Low Glycemic Diet

I want to try to follow this as a lifestyle change and to stay fit. Does anyone know where I can find an index of foods that shows their glycemic levels?


Is a good rule of thumb that complex carb foods such as whole wheat bread, pasta as well as fruits, vegetables and lean meat good? I read that potatos are high glycemic are there any other foods that I should watch out for. Also read that Corn Flakes and Cheerios are terribly high.

i am also interested in this diet. my sister emailed me some info...i've cut and pasted from what she wrote to me. (there are lots of books out about the GI diet...check those out) Hope this helps.

but here's a pretty good list of what you CAN'T EAT...

potatoes, incl french fries, browns, etc.

white bread

white rice

sugar (use splenda, sugar twin or other fake sugar for substitutes)

honey

molasses

broad beans

melons (honeydew, watermelon, cantalope? how do you spell that?)

rutabaga

turnip

cream-based soups

canned black bean soup

canned green pea and split pea soup (home made OK for these soups)

candy

cookies

crackers

doughnuts

ice cream (low fat, no sugar ice cream is OK)

jell-o

muffins

potato chips

pretzels

raisins

sorbet

rice cakes

tortilla chips, trail mix

all canned pastas

instant noodles

alfredo sauce

sauce with added meat or cheese

bagels

sausages

regular eggs (i really don't think this is a big deal, you can eat those liquid egg subsitutes though)

sausages

bacon

processed meats

hot dogs

hamburgers

reg ground beef (extra lean is good)

fruit drinks

sweetened juices

canned fruit in syrup

applesauce with sugar (unsweetened applesauce is good)

no FATS like butter, mayo, peanut butter, regular salad dressing, etc.

cheese

cream cheese

2% or whole milk (drink skim instead)

sour cream

regular yogurt

ketchup

tartar sauce

rice cakes

croutons

melba toast

pizza

all cold cereals EXCEPT shredded wheat bran, all-bran, bran buds, fibre first

granola

fruit drinks

alcohol





so the things you CAN eat...

all the other veggies and fruits, lean protein (extra lean ground beef is good ) pork tenderloin, all seafood, back bacon, deli ham, sashimi, tofu, turkey breast, chicken breast (really, i think if you don't eat too much, any protein is OK)

skim milk, low-fat artifically sweetened yogurt, low fat cottage cheese, low fat plain soy milk, pasta (only 1/4 of your plate) with light tomato veggie sauce, almonds, applesauce unsweetened, all home made soups with the good ingredients, fat-free cheese, brown basmati wild or long grain rice, oat bran, old-fashioned porridge oatmeal (not instant stuff), high fibre bread, stone ground whole wheat bread, diet soft drinks, all canned beans...

etc

Isnt it a little more complicated than this? I read where its not good to eat a banana on its own. And that if you combine certain foods it is better. Seems so confusing!

http://www.integrativehealthcare.com/articles%20glycemic.htm

The following links give more informatino on GI. It's not easy to figure out the rules for GI of foods cos' the size, the cooking temperature, and the combination of other foods also affect the GI. In addition, low GI foods doesn't mean they are necessarily really good for weight loss. For instance, peanut and whole milk have a low GI. But they're fatty. Meanwhile, though the GI of potato is high, it's a good source iron, and fiber. Combined with baked bean, this makes the GI of the food lower.


A healthier food choice is low fat, low salt, low sugar and high fiber as well as enjoying variety of food.



http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

http://www.glycemicindex.com/



Dietetics Department 2849 0721

Matilda International Hospital

Hong Kong

http//www.matilda.org

Great advice Lynn. If I may add, keeping meal portions small is also key to keeping slim because no matter if you eat relatively healthy, if you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight.

Interesting discussion - perhaps should be careful about mixing 'GI' intake with 'fat'intake and then making a weight loss inference. Vertio - you mention the speed of blood sugar conversion - not so important normally, but the 'size' or height of the 'spike'. Potatoes cause a rocketing hike, converting the 'energy' to sugar, then stored as fat. Calorie consumption counting seems to have a little success by default, but is a very incomplete picture. Exercise, particularly resistance (weight/bands etc) exercise raises the body's metabolic rate (for up to 24 hours after exercise!) and is a huge part of the puzzle. I use GI as a framework for keeping a healthy weight; sticking to it rigidly nets me 6-8 kg off in 3 weeks/following loosly I gain 2kg back each month. Regulating wisely, with regualr resistance training and 3xexercise each week (mid to high intensity - HRate 160 - 190) keeps me about 10 to 15 % below my 'natural' or genetic set weight. Check out 'set point theory' (article in SCMP recently) as relates to human weight loss/gain.

Set Point Theory says that a person's natural weight is set at birth, like height or eye colour, and there is little you can do to change it.


Many studies show that it is just as difficult for a person at their normal weight to gain weight by overeating, as it is for them to lose weight by dieting. The only way to overcome the natural set point is by dieting; then your metabolism is reset and you can easily gain more than your original set point. This is why so many thin people can eat like crazy and not gain weight--their metabolism speeds up to process the extra food.


This also means that it's pretty easy to stabilize your weight--just eat what seems natural to you. Your body will automatically find its own set point, and stay there. No more weight fluctuations.


A new variation of this theory is "Settling Point Theory." Settling point theory criticizes Set Point Theory by pointing to the population-wide weight-gain experienced lately, and says that something besides dieting must be at fault here. Their culprit is fat.


But not in the way you might think.


Believe it or not, your fat produces enzymes. These enzymes help to digest fat. So in essence, your fat is producing chemicals that help to digest any fat you eat. Some people's fat produce more of these enzymes than other people's. If your body produces a lot of these enzymes, then you can eat a lot of fatty food and your body will just process it away. However, some people's fat produces very little of these enzymes. If they eat a lot of fat, it gets stored as body fat. This body fat will then produce more of these enzymes, so that less of future fat intake is stored as body fat, until eventually an equilibrium is reached. Their theory is that one's settling point can be influenced by the amount of fat in one's diet. But still, some people are going to end up bigger.

Having a look at the cut and paste job above and cant agree with the point that dieting is responsible for people becoming fatter than they normally would if they hadnt dieted.


I know loads of people (males primarily) who have never in their life considered dieting and have terrible eating habits that have recently caused them to balloon to massive proportions. One of them is 170cm and 100kg - another is 173cm and about 120kg. I cant imagine either of them being much larger as a result of having messed up their metabolism by dieting in the past - I think they are both as fat as they possibly could be.


I think that at a certain age your metabolism will naturally slow and you will have less time or inclination to exercise which leads to weight gain - often seems to coincide with having a family which often leaves no time for excerise. I also think that high intesity bursts of excercise actually speed up the metabolism (as opposed to low intensity exercise such as walking or jogging) - you have to jog a long way to burn off a beer so I think that increasing your metabolic rate through intense exercise is the way to go in the long run to keep weight off.


Anyone care to get us back on topic...

the list i put up was not just randomly put up. it was gathered from a collection of GI resources (including rick gallop's book). yes. there will/may be some discrepencies between different sources. we just have to be smart about what we eat...of coure you cannot just eat the low gi foods and avoid the high gi foods. it's all about the balance of what you eat and of course about exercising as well.

Try clicking GI Database on the left side, you can search for low GI foods and also which are high


http://www.glycemicindex.com/