The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies - Meri Raffetto [95]
www.glycemic.com
www.glycemicindex.com
www.webmd.com
www.mayoclinic.com
Want to find trustworthy educational Web sites on your own? Here are a few tips:
Go to professional Web sites run by researchers or other healthcare professionals. Although personal Web sites operated by individuals who've seen results following a low-glycemic diet may be helpful, you can't always be certain that the information on these sites is the most accurate. Professional Web sites, on the other hand, are always reliable. Bookmark your favorite sites so you can find them quickly and visit them regularly.
Look for a newsletter and sign up. Just because a newsletter comes from a professional Web site doesn't mean the information in it is stuffy. Newsletters from educational Web sites are perfect for receiving regular updates, articles, and inspiration to help you stay motivated.
Getting involved with group forums and message boards
One great advantage of the Internet, especially if you're having a hard time finding a supportive environment at home, is the ability to find support through group forums and/or message boards. Of course, you may have to participate in a few before you find the right one.
There are good reasons to use message boards and forums as well as bad ones. The good reasons for using message boards and forums are to
Obtain general support for motivation and inspiration: Sometimes you just need a little motivation, especially if you've had setbacks. Simply reading others' stories or reaching out for help can turn matters around for you.
Discuss challenges and obstacles: Are you having difficulty bringing a low-glycemic lunch to work? Are you finding it rather rough to follow a low-glycemic diet on the road? Others may have some great solutions that worked for them in similar situations.
Give support to others: Just being there for others can help renew your own motivation.
Get recipes: Message boards and forums are a fabulous recipe resource when you're running out of ideas for meals or when you have specific ingredients in your house and need some ideas for what to do with them.
Never use message boards or forums for the following reasons:
To obtain professional advice: I've seen some very inaccurate and just plain bad advice given out on message boards. Depending on your personal situation, this advice may even be harmful to you. When you need advice, skip the group forums and message boards and turn to a professional. Save the boards for support.
To vent about your life: Although discussing your challenges in the hopes of finding motivation and support is okay, venting about your life in general isn't a good idea. Message boards work best when everyone comes to the table in a positive way to help one another.
If you decide to explore group forums and message boards, be prepared to encounter extremely negative and downright angry people from time to time. The Internet provides a shield, so those individuals who have a lot of pent-up anger let it out frequently because no one can see them or figure out who they are.
I'll never forget my experience participating as a professional on a weight-loss message board. One of the other participants was a woman who was fixated on low-carb dieting even though that wasn't the topic of the board. The whole thing turned ugly as she critiqued everyone who was following different paths toward weight loss than her. The moderator warned her but never kicked her off, making the whole experience a dreadful one for everyone else trying to participate.
When you run into nasty people on message boards, e-mail the moderator to request that he or she ban the offending user or reinforce the posting guidelines. If nothing changes, find a new online support forum. Dealing with people's anger-management issues is far from worth it when you're just looking