Win your battle of the bulge!

There are days when muscle fatigue triggers my body receptors to tell my brain, “Today is a day of rest. Exercise at your own risk!”

On days like this, I just have to take it easy and go to a beauty salon or a spa and have whatever it takes to pamper my tired muscles and put them into a relax mode. Exercise is a good thing, but too much of a good thing could have adverse effects on the system and I know when my body is crying for mercy.

When I am just taking it easy, do I stop eating for fear that I am not burning the calories I ingest? Ever since I learned about the Glycemic Index (GI) diet, I eat to my heart’s content without fear of gaining weight. Last year, my health-conscious father gave me a pamphlet about GI. He forewarned me that it could revolutionize my diet in such a way that I would be eating more without fear of weight gain.

The pamphlet taught me that not all carbohydrates are created equal — in fact, they behave quite differently in our bodies. The GI describes this difference by ranking carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels. Choosing low GI carbs, the ones that produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels, is the secret to long-term health, reducing your risk of heart disease and diabetes, and is the key to sustainable weight loss. It uses a simple rating scale, giving sugar (glucose) a base rating of 100. All other foods are ranked as compared to sugar (from zero to 139) based on how they impact your blood sugar over the two- or three-hour period following a meal.

Just for experimentation, I ate a bowl of whole-wheat pasta, (which ranks low in the GI ranking) with mushroom sauce and a green salad with vinaigrette dressing for lunch.  I had my meal at 1 p.m. and truth to tell, I did not feel hungry till 7 p.m. What was surprising was that I did not even have any craving for my usual munchies — banana chips, cashew nuts, oatmeal cookies, and corn chips. I ate a cup of low-fat yogurt (which ranks low in the GI scale) before my 8:30 p.m. dinner engagement and again I felt quite full till dinnertime.  The explanation could only be that food that are low in GI (like milk, kidney beans, fruits, vegetables, brown rice, wholegrain bread, etc.) remain in your intestines longer keeping you full for a longer period of time. 

Eating a lot of high GI foods (foods that are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in high fluctuations in blood sugar levels, giving one hunger pangs every so often) can be detrimental to your health because it pushes the body to extremes. This is especially true if you are overweight and sedentary. Switching to eating mainly low GI carbs that slowly trickle glucose into your blood stream keeps your energy levels balanced and means you will feel fuller for longer between meals. The key is to have knowledge of what are good carbs (those carbs that have low GI and can help you lose weight) and bad carbs (food items high in GI and can cause havoc to your health). 

Here’s a list of carbs that are low in Glycemic Index:

• Breakfast cereal: all bran, oat bran, rolled oats, Natural Muesli Special K, and porridge

• Bread: soya and linseed, wholegrain, pumpernickel, heavy mixed grain, whole wheat, sourdough rye, and sourdough wheat

• Vegetables: frozen green peas, frozen sweet corn, raw carrots, boiled carrots, eggplant, brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms, chilis, lettuce, green beans, red peppers, and onions

• Staples: wheat pasta, meat ravioli, spaghetti, tortellini, fettucini, brown rice, buckwheat, long grain rice, pearled barley, yam, sweet potatoes, instant noodles, wheat tortilla

• Snacks: slim-fast meal replacement, Snickers bar, nut and seed muesli bar, sponge cake, milk chocolate, hummus, peanuts, walnuts, cashew nuts, jam, raisins, corn chips, oatmeal crackers

• Fruits: cherries, plums, grapefruit, peaches (canned and fresh), apples, pears, dried apricots, grapes, coconut, kiwi fruit, oranges, strawberries, and prunes

• Legumes: Kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils, pinto beans, yellow peas, black eyed peas, haricot, navy beans, and butter beans

• Dairy: whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk, sweetened yogurt, artificially sweetened yogurt, custard, and soymilk

• Medium GI carbs: basmati rice, couscous, cornmeal, taco shells, gnocchi, canned potatoes, vermicelli, beans in tomato sauce, baked potatoes, wild rice, blueberry muffin, honey, digestive cookies, Ryvita, croissant, pita, whole-meal rye, and hamburger bun

• Fruits:  mango, sultanas, banana, papaya, fig, pineapple, raisins

• Dessert: ice cream

• High GI carbs: instant white rice, glutinous rice, short grain white rice, tapioca, fresh mashed potatoes, french fries, instant mashed potatoes, pretzels, water crackers, rice cakes, puffed crisp bread, donuts, scones, maple-flavored syrup, cornflakes, sultana bran, branflakes, coco pops, Oats in Honey, Cheerieos, Krispies, and puffed wheat

• Fruits: dates and watermelon

• Vegetable: pumpkin and parsnips

There is a wide range of food items that are low in GI and are enjoyable to eat, so why eat the ones that could raise your blood sugar through the roof? This causes your pancreas to flood your body with the hormone insulin and makes it difficult for your body’s cells to burn fat. High insulin levels actually make you feel hungry all the time, making you eat shortly after a meal.

Friends who see me eat heartily wonder how I keep slim when I don’t even skip dessert, and oftentimes snack on nuts, corn chips, oatmeal crackers, and chocolate bars. I explain to them about eating food that are low in Glycemic Index and now they, too, are followers of this diet. They are so happy to tell me about their weight loss without depriving themselves of their favorite food items.

For those who are interested in learning more about the Glycemic Index Diet, there are many books about it and even cookbooks that teach about low Glycemic Index dishes. So just go to your favorite bookstore and get yourself one of those books.