How To Keep Your Blood Sugar Levels Normal Isn't

Are high glycemic foods are the new saturated fat? Possibly. A 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed a strong association between high glycemic foods and risk of heart attack. Countless scientists now believe that high glyecmic foods provide a greater threat to your health than saturated fat.

I do wonder if the danger associated with eating lots of high glycemic foods isn’t just due to their impact on your blood sugar levels (quick primer – high glycemic index foods cause rapid increases in your blood sugar following a meal while low glycemic foods do not) but also their nutrient quality. If you look at the list below you’ll notice that high glycemic foods are very low in nutrients – unless, like in the case of Total cereal, the nutrients have been put back into them. High glycemic foods provide you with the 1-2 nutrition knockout combination of death – big changes in blood sugar and devoid of nutrients.

Check out the list below and hopefully you’re not eating too many of these foods throughout the day. As you know, nutrient timing is very important for optimizing your diet. Using a nutrient timing approach, we have a window of time where high glycemic foods are beneficial – post workout. Having high glycemic foods like Gatorade, yams, and white rice following your workout will provide a well timed spike in the hormone insulin which has been shown to accelerate how fast you replenish you muscle glycogen stores (i.e. sugar stored in your muscles), increase protein synthesis (i.e. muscle building), and stop muscle breakdown. So don’t demonize all high glycemic foods, just optimize when you eat them.

High Glycemic Foods

White potato, baked – 98 White rice – 83 White bread with wheat flour – 71 Yam – 74 Pancakes – 80 Gatorade – 78 Wonderbread – 77 English Muffin – 77 Cornflakes – 79 Grapenuts – 75 Instant White Rice – 87 Rice Cake – 82 Watermelon – 80 Popcorn – 89 Fruit Roll Ups – 99 Waffles – 76 Bagel, white – 72 Baguette – 95 Cheerios – 74 Corn Chex – 83 Cornflakes – 72 Cream of Wheat – 74 Golden Grahams – 71 Shredded Wheat – 83 Total breakfast cereal – 76 Pizza – 80 Ensure, vanilla – 75