Very famous! This group is categorized as simple and complex. Simple carbs are like glucose (our blood sugar), fructose (fruit sugar) and galactose (milk sugar). Complex carbs are like bread, rice, pasta, cake and many more that we know as starch.

Carbohydrates are easily absorbed, digested and also our best source of energy. They keep us up and running. Our brain can use only a simple sugar named Glucose. Blood sugar test that is routinely done measures this element in our blood. From now on, if I mention blood sugar it means glucose.

Blood glucose or blood sugar is monitored closely and precisely to keep it from going to high like diabetics or down in rare conditions mostly caused by taking too much blood sugar pills. Liver has the primary role regulating blood sugar with the help of some hormones. For example insulin is a hormone secreted by pancreas and it reduces blood sugar. Glucagon and adrenaline do the opposite and increase blood sugar. They work together to keep the blood sugar in normal range in blood.

Explaining this, I want you to see what happens when you eat a complex carb like bread:

1- It goes to stomach and then small intestine

2- It starts breaking down to simple sugars by means of enzymes and hormones in small intestine.

3- Simple sugar enters blood. By that blood sugar increases and that is when Insulin starts to come around to get it back to where it was.

4- Liver traps sugar in the blood and starts distributing it. Remember, our brain can use Glucose only. So this duty of liver is important.

5- one hundred grams of sugar stored in liver. The rest are sent to muscles and stored again. If anything more remains, liver converts it to fat and stores it in fat tissue. Again, we don’t want that to happen. At least not so often!

When we starve or go on diet and even between meals when we don’t eat anything, our blood sugar falls and everything reverses. Brain and liver sense that too, so:

1- Liver releases that 100gr of starch stored very fast.

2- Liver then tries to convert everything in its disposal to sugar and releases it into blood.  It uses starch stores in the muscles, fat stored in fat tissue and then the worst of all… our body protein.

3- As mentioned before low blood sugar stimulates brain and it causes you feel hungry. You body wants you to eat again. The reason is clear: your blood sugar is low.

Normal blood sugar is 70-110 mg/dl. Just forget about the scary part “mg/dl”. I want to tell you that liver duty is keeping blood sugar in this range.

Everybody has a blood sugar set point. This set point may be high or low but it falls in this normal range. I hear from many people that “if I don’t eat my blood sugar will fall and I would faint”. The reason is simple. Some people get used to a high normal blood sugar level. Others get used to a low normal blood sugar. Below that level both groups feel hungry and crave for food especially sweet carbs. as you can see both groups are in normal range (70-110) by mentioning the word NORMAL, but first group has a better eating style with a lower normal blood sugar, while the second group has a bad eating style and a high normal blood sugar. You can guess that second group must eat more not to feel hungry. They are the group nagging and complaining about diets being hard and they can’t do their weight loss treatments according to the plan. Unfortunately they are the group more prone to sugar intolerance and diabetes (sugar over 125).

Good news is: this set point can be changed. You can force your body to get used to a lower blood sugar, before it is too late. I suggest you take a look at how to lose weight section to see how it is done.

Now back to our important question: how can we stop fat being accumulated in our body?

I will discuss it in how to lose weight section and treatments, but for the sake of this article I explain it in brief. Fat is accumulated in adipose tissue or fat tissue; if blood sugar remains high all the time (by eating too much or snacking all the time) and liver can’t find a place to store the extra carb.

Just look at this picture:

Just forget about unfamiliar expressions there. Glycogen is a kind of starch assembled from our simple sugars: Glucose, fructose (fruit sugar), and lactose (milk sugar). As you can see there is a balance between starting point, liver, muscle and fat tissue (adipose tissue).

Food—>intestine—-> Blood stream—->liver—->muscle—-> fat tissue

When we start dieting or starve this will happen:

starving—> ↓ blood sugar—> brain senses ↓ blood sugar—> you feel hungry—> liver starts sending orders to fat tissue and muscle to release stored fat and starch—-> liver breaks down released fat and starch to simple sugar—-> ↑ blood sugar

As you can see it is a two way street. You eat too much and you will end up storing lots of fat. Vice versa and you will convert that fat to simple carbs for producing energy. At all time your body keeps blood sugar level in normal range, unless a medical condition happens. In many liver diseases people lose the ability to regulate their blood sugar. In diabetics, lack of insulin or insulin resistance is the cause. So if you want to help your body:

1- Eat less! Specially simple and complex sugars. Remember that extra carb converted to fat at the end.

2- Eat less fat. Any questions?!

3- Do exercise. Workouts deplete starch reserve in muscle and all of us have lots of muscle in our body. Liver begs for starch and fat to increase blood sugar and get it back to normal. You depleted starch reserves in muscles before, so more fat will be burned instead.

4- Regulate how frequently you eat. There are diets that you are forbidden to eat between meals. There are others suggesting you to eat smaller potions, but more frequently. I will discuss it more in other section. Just remember body needs energy in the morning and slowly goes to sleep at the evening. By eating late you body makes more fat at the end.