The secret to achieving your ideal weight

The secret to losing weight and maintaining an ideal weight is to keep your blood sugar levels balanced.  The Low GL diet or Low Glycaemic Load diet is a simple, safe and long lasting way to achieve this.  By eating a sensible diet of complex carbohydrates, good quality proteins and fats, you can actually lose weight without feeling hungry and craving sweet foods.  And most importantly you will have balanced blood sugar levels, reducing your risk of developing insulin resistance, diabetes and heart disease.

According to Patrick Holford, the founder of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in London, it only takes your body 30 days to reset its whole system once you have started on a low GL diet, but you should start seeing good results quite quickly within the first couple of weeks, such as:

More energy and vitality

Clearer skin

Improved memory and focus

Reduced stress levels and improved mood

Typical symptoms of uncontrolled blood sugar levels include:

Craving sweet foods at the end of a meal

Mood swings

Hard to get going in the mornings

Needing stimulants such as caffeine to keep you going

Gradual increase in weight even if not eating more or exercising less

Poor memory and concentration

Craving carbohydrates such as bread and pasta

Tiredness and lethargy

Glycaemic Load refers to the quality and quantity of carbohydrate a food contains and how quickly it is broken down and released into the blood stream.

Glycaemic Index only refers to how quickly the carbohydrate (quantity) in a food is broken down and released into the blood stream.

To illustrate the above, a slice of watermelon has a high GI and a low GL, i.e. the sugars in it break down very quickly, but because a watermelon has such a high fibre and water content and doesn’t contain much carbohydrate it actually breaks down more slowly and has a balancing effect on blood sugar.  So GL is a more useful measure of foods that contain carbohydrates. 

Confusing and conflicting dieting advice