I was giving some advice last week to my friends a Poshinc, and the question about potatoes came up.
If you’re planning on losing weight it’s a good idea to reduce the amount of potatoes you eat. You don’t have to cut them out altogether, but it’s a good idea to eat them sparingly.
Why Are Potatoes Fattening?
Potatoes are predominantly made up of glucose (sugar) molecules, stuck together to form a starchy carbohydrate.
When potatoes land in your digestive track the glucose is released very quickly. It’s like cutting a string on a beaded necklace. This means the glucose flies across into your blood stream very quickly, pushing your blood sugar up really fast.
Last week I explained about carbs pushing your blood glucose up quickly, and this also makes you produce a lot of insulin to get this back under control. Whenever you produce a lot of insulin you lay fat down, that’s just how it works.
So if you have a weight problem eating a lot of potatoes isn’t going to help you.
Potatoes Are Not a ‘Slimmer’s Friend’
It seems a popular ‘healthy option’ lunch might be a jacket potato with a low fat filling. All this does is push your blood sugar sky high, give you a corresponding sky high insulin splurge which causes you to lay down fat.
An alternative lunch of salad with an avocado, some olives, and an olive oil based dressing with perhaps a couple of eggs or tin of mackerel is a much better ‘slimmers choice’. This food is quite high in fat but it won’t create an insulin response.
No insulin = precious little, if any, fat lay down in your body.
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Have an Uber Healthy week
Dr Julie
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My mother in law, 70, has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Her doctor recommended she eat more starchy foods. The obvious one would be potatoes but having read this what other foods do you recommend?
Thank you cousin!
Hi Jo
Generally doctors aren’t very good at giving dietary advice, and this really bad advice shows that. We aren’t taught anything useful at medical school about nutrition, but we are taught LOADS about what drugs to give people.
When people have diabetes they have a problem dealing with carbohydrates (which are essentially glucose), so the very worst type of carbs they can eat are the ones that release their glucose quickly, like potatoes.
You mum-in-law will be better with COMPLEX carbs which includes food made with wholegrain. People with diabetes fair better with small servings of carbs generally, but when it comes to fast release like potatoes – very small.