The Synergytraining Blog

by David T. Ryan

Co-written by Dr. Damian C. Stanziano, PhD, CSCS*D, NSCA-CPT*D

The government has changed the food pyramid again and if you have a child or any interest in your own health, you should read this article and pass it around.

If you get anything out of this article, get this: STOP EATING SO MANY REFINED STARCHES!

Why listen to me?
Now you can take advice from anybody. Certainly in the world of nutrition there are millions of opinions, most are paid advertisements from individuals who have used some other technique to get to where they are now but are getting the cash to stand behind something else. The proof is in the pudding. This author has a six-pack and that isn’t referencing beer. Six-pack represents my abdominal muscles. Now not to brag, but if you get advice from someone on how to eat, ask to see his or her stomach. You ask me, I’ll be happy to show you, and I am currently forty-five years old!

The Crumbling Food Pyramid
If you look at it, we have a federal suggestion of what to eat. It is the food pyramid, and it suggests 8 servings of grain per day. With all the lobbying going on in Washington, this was passed without a problem in the 1960s as a direct result of the looming scare of heart disease. Keep in mind that our country produces more grain than any other country in the world. More recently the food pyramid has undergone some changes and also included sugars in the Americans’ already overly-caloric diet. These changes have also spawned new attacks on the very nature of the formation of the food pyramid and are still undergoing changes as we see them. Now the Food pyramid, which was originally designed to help Americans make easy, healthy food choices, recommends only 6oz of grains per day (http://www.mypyramid.gov).

WARNING, DANGER, BAD, NASTY, EECH.
Starches are PASTA, POTATOES, BREAD, RICE (SEE TABLE)

Pasta	Pizza, any noodle, spaghetti, fettucini, ravioli. The worst is pasta made with white/bleached flour
Potatoes	French fries, potato chips, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, anything with the word potato in it.
Bread	Breakfast cereal, Bagels, bread as in sandwich bread, loafed bread. The worst is white/bleached flour – It has longer chains than the rest.
Rice	Bleached white rice

Who told you to eat a high starch diet in the first place?
OK, let’s first look at who told you they are good for you. Marathon or 10k runners, it’s their fault. For those athletes the high starch intake is more tolerable, their body can burn the starch as a fuel. I think this was due to the earlier studies at Ohio State and University of Iowa (two of the best exercise physiology programs).

Why are starches so bad for you?
If you look at the nutrients in foods you will see protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Starches just don’t make the list, most often referred to as complex carbohydrates. Starches prevent you from eating enough of the foods that help you develop and grow. Even if you are 90 years young, the body is still growing and replacing old worn out cells. To evidence why starches are bad for you relates to a simple explanation. Your stomach only has so much room, starches take up a great deal of space in the stomach, so eat a lot of bread and you can’t eat your meat, vegetables or fruits. There is only so much room in the digestive system and one more major problem with starches is that they stop the body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals. Now how this occurs is related to the physical nature of starches, they make paste. Take meat, fish, vegetables, fruits dry them out, mix them with water and now dry them out, mix them with water again and you will quickly break them down. Take white flour, mix it with water, dry it out, mix it with water again, dry it out again, and you have made “Plaster of Paris.” Now try to break it down with water and guess how much water it takes to break it down: over 100 times the amount that it took to make it. This paste is on the insides of many peoples intestine, blocking the normal absorption of nutrients and protein. Now it isn’t likely that chunks of these starches are going to drop out as feces, but you will see a major difference in things if you discontinue your intake of breads, pasta, rice and potatoes. Starches clog up the smaller intestine, making you eat more to satisfy your appetite and forcing your body to absorb more fat and water from the large intestine.

Starches and the Glycemic Index
Basic information about the Glycemic index or GI. The whole idea of GI was to show how certain foods would cause a change in the amount of insulin distributed into the blood stream. There is very little insulin associated with some foods that have a lower GI and lots of insulin is poured out when there is a food eaten with a high GI. Some examples are below:

