Are Carbohydrates Bad News?

lSteam, grill, bake, or eat your vegetable raw. Never cook all the nutrients out of vegetables.

Whole Grain Breads and Nuts

Too much of anything good for you is not good in the end. Eat in moderation and use common sense.

Whole Grain Pasta

Learn how to cook food without losing essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Overcooking, pan frying, and deep-fried foods are not good for your health. Steam, bake, broil, or grill meats and vegetables.

Raw fruits and vegetables are always good for your body. Be sure to cook eggs and meats properly. It is never good to eat undercooked eggs and meat.

Necessary Fats

Fats are necessary in the daily diet, such as butter and 100 percent EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) in moderation. Avoid using oleos and kinds of margarine.

What are carbohydrates?

According to my internet search, my medical dictionary, and nursing experience, the following is the simplest term for carbohydrates I could find.

When carbohydrates break down in the body, they turn into glucose to provide energy. Carbohydrates also turn into fat.

The bad carbohydrates are known as simple carbohydrates or are known as refined carbohydrates.

These simple carbohydrates sharply spike your blood glucose levels, giving you immediate energy and then the spike falls rapidly creating a fatigued feeling.

These simple sugars dissolve rapidly in the blood stream. These carbohydrates lack fiber content.

These carbohydrates are known as empty calories because they lack essential nutrients. If you eat these foods on a regular basis you will gain weight. Thirty pounds over your ideal body weight range constitutes obesity. Over this 30 pounds and you become morbidly obese.

You may even develop some chronic diseases such as diabetes type II and heart disease from obesity.

The following are just a few of the foods and beverages considered to contain bad carbohydrates.

White Sugar includes six types of sugar (fructose, galactose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose). Learn to read food labels and avoid these sugars.

• White processed flour
• Candy
• Cookies
• Cakes, Pies, and Sodas including:
• Energy Drinks, and Sports Drinks, Sweetened Teas, Fruit Juices
• Canned fruits and Vegetables
• Most processed cereals
• All types of chips
• French Fries
• Chocolate
• Alcoholic Beverages
• Processed dairy products

**I have read in many reputable medical articles that one square of dark chocolate and one six-ounce glass of red wine per day has excellent health benefits for the heart.

If you do this you need to calculate the Grams of carbohydrates in each, the wine and the chocolate and subtract it from your daily allocation of carbohydrates.

The good carbohydrates are complex.

These carbohydrates raise your blood glucose slowly and keep it on an even keel. These complex carbohydrates slowly and steadily release energy throughout the day, they digest slowly in the intestinal track.

Good carbohydrates are necessary for continued health and wellness.

These carbohydrates cause improved metabolic levels and help to lower the risk for health issues.

These foods contain a balance of essential nutrients the body needs every day. Good carbohydrates are found in some of the following foods:

• Fresh or Fresh Frozen Fruits and Vegetables
• Whole Grains (Oatmeal, Bulger, Quina)
• Nuts
• Starches
• Legumes
• Dairy (low-fat milk, yogurt, cheese of most types)

**It is recommended to keep high sugar fruits and starchy foods like potatoes and pasta to a minimum or avoid them altogether.

**Fiber from whole wheat, a good carbohydrate, is an exception

Fiber does not spike the blood glucose level or offer a burst of energy. Fiber is broken down in the intestinal tract where it supports the good bacteria in the colon. When broken down, it produces a fatty acid that contributes to the energy used by some of the body's cells.

Stuck in Recliner at the Mercy of My Crazy Nurse Sister

In 2017, I had a foot and leg surgery and was laid up for six weeks. The first two weeks I could do nothing except barely transfer from the recliner to the wheelchair for a bathroom break.

