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The Low Gi Diet Increases Metabolic Burn – the Scientists Said So, So it Must Be True.

If you are on a low-carb diet, this information may cause you to reconsider. In fact it’s looking, purely in health terms, as if the low-GI is the winner. But then that’s based on one piece of research that hasn’t yet been reproduced. Still the results are interesting, and the knowledge that some foods can actually change your metabolic rate is well-worth finding out about if you are struggling to lose weight.

I’m not a fan of diets and I don’t encourage dieting with my weight loss patients. But I’m happy to share information that I think may benefit you if you want to lose weight. So here’s some diet advice for all you diet lovers out there.

You know what the best bit is – it seems to me it’s more like nutritional advice, and I’m ok with that. I mean no matter what else you do, controlling your weight is so much easier when you make healthy food choices.

I was in my local bookstore a few weeks back, truthfully I was looking for ideas for book covers, but I was in the weight loss section and I noticed lots of books about something called the GI Diet. I hadn’t a clue what GI was and they didn’t say, but from the number of books on the shelf it seemed like everyone else must know about it. Either that or it’s the latest fad diet that will shortly die a slow death.

I got onto Google as soon as I got home and discovered GI means glycaemic index.  Great, I thought, that’s that problem solved. The glycaemic index is a measure of the amount of sugar in your blood.

But then someone did a bit of research about this and found out something interesting and it relates to metabolism. Now, if you’ve read my Weight Loss book, you’ll know I am a fan of metabolism, and in my book I attempt to set the record a little straighter with regard to the myths surrounding metabolism and weight loss. This information that follows is in addition to what I wrote about in my book.

The research compared three diets: low-fat, low-carb, and low-glycaemic. The focus of the research was to see whether or not any particular types of food were better than others at kick-starting the metabolism engine and getting a ‘free’ burn off of excess calories.

The low-glycaemic diet burned off 125 calories more per day than the low-fat diet. So this was good news. By the way, 125 calories equates to around half an ounce in additional lost body weight over the low-fat diet. But the low-carb diet was even better. Unfortunately the low-carb diet increased levels of cortisol and inflammation – so a low-carb diet carries with it an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. The low-glycaemic diet was the winner. It burns off a little more fat and is good for your heart.

High-glycaemic foods are: things baked with white flour, sugar, white rice and potatoes. These foods are easily digested and so the carbs in these foods are turned into sugar quickly and blood sugar goes up. So don’t eat those. The trick seems to be to make your body work for the sugar by eating things like: pulses (peas, beans, lentils…) and non-starch based vegetables, in other words – green things. Add to that whole grains, low fat meat, fish, nuts and all that health-food stuff.

The cause for concern is that the low-carb diet seemed to show a tendency towards creating heart health problems for the future. The tricky bit is separating out carbs that give a quick sugar hit, and carbs that hold on to the sugar and make you work to release it.

Michael

More info:

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12478728-low-fat-low-carb-or-low-glycemic-study-shows-which-is-best-to-keep-weight-off?lite

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154

By Michael

I have been a hypnotherapist for around 12 years. My specific interests are in stress and physical healing. My fascination is with how the mind 'creates' the world. I am a fan of Esther & Jerry Hicks.