The white stuff

My new favorite website is www.glycemicindex.com. As you may know already, some foods are more easily converted to fat and should be eaten sparingly. 
Foods with a high glycemic index spike your blood sugar, which can make you feel like a hyperactive 5-year-old for a while and then a few minutes later you are as bored and sleepy as I am watching a movie on Lifetime. And that's just how you feel.

What is going on in your body is a total carb-o-rama: They are hanging out in your bloodstream smoking cigarettes an cussing. The fascist sympathetic nervous system is bothered by all the ruckus and puts the carbs on lockdown by flooding insulin into the bloodstream.

After it's all said and done, your blood sugar ends up low and you feel as tired as a conversation about health care reform. That's just how your body works. Oh yeah, and I'm still getting screwed by my insurance.

The way the glycemic index works is simple. The idea is based upon how fast a food takes to make it into your bloodstream. Foods are absorbed in your digestive system at different rates. If it doesn't take long for the food to be absorbed and broken down into sugar, that means the food is high on the glycemic index.  Foods are given a number from zero to 100 with 100 being the fastest absorbing foods.
Some foods take longer to be absorbed and result in a more even, better regulated blood sugar level throughout the day.

As everyone probably knows, sugar is way up there on the G.I. But there are some other foods that are just as high or higher, and it can be surprising to find out what they are.

White potatoes and white flour. I know. They are not sweet. But they can be almost as delicious as sugar, unless you are five years old. In that case, sugar is super delicious and potatoes are kind of weird and flour tastes O.K. as long as it is in pizza or cake. Here is something a five-year-old can't tell you about potatoes:
They are made up entirely of starch. They have pretty much no fiber (unless you eat the skins, in which case, you have just eaten the same amount of fiber as a bean). That starch is immediately converted into glucose (sugar). Boom! You're fat.
Maybe a five-year-old could tell you that. But this next thing is maybe too complex for a kid with a face full of cake to tell you about.

Most cake has white flour in it. White flour is made by separating the different parts of ground up wheat.
There are three parts of wheat: They are bran which is a fibery outer layer, the germ which is like a kind of embryo, and starch which is a sticky-when-wet substance that you know as white flour. Guess which parts get discarded? That's right, the bran and the germ. We are left with the starch. Yum. Sounding wholesome yet? There's more!
The flour is not white enough in its natural state, so they bleach it to make it look more like cocaine. The chemical process the flour goes through leaves it free of nutrients, so they have to add some vitamins and minerals back into it. That is why they call it enriched flour.

This is the story of white rice. Somebody decided it would be really awesome to put brown rice in a rock tumbler and polish it until there is nothing left but the white starchy stuff underneath the light brown outer layer. Are you picking up on the white supremacist theme going on with these foods? Me too. So the racist food manufacturers hire some schmuck to run a tumbler and check to make sure there is no hull left on the rice. And then they bleach it to make sure it is white enough for little adolph to eat. Add vitamin/mineral potion and shamalamadingdong: Enriched white rice!

Here are some solutions:
If you are eating potatoes, eat 1/4 cup or less. Better yet, substitute sweet potatoes, which have a ton of fiber and are not only a slow carb, but a superfood as well.
When you buy bread or pasta at the supermarket, check the ingredients to make sure it is made with 100% whole wheat flour.
Brown rice. If you think you hate brown rice, you just haven't found the right one for you. Lately I've been using Texmati, a brown jasmine rice grown in texas. Use that. It has a less bulbous shape and is less chewy that some of the other varieties.

If you just have to have these foods, partake in extreme moderation. Whether you are trying to get big muscles or get skinny, know that these foods will not help you reach your goal, unless you are trying to blubber up for that trip to Antarctica.
Go check out the glycemic index of some of the foods (and beverages) you have a lot.

Educate yourself.
www.glycemicindex.com

Spicy Lemonade

This is a tasty beverage that provides you with fast carbs to fuel your workouts. It contains capsaicin which helps your body burn more calories by revving up your metabolism.

Here's how you make it:

• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 cup hot water
• 1/8 cup lemon juice
• cayenne pepper (to taste)
• 1 cup cold water
• some ice cubes 

Thoroughly mix the honey with the hot water until it is dissolved. I like to shake it, but you can stir it, blend it or whatever. I don't care as long as it gets mixed and you don't have big gobs of honey at the bottom of your drink.
Next you put in a few dashes of cayenne. As much or as little as you want - you're the one who's drinking it. If you are scared of spicy just start out with a little and work your way up. If a mail-order bride can learn to love some guy she's never met before you can learn to love cayenne.
Fill your favorite chalice or sports bottle with ice and top off with cold water. Drink during your workout.