I’m Croatian and I love pizza and bread.
I used to hate my 18 year old little brother sometimes because he will eat an entire bag of LeBoulanger’s sourdough baguette sliced bread, one of his favorite foods along with pretzels, in one day, yet he looks like a scrawny little boy who could probably gain 10 to 20 pounds.
Carbohydrates (carbs) are by far the most attacked and restricted food in the diet industry. Some of the most popular and well-known diets revolve entirely around eliminating or reducing your carb intake, including the South Beach and the Atkins Diet.
The South Beach diet focuses on replacing bad carbs and bad fats with good carbs and good healthy fats. Bad carbs are those that have a high glycemic index, which your body digests faster than whole grains or other low glycemic index carbs. This quick digestion causes a spike in your blood sugar, which can trigger hunger cycles. Bad fats are the more well known trans fats and saturated fats that are high in LDL cholesterol, the “bad” cholesterol”, that ample research has shown increases your risk of heart disease or heart related illnesses, compared to the good fats that are high in HDL cholesterol, or the “good cholesterol”, which studies show lowers your risk for heart disease and contributes to good cardiovascular health.
The Atkins diet simply focuses on restricting your carb intake, altogether. And, After reading a recent study among an Italian population that came out about how consuming white bread, rice, and other high glycemic index carbs double the risk for heart disease in women, I wasn’t surprised that both of these diets were developed my cardiologists.
The new study even controlled for other health risks, and still found these results.
It’s always much easier for me to eliminate or reduce foods in my diet when I understand that they are unhealthy for my general health than simply on the basis that they could make me gain a little weight. I believe that it is important to allow yourself to cheat a little bit on occasion, but I think now that I know when I have a slice of pizza that I might be doubling my risk of heart disease, than that slice of pizza might be a little bit easier to resist. If you really have to have your fix, maybe try and opt for a whole grain crust or try and satisfy your craving with another whole carbohydrate.
Oh and you men out there, you seem to be a lucky bunch because apparently your bodies digest the carbohydrates differently and the dangerous results of the study did not apply to you. So I guess you can go ahead and consume those “bad carbs”, just remember how lucky you are and remember to give her a spa gift certificate instead of chocolate next valentines day- haha.
