Without dieting or giving up carbs, how does a low GI diet help you lose weight? | GI Part ②

How much weight have you gained since the Mid-Autumn Festival?

In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, we found a set of data that people in different countries will gain weight to varying degrees during holidays : 0.6 kg in the United States, 0.8 kg in Germany, and 0.5 kg in Japan.

Reference 1

This is not an isolated case.

Another large-scale epidemiological survey in Europe also revealed that regardless of gender, age, or basic weight, the average weight gain during the Christmas holiday is about 1.35%. Moreover, the weight gained during this period will not fully return to the pre-holiday level , and the weight gain accumulates year by year, becoming one of the important reasons for the weight spiral.

Reference 2

At present, there is no authoritative data on this aspect in China, but recalling the grand scenes during Chinese New Year and other festivals, it must be even more than that. After all, the ultimate secret of celebrating a festival is to eat and drink to one’s heart’s content (bushi)… The joke of gaining three pounds during the festival is a common saying but a good point.

But we want to celebrate the holidays happily, party and eat and drink, but we don’t want to gain weight... Is there such a good thing?

Maybe you can try this healthy diet that works wonders for weight loss - low GI diet .

1. An analysis of whether a low GI diet can help you lose weight

As we mentioned before, GI is mainly used to guide the diet of diabetics and keep their blood sugar healthy. Is it reliable for ordinary people to use it to lose weight?

We use data to speak——

In 2019, in a meta-analysis of 101 studies covering 8,527 participants, researchers found that a low GI diet can significantly reduce body weight, body mass index (BMI), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and total cholesterol levels , and is indeed effective for weight loss.

For people with normal blood sugar levels, the effects of reducing body weight and total cholesterol are more pronounced when the GI difference is 20 or more [3].

In other words, the lower the GI, the better the weight loss effect .

Mid-Autumn Festival has passed and cannot be retrieved, but we must do something on National Day. Low GI, worth a try.

2. How does low GI help you lose weight?

Under normal circumstances, the glucose in our blood is maintained within a certain range ( 3.9-6.1mmol/L ).

After we have a meal, the carbohydrates in the food are digested and absorbed and then absorbed into the blood in the form of monosaccharides (such as glucose, fructose, etc.). At this time, the blood sugar concentration will rise and exceed the normal range, releasing a signal to the pancreas to secrete insulin to restore blood sugar to normal.

Blood sugar concentration is the most important factor affecting insulin secretion. When you eat different foods, they have different glycemic indexes and different consequences.

When you eat high GI foods

For example, overly refined rice, flour, candy, snacks, etc.

They are easily digested and absorbed, and a large amount of glucose rushes into the blood in a short period of time, and the blood sugar level rises immediately, so more insulin is secreted than usual, and it just wants to lower the blood sugar level in a short period of time. Therefore, during this period of time, blood sugar levels and insulin are on a roller coaster, rising and falling sharply.

In addition, although this meal may seem like a lot, it may make you hungrier.

Although the pancreas can control the secretion of insulin according to the increase in blood sugar, if the blood sugar changes too quickly, it will be beyond its judgment. It will often secrete more than actually needed. It is better to have more rather than less. The extra insulin will exceed the blood sugar lowering task, eventually causing blood sugar to fall below normal levels, and your hunger will become stronger.

Moreover, high GI foods selectively stimulate brain regions associated with craving eating behaviors .

The combination of blood sugar fluctuations and nerve stimulation may cause you to eat more at your next meal.

Once or twice, your body can easily correct itself, but if the metabolic balance is broken for a long time, it will lead to overnutrition and obesity , and even insulin resistance . Insulin resistance is the "common soil" of many diseases. Many patients with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are caused by eating this way .

When you eat low GI foods

For example, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, etc.

They are rich in dietary fiber, the digestion and absorption process is relatively slow, the fluctuations of blood sugar and insulin are relatively small, everything is orderly and well-organized, and everyone is happy.

In addition, dietary fiber will expand in the gastrointestinal tract, which not only increases satiety, delays gastric emptying, and helps to resist hunger, but also produces short-chain fatty acids in the colon, which is conducive to the proliferation of beneficial bacteria and helps intestinal peristalsis, and is more effective in reducing total body fat and total cholesterol, stabilizing metabolic balance, and preventing and controlling obesity.

3. How to identify the GI of food

How do you know which foods are high GI and which are low GI? You can't just flip through a book as soon as you sit down to eat, right?

There are some simple tips to compare foods with lower GI. Keeping these points in mind will be enough to cope with your daily diet: lightly processed; high in dietary fiber and protein; not easy to gelatinize; and a combination of multiple ingredients.

1. Rough machining

Generally speaking, the more refined the food is, the easier it is to digest and absorb, and the higher the GI value. The harder, rougher, less processed, and more difficult to digest and absorb foods generally have a lower GI.

for example:

Brown rice is lower than refined rice;

Whole-wheat (barley, wheat, rye) steamed bread is lower than white-wheat steamed bread;

Buckwheat noodles and multi-grain noodles are lower than ordinary noodles;

Steaming rice is lower than cooking rice porridge;

Fruit has a lower GI than juice.

2. High in dietary fiber and protein

Vegetables and potatoes are high in dietary fiber, while beans and their products, and milk are rich in protein, and their GI is generally low.

3. Not easy to gelatinize (low viscosity)

Sticky corn, sticky sorghum rice, glutinous rice , etc. are all very sticky foods, containing a lot of amylopectin, with a high degree of gelatinization and a relatively high GI value.

4. Food combination to neutralize GI

Eating foods with different GIs together can effectively neutralize the GI values ​​of the two. The same is true for eating vegetables first.

In addition, you can steam rice and beans together to make mung bean rice and red bean rice, and mix white flour with corn flour and soybean flour to make steamed corn bread, etc.

Compared to mysterious operations such as dieting, quitting carbohydrates, and quitting fat, a low GI diet is not only a healthier and more scientific way of eating, easier to implement, but also closer to our normal eating habits and easier to stick to.

PS: If you check the GI value of food, you will find that some high-fat foods also have a low GI value. This is because fat itself is a slowly digested component, so you should eat less of this kind of food.

PPS: As one of the criteria for choosing food, GI can basically meet our daily needs. However, another concept has become popular recently, that is GL. See you next time for more questions about GL.

Welcome to forward and share this to your loving family group, let’s lose weight together~