Low vs High Glycemic Food Study on Runners

What exactly are the differances between a high-glycemic carbohydrate and a low-glycemic carbohydrate. What are some examples of food with each kind of carb.

This study is very interesting to me, because it fits with my experience. I tend to crash 20 min. into a run if I have eaten anything sugary (high glycemic) in the hour or so before I start. I was recently chatting with Gert Thys (2:06 marathoner from S.Africa) about this very same issue. He said that he has cut almost all sugar from his diet to prevent this problem.

overseer - The higher the glycemic index, the faster the sugar from the food will get into your blood stream. Low glycemic carbs are more starchy type food, less sweet. Whole grains (whole wheat, oats, brown rice) tend to be lower glycemic than refined grains (white bread, white rice). Anything with added sugar tend to be higher glycemic. Fruit is better than candy. Also, consuming some fat and/or protein with the carbs will slow them down.

The glycemic index I believe came about to help diabetics choose carbs that wouldn't shoot up their blood sugar too fast. I think alot of the fad high protein low carb diets use this idea, but fail cause you are depleting essential carbs from your system.....if you go on any diet....a high carb low glycemic diet seems to be the best....I'd highly recommend looking into it....there are books out there and glycemic indexes of foods...I would try to deter away from anything that states "low carb diets" though....

I heard that a baked potato has a higher glycemic index than table sugar. That makes sense cause I always feel really sluggish after eating a baked potato and have to wait at least 5-6 hours before going out on a run. Therefore not all "complex" carbs have low indexes.

And I also heard that honey has lower index than table sugar and honey also contain nutrients that plain sugar does not have. So honey is actually not bad to replace those "gels"...although I never tried myself....I will try it out on as a after run snack...

Related to this topic-- I have a packet of nutrition info that I got from a running clinic one time, and here's what it advises:

Post-exercise: quickly digested carbs with high glycemic effect

Pre-exercise: Slowly digested carbs with low glycemic effect

Here's examples:

Quick

baked potato

honey

maple syrup

white bread

cheerios

Moderate

orange juice

corn

ripe banana

pasta, plain

apple juice

Slow

apple fruit yogurt

skim milk

lentils

dried apricots

Obviously, foods that have a lot of simple sugars (ex. honey) are broken down faster and utilized quicker compared to foods that are starchy.

....you don't know anything about. Honey has an incredibly low glycemic index. get the facts, don't infer. don't assume. Honey takes forever to adjust.

Baked Potato after a workout...Yuk...give yourself a reward after a workout....if your stomach is strong enough...eat ben and jerrys chuncky monkey, a snicker bar, chocolate chip cookies....best time to eat ice cream to cool down :)

[quote], wrote:

....you don't know anything about. Honey has an incredibly low glycemic index. get the facts, don't infer. don't assume. Honey takes forever to adjust.[quote]jaguar wrote:

Taken directly from the NEW INTERNATIONAL TABLE OF GLYCEMIC INDEX (GI) (scale of 1-100, with 100 being high):

Quick

Baked Potato-- 85±12

Honey-- 55±5

White, fiber-enriched bread-- 68±1

Cheerios-- 74

Moderate

Orange Juice-- 52±3

Sweet corn-- 54±4

Banana, ripe (all yellow) (USA)-- 51

Spaghetti, white, boiled 5 min-- 38±3

Apple juice -- 40±1

Slow

Apples, raw-- 38±2

Low-fat, fruit yoghurt -- 14±4

Milk, skim-- 32±5

Lentils-- 29±1

Apricots, dried-- 31±1

By the way, I'm a health and sports science/pre-med. student, so I do know what I'm talking about.

:) jag

Any questions?

That is almost what I say to the Thai ladies here....

TRUST ME, I AM A GYNECOLEGIST AND SEX THERAPIST!!

Personally, eating Thai pussy, drinking smuggled-in Lao Beer and glutinous rice is all the nutrition I need.

jason in bangkok