Glycemic Index And Weight Loss

First of all, you might be curious about what 'glycemic index means'. Well, the explanation can be very complicated and wordy, but it can also be simple.

Glycemic index refers to the how food affects blood sugar.

Scientists have discovered that all carbohydrates that you eat, will have affect your blood sugar. The glycemic index goes one step further, and measures how much each food will raise the blood sugar on a scale of 1-100. Foods are considered low glycemic if they fall below 55 on the scale.

In the past couple of years, researchers have been reviewing studies to see if an eating plan that is made up of 'low-glycemic index' foods will be better for weight loss, than a 'higher glycemic' diet.

In one review (1), researchers found 6 studies that met their requirements and were looking to find out if low glycemic index diets helped with weight loss. In these studies, the people on the diets did not have to restrict how much they ate in calories, they just had to make sure that the diets were low - glycemic. Time frames ranged from 5 weeks - 6 months in the studies.

Conclusions of their review what the people who at a low glycemic diet had:

1. More weight loss, and

2. Improved cholesterol (total and LDL)

3. No adverse effects were experienced being on the low-glycemic diet.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all high glycemic foods are unhealthy, and not all low glycemic foods are healthy.

View here for Grandmother's favorite list of low glycemic foods and recipes.

With love,

Grandmother's Kitchen

References

(1) Thomas DE1, Elliott EJ, Baur L. (2007) Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Jul 18;(3):CD005105. Low glycaemic index or low glycaemic load diets for overweight and obesity.