The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies - Meri Raffetto [46]
Eating a low-glycemic diet works the same way. If you go back to your old habits to avoid the temporary discomfort of change, you'll be accepting the undesired consequences (in this case, not losing weight, not feeling better, and not developing a healthier lifestyle). Developing a new habit is really only uncomfortable for the first couple weeks or so. After that, you're in a new, better-for-you comfort zone.
After you start consistently incorporating low-glycemic foods in your diet, you'll feel more comfortable. Just be prepared for a brief period of being out of your comfort zone first.
Chapter 7: Adding Low-Glycemic Foods to Your Meals
In This Chapter
Understanding how the glycemic index can help you make good food substitutions
Swapping high-glycemic grains and breads for lower-glycemic varieties
Adding in plenty of fruits, veggies, and beans to provide bulk and help with weight loss
Incorporating delicious, low-glycemic foods into your everyday meals and snacks is easier than you may expect. You probably already enjoy several low-glycemic foods, which gives you a head start on meal planning. Putting the glycemic index to work is a matter of knowing whether a food is low-, medium-, or high-glycemic. You don't have to memorize a whole bunch of numbers, because several published glycemic index lists are readily available. You can seek them out or just head to Appendix A for lists of popular foods, including foods found in this book's recipes, to see whether they have a low, medium, or high glycemic load (see Chapter 4 for the scoop on glycemic load).
This chapter helps you understand how to choose low-glycemic whole grains, pastas, and legumes (also known as beans). It explains which fruits and vegetables give you the most volume, help fill you up, and promote a healthy weight. It also features tips on simple and easy ways to begin overhauling your diet so you can reap the benefits of choosing low-glycemic foods.
Using the Glycemic Index
In this section, you discover how to begin using the glycemic index to make gradual, lasting changes in your diet. You don't have to know the actual glycemic number of a food to follow an overall low-glycemic diet. Simply choose foods with a low or medium glycemic ranking, and you can be confident that you're making smart choices.
Several foods have already been tested for their glycemic index, and that information is readily available through www.glycemicindex.com, the official database compiled by Australian researchers.
Starting with small steps
Making just one or two changes in the foods you choose each day, switching from a higher-glycemic food to a lower-glycemic one, for example, can lead to big differences over time. The first step is to focus on simple changes that are easy to incorporate into your usual eating habits, such as the following:
Include one low-glycemic food with every meal and snack. Refer to Appendix A for help finding low-glycemic foods, or check out the resource mentioned in the preceding section.
Eat smaller portions of high-glycemic foods. By cutting your portion of a high-glycemic food such as instant mashed potatoes in half, you decrease that food's impact on the overall glycemic load of your meal.
Swap out a high-glycemic food for one that's low- to moderate-glycemic. So instead of eating a smaller portion of instant mashed potatoes, you could try the made-over potato salad recipe from Chapter 15.
Take your time adjusting to these changes in order to give yourself a better chance of sticking with them. Set a goal to include a low-glycemic food at just one meal the first week. The second week, include a low-glycemic food at a second meal. By the time one month has passed, you'll find incorporating low-glycemic foods is a habit, not a chore. You'll also notice improved health and mood benefits.
As long as you start with small, reasonable changes in the foods you routinely eat, you'll