Dr. Hagglund's Healthy Eating Tips

(All wheat products, bananas*, breads, rice, sugar, and potatoes.)

Research has shown that these foods almost triple your blood sugar rise in proportion to how many calories they carry... nobody knows why for sure but its clear that foods high in carbohydrates cause your pancreas to increase your insulin production.

The reason we pack fat is insulin. Insulin is commonly thought of as what's missing from a person with diabetes. But its more than that. Besides controlling the level of blood sugar in your body, it causes you to be hungry!

It sends you searching through your house at night for chocolate and cookies! It turns on the fat storing machine in the fat cells of your body and further, blocks those fat cells from releasing their stored fat.

The result is that as you eat and exercise, your body cant convert the stored fat to sugar to burn for energy, which is the desired result of both eating and exercise... which makes you want to eat more after the effects of your workout pass. Its a vicious cycle!

One powerful way of blocking the effect of carbohydrates and the rise of insulin is to put high quality proteins into your metabolic system in front of everything you eat. Even if youre eating wedding cake, try to take in some protein before you eat it... a piece of lean beef or a soft boiled egg. The protein turns on the metabolic processes in the cells to burn the blood sugar faster and therefore stop the insulin rise.

90% of what we eat has to be turned into sugar to be passed through the energy burning systems of the body. Controlling insulin is not just about stopping sugar intake.

You must understand that many foods, especially the white ones, get turned into sugar. Its easy to lose track of this fact. Watch those carbs! They are the precursor to the production of sugar in your body which over-stimulates insulin and it s the insulin that packs the fat on you.

*People commonly think that bananas are healthy food because they provide potassium. These days, bananas are mostly picked green and shipped, and the potassium content isnt nearly what it used to be. The potassium benefit really doesnt outweigh the negative effects of the high sugar content.