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Carbohydrate Tolerance Test
Health | January 31, 2015
Hi guys,
Some of you have been asking after reading the Body Types article, how to assess your carbohydrate tolerance. If you want something more accurate, you can ask your doctor to do a glucose tolerance test, a fasting insulin level, or a hemoglobin A1C test. There’s also a pretty good method you can try at home called TWT which requires you to track your diet for a month and see which carbs your body reacts to negatively. There’s a lot that goes into this assessment method, so I will make sure to cover it soon in another post. For now you can take this simple quiz that will give you at least a basic idea of where you stand in terms of your sensitivity to carbs.
- Do you feel sleepy or foggy 2 hours or less after eating a meal or snack that contains sugars or starches? Especially in the mid-afternoon?
Yes - Do you tend to gain weight around your middle, instead of in your hips and thighs?
Yes - Does your weight fluctuate a lot?
Yes - Do you feel hungry when you shouldn’t need any more food?
Yes - Do you frequently crave sweets, starches, or dairy products?
Yes - Do you wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time getting back to sleep unless you eat something sweet or starchy?
Yes - Do you get irritable, restless, tense, or anxious in the early evening before dinner?
Yes - Do you have a hard time controlling how much sugar or starch you eat?
Yes - Do you have symptoms of “hypoglycemia” if you don’t eat every 2-3 hours? Typical hypoglycemic symptoms include feeling shaky, panicky, irritable, anxious, or lightheaded when you’re hungry.
Yes - Are you an “emotional eater?”
Yes - Do you gain weight easily? Did you gain weight easily even as a child?
Yes - Do any of the following diseases run in your immediate family?
- Obesity?
Yes - High cholesterol?
Yes - Type 2 Diabetes?
Yes - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome?
Yes
- Obesity?
- Do you often binge on sweets, starches, or dairy products?
Yes - Are you obsessed with food?
Yes - Do you prefer sweets and starches over all other types of food?
Yes - Do sweets and starches make you feel temporarily less depressed or less anxious? Oh yeah 🙂 I can name a few that can do that for me.
Yes - Do you feel you need to carry food with you wherever you go, because you’re afraid you’ll get hungry?
Yes - Are you very hungry first thing in the morning?
Yes - Do you tend to get panicky or hungry while exercising? That’s a funny question. I can only imagine how I stop in the middle of the workout, run into the kitchen and then continue leading you through it with breadcrumbs on my face.
Yes - Women only: Do you feel much more emotional in the days prior to your period? In another words are you a raging b*tch during your PMS, like me?
Yes
The more YES answers you have the more likely you’re sensitive to carbs, and should really consider cutting down on carbs. My controlled carb diet is quite simple, and all I do is separate my meals in to two categories FM and WEM which I have further explained in one of my recent articles.
You answered YES 1 – 5 times = Good carbohydrate tolerance
You answered YES 6 – 12 times = Moderate carbohydrate tolerance
You answered YES 13 times and more = Poor carbohydrate tolerance
You can find in my Body Types post how to adjust your diet according to your carb tolerance so make sure to check it out. Let me know how many times you have answered YES in the comments and what do you struggle with the most.
Private Member |
I answered YES to 10 of them. Sweets and bread are what heaven is made out of in my mind. Despite my adoration for them I have incredibly high discipline when it comes to diet. If only I was equally as strict with my exercise. I can’t seem to go 3 consecutive days working out. I end up sleeping in constantly, then find myself too tired to workout in the evening when I get home. I won’t stop trying, though!!! They say 21 days forms a habit, so I’ll keep trying until working out becomes a habit, dammit.
Private Member |
I answered “yes” to 5. My craving are more for salty things such as crackers and chips. Sweet are pretty easy for me to moderate and a little goes a long way for me, except when PMS shows its ugly head. 😉 at that time I will make something sweet, allow myself to have some, & then give the rest away! 🙂
Private Member |
balestrand, norway
Hey, I think the crackers and chips still count because they are still carbs. I also tend to crave those more – put a box of Wheat Thins in front of me and they won’t be there long! lol
Private Member |
11 for me, my sweet craving was so much worse when I was on the Pill I was eating huge amounts of chocolates, cakes, biscuits etc I never put on too much weight but my skin was pretty bad, I had cellulite and constantly felt tired and edgy. Then I got accidentally pregnant and decided to have a copper coil fitted, after a few weeks of pain and recovery I slowly got back into exercising almost everyday and paying more attention to diet.
Everything has changed for the better and I wish I never took the Pill. Now I don’t crave sweets but very rarely and If I really want some I do a very intense sweaty w/o and then I eat them.
Really like the latest posts about diet and body types, although I’m very strict and go hard with exercise my diet can be improved and my body is still adjusting after being abused so many years.
Thank you for all the effort you put into this site I feel here like a cosy home 🙂
Cheers
Private Member |
Hi Zuz, thanks for the article. Great post.
