The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (47 page)
Eat high-glycemic foods two or three times a week, or less.
Balancing your glycemic load for the day
Striving to balance your glycemic load for the day is another way to follow a low-glycemic diet in moderation. The idea is to always make the best choices.
Try one or more of the following suggestions to help you control your calorie level and balance higher-glycemic foods throughout the day:
Avoid eating multiple high-glycemic foods in one meal.
If you're going to indulge, do it with one food item at that particular meal and make sure the rest of your foods are low-glycemic. For instance, if you choose to have spaghetti, don't eat a bunch of garlic bread with it.
Consume smaller portions of high-glycemic foods.
Remember, portion size matters with glycemic load (as explained in Chapter 4). Eating less decreases your glycemic load a bit for that meal. Even switching from, say, 1 cup of rice to 2/3 of a cup makes a difference in a particular meal's glycemic load.
Avoid eating both high- and medium-glycemic foods in one day.
Choose one or the other if you can and make the rest of your choices low-glycemic. For instance, if after lunch you have a slice of the special pumpkin pie (a high-glycemic food) that your coworker brought in, skip the macaroni and cheese (a medium-glycemic food) with the kids at dinner.
Split the portion size of two high-glycemic foods.
If you're out to eat or at a party and you see two foods you love that are high-glycemic, eat a half portion of each to enjoy your favorites while still keeping your glycemic load down. For instance, maybe you spy potato salad and chocolate cake at the company picnic. You can have your cake (and potato salad too!) if you eat a small slice of it and 1/3 cup of the potato salad. This compromise is better than consuming a cup of potato salad and a large piece of cake.
An all-or-nothing approach will almost always keep you stuck in weight-gain/weight-loss cycles. Ditch that approach and find a balance instead. On a low-glycemic diet, you can
and should allow yourself to indulge without feeling guilty, but you shouldn't abandon your low-glycemic lifestyle for weeks at a time. When you indulge, make sure it's a conscious decision that you know works within your guidelines. After all, who doesn't want to have cake on his birthday or potato salad at a barbeque?
Chapter 10
:
Navigating the Grocery Store
In This Chapter
Boosting your low-glycemic grocery shopping know-how
Deciphering nutrition labels
Staying on track with your weight-loss goals by keeping convenience foods on hand
A
low-glycemic diet isn't always black and white — a fact that's apparent the moment you set foot in a grocery store. Rarely will you find the words
low-glycemic
on product packaging. You can certainly go for healthy, high-fiber foods, but they may not always be low-glycemic.
Wandering through the grocery store without some preparation will leave you in a fog of questions. Was it oats that were low-glycemic or wheat? Do crackers count like bread? How do I figure out this box of macaroni and cheese? Should I pay attention to calories? With a little planning, though, you can make grocery shopping for low-glycemic foods much easier on yourself — and save your valuable time and money in the process.
In this chapter, I help you figure out how to navigate the aisles to find your best low-glycemic choices, how to cull glycemic information from food labels, and how to stock a healthy, low-glycemic kitchen. Grocery shopping will be a breeze from now on!
Being a Savvy Low-Glycemic Shopper
Shopping for groceries when you follow a low-glycemic diet is a little different from going grocery shopping while on other types of diets. Some foods haven't been tested for their glycemic index, leaving you to make your best judgment call while shopping. Knowing what you're going to buy before you enter the grocery store and how to find the best products once you're there are the keys to having a good grocery shopping experience when you're on the hunt for low-glycemic foods. The information in the following sections combined with a little preplanning will go a long way toward saving you from grocery shopping-induced headaches.
Planning meals to create your grocery list
A grocery list is the golden ticket to a relaxed grocery store trip that saves you time and money and keeps you from buying those oh-so-tempting cookies and chips. Using a grocery list helps you focus on buying low-glycemic foods and decreases impulse buys that may sabotage your weight-loss efforts.
You come up with a solid low-glycemic grocery list by planning out your meals for the week. Without a meal plan, you can end up buying foods you don't eat, having the wrong foods in the house, or purchasing something just because it sounds good in the moment.
For years I regularly went to the grocery store without a plan and picked up either foods that sounded good or items I thought I might use. Time and again I wound up with a half-eaten roast chicken and spoiled broccoli and spinach. I'd then make two or three more trips to the store during the week to pick up items I didn't have when I decided to make a certain recipe for dinner. This weekly routine cost me time and money, but it also convinced me that having a plan of what you need for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners (complete with all the ingredients you need for any special recipes) helps you stay on track with dietary guidelines.
Making a low-glycemic grocery list and planning your meals each week may sound like a daunting task, but it gets easier each time because you ultimately have a running list of the foods you use on a regular basis.
When making your first low-glycemic grocery list, your goal is to determine those items that you buy regularly (your
staples
). Then you can simply add other ingredients to that list each week. Here are some steps to get you started:
1. Figure out your staples.
•
Pantry:
Old-fashioned or steel-cut oats, hearty stone-ground whole-wheat breads, low-glycemic cereals, pearl barley, bulgur, canned veggies (watch the sodium!), canned or dried beans, pasta, quinoa, nuts (especially walnuts and almonds), seeds, herbs, spices, vinegar, and oil
• Refrigerator:
Eggs (especially those enriched with omega-3s), fish, lean meats, lowfat cheeses, cottage cheese, milk, lowfat plainyogurt, fruits, and veggies
• Freezer:
Frozen berries and veggies
In addition to these common staples, select foods from the lists in Appendix A that sound good to you and that best meet the low-glycemic criteria. (
Note:
Don't feel bad if you have to keep referring back to Appendix A during your first several weeks of meal planning. It takes a while to remember which foods are low-glycemic and which ones aren't.)
2. Purchase a small notebook (something that fits in your pocket or purse) and fill in your staples on the left-hand side of several pages.
3. Determine any nonbasic recipes you plan to make and add any extra ingredients for that week on the right-hand side of a page.
Although your list of staples will remain constant from week to week, the rest of your grocery list will vary depending on any special recipes and meals you're preparing.
Now that you've chosen your meals for the week and prepared your low-glycemic grocery list, you don't need to wander the aisles wondering what to make this week or trying to remember whether certain foods are low-glycemic. You may even be surprised at how much money you save by focusing on your list and ignoring impulse-based items.
Knowing the best aisles to visit
When you're armed with a grocery list and stick to the right aisles, you can make your grocery shopping trips efficient and avoid any weight-loss saboteurs along the way. Studies show that people have a tendency to buy impulsively — a fact that grocery stores count on when they position tempting food items in your line of sight and offer samples of various foods. Before you know it, you're walking out of the grocery store with goodies that aren't on your list and that may end up creating obstacles to your weight-loss efforts.