Skinny

I remember when I was 18, my aunt was watching me generously eat some yummy dessert at my Grandmother's home, and asking me if I ever watched what I eat. I told her that I've never been affected by what I eat since I was so skinny and have a high metabolism, so I don't bother worrying about sugar/fat, but it will probably catch up to me someday.  It did. But not in the way I thought it would.

I weighed only 50 pounds in 5th grade, and by 7th weighed 70 pounds. By 10th grade I weighed 105 and that's where I stayed until I was 23 and pregnant. I'm only 5 foot 1 inch so I didn't feel it was too out of the ordinary, except that no one I've ever met my height was able to maintain that weight throughout college doing barely any exercise and eating anything they wanted. The only times in my life I gained weight was when I was pregnant or on anti depressant medication. There was something hormonal to it.

When I eat excessive simple carbs and sugar, I don't gain tons of weight, but I do get sick and moody.  I've come to view it as a poison for slowly deteriorating my body. But it doesn't affect everyone that way, some people just gain weight.  Why?  I've been trying to figure out why for some people ingesting simple carbs seems to be more harmful than for others.  When I started reading the science behind blood sugar regulation, the relationship between my sugar sensitivity/intolerance and the fact that I have been so skinny most of my life started to come to the forefront of my mind, and I think I've come upon a theory. 

Diane Sanfilippo in her book 21-Day Sugar Detox explains the science of blood sugar regulation:

Glucose: the simple sugar into which all carbohydrates you eat are broken down in your body; it is absorbed into your bloodstream during digestion
Glycogen: the stored form of glucose in your liver and muscles
Glucagon: the hormone responsible for signaling the release of stored glycogen into the bloodstream

"There are tissues in your body that need small amounts of glucose to be replenished when your body's stores are low; your brain and your red blood cells. Before glucose gets stored in your liver and muscles, your liver, which is the master regulator of blood glucose levels, runs a check to make sure that your brain and red blood cells get what they need. Then it can move on to storing what's left of that glucose.
"As you eat more and more carbohydrates, your body responds with more and more insulin to help store that glucose for later use. There's a catch though: your body has limited storage space for carbohydrates. The exact amount of carbohydrate that the body can store as glycogen in the liver and muscles varies from person to person.
"So what happens when your body's carbohydrate "storage bins" are full? The carbohydrates you eat that your body doesn't use up for activity/exercise and doesn't have room to store as glycogen are converted to fat! While the body has limited storage for carbohydrates, it has unlimited storage for fat--sneaky, right? How and where you store your extra fat is determined largely by genetic predisposition."

This is where I generally have been mystified. Why can my parents gain weight, my siblings (except my brothers Jesse and Joseph, both skinny too) gain weight, and others around me gain weight when extra sugar is ingested, but I eat sugar and get sick and moody instead?  Perhaps the answer is in the muscle mass! I've observed (probably since I have low muscle mass) I only have to eat a hamburger to have carb overload, but I can't just convert it to fat and blow up like everyone else. Instead, I get sick if I overeat, for hours.
For years I could only go 4 hours without eating without feeling weak, shaky, nauseous, and irritated, maybe it's not just too much insulin production (doctors tell me my insulin levels are "normal"), instead perhaps it's because I have limited muscle mass storage.  Is it any wonder I thought I had hyperinsulinism? But all my blood sugar and insulin lab tests at doctors came back at normal levels. There is something to my being skinny and my being sugar intolerant, and it's the sugar causing the problem in the first place. More from Diane:

"You already know that your food choices impact the blood sugar-regulating hormones insulin and glucagon, but they affect a myriad of other hormones as well.  From health challenges like acne, hypothyroidism, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, low testosterone, or even fertility complications to mood swings, painful periods, or menopause, I always recommend getting blood sugar regulation under control as the first step.
"Here's the thing about blood sugar regulation: If its not working properly, then the rest of your hormonal balance can and likely will suffer."

The message I hear from Diane and many other anti-sugar authors is if I can stop making my liver and hormones work like crazy to detoxify my system from excessive carbs, I will be better able to regulate all my bodily functions. But why doesn't my buff husband have to worry so much about it?

My theory is it's partly because I have low muscle mass, such limited space to store glycogen, so my liver and hormones have to work extra hard to do something with excessive glucose, which causes strain on my body similar to a person in starvation mode, which trauma throws all my hormones off balance and I can't even regulate storing fat normally. My sister Heidi is 4 foot 11 inches, but she can store fat just fine, and she can also run marathons, and I can't; its not the height, strength of character, or will power, it's the muscle mass!  She and my parents and seven of my siblings have greater glycogen storage capacity.  Which means I need to be eating only what glucose my body can work with, which if I can do maybe means along with getting rid of negative physical and mental symptoms, I'll have to ability to increase my muscle mass and store glucose in a healthy way. That would mean, no more "hypoglycemia."

However, one thing that keeps haunting me, if refined sugars and flours are so harmful for me, why are they OK for everyone else? Or are they?

"I believe we live in a toxic food and physical inactivity environment. That is, we live in an environment that almost guarantees we will become sick. Not 100 percent of people will become sick, but the numbers who do are growing and growing and growing. I don't believe that "toxic" is too strong a word either; because the epidemic of obesity where [now 80] percent of the population are suffering. . .is a crisis by any standard."

Kelly Brownell, PHD Professor Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders