The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (19 page)

If you're one of those people following the old rules, or if you've been leery of following a low-glycemic diet because it puts certain foods such as watermelons in the "bad" category, I'm happy to tell you to take these foods off of your taboo list. The following foods not only have a low glycemic load but are also healthy, low-calorie choices:

Cantaloupe (GI 65; GL 4):
This fruit offers a full array of nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium, and fiber.

Papaya (GI 59; GL 10):
This incredible fruit that you may not have eaten much has a rich, tropical taste and is high in vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, folate, magnesium, and fiber.

Pineapple (GI 59; GL 7):
Being a tropical fruit, pineapple is naturally loaded with vitamin C, but it also contains a special substance called bromelain, which has shown potential as an anti-inflammatory as well as a digestive aid.

Pumpkin (GI 75; GL 3):
I'm happy to report that you can safely include pumpkin in your glycemic index diet thanks to its low glycemic load of 3. This food is an excellent source of vitamins A and C as well as fiber. It's also wonderfully sweet and can be used in everything from soups to healthy desserts. (Head to Chapter 19 for a to-die-for Crustless Pumpkin Pie recipe.)

Watermelon (GI 72; GL 4):
This delicious summer fruit may at first look like a high-glycemic food with its glycemic index of 72, but it actually has a very low glycemic load. Why? Because it's made up of a lot of water, hence the name. Watermelon is also loaded in antioxidants with high levels of both vitamin C and vitamin A. It also contains lycopene, which is shown to be helpful for heart health.

When you take glycemic load into account, you find that nearly all fruits and vegetables are acceptable on your low-glycemic diet. This is an important realization because fruits and veggies (which are naturally low in calories) also provide the majority of nutrients and fiber in your diet. Including five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables in your diet will help you lose weight in a way that you can eat plenty of food and not starve yourself!

Checking Out How Glycemic Load Varies among Popular Foods

The information in this section is designed to provide you with some insight into how the glycemic load varies among popular food choices. As you can see in Table 4-2, fruits and vegetables typically end up on the low end whereas the more starchy foods, such as potatoes, rice, and pasta, end up on the medium to high end.

Your goal is to pick low- to medium-glycemic foods most of time.

Notice the different portion sizes and their glycemic load measurement. Some foods are clearly a slam dunk as far as being a healthy choice, but others are a little gray. For example, if you look at spaghetti, you see that it has a medium glycemic load for a portion size of
¾
of a cup. Spaghetti is therefore fine to eat in that amount, or you can even lower the glycemic load a little by eating just 1/2 of a cup. But if you go over the 3/4-cup portion size, you're entering into high-glycemic territory.

If the idea of portion size's effect on glycemic load still seems confusing, don't get discouraged in your efforts to understand it. I promise that after a while you'll get the hang of looking at the glycemic load of a food compared to just its portion size.

Chapter 5
:
Determining How Going Low-Glycemic Can Work for You

In This Chapter

Reflecting on the amount of weight you want to lose

Reviewing your dieting history to see how to make your new lifestyle choices stick

Determining whether you have insulin resistance

Discovering the benefits of a low-glycemic diet for people in different stages of life

W
hatever your dietary goals may be, the low-glycemic diet is showing positive results not only with weight loss but also with disease prevention/management and healthier lifestyles. Plus, it's an easy diet. After you have the basic concepts down, it becomes a moderate dietary plan that you can follow for the long haul. That means no more yo-yo dieting or continuously going "on" and "off" a ridiculously restrictive diet. Those short-term fixes aren't the real answer to weight loss or a healthy lifestyle. A low-glycemic diet is. That's why this chapter is all about how to incorporate a healthy low-glycemic diet into your life.

Considering Your Weight-Loss Goals

Before you dive into living a low-glycemic lifestyle, you really need to consider your weight-loss goals. Do you want and/or need to lose 5 to 10 pounds or more than 30 pounds? Following a low-glycemic diet can work well in either case. However, it's important to note that no matter how much weight you want or need to lose, the low-glycemic diet is more of a lifestyle change than a strict diet regimen. It's about making the best carbohydrate-containing food choices. With this information in mind, you may need to adjust your expectations regarding weight loss. The following sections can help you do that by getting you familiar with the idea of truly healthy weight loss and by comparing two different weight-loss approaches.

Defining
healthy weight loss

Healthy weight loss is slow weight loss, plain and simple. Losing weight gradually (not rapidly like you might on a strict, very-low-calorie diet) helps ensure you can maintain that weight loss for the long term. Think about the rate at which you gain weight. You usually don't gain 30 pounds in six weeks. Instead, you gain weight gradually over time. The process for losing that weight works exactly the same way.

Good expectations for healthy weight loss include the following:

You may not lose any weight for the first two weeks.
During this time, you're really just figuring out your desired dietary changes; implementation of them may not happen overnight. I know you want to lose weight fast. That's a given. However, fast weight loss often goes hand in hand with a diet regimen that you can't stick to long term. Remember the old fable of the tortoise and the hare? Slow but steady wins the weight-loss race too.

After the first two weeks, you'll start to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week.
This is a moderate rate of weight loss that indicates you're losing body fat and not muscle. It takes into consideration that with exercise you'll actually be increasing your muscle mass. So if you lose a pound of fat, you may also gain a pound of muscle, which means the scale won't tip drastically. Gaining muscle is a good thing because it helps increase your metabolism and gives your body a nice shape.

You may lose a lot of fluid weight right away.
The human body is made up mainly of water, and your water weight can fluctuate quite a bit based on your hydration, sodium intake, medicines, and other factors. You may celebrate if you lose 5 to 6 pounds in your first week on a low-glycemic diet, but keep in mind that some of that lost weight may have been fluid weight, not just body fat. However, that's still good because you don't need that extra fluid on you. Just don't get discouraged if your weight loss slows down in the following weeks.

You may not lose weight every week.
Don't fret if the scale shows the same weight for a few weeks in a row. The reason may simply be that you haven't created enough of a calorie deficit with the dietary and exercise changes you're making. Review your food journal (see Chapter 6 for how to create one if you haven't already) to evaluate how you're doing with your changes and see whether you can make adjustments in some areas.

I bet this isn't exactly the news you were hoping for. After all, when you want to lose weight, you want immediate results. Following a low-glycemic diet will help you lose weight, especially if you have insulin resistance (see the later "Do You Have Insulin Resistance?" section for more on this condition). However, slower weight loss simply makes sense when you look at the big picture.

Here are the facts: It takes 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of body fat, and consuming low-glycemic foods helps ensure you don't store more calores as fat than necessary. So in order to lose 2 pounds a week, you have to make a 1,000-calorie deficit every single day. For most folks, creating a 1,000-calorie deficit requires immediate and drastic changes to their diet and exercise every day. (Note that it takes about six weeks of consistent exercise before you begin to see changes in your body shape.) They may decide to turn to one of the many very-low-calorie diet programs out there in order to achieve that 1,000-calorie deficit. However, consuming too few calories on a regular basis may decrease your metabolism (check out Chapter 8 to discover other factors affecting metabolism). Plus, that's just tough to live with long term.