ALL ABOUT FOOD: Carb-counting after the holiday binge

After the tryptophan trance of Thanksgiving and the honey-ham haze of Christmas comes the total amnesia of New Year’s Eve; but now we must awaken to Scale Ascension Shock.

This month, Weight Watchers has lines out the door with sinners looking for redemption. People are frantically bicycling to nowhere in gyms all over town, and trainers are cracking their whips, driving their charges from ab machine to Bosu ball.

Once again, the diet season is upon us. For those of us who are foolish enough to make them, losing weight is perennially the No. 1 New Year’s resolution.

More new diet books are cramming the shelves at Laguna Books and Lattitude 33, and diet crazes pop up everywhere in the media. You can choose The Fat Pig Diet or The Skinny Bitch Diet. You can try Hoodia, Trimspa, Hydroxycut or Alli (if you are willing to wear Depends).

Our favorite new diet is The Flu! Yes, there is a doctor in Beverly Hills who will inject you with a live intestinal flu virus although he admits it’s only a short-term fix. Our least favorite is the Shangri-La Diet that attempts to break the taste-calorie association.

You consume calories that have little or no taste or an unfamiliar taste and you supplement this low calorie diet with snacks of canola oil or sugar water. Eventually, you won’t mind eating only 1,200 calories a day because the program wipes out your appetite, so you don’t feel deprived. Clever, but not for us!

The Chinese have apparently been losing weight for 400 years with Wu Yi tea. Now we have the Wu Yi Tea Diet that claims to be cheap, appetite suppressing, metabolism boosting and may fight aging, may brighten skin, may whiten teeth, may reduce fat, may fortify the immune system and may enhance body-mind wellness. Love that may! Of course, tea contains amphetamine, and diet teas are just more concentrated.

We all know the sad truth that, even though we are forever looking for miracle diets, losing weight always involves burning more calories than we eat. However, here is some new research that may prove thought-provoking, even useful.

It is common wisdom that it’s healthier to eat four to six small meals a day. When you begin to eat, you activate two kind of hormones, one to control fat burning and one to control fat storage. Your body pays attention to calories per meal and stores as fat what it doesn’t need. So it makes sense to trigger those hormones more frequently and to eat smaller meals in which you leave no calories to store. These meals need to be at least 2 1/2 hours apart.

There is endless talk about carbohydrates, good carbs, bad carbs, low carbs, no carbs. What seems to be clear is that the body needs carbohydrates for energy and to support lean muscle tissue and brain function. However, there are different types of carbohydrates determined by how much they raise blood glucose levels. The speed at which foods are able to increase your blood glucose level is called the glycemic index. The healthiest carbs have a low glycemic index, which means they raise your blood glucose level slowly and to a less dramatic peak. Low GI foods are usually lower in calories and fat, while being higher in fiber, nutrients and antioxidants, as well as tending to keep you feeling fuller longer.

Based on this new way of looking at carbs, try to choose low and medium GI foods more often than high. It doesn’t mean you can’t eat high glycemic foods, it just means you should eat them less frequently and in smaller amounts and balance them with low GI foods. No matter what the GI is, remember you still must be aware of portion size.

Here is an interesting fact: Foods that stimulate insulin surges can cause you to eat 60-70% more calories at the next meal.

Just to give you an idea, here is a short list of foods and their GI ratings. Some will be obvious, but others may surprise you.

LOW-GLYCEMIC FOODS (55 or less): skim milk, low fat yogurt, cottage cheese, almost all fruit, sweet potatoes and yams, beans, whole grain breads, pumpernickel, all bran cereals, coarse oatmeal, hummus, peanuts, walnuts and vegetables except corn, beets, butternut squash.

MEDIUM-GLYCEMIC FOODS (56-69): banana, pineapple, raisins, five-minute oatmeal, new potatoes, popcorn, brown rice, couscous, basmati rice, shredded wheat cereal and grape nuts, stone-ground whole wheat.

HIGH-GLYCEMIC FOODS (70 +): dried dates, watermelon, baked or mashed white potatoes, instant rice, instant breakfast cereals, Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies and Cheerios, bagels, soda crackers, white breads and most commercial whole wheat breads.

Please note: In general, the less processed the food, the lower the GI. Thus, whole grain breads are better than whole wheat bread, which is virtually the same as white bread. The more work your body has to do to break down a food to use it, the healthier it is.

You’ve heard it all before, but it’s worth repeating. It’s basic common sense: Eat less, exercise more. Don’t go on a diet because then you can go off a diet. Plan instead on a lifestyle change.

1. Eat breakfast, it revs up your metabolism earlier in the day.

2. Choose and limit your fats, avoid trans fats.

3. Eat more healthful, filling foods.

4. Keep moving. Walking is the best exercise for weight loss.

5. Have plenty of water and fiber.

6. Beware of salad dressing. At Jack in the Box there are more calories in their salads than in a burger. Thinner dressings are better, and you need less to flavor your salad. Flavored aged balsamic vinegars make fabulous salad dressings with half the oil.

7. Trader Joe’s cilantro jalapeno hummus has 50 calories in two tablespoons. One tablespoon covers a piece of toast or substitutes for mayo on a sandwich, adding great flavor.

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned A La Carte for 20 years. They can be reached for comments or questions at themarkos755@yahoo.com. Look for the new dining page at www.coastlinepilot.com