My sister recommended that when I leave the hospital, I come directly to stay with her for the first two weeks because she did not have stairs and her apartment was more "user-friendly." This was all well and good until I got into her recliner and she got my leg all comfy. I could not move without her help, then she announces:

"The cable company sent me a technician last week to fix my cable box. This man told me he was on a diet and lost a lot of weight, he was looking really good. I asked him what his secret was and he told me he ate less than 50 grams of carbohydrates a day and ate a high protein diet. He said he did not count calories, fat content, or weigh food. All he did was watch his carbohydrate intake. He told me he had weighed over 250 pounds. Now he was just over 150 pounds and looked quite trim, and handsome, I might add. He claimed he had much more energy and was feeling better than he had in years. And, we are going to do it."

I said, "Pray tell, do what?"

She said, "Since you cannot go anywhere and I am going to be doing the cooking and fixing your meals, we are going low-carb, high protein and we are going to get rid of this excess weight on both of us."

I cautiously said, "Oh, I knew you had something cooking in that brain of yours. You wait until I am laid up and I can't move. Ok, but you know that I do not believe in diets to lose weight. This is going to have to be a lifestyle forever change, understand."

We both agreed to give this a try. As we thought about all the foods we could have, we were half-way satisfied.

It was agreed that we should keep our carbohydrate intake to no more than 100 grams per day. If we got hungry for ice cream we bought Bryers Carbmaster and had a half a cup. We worked this much-wanted treat into our total carbohydrate count for that day.

The two weeks I was at my sister's home, I was stuffed all the time. She kept making me eat. I was afraid I was really going to gain more weight. She insisted I eat what she gave me. I was really shocked and pleased when I got on the scales five weeks later.

**You just have to decide where you want to use your allotted carbohydrates.

Five weeks passed until I was able to get on the scales. I had lost ten pounds doing nothing!

My clothes became looser fitting. I could not exercise per se, but it took an enormous amount of strength and energy to transfer and go up and down my fifteen steps on my butt twice a day. I learned to balance myself on my right foot and leg because the right foot was non-weight bearing for six weeks.

After six months of a low-carbohydrate, high-protein eating pattern (no diet here) we both shrunk from a size 22 to a size ten, 12 clothing sizes.

This is a lifestyle change I can stick with (for life.) Do I mess up? Of course I mess up, and sometimes I can tell I mess up by the way I feel, my energy level goes down, my clothing gets snugger, and the scales never lie.

Know, that if the scales are not seeming to weigh right, look at your how your clothing fits. Many times I noticed that even though the scales did not say I was losing, my clothing did say I was losing weight.

When I went to my doctors, it had been over six months. He was impressed at my smaller size and weight I had lost. He wanted to know how I had done it. I told him, "I was taking weight loss advice from the cable TV guy!" I am glad my doctor has a sense of humor.

**Never do as I did and proceed with a weight loss program and lifestyle change without consulting your doctor first, as this is inadvisable. I was fortunate that my doctor was in agreement with what we were doing.

We did use a whole lot of common sense and our nursing education to sort out what carbohydrates were good for us and which were not good. We are not at our goal yet but expect to be soon.

A Nurse's View

**Neither my sister or I are certified in nutrition or hold any degrees in dietary. Together we have about 75 years of nursing experience.

I, myself, worked alongside dietary consultants and nutrition experts for over 30 years to assess my patients' daily nutritional intakes and monitor individual lab values to help determine nutritional deficits of those patients (and myself).

What I write about is through years of experience and plain common sense. My passion is America's obesity problem, diets, weight loss, disease, illnesses, medicine, and alternative health care options.

This low-carbohydrate, high-protein eating style (not diet) is working for my sister and me. We continue to experience a slow and gradual weight loss, a decrease in clothing size, and an increase in energy levels.

Do I mess up? Of course, and then I get right back on track because it works for me and I have my doctor's blessing.

This eating pattern may not appeal or work for another individual. This eating style may not be recommended by your doctor due to a health condition.

**Before starting any lifestyle change or exercise pattern, consult your doctor first. This is your first step towards a healthier life.