Just finished my 2 weeks and lost 5 lbs. Yeah!!! Very tired of using the rest room.

A friend of mine(not a doctor) has told me that dispite what the carbs say on whole grain breads, your body will not absorb them all, because of the fiberous nature of the grains. Is this possible?
He also explained to me that foods that were higher in complex carbs were not as bad to eat, because less of the carbs actully turn into suger.

I had no idea. So I just said hmmm. Anyone have an idea? I suppose each person is different.

Your friend is partly right. The fiber in a carb can be deducted from the total carb count of a food because it is not absorbed by the body. The resulting total of carbs is what the Eades (Protein Power) call the ECC (Effective Carb Count). Atkins started using this method about 2 editions ago - what that means for you is if you've eating a total of 30g of carbs in a day and 11 of those grams were fiber your ECC would be 19g. Subtracting fiber lets you eat more carbs thus having a more varied menu - you get less bored with your food and are less likely to cheat or stray from you WOE.

The other part of what your friend mentioned has to do with the glycemic index of a food. A GI value tells you how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn't tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. All foods measured on the GI are given a number that compares to 100g of sugar; something with a number of 42, for example, would be considered low. The GI number of some foods would surprize you: for example, baked potatoes have a glycemic index considerably higher than that of table sugar. The GI is flawed however, as it only takes into account one food eaten by itself with no other carbs ingested for a period of 2 - 3 hours. How often do you eat just a baked potato?

This is what the Eades have to say about the Glycemic Index .

HTH,
Nat

I know the basics - like potatoes and carrots are high, but is there a list of the foods and their GI. I just got The Dr's Pocket: Claorie, Fat, and Carbohydtrate Counter (w/ 101 Fast-Food Chains and Restaurants Full Analysis) and it is AMAZING, but it does not contain that info.

By the way Nat, (I haven't been here in a while) and your loss is awesome - only 14b lbs to go I've slowed down considerably (I've increased my carbs quite a bit), but I'm still sooo happy. Soon, we'll be running into each other in the Maintenance room.

Thanks for any help.
Erin

I've seen a list floating out there on the Internet - think the name of the site may have Mendoza in it.

Karen