Many people are afflicted with weight gain issues andstruggling to become slender. While it's imperative to eat nutritious foods for better weight loss, it's not always possible for everyone. As a result, it's crucial to understand more how our body reacts to the food we eat to limit the negative consequences. For example, when we eat simple carbohydrates like white bread or white rice, the food is processed, digested and converted to glucose to be used as energy for our daily activities.

Glucose is simply blood sugar and insulin controls your blood sugar levels. When the glucose is used up, our energy levels are drained and we usually feel weaker. If you don't feed your body properly, you will need another meal very soon. Leaving your body without food for long periods of time say 7-8 hours will result in a drastic drop of energy levels. It's like starving yourself. Say you had a small lunch at noon and your next meal is at 8 pm for dinner, you will be very hungry. The end result is you're more likely to binge instead of eating normally. Ingurgitating an excess of food and calories usually simple carbohydrates will result in a spike in your insulin and glucose levels as your body will need to process all these food.

While too little glucose is bad for your body, too much is also not good. Our glycogen stores which are the storage place for carbohydrates in our muscles can only keep a certain amount of carbs before resulting in adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is simply a storage for fat deposits. Overweight and obese people usually have an excess of adipose tissue. As you can see, an excess of simple carbohydrates in one meal won't do much good for your glucose levels. Your body won't have enough time to use all this glucose for energy, the rest will get stored as fat and the end result is weight gain. If you plan to undertake a heavy exercise workout 45-60 minutes after your meal, you can eat more carbs than usual as you'll need the necessary energy. Also, you'll exercise to burn fat so no worries for this little excess carbs. But on the contrary, you don't need that much energy at night.

To counteract this issue with glucose, do the following:

(1) Eat regularly in small amounts every 3 hours. Don't starve yourself and let hunger take control. This can result in overeating later on. Add some fruits like apples as these are loaded with dietary fiber and can keep you feel satiated. Apples are also great natural appetite suppressants. There is no need to eat a lot of simple carbs to keep hunger at bay.

(2) Limit or skip simple carbs for dinner. For example, don't eat 3 big dishes of white rice. Focus more on lean protein and veggies instead in the evening.

(3) Eat foods which don't spike your insulin levels and increase blood sugar levels fast like simple carbs do. Opt for complex carbohydrates instead of simple carbohydrates. Whole grain oats, rolled oats, steel-cut oats, sweet potatoes, oat bran, brown rice are some perfect examples of complex carbs. These foods release energy gradually and your glucose levels are controlled and sustained. There is no spike and crash as with simple carbs.

Many people don't realize the correlation between glucose and weight gain but the truth is not paying attention to your glucose levels can really undermine your weight loss efforts. I hope this article has shed some light on this issue. Next time you ponder about glucose and weight gain and ask yourself "does glucose make you fat?", you can refer back to this article.