The GI diet is a diet based on foods with a low glycemic index, which refers to how a food affects your blood sugar. I’ll explain that in more detail in a later chapter, but for right now, think of the GI diet as a moderate carbohydrate plan.
You’re probably familiar with low carbohydrate (carb) diets. You’ve seen the advertisements: Lose Weight with the Low-Carb Diet, Gain Energy with the Atkins Diet, or even Get Your Six-Pack Abs with the South Beach Diet. With information overload like this, it can be hard to know which end is up.
The problem with most low carb diets (like Atkins) is that they are not suitable for athletes or even for those who exercise regularly. Why? The reason is simply that your body needs a certain amount of carbohydrates to fuel athletic activity.
The key here is to find the right amount of carbohydrates and which type are best for this purpose (there are some carbohydrates that should be avoided, but not all!).
Atkins is the most extreme low carb diet around – the induction phase allows you only 10% carbs. On this diet, if you exercised for no more than ten minutes, you’d experience a huge drop in your blood sugar levels (this is referred to as bonking by endurance athletes.)
The GI diet, on the other hand, strives to give you enough carbs without going too far in one direction or the other. You use a food’s glycemic index rating (the degree to which it affects your blood sugar) to determine the best carbs to eat.
This plan is nothing new, however. The GI diet has been growing in popularity since 1981.
Why? … Because it gets results.
Some of the results people see when using the GI diet include:
• Huge increases in energy
• They look better physically
• They feel healthier
• They lose weight
• They lower their blood sugar
The Atkins, Zone, South Beach, and other low carb diets are based upon a few of the same principles as the GI diet, but they go a bit too far in their restriction of carbs.
After reading this post, you’ll have an understanding of how the GI diet works and will be able to make food choices that will keep your body energized and constantly burning fat.
Besides this, you will also understand which the best exercises to promote the fat-burning process in your body are, and you’ll be able to combine this exercise with select foods for optimal health.
The key is to combine great tasting and healthy food choices with the correct amount of exercise, in order to ignite your metabolism and really start to burn the body fat and shed those unwanted pounds.
You’ll learn how to look at any food or menu item and estimate its glycemic index off the top of your head. This will keep you choosing the best carbs to combine with proteins and fats so that you can make good split-second decisions about food. You’ll then be knowledgeable enough to maintain a healthy lifestyle and live a life of abundant energy!