Weight Loss - How to Follow a Low GI Diet

If you're looking for a diet for weight loss, you'll find plenty of 'fad' diets, most of which don't work at least over the long term. The low GI diet isn't a fad, and there are studies to back up its effectiveness for weight loss. And it will for a lifetime, because it's really not a diet, it's a way of eating, a healthy lifestyle that you partake in for the rest of your years.

As a result you'll not only lose those extra pounds, you'll maintain a healthy body weight and get a heap of other health benefits, as well as feeling better overall.

GI is a ranking system from 1 to 100. What it does is measure how the food you eat affects your blood glucose level two hours after it is eaten. A diet filled with foods that have a high glycemic index have several potential health problems associated with them, and they also cause weight gain and fat gain. A low glycemic diet can help you shed any extra pounds and maintain your healthy body weight.

The low GI diet recommends that at least two of your daily meals are low glycemic foods. This doesn't mean that high glycemic foods are completely banned, however most meals should be made of low glycemic foods.

It doesn't mean you have to know the GI value of every food you plan to eat. It does mean you should be eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. It also means you should know whether major carb foods would fit into a high, low, or medium GI category. In other words when you are choosing pastas, rice, breads, and cereals you should know which have the lowest glycemic index and those are the ones you should be choosing.

One way to be able to sneak higher glycemic foods into a meal is to mix them in smaller quantities with a low glycemic index food. For example, if you really love potatoes, you could have a small amount of potatoes (high GI) with plenty of fish and green leafy vegetables (low GI).

Keeping the amount of cooking time to a minimum reduces the GI value too. The longer a food is cooked the higher the GI value. For example, raw fruit or vegetables are low in the glycemic index while cooked potatoes are high.

Think vegetables, vegetables, and then more vegetables. You should also include legumes and beans often. Mashed lentils are an excellent alternative to mashed potatoes. And fresh herbs on the side are perfect. Protein rich foods such as chicken and fish (also low in fat) are part of a low GI diet.

Let's have a look at some GI ideas for each meal:

Breakfast

Eat lots of fresh fruit especially apples, cherries, and berries
Use low fat dairy products, eg yogurt
Cereals such as muesli, oats, or bran
Oily fish
Eggs or omelette
Nuts and seeds

Lunch

Open sandwiches on wholegrain (multigrain) or sourdough bread
Baked beans
Fresh fruit
Vegetable soups like barley
Cheeses that are low in fat like ricotta
Edam or cottage cheese
Raw vegetables and/or salad
Salmon

Evening Meal

Meals prepared from scratch
Vegetables in stirfries or soups
Salads
Fish or chicken
Beans or lentils as part of a meal or as a side dish
Noodles or pasta
Sweet potatoes

Snacks

Oat based snacks
Yogurt
Nuts
Seeds
Blueberries, strawberries or apple

There you have it - some ideas on how to follow a low GI diet. You'll be living healthier and shedding those extra pounds. Your body will thank you. Not only will you lose weight and shed the pounds, but your overall health will improve as well. So go for it and get these wholesome foods into your diet right away.

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