Glycemic Impact Diet: A Major Impact on Your Weight

Glycemic Impact Diet
A Major Impact on Your Weight

Thanks to eDiets & Susan Burke MS, RD, LD/N, CDE for providing this article.

The eDiets Glycemic Impact Diet takes what's known about how foods impact blood glucose to help those who follow it achieve optimal metabolic balance with each meal. The nutrient balance is designed to help you burn stored body fat and lose weight without feeling hungry. By eating the right combination of protein, carbohydrates and fat at every meal and snack, you'll start losing weight, reduce hunger and unhealthy cravings, and boost your energy.

Need a diet that'll let you eat filling, tasty foods while you lose weight? We offer 23 personalized plans, including the red-hot, carb-smart GI Diet. The Glycemic Impact diet works because you eat fewer nutrient-dense foods (foods relatively high in calories per serving) and instead enjoy a variety of fiber-rich foods plus foods that contain more water per serving (more whole grains, vegetables and fruit). In this way, you can actually eat a greater volume of foods, but fewer calories per day.

On the eDiets Glycemic Impact plan, you not only change what you eat, but also how you eat. Ultimately, you will feel fuller with less food. The Science Behind the Glycemic Impact Diet The Glycemic Impact Diet was developed from expert research that shows that people who generally eat more high-fiber foods and fewer nutrient-dense foods lose weight more successfully and keep it off longer. Research has demonstrated that feeling full depends on eating a satisfying amount of food. Choosing fiber-rich foods allow you to eat more and feel more satisfied.

When you eat refined carbohydrates, they are quickly processed and absorbed, sending your blood-glucose levels soaring and forcing your pancreas to release insulin to lower blood glucose. The resulting lower blood glucose triggers a cascade of reactions, triggering cravings for more refined carbs in response to low blood glucose. Fiber-rich foods help moderate the glycemic impact.

Lower-calorie, higher-volume foods like vegetables, clear soup and fruit, whole grains and whole-grain cereals and breads have a moderating impact on how blood glucose reacts after eating, keeping your levels stabile and providing satiety. You'll eat fewer calories and before long the scale will reflect your weight loss without your feeling deprived or hungry.

A proven balance of protein, carbohydrates and fat is what works to keep you fuller longer. Approximately 30 percent of the calories are from lean protein sources, 30 percent from healthy fat, including mainly unsaturated fat in nuts, oils and fish, and approximately 40 percent of calories are from unrefined carbohydrates -- whole grains and whole-grain breads, fruits and vegetables.

The Five Ways the Glycemic Impact Diet helps you feel fuller, longer

The nutrient balance is approximately 40 percent of calories from unrefined carbohydrates; approximately 30 percent of calories from lean protein; and approximately 30 percent of calories from unsaturated, non-trans fats.
Meal pattern means eating five smaller, balanced meals daily, which is helpful in maintaining stable blood glucose and avoiding blood glucose swings that often leads to cravings for refined carbohydrates.
Carbohydrate foods are all unrefined and unprocessed, containing optimal amounts of fiber and nutrients.
Delayed digestion from fiber-rich foods allows the body to process and metabolize glucose more slowly, causing a more gradual insulin response.
Portion sizes of all foods in your plan are calculated for your unique needs, adjusted to your activity and goals.

Attaining a healthy weight is a must if you want to enjoy a long life. As your weight increases, so does your risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and several other chronic illnesses. Being overweight not only affects your physical health, but your mental health as well. Research shows that following a weight-loss plan and losing 10 percent of your body weight (if you weigh 180 pounds, that's just 18 pounds) can lower your risk for medical conditions more likely if you remain overweight, including heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, depression and some cancers.

You'll look better and feel better when you make the choice to follow a diet that can get you on the right track.

According to the International Food Information Council (www.IFIC.org), glycemic index is a measure of how carbohydrate-containing foods affect blood glucose levels. All foods that contain carbohydrates, such as starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn), desserts, fruits, bread, pasta and rice, can be tested for how they affect blood sugar levels after being eaten.

Glycemic index is assessed by having one or more people eat a specific amount of a single food -- usually 50 grams of digestible carbohydrate, or total carbohydrate minus fiber. Changes in blood sugar levels are then measured, and compared with levels after eating a control food, usually white bread or glucose, containing the same amount of digestible carbohydrate.

The average change in blood sugar levels over a set period of time relative to the levels after consumption of the control food, usually white bread or glucose, is the food's glycemic index.

All carbohydrate-containing foods eventually raise or maintain blood-sugar levels to some extent, depending on the portion size. In general, high glycemic-index foods are highly processed, such as breads and cereals, mashed potatoes and white rice. Lower glycemic-index foods include vegetables and fruits, legumes, unprocessed grains including oatmeal and long-grain brown rice, and of course dairy and meats.

The problem is that some foods you'd think are unhealthy may have a lower glycemic index than other, healthier foods. According to the IFIC, you might expect that foods with more sugar, such as candy, soft drinks and sweetened cereals to have higher glycemic indices than other less sugary foods such as baked potatoes or corn flakes. It turns out, however, that baked potatoes and corn flakes have higher glycemic indices than jellybeans and soft drinks. A classic example is carrots vs. candy. The glycemic index of carrots is 49, but a Snicker's bar is only 40. While a candy bar might be OK for a (very) occasional treat, carrots are dandy daily.

Some of the problems with the glycemic index include: A person's blood-sugar response to eating a food can vary from day to day. How the food is prepared can impact blood glucose response. Ripeness of the food, as in the case of bananas, can affect the glycemic index (the riper the banana, the higher its glycemic index). Once a food is combined with other foods (such as cereal and milk or peanut butter and bread), the glycemic index of the meal will be very different from that of either food alone.

The amount of food eaten to measure the glycemic index is often different from the amount of food eaten in a typical serving. According to the IFIC, creating a diet based on the glycemic index alone is impractical and can result in an eating plan that may exclude some nutrient-rich foods, and render the diet less palatable overall.

The best advice from the American Dietetic Association and American Diabetes Association is to enjoy a balanced meal plan, with an emphasis on unrefined carbohydrate foods, including whole grains and whole-grain breads and cereals, and whole servings of fruit instead of juice.

The skin of fruits and vegetables contain healthy fiber, too, so scrub and eat. When choosing packaged foods, read the ingredient label, and make sure the first ingredient is "whole grain" whether the product is made from wheat, oats, corn or other grain.

Portion size is important, so pay to your personalized eDiets meal plan, and choose similar portion sizes when you go out to eat.

The eDiets Glycemic Impact plan reflects all these smart recommendations, as well as the research that shows that eating smaller meals more frequently helps maintain stable blood glucose and reduce unhealthy cravings. Click here to stop cravings with Glycemic Impact Diet.