The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies - Meri Raffetto [32]
If the idea of portion size's effect on glycemic load still seems confusing, don't get discouraged in your efforts to understand it. I promise that after a while you'll get the hang of looking at the glycemic load of a food compared to just its portion size.
Chapter 5: Determining How Going Low-Glycemic Can Work for You
In This Chapter
Reflecting on the amount of weight you want to lose
Reviewing your dieting history to see how to make your new lifestyle choices stick
Determining whether you have insulin resistance
Discovering the benefits of a low-glycemic diet for people in different stages of life
Whatever your dietary goals may be, the low-glycemic diet is showing positive results not only with weight loss but also with disease prevention/management and healthier lifestyles. Plus, it's an easy diet. After you have the basic concepts down, it becomes a moderate dietary plan that you can follow for the long haul. That means no more yo-yo dieting or continuously going "on" and "off" a ridiculously restrictive diet. Those short-term fixes aren't the real answer to weight loss or a healthy lifestyle. A low-glycemic diet is. That's why this chapter is all about how to incorporate a healthy low-glycemic diet into your life.
Considering Your Weight-Loss Goals
Before you dive into living a low-glycemic lifestyle, you really need to consider your weight-loss goals. Do you want and/or need to lose 5 to 10 pounds or more than 30 pounds? Following a low-glycemic diet can work well in either case. However, it's important to note that no matter how much weight you want or need to lose, the low-glycemic diet is more of a lifestyle change than a strict diet regimen. It's about making the best carbohydrate-containing food choices. With this information in mind, you may need to adjust your expectations regarding weight loss. The following sections can help you do that by getting you familiar with the idea of truly healthy weight loss and by comparing two different weight-loss approaches.
Defining healthy weight loss
Healthy weight loss is slow weight loss, plain and simple. Losing weight gradually (not rapidly like you might on a strict, very-low-calorie diet) helps ensure you can maintain that weight loss for the long term. Think about the rate at which you gain weight. You usually don't gain 30 pounds in six weeks. Instead, you gain weight gradually over time. The process for losing that weight works exactly the same way.
Good expectations for healthy weight loss include the following:
You may not lose any weight for the first two weeks. During this time, you're really just figuring out your desired dietary changes; implementation of them may not happen overnight. I know you want to lose weight fast. That's a given. However, fast weight loss often goes hand in hand with a diet regimen that you can't stick to long term. Remember the old fable of the tortoise and the hare? Slow but steady wins the weight-loss race too.
After the first two weeks, you'll start to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week. This is a moderate rate of weight loss that indicates you're losing body fat and not muscle. It takes into consideration that with exercise you'll actually be increasing your muscle mass. So if you lose a pound of fat, you may also gain a pound of muscle, which means the scale won't tip drastically. Gaining muscle is a good thing because it helps increase your metabolism and gives your body a nice shape.
You may lose a lot of fluid weight right away. The human body is made up mainly of water, and your water weight can fluctuate quite a bit based on your hydration, sodium intake, medicines, and other factors. You may celebrate if you lose 5 to 6 pounds in your first week on a low-glycemic diet, but keep in mind that some of that lost weight may have been fluid weight, not just body fat. However, that's still