Below is an excerpt from Part One of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

The Carbohydrate Factor

Carbohydrates are the sugars and starches in foods. They are normally a main source of biological energy. As with each of the Eight Vital Factors, you need to get the right amounts of the right types of carbohydrate in your diet in order to avoid activating the Beastly eating mechanism we've been discussing. Two carbohydrate issues are important, quantity and type.

[Note: Chemically speaking, most fiber is also a carbohydrate, but since it's in an indigestible form, the body treats it as a completely different type of substance - and so do we.]

Managing the quantity of carbohydrate you eat is important because the brain and nervous system need a minimum amount of carbohydrate to function well and if they don't get enough they will wake The Beast to make you go get them some more. Carbohydrate is also required both for the complete breakdown of fat into energy and for the "protein sparing action". On the other hand, if you eat too much carbohydrate, this simply shuts off fat burning---which is not going to help you lose any weight.:) The correct amount of carbohydrate is the amount that will take you up to your daily Calorie limit after you have subtracted the Calories that come with Protein and Essential Oil. This is typically in the 400-500 Calorie range. For complete discussions of these points, see MORE ON... ENERGY METABOLISM & STORAGE on page 163 in Part Two.)

Managing the type of carbohydrate you eat is also important, because all carbohydrates are not created equal. Some of them more easily wake The Beast. This happens because some carbohydrates, when eaten, are digested and absorbed very quickly. When you eat these types, they enter the blood almost immediately and cause a rapid rise in your blood glucose levels. This stimulates a correspondingly large and rapid insulin response. Such rapid changes also stimulate various other "hormonal harmonics":).

Large and rapid fluctuations in your internal blood chemistry can easily be disturbing enough to wake The Beast. This is particularly the case if a sudden rapid rise in blood glucose stimulates a sudden rapid insulin overcompensation, which may then precipitate an equally sudden drop in blood glucose to subnormal levels.

That in turn makes the brain and nervous system very unhappy since they must have a steady supply of blood glucose to function properly. So they wake up The Beast to make you eat something that has carbohydrate in order to restore normal blood glucose levels. Naturally, it's much more sensible to avoid carbohydrates that cause this type of fluctuation in the first place.

Just to make this situation even worse, a large amount of insulin in the blood tells your fat cells to stop releasing fat to be burned by the body as fuel. This again is not exactly what we are trying to accomplish on a reducing diet.:)

The types of carbohydrates that instigate these problems are referred to by medical people as "high glycemic index carbohydrates". The Glycemic Index (G.I.) was first proposed in 1981, primarily to help diabetics control blood glucose. It is a measurement of how much and how fast any given food will raise blood glucose levels. Therefore, it is a very useful aid to Multi-Dieters who also want to avoid the fluctuations in blood glucose and insulin metabolism that may wake The Beast.

The effect on blood glucose of the carbohydrate in more than 600 different foods has been measured and entered into glycemic index tables. (See TABLE 21: GLYCEMIC INDEX CHART on page 214 in Part Two for many of the most useful of these foods.)

Foods that rate low on the glycemic index are the ones that you want to eat on the Multi-Diet because they do not cause the sudden increases in blood glucose that may disturb The Beast. Conversely, of course, you should stay away from foods that rate high on the glycemic index.

Below are two short lists of some common high and low glycemic index carbohydrates that will tend to wake The Beast.

High Glycemic Index Foods (Bad for Dieters)

Breads (except coarse ground types), cereals (the flaked, instant or puffed types), baked potato, rice, carrot, banana, dried fruit, sucrose, molasses, maple syrup, potato chips, pretzels.

Low Glycemic Index Foods (Good for Dieters)

Meats, beans, most pasta, most vegetables, most fresh fruits, most coarse ground grains, and fructose.

Please note that there is a lot of popular misinformation about what types of carbohydrates are high or low on the glycemic index. The most common misconception is that complex carbohydrates (starches) are always low glycemic index foods and are therefore good for you, whereas simple sugars are always high glycemic index foods and are bad for you.

This is not true. For example, many varieties of rice (whether brown or white) are high glycemic index foods. Baked potato is also a high glycemic index food. Conversely, fructose---the sweetest of the simple sugars---is a very low glycemic index food.14 In other words, the molecular complexity of the carbohydrate is only one of the factors that determine the glycemic index level, and very often it is not the important factor.

Rule-of-Thumb for The Carbohydrate Factor

Select for meals low glycemic index foods that don't wake The Beast and stay away from the high glycemic index carbohydrates that do. About 400-500 Calories of your daily Calorie allowance as carbohydrate is usually a reasonable amount to work with.

Use at least the above lists and check the much more extensive GLYCEMIC INDEX CHART on page 214 in Part Two.

For a much more extensive discussion of the glycemic index and the effect of carbohydrate on fat metabolism, see MORE ON... CARBOHYDRATE on page 205 and MORE ON... ENERGY METABOLISM & STORAGE on page 163 in Part Two. If you wish, you may turn to those chapters now and return here afterwards, or just continue on in this chapter.