The Silence of the Carbs

[andrewducker]

I love sugar.
No, I don't think you understand, I loooooove sugar. It's one of the most fantastic things in the whole world. Well that and chocolate.

Ex-flatmate Saint introduced me to the world's most fantastic drink once. You take a mug, fill it with 1/6 hot chocolate, 1/6 sugar, 1/6 Archers (peach schnapps) and then top up with boiling water. It will dissolve (just about) and then blow the top of your head off when you drink it.

I've eaten a _lot_ of sugar over the years. I've crunched sugar cubes, sucked sugar crystals, downed packets of skittles, attacked vast piles of doughnuts (Apple Doughnuts are God's gift to mankind) and generally consumed enough sweetness to make me into a Care Bear.

Did you know that there's a vast increase in the number of people with type II diabetes (adult onset type) due entirely to the fact that they overload their body with sugar and kill the natural insulin response to sugar.

A few years back I went on a diet. I cut out chocolate and sugar and suchlike and lost some weight. Of course, I'd occasionally treat myself, but it became more and more obvious that I couldn't treat myself with chocolate. Eating chocolate gave me chocolate cravings for the next 3-4 days. I literally wandered about _needing_ chocolate.

You know the way that cigarette smokers crave cigarettes. They jitter back and forth, unable to think of anything else and eventually pounce on them like they were oxygen to a drowning man? That's me craving chocolate. A good chunk of my theories about the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious come from observing the way that I reacted to chocolate and then seeing that same pattern with other people and cigarettes/heroin/love. The subconscious mind provides the urges and all the conscious mind can do is jerk it back and try to distract it.

So I stayed mostly off of chocolate, but occasionally fell for sugar. But I cut down periodically, and I eventually realised that I got the cravings for sugar too, but that they were more easily satiated by food in general. Whenever I went into diet mode, the first thing I'd do would be to quit sugar. I'd cure my sugar cravings by eating anything non-sugary whenever I felt the urge for sugar. After a week or so (generally a tetchy one), the sugar cravings would go away and I could start cutting down fatty foods (much easier in comparison).

At some point after I got this pattern straight in my head, I started going out with Erin. Erin has PCOS - a fairly unpleasant syndrome with such symptoms as:

• absent periods (amenorrhea)


• obesity


• ovarian cysts


• hirsutism (excess facial and/or body hair)



• infertility

amongst others. Until recently it wasn't a very well understood syndrome, but it's now pretty much confirmed as the result of Insulin Resistance.

The main solution to insulin resistance is to not eat sugary food. More than that - as those of you who remember high-school biology will remember starch is a complex chain of glucose. i.e. whenever you eat anything that's a complex carbohydrate, it breaks down into sugar. Bread, potato, pasta and anything that's wheat based all break down into sugar, some more slowly than others. Refined products (white bread, for instance) breaks down a lot more quickly than unrefined products (wholemeal bread), but they all break down sooner or later.

It was around the time that Erin was educating me about her problems that I encountered the Atkins Diet, which basically recommends cutting out carbohydrates from your diet and letting a small amount back in when you've lost sufficient weight. The Atkins diet started out at the fringe of dietary understanding, but has gained a lot of ground and is now pretty much accepted. I as finally completely converted by this Scientific American article which looked at the history of the food pyramid and pointed out the large bundles of inaccuracy and downright political gamesplaying that had gone into producing it.

So, after months of saying "But how will I have lunches without potatoes/rice/bread???" and "but without toast, what will I have for breakfast?" I just stopped eating carbohydrate-heavy foods.

As of lunchtime yesterday I skipped the potato portion and added salads instead. My meal last night was chicken and vegetables in a garlic sauce - no rice. Breakfast was some scotch eggs from the local delhi (I feel bad about the breadcrumbs, but I checked and the carb levels were still very low) and lunch was soup and salad.

Obviously, so far there hasn't been any kind of massive physiological change; nor would I expect one. But one thing has changed - I've been having 'cravings' for as long as I can remember. Even when I felt 'full' my body would still be demanding something. It was like having a high-pitched whine in the back of my head, a voice screaming "sugarsugarsugarsugar sugarsugarsugarsugarsugarsugarsugar sugarsugarsugarsugarsugarsugar" so fast that it become nothing but a blur. I'd have to spend a fair amount of my will-power thinking "right, no food until 3:30." "Now, nothing more until 7pm."

