In the first part of my series on obesity I listed a few things to watch for in the diet. Now, I wanted to expand on the idea of monitoring blood sugar levels to help control food cravings and weight. Even though many Americans concerned with weight have followed a low fat diet, there are a lot of experts who have advocated the low carbohydrate diet. The low carbohydrate diet has been used for many years by most weight loss programs, and is believed by many to be the best approach to weight loss.

Unfortunately, it seems a lot of us fail on most diets, often binging at the end of the day, or just giving in and reward ourselves with a treat that is usually a tasty high sugar carbohydrate. In fact, a low fat diet often becomes a high carbohydrate diet! It seems that the approach of limiting fats just doesn't work for most people. Foods made from processed white flour like breads, bagels, pastries, cookies and pastas become the staple of a low fat diet. Also, If you read the ingredients of many desserts labeled "low fat," you will notice that the fat was replaced with more sugar than their regular high fat counterparts to provide taste. Because of the low fat diet craze and the increased availability of junk foods, our consumption of simple carbohydrates has increased substantially in the last couple of decades. Americans are consuming more simple carbohydrates, sugary desserts, soft drinks and processed snacks than ever before.

There are many consequences to our high sugar, refined carbohydrate style of eating, the most obvious being weight gain. The havoc it plays with our overall health can be easy to overlook, a little difficult to explain, but extremely important to understand. It is one of the keys to understanding carbohydrate cravings, as well as avoiding future health problems.

One of the unseen consequences of our modern, high carbohydrate diet is an increase in blood sugar and increased insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas that regulates the metabolism of glucose (blood sugar). A combination of high blood sugar and increased insulin levels can become detrimental to health if not addressed.

An imbalance in our metabolism happens as over-consumption of foods that is "high carbohydrate" eventually over-stimulates the pancreas to release more insulin than might be necessary. When the pancreas excretes more insulin to account for the greater amount of carbohydrate, the unused insulin remains in the bloodstream and causes blood sugar levels to drop too low, or promote the storage of excess calories as fat. What this basically means is that the body's ability to process carbohydrates becomes compromised by the prolonged elevations of blood glucose levels. As the body becomes more compromised, it takes more and more carbohydrates to satisfy food cravings, the body becomes increasingly insulin resistant, and the cycle continues until the pancreas becomes exhausted.

Major health problems from this situation called "insulin resistance." Insulin resistance can not only causes even more excessive carbohydrate cravings, it can cause weight gain, and put you as risk for diabetes. Monitoring carbohydrates, especially those that convert to blood sugar extremely rapidly, is important to controlling appetite, weight, and has even more of an important impact on overall health.

On the other end of the scale there are many on a craze of eliminating all carbohydrate from the diet completely. There is a lot of mixed review about this extreme diet. From a holistic viewpoint, this diet does create an imbalance in the body, whereas the body has to work extra hard to eliminate the by-products of a very high protein diet. It remains to be seen what the long term effect this kind of diet has on vital organs, brain and vascular health. Also, if you have been on this diet for a while, lost some weight, and then decide to go off of the extreme low-carbohydrate diet, you often gain back the lost weight extremely rapidly. Balancing the correct amounts of carbohydrate, protein and fats is also another popular idea that seems to be more attuned to the human metabolism and practicality.

Understanding just what a carbohydrate is, what is meant by simple and complex carbohydrates, and how quickly major carbohydrate foods are absorbed into the bloodstream, is a key component to a balanced diet, controlling blood sugar levels and weight control. Carbohydrates are going to be the topic of my next article.