How The Glycemic Impact Diet Works To Keep You Healthy

For those who find they like to eat sweet foods and feel tired a lot of the time, the Glycemic Impact Diet may offer a refreshing change from restrictive diet plans. Those who struggle with weight loss often list becoming bored with the required meals or overwhelmed by the many changes they have to make in order to successfully lose weight.

Although the GI diet is a fairly simple one, there are a few things to understand. The GI diet focuses on how your body processes carbohydrates. Everything we ingest contains them, and they directly affect blood sugar levels, as they turn into glucose after digestion. The body gets energy from glucose, which must be removed by insulin from the bloodstream and be delivered to the cells. But if there's more glucose in the bloodstream than cells need, it gets stored, which translates into extra weight.

When one eats foods that with a high carbohydrate content, the immediate reaction is a quick rise in blood sugar, or a sugar rush, which can elevate your mood and energy for a short time. But the more glucose that's released into your bloodstream, the faster it is removed by insulin. This brings your blood sugar to below-normal levels very quickly, and causes a 'crash'.

A crash has many symptoms, two being intense hunger and low energy. As a result, when your blood sugar crashes, you begin to crave more high-carb foods to regain that rush you experienced the first time. But more carbs means a high release of glucose and quick removal from the bloodstream. If continued, this cycle can cause your artery walls to be irreparably damaged.

The solution to avoiding the sugar rush and crash cycle is to choose foods which release glucose into the bloodstream slowly, or low GI foods. When these foods are eaten, you feel satisfied longer from meals, and therefore are less likely to snack on high GI foods.
There is only one rule for the GI diet, and that is to be aware of those foods which are high or low in GI content so that you can plan your meals and snacks around them. There are lists available to print online which list some of these foods.

So how do you know that your meal has a balanced GI? With a daily caloric intake of 100%, just make sure that 30% of that is lean protein such as chicken or fish, 30% is healthy fat from foods like almonds and that 40% is unrefined carbs from whole grains and pasta.
Those who enjoy their pasta will be pleased to know that the GI diet is unrestrictive about this food, as pasta rates low to medium on the Glycemic Index. Light exercise is another suggestion for those planning to lose weight on this plan. But above all, talking to your doctor about your plans to begin the GI Diet is strongly suggested.

By: Carol Floyd

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The Glycemic Impact Diet helps maintain blood sugar levels and reduces the risk of vascular damage in addition to helping you lose the weight you want.