The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (8 page)

The glycemic index diet is different, largely because it's not really a diet. It's actually just a different way of choosing your foods. When you follow a low-glycemic diet, you can forget about rules and traditional dieting phases and get back to what eating is all about — enjoying food that tastes good and is good for you.

One of the best things about low-glycemic foods is that they fill you up so you're not searching through the cupboards looking for something to eat every couple hours. That's because low-glycemic foods have a lower energy density, which I explain in more detail in Chapter 7. Foods with a lower energy density provide fewer calories yet still fill you up. Low-glycemic foods also have less of an effect on blood sugar, require less insulin (so you aren't overworking your pancreas — the organ that supplies insulin), and keep you from experiencing the dramatic rise and consequent fall of blood sugar that leaves you feeling hungry, tired, unfocused, and even irritable.

By choosing low-glycemic foods, you'll naturally eat fewer calories, feel fuller for longer, and lose weight. Granted, you probably won't lose 5 pounds in a week, but that's okay because you're in this for a lifetime, not a week. If you lose 2 pounds per month, that's still 24 pounds in a year. Who wouldn't love to lose 24 pounds while still enjoying meals and snacks?

Planning, cooking, and enjoying healthy meals

Eating should be an enjoyable experience, not one during which you have to agonize about every single aspect of a meal. When you follow a low-glycemic lifestyle, you're not eliminating the foods you enjoy. Instead, you're creating balance in your diet through moderation in your food choices, which means you may still have that high-glycemic cookie once in a while but when you do you're choosing more low-glycemic foods throughout the day to balance it out.

The key here is to enjoy food. I want you to enjoy your meals, savor your foods, and look forward to mealtimes. If you enjoy your food choices, you're more likely to continue with this healthier way of eating. Sure, you may be able to tolerate a bland, low-caorie diet for a few days or weeks. But over time food
has
to taste good or else you're simply not going to put up with it. You don't need to worry about that with the glycemic index diet, though, because you're eating foods you already enjoy!

With just a small amount of thought, you can easily and quickly plan satisfying meals that will help you lose weight. Use Appendix A to identify lower-glycemic foods you already enjoy or as a way to find lower-glycemic swaps for higher-glycemic favorites. Also check out Chapter 9 for a bevy of healthy-eating strategies.

If you love to cook, check out the delicious and satisfying recipes in Part IV. I've included everything from quick-and-easy breakfasts and lunches to satisfying dinners and even snack and dessert recipes. Leery of diving into new-to-you recipes and prefer to rely on your old stand-bys? Good news! You can still enjoy them thanks to the recipe makeovers in Chapter 15 that convert family favorites into their lower-glycemic counterparts.

Making exercise a part of your life

I like to encourage my clients to think about activity and exercise like brushing your teeth. You brush your teeth at least once every day, right? You may not like brushing your teeth, but you do it because you don't want to get cavities, you like the way your breath smells afterward, and you don't want to walk around with mossy teeth. The benefits of exercising regularly are just as important as those of brushing your teeth daily, perhaps even more so if you're looking to lose weight.

To lose weight long-term, you need to be in energy balance — something that's difficult to achieve when you focus on food intake alone. That's why exercise is so important to weight-loss efforts (not to mention the huge benefit exercise has on overall health!). To lose weight in a healthy way, you can't just keep cutting back on the amount of calories you consume. You need to get up and burn calories through movement (which stimulates your metabolism hours after you exercise; see Chapter 8 for details).

If the word
exercise
makes you think of sweaty gyms, loud music, and instructors who yell at you to do things that hurt, try thinking of exercise as activity and movement instead. Dancing, gardening, puttering around in the garage, walking, biking, sledding, and playing hopscotch with your kids all fall into the activity-and-movement category. Countless other things do too. See for yourself in Chapter 21, which offers guidance on making daily exercise a part of your life, just like brushing your teeth.

Looking at Other Benefits of a Low-Glycemic Diet

Research continues to accumulate showing the health benefits of eating a low-glycemic diet. At this point, health professionals see the value in following a low-glycemic diet, along with other healthy nutrition guidelines such as consuming less saturated fat and cholesterol, choosing high-fiber foods, and maintaining a lower sodium intake. In addition to weight loss, a low-glycemic diet has been connected to better blood sugar and insulin control, disease prevention, increased energy, and improved mood. The next sections delve into these added benefits in detail.

Just because a food is low-glycemic doesn't mean it's healthy, and just because a food is high-glycemic doesn't necessarily mean it's an unhealthy food choice. The glycemic index is one additional tool for healthy meal planning, not the only tool. So don't forget all you know about good nutrition.

Better blood sugar and insulin control

The American Diabetes Association acknowledges that low-glycemic foods that are also high in fiber and a good source of nutrients can be part of an overall healthy diet. Including low-glycemic foods within an overall carbohydrate budget can provide additional blood sugar-control benefits because eating lower-glycemic foods helps keep blood sugar levels under better control and decreases the need for insulin.

Society now knows that Type 2 diabetes develops gradually over time, and physicians are encouraged to notice when blood sugar levels start creeping up.
Prediabetes
is defined as a fasting blood sugar between 100 and 126 milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood (mg/dL). When your fasting blood sugar climbs above 126mg/dL, you've moved from prediabetes into actually having diabetes. The American Diabetes Association estimates that 57 million people have prediabetes, and the majority of them will eventually be diagnosed with actual diabetes. Following a low-glycemic diet can help you lose weight and decrease your blood sugar levels so you never move into the diabetes range. Flip to Chapter 22 if you want more information on the glycemic index and chronic diseases such as diabetes. (Want more info on insulin resistance and the glycemic index? Head to Chapter 5.)

Individuals with diabetes aren't the only people who can benefit from using the glycemic index to manage blood sugar and insulin levels. Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) also benefit from following a low-glycemic diet. Researchers estimate that approximately 25 percent of women of reproductive age have PCOS, a condition that causes insulin resistance. Eating low-glycemic foods to reduce blood sugar and insulin levels is one extremely effective treatment for PCOS. (Check out Chapter 22 for more about following a low-glycemic diet if you have PCOS.)

A good nutrition strategy for anyone who wants to lower his blood sugar and insulin levels is to first look to the total carbohydrate content in foods. Strive to maintain an even carbohydrate intake at meals and snacks. Incorporating low-glycemic foods helps provide additional blood sugar-control benefits because higher-glycemic foods raise blood sugar levels faster and require more insulin to process.

Disease prevention

A large review of 37 scientific studies on the effects of the glycemic index and glycemic load on disease prevention shows that following a low-glycemic diet independently reduces a person's risk for Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, gallbladder disease, and breast cancer. Choosing a low-glycemic diet that's also high in fiber is even more protective.

Scientists believe that choosing an overall low-glycemic diet that also contains protective amounts of vegetables, fruits, and mimally processed whole grains appears to protect against heart disease. When it comes to heart disease, following the standard recommendations from the American Heart Association is crucial: Choose foods that are higher in fiber and monounsaturated fat, enjoy seafood that contains beneficial omega-3 fatty acids more often, and decrease the amount of saturated fat, trans fats, cholesterol, and sodium that you consume. Fortunately, low-glycemic fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains already meet these heart-healthy nutrition guidelines, so simply incorporating a variety of these low-glycemic goodies into your diet each day can help protect you from heart disease.