Principles of The GI Diet
Ninety-five percent of all diets fail because they leave you feeling hungry, they just do not feel healthy and many of them are excessively complex to follow with all the calorie counting, proportion measuring, and point monitoring. The GI Diet is something different.
The professor of nutrition, Dr. David Jenkins, from the University of Toronto, developed the Glycemic Index, which is the basis for the GI Diet. The Glycemic Index calculates the speed at which the body breaks down food to produce glucose.
This is incredibly important because glucose is the body’s main source of energy. The GI diet focuses on foods with a low Glycemic Index.
Foods with a high Glycemic Index break down fast and leave you feeling hungry, unsatisfied and moving on to the next high calorie food.
Foods that have a low Glycemic Index break down at a slower rate and you end up feeling fuller and more satisfied for longer periods of time. Therefore, you will be less tempted to snack in between main meals.
The majority of foods that have a high Glycemic Index, especially foods made with white flour, are processed heavily and most of the essential nutrients are stripped away. On the contrary, foods with a low Glycemic Index like nuts, fruits, legumes, fish, vegetables, lean meats, low fat dairy and whole grain are vital to overall good health.
Glycemic Index Ratings
The Glycemic Index rates foods according to the effect they have on the blood glucose levels of the body.
The Glycemic Index measures how much the blood glucose level increases two or three hours following a meal.
The Glycemic Index focuses on the carbohydrates in foods because foods that are high in protein or fat do not affect blood glucose levels.
The Theory Behind the GI Index
The Glycemic Index ranges from zero to one hundred and normally uses glucose as a reference, which has a Glycemic Index of one hundred. The effect that foods have on the blood sugar levels in the body are compared to this control.
To put it simply, the Glycemic Index indicates whether certain foods will raise blood sugar levels just a small amount, only moderately or drastically.
Foods that have little or no effect on blood sugar levels have a low Glycemic Index value. Other foods that raise blood sugar levels fast and high have a high Glycemic Index value.
Is the GI Diet Effective For Weight Loss?
The GI Diet does all of the calculating for you and lists foods according to three categories represented by the traffic light colors red, green and yellow. The GI Diet is simple to follow.
If you want to lose weight, then you should stay away from the foods that are listed under the red light category. You should only indulge in the yellow light foods on occasion, but you can have the green light foods as often as you like.
The GI Diet does not leave you feeling deprived or hungry. The diet is so easy, if you know how to read a traffic light you can stick to the GI Diet.
The GI Diet is in no way harmful to your health, as many of the other diets you come across these days are. Instead, the GI Diet reduces your risk for developing heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, colon cancer or suffering from a stroke.
The GI Diet includes a pull-out shopping list, dining out guide, recipes, pantry guide and healthy snack ideas. The GI Diet is more than just a diet; it is a lifestyle.
The science on which the GI diet is based makes very good sense. Low carb diets also work on the premise that you should stay away from foods that significantly raise blood sugars. However, the GI diet is much easier to follow than a standard low carb diet, because fewer foods are off limits, even in the beginning.
However, weight loss may be a little slower than with the induction phase of a low carb diet. NutriSystem is based on the GI diet, and both Nutrisystem and following the traditional GI diet on your own have helped many people lose weight without feeling hungry all the time.
Though many “low carb” eating plans have gotten a bad rap, it’s certain that by now we all should have learned that eating those really bad carbs, like white flour and sugar, will put weight on. The GI diet is another eating plan that emphasizes staying away from those foods.
Diets structured on GI index simply encourage you to consume plenty of foods with a low GI rating and avoid those with a high GI value. There are several things.
Firstly, the complete nutrient content of a food can affect its GI. GI index graphs only recognize the effect different foods have on blood sugar levels when they are consumed on their own and, therefore, many nutritionists think this is one of the major troubles with GI diet programs.
Most GI diet programs suggest you can lose around 1-2lb a week, perhaps with a slightly greater loss in the first few weeks when your system loses water as well as body fat.