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446 of 451 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works and Makes Sense--If You Read the Details, January 15, 2004
This review is from: The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index--the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health (Paperback)
This is an excellent book for learning how to eat in such a way that you naturally move towards your optimal weight, and do so without hunger if you're overweight and need to lose. A few of the previous reviewers apparently skimmed through the book and/or missed many of the qualifying details provided in the book about foods. Potatoes indeed have a high GI value: the bigger and older the potato the higher the value. So those small young red potatoes have a lower GI value than those big white Idahos most of us eat. Also, the authors stress that the goal of this approach is not to condemn all "high GI" foods and avoid them like the plague; the goal is to learn how to balance them out with sufficient low GI foods that you don't provoke the classical insulin spike associated with high GI foods. And the approach is not a "high carbohydrate diet." The GI values specifically measure carbohydrates and their different effects--as measured in the lab-- on insulin response. Meats, fish and dairy are pretty much "no GI" foods (as are a large number of vegetables by the way), and the authors encourage us to eat them abundantly (but to tilt towards the lean side of the meats and to still make sure we don't overeat). The main idea with meats, cheeses and other high protein foods is that they are "calorically dense" and that you can easily overeat them, the more fat they contain the easier. This is not a "plug and chug" kind of a dietary approach. The authors expect their readers to be reasonably intelligent and mentally hard working in devloping their individual eating plans. The GI values were not simply "invented" because they sounded good in theory. They were discovered as a result of extensive experimentation with human subjects and extensive post-eating blood draws. If you want a brain-dead approach that will simply tell you "this food is good, this food is bad" or that will tell you "today is Tuesday, this is what you can have for lunch" than this book is not for you. You are going to have to exercise your brain cells as well as your fork and your cardiovascular system (exercise is strongly encouraged) if you are going to get anything out of this approach. In the very few weeks I've used this approach I've already lost 13 pounds with no discomfort whatsoever and a fair amount of "cheating" (actually there is no cheating in this approach. If you pig out on a particular food at one time you simply adjust your eating plan accordingly for the next day or so and proceed. Forget the guilt). If you want to take it slow and easy, just remember to throw in some veggies with every meal, and try to have a low GI fruit with every meal as well (and horrors!! another contradiction!! Bananas are both "good" and "bad." Young bananas that are still very slightly green have a tested low GI value; older bananas with a lot of black spots on them have developed their sugars and now have a high GI value. Focus on eating slightly green bananas and forget the paranoia about them). The whole process is about learning which foods have low GI values and which foods have high GI values, and of thowing in some low GI foods whenever it seems appropriate and convenient, remembering that meats, poultry, fish and dairy are essentially "no GI" foods and including them in their lean incarnations as much as possible.
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308 of 318 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why we gain weight--How to turn it around, July 13, 2003
This review is from: The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index--the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health (Paperback)
The body is perfectly adapted to the diet that our human ancestors followed for hundreds of thousands of years, but cannot properly handle "industrial foods", such as refined flour. These mechanically-processed foods flood the blood stream with glucose (the simple carbohydrate that fuels the cells) and provoke an outpouring of insulin. The excess insulin compels the body to burn carbohydrate, leaving the fat to accumulate in our bodies. The deranged insulin levels can also lead to diabetes and heart disease. This book shows that by choosing our carbohydrates with a just little more care, we can restrain these outbursts of insulin and encourage the body to burn more fat. By simply choosing Basmati rice over other varieties, or substituting a sweet potato for an ordinary potato, or buying sourdough bread or bread made with whole-wheat, stone-ground (coarser) flour rather than white flour, we can smooth out the glucose spikes and enjoy better health. This concept of "glycemic index" (GI) is indeed revolutionary. Each food is rated on a scale of 0 to 100, with pure glucose (as in corn syrup) set at 100. Anything with a GI value of 70 or more is a High-GI food; Intermediate-GI foods range from 56-69, and Low-GI foods have scores from 0 to 55. These values are derived by testing actual foods on actual volunteers, whose blood glucose levels are measured periodically over a couple of hours after they have eaten the food. The book includes 67 pages of tables so that you can look up the GI values of hundreds of foods, and then use those values to choose which foods you would wish to emphasize and which you would wish to avoid. The authors go on to explain the factors that influence its GI value. These are the degree to which the starch granules are expanded or even burst during cooking; the particle size (as in finely- or coarsely-ground flours); the chemical structure of the starch (straight- or branched-chain); the type of sugar in the food (sucrose, fructose, galactose, etc.); the quantity and nature of the fiber in the food (its coarseness, solubility and viscosity); and the acidity. In sum, you end up with a solid scientific understanding of why one food will support your health and another will sabotage you. Choosing low-GI foods virtually guarantees that we are eating foods with a low energy density and a high capacity to satisfy our appetites. We feel fuller on less calories, and the feeling of satisfaction lasts longer. The authors describe a South African study in which volunteers ate the same number of calories from carbohydrate, protein and fat, with the only difference being that one group got low-GI and the other got High-GI carbohydrates. After 12 weeks the low-GI group had lost an average of 20 pounds, versus 16 pounds for the high-GI group. Again, the ONLY difference was in the nature of the carbohydrates. There is already an international symbol, registered in the US and other countries, indicating that a food has been properly test for its GI value. Watch for it on food labels as the public catches on to the value of this information. P>My only complaint with this book is that the essential information on the link between glucose, insulin and health is scattered throughout the text, rather than being presented in a single succinct statement. But don't let this stop you. If you are concerned about weight, health, and diet, get this book.
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91 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Guidlines Not a Formula, April 11, 2006
This review is from: The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index--the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health (Paperback)
This book shed a lot of light on why I was not succeding in my weight loss goals. I had already given up almost all sugar and all artifical sweetners, eating mostly whole grains, and had been doing a 45-60 min cardio workout 3 times a week and getting no where in the 50 lbs I need to lose. In the past I had a lot of success following Atkins, but felt that it was unhealthy and it left me feeling sluggish and miserable. I stopped Atkins and started the daily losing battle with my weight. After three weeks of following the basic principals I have had successful weight changes for the first time in a long time.
This book is not for someone who wants a quick fix or answer, the book gives a ton of data points and strives to tell you how to use the data to make your own balance. Other people have commented that there are many contradictions, and I think the problem is that they are looking for a yes/no list or formula not a guideline and plan for moderation and balance. You also have to really understand the differneces between Glycemic Index and Glyecmic Load, which I feel she explains quite well. I doubt this diet idea will ever be popular becuase there are no quick fix answers. I have been following the plan for almost a month and feel great and can see myself doing this for the rest of my life with no hesitation. The fact that it is a guidline rather than formula gives you the ability to adjust to your stage of life, activity level and weight loss goals.
There is no denying that reading this is a bit like going back to school where you need to read it, process it, and figure out how it relates to your own eating habits and weight goals.
There are two down sides to this book. The first is that the first two weeks of eating that many vegetables and heavy grainy food can make you, to be blunt, gasy. The other is that she keeps suggesting margerine but I find it to be a horible low-fat alternative to butter and am ok with having more fat than chemicals. Again it is a guideline and I have the fleibilty to make as many natural and organic choices as I like and still follow the ideas.
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