Low carb diets

People with Diabetes milletus are constantly testing, using a blood sugar meter to track changes in their blood glucose levels because they have lost the ability to control it naturally. I like to say that a blood sugar meter also works as another kind of BS meter. You can't BS about your diet when you are reading the effects of it on the BS meter! What this means is that if you test a type of food or diet regimen, you could wait for the results - a big belly or loss of same - or you could easily check your blood sugar with a meter and know without a doubt how you are affected by it.

How is this useful to people without diabetes?
The mountainous volumes of information gathered on the effects of various foods on our blood sugar has given rise to things like the glycemic index. The "GI Diet" and any other diet that reduces your consumption of carbohydrate will lower your dependance on insulin, raise your sensitivity to insulin, along with other hormones like leptin and adiponectin which regulate the hungry or full signals.

Here is a summary: (Ultra-simplified)
We know that sugar in all forms, including starches and the so called "complex carbs" spike our blood glucose, thereby spiking our insulin. We know that insulin is a fat storage hormone. We know that at no time in history have we ever had such a multitude and availability of food and refined sugars and starches. Put these facts together and try to understand that what we think of as a "low carb" diet is, in evolutionary terms, still a very high carb diet. Now take into account that over consumption of carbs in any form breaks down the beta cells of the pancreas and desensitizes the insulin receptors throughout the body creating a higher need for insulin production. The vicious cycle begins and you set yourself up for a rough time. We evolved to do this, it is not an accident. Picture yourself in a frozen wilderness, subsisting on small animals you can drag back to the cave. You need a tremendous amount of stored energy; like the hump of a camel or a bear fattening up for hibernation, to get you through the winter. In the fall when you are hunting and you run across a huge berry patch, every cell in your body tells you to eat all you can before you move on. Bring that forward to today and you walk to 7-11 and snag the legendary "Big Gulp" with your great hairy hands gripping its neck like a saber-tooth on a wild boar! Red liquid running down your chin like the blood of your fallen prey!! You tear the wrapper off your snickers bar with you teeth and pieces of its nougat skeleton crumble under your bite! Thing is, you can do this three times per day and the average store is within a block of the average couch!