Put Down the Banana and Back Away Slowly!

How dietary fear-mongering misses the mark

Anyone who follows a fitness page or blog has probably seen a few of the countless articles attempting to steer their diet around for them. Seemingly with the best of intentions, they target those whose goal is fat loss with sensational clickbait headlines like “These 5 Foods Are Making You Fat!” or “If Weight Loss Is Your Goal, NEVER Eat This One Food”. These articles deliver such a sense of urgency that one has to wonder how many people run straight to the kitchen to cleanse their homes of these dangerous foodstuffs.

The common theme running through most of these articles is carbs and, as with most nutritional topics, the reality is things are a bit more complicated than they’re made to seem. It’s not as if the opposite is true, and one carb is as good as the next — or as bad, depending on your goals — but as was the case with calories, there’s more to carbohydrates than just how many grams are on the menu.

Carb Crash Course — Simple vs Complex

Sources of carbohydrates fall along a spectrum of sorts called the Glycemic Index. This is a numerical value representing how quickly a given food’s carbohydrates break down and enter the bloodstream, increasing blood glucose levels.

On the low end of the spectrum are the complex carbs — sources of carbohydrates that break down slowly. These tend to be harder to digest foods like whole grains, which the body has to work at over time due to the presence of dietary fiber or the molecular structure of the carbohydrates themselves. Many of the aforementioned articles steer you toward these, and away from foods with higher glycemic index scores.

Simple carbs, on the other hand, like glucose and other sugars (dextrose, maltose, and corn syrup) land at 100 or higher on the index, and they find their way into the bloodstream almost immediately, raising blood sugar levels as well as spiking insulin.

This boost in insulin is the primary concern where fat gain or loss are concerned, as high insulin levels switch the body’s metabolic focus to using food for energy, rather than stored fat. Additionally, during the spike, any unused fuel is likely to be stored.

It should be noted that there are times when a boost in insulin is a good thing, specifically after a workout. As Dr. Jim Stoppani, PhD, creator and owner of JYM Supplement Science and JimStoppani.com points out, “Insulin attaches to specific receptors on muscle cells. When this happens, it allows for glucose and amino acids, as well as creatine and carnitine, to be taken up by muscle cells.”

Fast-digesting carbs are also useful for replacing muscle glycogen spent during your workout. Dr. Stoppani explains: “During the workout, your main fuel source is glycogen from the muscles. Glycogen is the storage form of glucose. It is composed of glucose molecules strung together in long strings with numerous branches. The glucose molecules are broken off of the glycogen chain as they are needed to be broken down to generate ATP.”

“Research confirms,” Stoppani concludes, “that the best way to replenish muscle glycogen stores after workouts is to consume high-glycemic carbs as soon as possible after workouts.”

However, during the rest of your day, foods with a high glycemic index aren’t desirable because of the likelihood they’ll be stored as fat. Seems simple enough, right? It would be, but that’s not the whole story.

Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load

One complication to this simplistic view is that the glycemic index is far from black and white. In reality, most foods you find compared to each other are actually relatively close on the list. For example, the glycemic index of white rice is 73, which sounds pretty high. The recommended alternative is brown rice — with a GI of 68.

Are those 5 points going to make a huge difference? Probably not. And these scores are for those foods only. If you pair your rice with fat and proteins, the glycemic impact is reduced, meaning their scores could be even closer in the end. As previously discussed, the composition of your diet is important, and this is true not only over the course of the day but for each meal as well. However, there’s something else to take into consideration: Glycemic load.

While glycemic index addresses the rate of digestion and resulting increase in blood sugar of a food, it doesn’t take into account how many actual carbs are in a serving of that food. The scale for glycemic load is smaller, with anything under 10 being considered a low-impact carbohydrate source, and anything over 20 considered high. Because the composition and serving sizes of foods vary, this can lead to some confusion.

Something like couscous, for example, has a GI of 65, but the amount of carbohydrates in a 150-gram serving is so low that its impact is relatively slight. For couscous, the glycemic load is only 9. Corn on the cob, on the other hand, has a GI of 48 — but because of the amount of carbs in a serving, which is only 60g, the GL is 14. The most common example used to explain this disparity is even more confusing: Watermelon has a GI of 80, but a GL of only 6.

Cutting Through the Confusion

What most of these articles tend to do is rely solely on the glycemic index to determine which foods are better than others. Sometimes, they make the right calls, but it’s almost by accident.

In the case of white rice vs brown rice, the glycemic load of white rice is nearly double that of brown. But at the same time, parboiled white rice like Uncle Ben’s is actually lower than both in terms of glycemic index AND glycemic load.

With so much to consider, what’s the right answer? How do you make good dietary choices without a dietetics degree? Here, there’s actually grounds for a simpler perspective.

There are so many factors going into how your diet impacts you that your head would spin if you actually tried to weigh them all each and every day. The truth is, there really aren’t many foods that should land on your “Never Eat This!” list.

High fructose corn syrup is something you should avoid, not because of its glycemic index or load but because of the way the body processes it, tending to convert it to fat more readily than natural fructose from fruit. Though not a carbohydrate, artificial trans fats should also be avoided because of the toll they can take not only on your waistline but your cardiovascular system. As for the rest? Keep it simple.

You probably already know to limit simple sugars and refined starches like white flour, and to aim for more complex carbohydrate sources like whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and the like. Will opting for a baked russet potato instead of a sweet potato totally ruin your fat loss goals? In the long run, probably not.

Sure, they differ in how they’re broken down by the body, but that difference is so slight — especially if you’re eating them alongside healthy fats and proteins — that the biggest risk to your goals is the increased cortisol levels you’d experience from worrying so much about which foods to eat.

Is Your Diet Doomed?

Some foods are better for you than others — that’s about as clear as you can really get. Sure, avoid trans fats and keep an eye on certain things like the balance of your fat intake, carbs, and yes, even overall calories. But at the end of the day, is there such a thing as the wrong kind of healthy foods? Not really.

A balanced diet is unlikely to contain enough of any one food that it could prove an overall detriment to your progress. So that baked potato probably isn’t going to plump you up any more than a steak will deliver massive size overnight. All things in moderation — and that includes reading clickbait listicles trying to scare you away from your favorite foods.

Where you get your carbs from does matter, but not so much that you should be seeking out specific cultivars for the perfect GI profile. If you’re a pro bodybuilder gearing up for a competition, this kind of minutiae may come into play, but for the average fitness enthusiast or regular Joe just trying to eat healthier? It’s a little melodramatic.

Vilifying any one food just limits options without really leading to improved results. Additionally, restrictive diets tend to put people off of them, as boredom or scarcity take their toll. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and there’s no reason being on a healthier diet should be dull or unpleasant. If you’re aiming for and hitting your protein, fat, and carbohydrate targets for the day, you’ll still reach your fat loss goals. So if you like bananas, prefer white rice to brown or corn over couscous, go ahead. Eat that one food.

Learn more about Dr. Stoppani’s recommendations for carbohydrates and dieting in general in his Muscle Building Nutrition Rules and Dieting 101 articles.

For even more on everything from nutrition to supplementation and training, JimStoppani.com features hundreds of articles and videos from Dr. Jim Stoppani himself.