PCP Diet:
Breakfast: Carbs-150g Veg-160g Protein-1egg 200ml milk
Morning snack:150g fruit 80ml yogurt
Lunch: Carbs-180g Veg-180g Protein-170g meat
Afternoon snack:150g fruit 80ml yogurt
Dinner: Carbs-150g Veg-160g Protein-140g meat
Night snack: 120g fruit 200ml milk 1egg white
I think I may need to do some calculations around 'carbs' so that the amount listed reflects grams of carbohydrates rather than cooked weight in grams. Case in point:
Say I select Dempster's whole wheat bread as my 'carb' source for breakfast (should whole wheat bread be considered a processed food?). Each two slices are approximately 71 grams, containing 24.5 grams of of available carbohydrates after subtracting fibre. Eating 150 grams of this bread then, would provide my body with approximately 52 grams of available carbohydrates. Sounds good so far? The Glycemic Index (which ranks carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels) of whole wheat bread is 67, and so to get the actual glycemic load of eating 150 grams of this bread, we calculate 67 (glycemic index) /100 * 52 (grams available carbohydrates), which gives us a result of about 35. Where glycemic load is concerned, anything above 19 is high. As you can see, the effect on blood sugar levels wouldn't be too pretty.
Now glycemic index, load, and whatnot isn't something that everyone need to be concerned about... however my native ancestry puts me at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which I have a positive family history for (my grandmother is diabetic, my mother is pre-diabetic). This doesn't mean I have to avoid carbohydrates altogether, but I do need to be concerned about the effect of each meal containing carbohydrates on my blood sugar levels.
Side note here: jumping rope should improve insulin sensitivity, which means my body should be more efficient at getting that glucose out of my blood stream to where it belongs.
Knowing the grams of available carbohydrates to eat to begin with, rather than the cooked weight, would allow me (after some calculations I could have done for me in an excel spreadsheet) to select carbohydrate sources based on the maximum glycemic index I could consume for that meal, without having the glycemic load surpass 19 (although a load of 19+, within reason, should be alright for just after a workout). Eating protein and fat with carbohydrates does serve to, in effect, lower the glycemic index of the carbohydrate, however in our example, I don't think one egg, an egg white, and 200mL of milk (approximately 20 grams of protein) would lower the load from 35 to equal to or lower than 19...
The reason I eat steel cut oats is because aside from being freaking delicious, they are carbohydrate dense but have a low glycemic index (42), which means I can a whopping 69 grams (raw weight) containing 45 grams available carbohydrates without exceeding a load of 19. And I include protein in this meal as well, to blunt that down either further. Finding low glycemic index carbohydrate dense foods however, is a bit of a challenge. I tried out pearl barley and that just seemed to upset my stomach...
Interesting. Diabetes runs in my family, too, but I think that's more of a cultural thing than a genetic thing (I live in America, and I can't remember where everyone lives, but are you one of the Canadians?) In any case, I have two types of bread in my house. One is oatmeal and the other is this "Special carb" bread with 5 carbs per slice. For me that would mean like, 10 slices or something like that. The other had like, 21g's so that was chill.
ReplyDeleteMatthew I promise you can ease up a little bit dude. Start to feel out your food a little more organically and not by the calculator. Also don't think that your 150 grams of carbs can't come from more than one source during a meal.
ReplyDeleteYou do a ton of exercise, are a young and healthy dude. Work with a bunch of different carb sources and see how they make you feel and look rather than what the chart says.
Even amongst a single bag of potatoes the GI will fluctuate quite a bit, you should start developing internal resources to figure out how food is affecting you.
Also, the carbs will go steadily down as we keep going so it won't always be this much to eat.
Good luck man.