Carbs and cravings - childhood diet damaged me?

[jago25_98]

I've just found out that a low carb diet is no good if you want to put on muscle.

As a result I've been eating stuff like pasta and bread.

I'm finding this is quite addictive compared to keeping carbs to a minimum; when I eat I get a craving for chocolate.

What can be done? How dangerous is it to sucume to the cravings and eat stuff like chocolate while I'm bulking (trying to gain muscle)?

Also, what's all this stuff about gycermic index?

History:

In my childhood I had a very bad diet - probably 80%+ carb, (sugarery carb mostly) but not too much fat. It's only recently after reading about Atkins and low carb that I've relised how bad my diet was. I might eat bread and jam for breakfast, chocolate bar, crisps, chips and burger for lunch and pasta for dinner. That's a good day. Worse days might include Pop Tarts and chocolate all day. Back then carb wasn't something to worry about; it was fat and I wasn't doing too bad on that front. Totally on the road to diabetes. My brother still has the same diet.

At 20 I started trying low carb and loved it; easy to lose wieght and stopped the addiction.

Could my bad diet in childhood have created a body sensitive to sugar - that my ability to produce insulin has been effected so similar so that my blood sugar levels lead to addictive behaviour?

Sometimes the cravings are worse than Class B drugs.

I should also mention that my Grandma and uncle have diabetes, so family history too.

It's only recently (22)I've started bodybuilding and come across this problem.

Any suggestions on what to do?

[Ashtur]

I'm a bit confused really. Are you Type 1 or Type 2? How are you controlled? Diet only? Meds? Insulin? Are your sugars spiking? That's the real key to all of this. What are your blood sugars doing in the midst of all of this, if they are getting even moderatly out of bounds, that gives you your answer.

[jago25_98]

I'm not diabetic as far as I know. Should I get tested?
Wrong forum?

[Ashtur]

Ok, I made the assumption you were since this *is* a diabetic forum. From what little you've said, I couldn't begin to guess if you should be tested or not. Best advice that I can give is that if you find yourself thirsty all the time, and if you find that little cuts take longer to heal then they should, go ahead and get tested.

[DeusXM]

Diabetes cannot be caused by diet. Simple. You can't burn out or overload the cells that produce insulin, they can only either be destroyed by an as-yet unexplained immune reaction, or your body, for one reason or another (but usually because of obesity) has trouble using the insulin properly. You can spend your entire childhood injecting lucozade into your veins and you won't get diabetes (unless of course, you become very fat as a result, in which case you run the risk of T2).

A low-carb diet is rubbish if you're trying to put on muscle, since to put on muscle you need to be taking in more energy than you expend...otherwise, your body's having such a hard time keeping up with your energy requirements that you simple haven't enough spare to put on muscle. Since a very large portion of energy for humans comes from carbs, a low-carb diet is effectively a starvation diet, and is therefore not benificial for people trying to build muscle.

Don't worry about Atkins, most of it's bunk and is nothing more than a cynical marketing ploy - there's a reason why lo-carb diet promotors also sell energy suppliments - it's because lo-carbers aren't getting enough energy from their diet, which sounds to me like a very good reason to not follow it.

Your blood sugars shouldn't cause carb-addictive behaviour, unless of course you are actually running with very low blood sugar, and this is where it gets interesting.

Are you still on your lo-carb diet?

Basically, one of the things us with diabetes have to worry about is hypoglycaemia, or low blood sugar. If there isn't enough sugar in your blood, the body basically panics, causing a massive hunger (and I mean starving for 3 weeks style hunger) and you might get shaking, blurry vision etc.

A good comparison is the munchies people get from smoking cannabis, since it's the same root problem, low blood sugar.

If you're exercising a lot on a low carb diet, you probably end up with low blood sugar, since you haven't enough starchy foods to convert to glucose. This is probably why you're not putting on muscle, and also why you're getting the severe cravings.

My advice? The same as I'll give to anyone else about diet, regardless of whether they're diabetic or not. Try a normal diet. Not high, nor low in carbs.

And if you're bodybuilding, you will definitely need extra pasta and potatoes etc for long-term energy and metabolic processes, lots of protein to build muscles (although you can deal with this with protein shakes rather than eating 6 chicken breasts a day), and you might also need something like an energy drink for whilst you're in the gym to keep you going for longer. Just make sure it's not Red Bull or else you'll become more dehydrated.

You don't sound diabetic to me, even if your gran and uncle have diabetes, it's probably T2, and you're far too young for that. But you do have a nutritional cross-over with us in that it sounds like you're having low blood sugar, but I wouldn't sweat it. You're gonna be ok.

Also, bear in mind that until you're about 25 most people can stuff themselves with all sorts of **** and still be fine, not putting on weight etc. I sure as **** know that's the case for me!

[jago25_98]

Thanks for the advice.

The problem is mostly eating a normal diet - as soon as I try to eat normal carbs I want more; i.e. if I eat 4 slices of bread 30mins later I want another 4 whereas if I eat a can of Tuna I'm fine.

I think the problem is caffine related; coke and chocolate. A double wammy of caffine and sugar possibly.

I'm progressing off the chocolate and coke and will try to continue to do so. I may replace with coffee/tea however. Hopefully this'll help me get back to a normal diet.

Hearing
"You can spend your entire childhood injecting lucozade into your veins and you won't get diabetes"

is quite reassuring. Thanks for that :)