Taken from the Diabetes Mall Glycemic Index How quickly do foods raise your blood sugar? The glycemic index measures how fast a food is likely to raise your blood sugar* and can be helpful for managing blood sugars. For example, if your blood sugar is low and continuing to drop during exercise, you would prefer to eat a carb that will raise your blood sugar quickly. On the other hand, if you would like to keep your blood sugar from dropping during a few hours of mild activity, you may prefer to eat a carb that has a lower glycemic index and longer action time. If your blood sugar tends to spike after breakfast, you may want to select a cereal that has a lower glycemic index. The numbers below give that food’s glycemic index based on glucose, which is one of the fastest carbohydrates available. Glucose is given an arbitrary value of 100 and other carbs are given a number relative to glucose. Faster carbs (higher numbers) are great for raising low blood sugars and for covering brief periods of intense exercise. Slower carbs (lower numbers) are helpful for preventing overnight drops in the blood sugar and for long periods of exercise. Note that these numbers are compiled from a wide range of research labs, and often from more than one study. These numbers will be close but may not be identical to other glycemic index lists. The impact a food will have on the blood sugar depends on many other factors such as ripeness, cooking time, fiber and fat content, time of day, blood insulin levels, and recent activity. Use the Glycemic Index as just one of the many tools you have available to improve your control.

Why all the fuss about insulin?
Okay, first of all if you want to get really big, I mean really huge, it isn’t just those common drugs that do it for you, it is insulin. Insulin acts like a suction device and draws lots of things from the blood stream into the cell. It is like seeing someone on a shopping spree. You are just grabbing everything in sight and not caring about what it is. Good idea right? Only if you are trying to gain weight.

Insulin also can force the transference of protein and simple carbs to FAT. Insulin also raises our fat thermostat and will make our body hold on to more stored fat. Ouch! That is not what we want. We want lots of things that make us big, but getting fat isn’t in the picture.

Insulin has a major task; it moderates sugar level in the blood stream. Why do we want to moderate sugar levels in the blood stream? Because excessive sugar in your blood stream weakens the blood vessel walls and can cause several dangerous or fatal problems.

Diabetes is a condition where you have trouble controlling your insulin levels. There are two types and I would suggest you go to this link to learn more about them (www.diabetes.org).

The main problem with starches and insulin is found within the molecular structure. Glucose is blood sugar. It is what you brain uses exclusively to function. That is why we all get stupid on the low carb diets. Starches are long — I mean long chains of glucose. (See photo)

Diagram of Amylopectin a starch. Each red and blue dot is a glucose molecule and each one triggers insulin production. Below is the structure of glucose, galactose and fructose.
Below that we can see how several sugars are bonded together to form Polysaccharides.

Polysaccharides

It can take hours to break down an ingested starch and that is great if you are a marathon runner. It can be devastating if you are not. What the Glycemic Index Table doesn’t show is the length of time that insulin is produced. With starches the production of insulin can go on for hours and literally drain the pancreas of insulin stores. This is devastating to your body. The same thing happens if you overeat. The table below shows how eating a piece of candy will spike your insulin. Notice how the slice of white bread is similar to the spike, but the duration last for several hours. The same type of reaction occurs when we over eat; our body produces insulin for several hours. This long term production leads to insulin-related health conditions-like obesity.

See graph on Glycemic Index response vs. insulin production:

Conclusions
No, it isn’t easy. The world is set up with starches everywhere. You go to a restaurant and poof; you have bread on your table. Most meals include a side of french fries or baked potato. Most restaurants will offer other sides if you ask. Wendy’s will allow you to exchange a salad or chili for fries. Wait until you go to Wendy’s and ask for the grilled chicken in a boat (no bun). It takes the counter about five minutes to figure that one out.
No matter what level of athlete you are, stopping the gross consumption of starches will greatly enhance your development and athletic abilities. Try it for two weeks, but realize it takes a while to clean out the junk you already have built up in your intestine. 

WHAT CAN YOU YOU DO
1. Eat your protein first – The stomach needs a low pH or acidic enviorment to breakdown proteins and absorb them. Starches buffer or raise pH.

2. Eat fewer refined starches; choose meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, dairy, nuts, etc.

3. Continue to educate yourself about starches—which are refined and which are OK in moderate quantities.

4. Exercise and diet work together for the best changes in body shape.

5. If you are going to eat starches, eat them within one hour of exercise.

6. Choose wisely. Oatmeal, yams, whole grain hot cereals, whole grain rice and beans as your starches.

Dr. David T. Ryan is the Medical Director for the Arnold Classic Fitness Expo and an Editorial Advisor for Muscle & Fitness Magazine.

Dr. Damian C. Stanziano is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.