The GI diet

With celebrities jumping on the lowcarb Atkins and Zone diet bandwagon – think Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Jessica Parker – bread and bananas were rapidly losing their cool. But now there’s a backlash, proving you can stay satisfied and get in shape with balanced eating as long as you fine-tune your choices.
Kylie Minogue, who has long enjoyed the benefits of healthy low GI eating, is said to be against the whole anti-carbs thing, but can continue enjoying them as long as she chooses the right ones. In 1981, professor of nutrition Dr David Jenkins was looking at how different carbohydrate-rich foods affected blood sugar levels in people with diabetes and discovered that, contrary to popular belief, many starchy foods affected blood sugar levels quite dramatically, while some sugary foods had little effect. From his research, he developed a scale called the Glycaemic Index, which quite simply ranked foods based on the effect they had on blood sugar levels. Leading nutrition experts agree that the trend away from a low-carb to a healthy low-GI diet is good news. "Balanced low-GI diets include food from all groups - plenty of fibre-rich fruit like oranges and apples, vegetables and wholegrains," says Sydney University’s Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, who wrote the international best-selling The New Glucose Revolution with respected dietitian Kaye Foster-Powell and endocrinologist Professor Stephen Colagiuri. "This makes it not just a healthier way of eating but easier to fit in with the family and your social life. lt’s easier to stick to in the long-term and keep the weight off."
The trick is to base your diet around healthy low glycemic (GI) foods. This works because you will achieve lower insulin levels making it easier for your body to burn fat and less likely fat will be stored. GI is the scientifically proven way of describing how carbohydrates in individual foods effect blood glucose levels. Basically, low GI foods break down slowly, releasing glucose and insulin gradually into the blood. Whereas foods with a high GI raise blood glucose and insulin levels faster and higher, risking drops in blood sugar and cravings for the next food fix. These low GI foods that are the key to what’s being called the glucose revolution and achieving weight loss, blood glucose control and lifelong health. The GI is simply a ranking of carbs in foods that goes from one to 100 depending on their immediate effect on blood glucose levels.

To make a fair comparison, all foods are tested by a standard method.
• High GI is 70 or more.
• Medium GI is 56 to 69.
• Low GI is 55 or less.


Foods with a low GI are amongst the most filling and delay hunger pangs for longer. These foods including wholegrain breads, sweet potatoes, porridge, apples, oranges and legumes like beans and chickpeas also contain fewer kilojoules per gram. Eating more of these foods satisfies appetite without providing excess kilojoules. Foods that provide a lot of kilojoules per gram, like croissants, chocolate bars and biscuits, are the least satisfying. These leave us wanting more and lead to overeating.
•Low GI foods help weight loss by helping us feel fuller for longer and better optimising levels of insulin, which regulates blood sugar, say Prof Brand-Miller.
•Low-GI eating not only has proven health benefits but comes without the potential risks of lowcarb diets.

Prof Brand-Miller warns: This isn't a quick-fix diet, this is a healthy eating plan for life. You should lose around 250g (about 1kg) actual body fat per week - not water or muscle mass.
Remember, the GI value of a food does not make it good or bad. You still should consider nutritional content, saturated fat, salt, fibre and energy density.
Healthy low GI eating is easy. The basic technique is to swap some of the “fast” high GI carbohydrates in your diet with healthy “slow” low GI foods. Carbohydrates are our main energy source meeting between 40-50 per cent of our energy requirements. But some carbs are better for us than others – “fast” carbs raise blood sugar levels, which increases the production of insulin, a hormone which stores fat. Most of us eat around 200–250g carbs a day, but the Atkins diet recommends just 20–50g.
Although you quickly lose weight on the Atkins diet, you can feel tired and hungry, so it’s really easy to put all the weight back on. You can also end up with side effects such as constipation and bad breath. The healthy low GI eating plan helps you cut back on “fast” carbs and provides plenty of “slow” ones to enjoy. It keeps your daily carb count to around 200g of carbs so you’ll still feel full and energised while you watch the actual body fat fall off!

The six dietary guidelines of the GI EATING FOR LIFE plan
1.Eat two or more servings of low GI fruit and five or more servings of vegetables every day. Opt for whole fruits rather than fruit juices.
2. Eat wholegrain breads and cereals with a low GI.
3. Eat more legumes (beans, peas and lentils) and use nuts in small amounts more often.
4. Eat more fish and seafood.
5. Eat lean meats and low fat dairy food or dairy alternatives.
6. Use high omega-3 and monounsaturated oils such as olive, peanut and canola oils.

Typical Day's Diet on the GI Plan
Breakfast
Bowl of porridge made from traditional oats and skimmed milk and sweetened with a little honey. Plus a pear.

Mid morning
1 pot low-fat fruit yoghurt and a banana.


Lunch
Bowl of lentil soup plus an open tuna sandwich made with 2 slices of wholegrain bread, a thin scrape of low-fat spread and tuna in brine. Plus a handful of cherries.

Mid afternoon
Small pack of low-fat crisps

Dinner
Spaghetti bolognese (made from extra lean minced beef and lots of vegetables) served with wholewheat spaghetti and salad.minced beef and lots of vegetables) served with wholewheat spaghetti and salad.