That means the sugar you consume, especially when it’s in liquid form such as soda pop, turns into sugar in your bloodstream almost as soon as you swallow it.
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