I was wondering if you could post some article about how to safely transfer to low carb diet. I’m sure other people would also appreciate it.
I’m trying to go low carb because I can see better muscle definition but after trying for a week I started to experience hypoglycemia if I ate no carbs. It is very scary and so I always grab some carbs (bread, sugary juice) to feel better. It does to me even if I try to stick with carbs only after exercise.
I just don’t know what is right to do when I start to experience hypoglycemia? Shall I still force the low carb diet or if I experience it do I just eat some piece of fruit? If you could help me out I would be very very grateful!!!!:)
Greetings from CZ.
Private Member |
seattle, washington
Wow, people get up in the middle of the night go to the Kitchen and eat? If I did that I wouldn’t get much sleep! 🙂 Anyway good test! 🙂
Private Member |
I m in the middle. Lol
Private Member |
I got 8 🙂 now need to figure out the ratio. But mostly I’m trying to stick to good portions.
Z, I just started reading “healing with whole foods” and this book is great! I don’t know if you heard about it
Private Member |
Hi!
Ive been wondering, is there anybody else like me, who doesnt have cravings for sweet food neither for salty food?
I just like the way food tastes in its own way, i want to know what i eat. I really dont like to mix it up with some sort of sauces or dressing.
The only food i mix together is salads and scrambled eggs.
Maybe we just have too disgusting foods here in Scandinavia 😀 If somebody wants to try some of our foods, i can send some to you!! 😀
Private Member |
One thing about about carbohydrates is that they can be closely linked with candida and leaky gut. I am not morally against carbohydrates in and of themselves, but since discovering that years of unbearable “IBS” was in fact candida, I went almost zero carb over night (okay, with the exception of a glass of red wine here and there, because come on, I’ve gotta live a little!). Anyway. I’ve always been of a relatively low weight so my weight was never the issue, but I am truly AMAZED at how much better I feel one month later (I’m also not consuming any dairy). Lots of meat lots and lots of veggies, eggs and nuts is basically my diet, and I have to say that it is incredible to have a clear head, to not get monstrously hungry, bloated and heavy… to eat and not feel like I need a nap. I thought digestive issues were the only things I was suffering from, but carbs were affecting my mood, energy levels, and ability to think clearly so much more than I realised. I feel like very slowly I am becoming a much more productive person in all areas of my life because of this. Of course this way of eating isn’t for everyone and other people are totally fine eating more carbs and I wouldn’t say it is wrong to eat them, but I would highly recommend to anyone who is struggling with these things to give the low carb lifestyle a try.. I always just thought it was silly to cut out carbs to lose weight, but it turns out there are so many other reasons for it that are very sound. Obviously see a doctor and find out if you have a condition like candida/leaky gut (I have both. yay!… or not..), and the first few days of not eating these foods are pretty tough and I basically wanted to give up every 5 minutes but I’m so happy I pushed through, because it’s as though the dark cloud that was hanging over my head has vanished. Okay, enough out of me. I’m just excited and want to share how low carb has helped me for anyone who might be considering it.
Private Member |
Hi Caroline,
it s intersting what you posted. I have heard about candida and taking into consideration that I scored 13 yes ( oh, yeah..:/ ) on the above test I have to really push myself to a keto-type diet and cut off carbs.. Well, it sounds for me very very difficult, but I have another question. Why do you cut off diary? They have only protein and fat! And I got surprised when I show the question about cravings for sweet and diary above, cos I do have them. I search out for cheese or milk and I often bringe on them. But I thought it was more a lacking of my organism in smth. That s how I explained it so I was fine with it. I mean I don’t see the link between cards and diary products.. Can someone pls explain this to me? :S
Private Member |
Milk turns to sugar in our bodies, it will also cause a child’s teeth to rot if they are left with a bottle all night.
Private Member |
I also cut off dairy because leaky gut caused me to have allergies… if you read about candida, it definitely causes the symptoms listed above, but it also gave me major digestive grief. Once it proliferates to a certain level it can start to destroy the lining of your intestines, making it permeable… (leaky gut), which means your intestines become very inflamed, very irritated, you don’t assimilate nutrients properly and you can develop food allergies. Dairy causes inflammation, and I also developed an allergy to it because of the candida/leaky gut, so eating it was just giving me a stomach ache. It had nothing to do with weight loss. And also, the sugar thing, because it turns into a sugar, which in turn feeds candida… the only way to get rid of candida is to starve it completely of everything that feeds it (along with some nice anti fungals in my case). I don’t plan on avoiding dairy for the rest of my life, at least I hope I won’t have to, but I will have to for the next year or so, until I am completely healed and “strong” again, on the inside.
Private Member |
I would love to get more tips on how to deal with this! I’m going to divide my meals for one month into FM WEM.. The idea alone makes me miss carbs already 😀