That voice has gone. It literally cut out, leaving me feeling better than I have in a very long time. I don't feel hungry and I don't crave anything. Which is more than I could possibly have hoped for in under two days.

Now, next time someone sees me eating bread or crisps or staring at a bag of chips, I'd like them to smack me upside the head and ask if I really want to go back to how I was before. Because I really don't think I want to.

Comments

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Exercise, particularly weight training, also seems to reduce insulin resistance.

At high bodyfat % (particlarly upper body fat) you tend to find more conversion of testosterone to oestrogen. Oestrogen makes it easier to gain and retain fat, harder to gain muscle. test does the opposite.

[tisme.livejournal.com]

Actually, it depends what form the testerone is in. Because I'm insulin resistant, I produce about ten times more insulin than an average person. This in turn decreases my SGBH - Sex Globulin Binding Hormones - which means that I have a lot of free testerone swimming around in my blood. Free testerone creates facial hair, and weight gain around the tummy area, as well as a host of other symptoms.

But yes, mostly, its the insulin resistant which makes it hard to lose weight. Your body thinks its permanently not being fed.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected. Or at least expanded and clarified.

I must admit to being more familiar with the effects of hormones in men, and of the effects of the artificial versions than of the natural ones - too many conversations with bodybuilders! It's also common for these dudes to take insulin as well to try to help all that food and testosterone (analogues) go to building muscles not fat. Of course that woun't help if they are insulin resistant and I imagine that such a regimen may encourage insulin resistance in the end.

[tisme.livejournal.com]

Almost certainly. Insulin resistance is on the rise in this country, as many kids nowadays have such bad diets whilst growing up that by the time they get to adulthood.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

On this topic, the apparent stupidity of the media really bugs me. You get all these articles saying "Isn't it shocking that kids as young as 8 are thinking they are fat and trying to diet, it's not right".

It makes me shout "BUT THEY ARE FAT!!!", in fact your paper has published articles on that very fact as well.

I was always a skinny kid. my diet wasn't brilliant (hey, I'm Scottish after all) but it clearly wasn't excessive.

[tisme.livejournal.com]

*nod* On the one hand you have overweight kids that are being fed frozen pizza every night and on the other, young girls becoming aneroxic at the age of 8. Either way, its neglectful parenting that's the problem, but nobody seems to look as far as that.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

It seems logical (in today's society) to blame the parents but it's not necessarily correct. Ever read 'The Nurture Assumption' by Judith Rich Harris? If not, here's a quicky for you - what (i.e who) determines what accent a kid has?

Also, although parental control of food can theoretically work (you also have to give the kid no money of their own, or very very little) it isn't very likely lead to the kid growing into an adult who is capable of regulating their own food intake very well once released from that parental control. (case in point is me - I was always nagged to stop eating so much, never had enough pocket money to afford, say burgers etc. and now struggle not to binge eat).

[tisme.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people are too quick to judge the parents, I'm definitely not a big advocate of the knee-jerk 'they fuck you up, your parents' attitude that is so prevelant nowadays. But I do think that eating habits are one thing that parents do have a lot of influence over. If you can instill good habits early on, and not treat food as a weapon, not go too much one way or the other, then it can help avoid a whole host of problems later on. If there are other issues involved, such as low self esteem or depression, then there is less chance that the sufferer will turn to the area of food to help them out - whether that be by binge eating or anorexia or whatever. I too was always told not to eat so much, which is why it was such a relief to find out that the never ending hunger I had _wasn't_ natural, but down to my PCOS. But I still feel guilty when I eat a lot, and that is something that possibly could have been helped by less strict parents.

I know that its your peers that have the most influence over the kind of accent you end up with, and in the early teenage years can pretty much shape the person you end up being if they have enough of an impact. I haven't read the book you've mentioned, but I have read Steven Pinker's latest book, where he argues that we are all born with the majority of our defining traits already in place. Twas interesting.