Find out how many calories you need here. Then, you can adjust your fat and carbs accordingly. In need of great recipes that will help you get there? Check out the Metashred Diet from Men's Health. It could make all the difference in your health. She spends most of her days diving into the latest wellness trends, writing and editing stories about health conditions, testing skincare products, and trying to understand the next greatest internet obsession.

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Overview The body uses three main nutrients to function— carbohydrate , protein , and fat. Carbohydrate is the nutrient that most affects your blood sugar. Protein and fat do not raise blood sugar as much as carbohydrate does.

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The glycemic index is a way of classifying food based on how quickly consumption of its carbohydrates increases blood sugar levels. Values range from 1 the slowest to the fastest, the index of pure glucose.

However, how quickly the level actually increases also depends on what other foods are ingested at the same time and other factors. The glycemic index tends to be lower for complex carbohydrates than for simple carbohydrates, but there are exceptions.

For example, fructose the simple carbohydrate sugar in fruits has a low glycemic index. Processing: Processed, refined, or finely ground foods tend to have a higher glycemic index.

Type of starch: Different types of starch are absorbed differently. For example, potato starch is digested and absorbed into the bloodstream relatively quickly. Starch in barley is digested and absorbed much more slowly.

Fiber content: The more fiber a food has, the harder it is to digest. As a result, sugar is absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream. Ripeness of fruit: The riper the fruit, the more sugar it contains, and the higher its glycemic index.

Fat or acid content: The more fat or acid a food contains, the more slowly it is digested and the more slowly its sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream. Preparation: How a food is prepared can influence how quickly it is absorbed into the bloodstream. Generally, cooking or grinding a food increases its glycemic index because these processes make food easier to digest and absorb.

Other factors: The way the body processes food varies from person to person, affecting how quickly carbohydrates are converted to sugar and absorbed.

How well a food is chewed and how quickly it is swallowed also have an effect. The glycemic index is thought to be important because carbohydrates that increase blood sugar levels quickly those with a high glycemic index also quickly increase insulin levels.

The increase in insulin may result in low blood sugar levels hypoglycemia Hypoglycemia Hypoglycemia is abnormally low levels of sugar glucose in the blood. Hypoglycemia is most often caused by medications taken to control diabetes. Much less common causes of hypoglycemia include read more and hunger, which tends to lead to consuming excess calories and gaining weight.

However, diet experts no longer think that eating foods with a low glycemic index helps people lose weight. Carbohydrates with a low glycemic index do not increase insulin levels so much.

As a result, people feel satiated longer after eating. Consuming carbohydrates with a low glycemic index also tends to result in more healthful cholesterol levels and reduces the risk of obesity Obesity Obesity is a chronic, recurring complex disorder characterized by excess body weight.

read more and diabetes mellitus Diabetes Mellitus DM Diabetes mellitus is a disorder in which the body does not produce enough or respond normally to insulin, causing blood sugar glucose levels to be abnormally high.

read more and, in people with diabetes, the risk of complications due to diabetes Complications of Diabetes Mellitus People with diabetes mellitus have many serious long-term complications that affect many areas of the body, particularly the blood vessels, nerves, eyes, and kidneys. See also Diabetes Mellitus In spite of the association between foods with a low glycemic index and improved health, using the index to choose foods does not automatically lead to a healthy diet.

For example, the glycemic index of potato chips and some candy bars—not healthful choices—is lower than that of some healthful foods, such as brown rice. Some foods with a high glycemic index contain valuable vitamins and minerals.

Thus, this index should be used only as a general guide to food choices. The glycemic index indicates only how quickly carbohydrates in a food are absorbed into the bloodstream. It does not take into account how much carbohydrate a food contains, which is also important.

Glycemic load includes the glycemic index and the amount of carbohydrate in a food. A food, such as carrots, bananas, watermelon, or whole-wheat bread, may have a high glycemic index but contain relatively little carbohydrate and thus have a low glycemic load.

Such foods have little effect on the blood sugar level. Glycemic load also includes how changes in blood sugar are affected by the combination of foods eaten together. The glycemic index does not.

Proteins consist of units called amino acids, strung together in complex formations. Because proteins are complex molecules, the body takes longer to break them down.

As a result, they are a much slower and longer-lasting source of energy than carbohydrates. There are 20 amino acids. The body synthesizes some of them from components within the body, but it cannot synthesize 9 of the amino acids—called essential amino acids.

They must be consumed in the diet. Everyone needs 8 of these amino acids: isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan , and valine.

Infants also need a 9th one, histidine. The percentage of protein the body can use to synthesize essential amino acids varies from protein to protein. The body can use a little less than half of the protein in most vegetables and cereals.

The body needs protein to maintain and replace tissues and to function and grow. Protein is not usually used for energy. However, if the body is not getting enough calories from other nutrients or from the fat stored in the body, protein is broken down into ketone bodies to be used for energy.