Are You a Carboholic? Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough
Since insulin levels after meals are determined largely by the carbohydrates we eat — particularly easily digestible grains
and starches, known as high glycemic index carbohydrates, as well as sugars like sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup — diets based on this approach specifically target these carbohydrates.
This effect of insulin on fat and carbohydrate metabolism offers an explanation for why these same carbohydrates, as Dr. Ludwig says,
are typically the foods we crave most; why a little “slip,” as addiction specialists would call it, could so easily lead to a binge.
Elevate insulin levels even a little, says Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco,
and the body switches over from burning fat for fuel to burning carbohydrates, by necessity.
High insulin drives carb-craving.”
The result is that even a bite or a taste of carbohydrate-rich foods can stimulate insulin
and create a hunger — a craving — for even more carbohydrates.
It’s been known since the 1960s that insulin signals fat cells to accumulate fat,
while telling the other cells in our body to burn carbohydrates for fuel.
“Once you’re exposed to a little carbohydrate, and you get an insulin rise from it,
that forces energy into fat cells and that deprives your other cells of the energy they would otherwise have utilized — in essence, starvation.
