Some foods can make your blood sugar levels shoot up quickly due to the carbohydrates found in them like refined sugar and bread. Eating a lot of these can make it difficult for you to control your blood sugar and in turn not help in Diabetes Management. This puts you at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
If you have diabetes, you probably know that you need to monitor your carbohydrate intake. Glycemic index is a numeric score assigned to foods that gives you an idea about how fast your body converts the carbs in a food into glucose. Two foods with the same amount of carbohydrates can have a different glycemic index. The lower a food’s glycemic index, the slower blood sugar rises after eating that food.
Glycemic index should not be the only thing you should consider when choosing what to eat. Foods with low glycemic index doesn’t always mean it’s very healthy and that you should have a lot of it. For example, potato chips have a lower glycemic index compared to oatmeal and about the same as green peas. But oatmeal and green peas have more nutrients when we compare it to potato chips.
It is not only what you eat, but how much you eat that matters. The more of what carbs you eat has an impact on your blood sugar levels. Glycemic load helps you keep count for both the quantity and the quality of your carbs at the same time.
Let us understand how to maintain your blood sugar levels as we learn to calculate the Glycemic Load of the foods that you eat in a day. Read more about BODY COMPOSITION: ELEMENTS & THEIR IMPORTANCE | WHAT IS BMR?
