The GI Diet (Updated Edition) - Rick Gallop

...honest, I only picked up The GI Diet because I was curious after seeing it mentioned so often in the health/fitness magazines I buy. Even in calorie-controlled diets, low GI foods are often mentioned as a good way to keep yourself feeling fuller for longer - crucial when you're cutting down on what you eat. I wasn't expecting a miracle diet, but I was surprised to find a sensible diet that isn't some fad based on pseudo-science (unlike other diets ...
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rick Gallop grew up in Britain and graduated from Oxford before emigrating to Canada, but - interestingly - his first career was in advertising and marketing. It was only after joining the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario that he was inspired to change his lifestyle. GI was actually developed by Dr. David Jenkins, but Gallop has successfully lost weight by using the GI and this is reassuring - ... more

WHY I READ THIS

To be honest, I only picked up The GI Diet because I was curious after seeing it mentioned so often in the health/fitness magazines I buy. Even in calorie-controlled diets, low GI foods are often mentioned as a good way to keep yourself feeling fuller for longer - crucial when you're cutting down on what you eat. I wasn't expecting a miracle diet, but I was surprised to find a sensible diet that isn't some fad based on pseudo-science (unlike other diets I've looked at!). The thing that most impressed me is that this is, first and foremost, a healthy plan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rick Gallop grew up in Britain and graduated from Oxford before emigrating to Canada, but - interestingly - his first career was in advertising and marketing. It was only after joining the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario that he was inspired to change his lifestyle. GI was actually developed by Dr. David Jenkins, but Gallop has successfully lost weight by using the GI and this is reassuring - this diet is for real people, not doctors who have never had a weight problem.

THE DIET

No, it's nothing to do with the American army - GI stands for Glycemic Index in this case. This measures the speed that you digest food and convert it to glucose, which the body uses as energy. The idea is that your blood sugar levels should be kept even to avoid those surges and slumps caused by many foods, which leave you reaching for more food that causes a surge followed by a slump and so on until you're eating far more calories than you use up and thus gain weight. That's the most refreshing thing about the GI diet: Gallop acknowledges that you only gain weight through consuming too many calories - not because you upset some carefully-calculated balance of food - and that the only way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories. The GI Diet offers a strategy to do this without leaving you feeling deprived or - as with Atkins - in a dangerous state called ketosis.

Gallop divides food into three 'traffic light' categories: red foods are high GI, amber foods are medium GI and green foods are low GI. This is a fairly simple organization and the charts are easy to understand, but you will need to consult them frequently to check whether the foods you're eating are low GI. In what Gallop refers to as Phase I, the weight loss phase, you are expected to eat nothing but low GI (green) foods and recipes. This sounds a bit extreme, but the blow is softened when you realise that a lot of low GI recipes include medium GI foods in small quantities, so the variety of food is less restrictive than you think at first. In Phase II, weight maintenance, you can eat medium GI (amber) foods too.

A word of caution though: before you read that pasta is low GI and get excited about eating huge bowlfuls on this diet, portion sizes apply. The portion sizes Gallop suggests for ingredients like pasta, rice and potatoes is less than most people would consider a portion size - 40g of pasta compared to the 75g per person advised on the pasta packet. Gallop shows a GI food pyramid in comparison to the US Department of Agriculture's food pyramid: the only difference is that the USDA's pyramid has grains, rice, cereals and pasta on the bottom, whereas fruit and vegetables are at the bottom of the GI pyramid.

This is no coincidence in a weight-loss plan: fruit and vegetables tend to be lower in calories than grain, rice, cereals and pasta, gram for gram, and tend to be less calorie dense - most people could easily polish off a 100g serving of pasta in one sitting, which is about 350 calories, but nearly 1.2kg of broccoli, which yields almost the same amount of calories, would seem impossible to most of us. Neither is it a coincidence that all junk food is in the high GI (red) category, which is banned in both Phases. Don't get excited when you see ice cream in the low GI (green) category either - this means low-fat ice cream with no added sugar, which certainly isn't available in my local supermarket.

To be fair though, Gallop recommends sticking to the plan for 90% of the time and indulging yourself in the other 10%, so the GI diet isn't as restrictive as it seems - the occasional cream bun isn't going to undo all your hard work. And as Gallop says on his website, www.gidiet.com, "only you can determine which rules you can break and still lose weight". You can't really gorge on low GI foods though: although some are unlimited, Gallop suggests a plan of 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, so you won't be able to munch constantly. The main advantage of using the GI Diet is that low GI foods fill you up for longer, so you shouldn't feel hungry.

The problem with this is that it doesn't take into account other factors that make you want to eat: no diet is going to magically stop you comfort eating unless you address the underlying problem. The GI Diet may also give you less scope to cope with menstrual cravings and the like - calorie controlled plans allow you to factor in things like crisps and chocolate when you crave them. If your main problem when it comes to weight loss is feeling physically hungry, then The GI Diet will be extremely useful; if you tend to overeat for other reasons, a plan that addresses these reasons or at least supports you emotionally would be a wiser choice.

HOW EASY IS IT TO FOLLOW?

This is, at heart, a sensible healthy eating plan. You can follow it by eating normal foods and it's relatively easy to choose meals that are quick and easy to prepare. Processed food is high GI though, so you can't follow the plan by relying on ready meals, which may be tricky if you don't want to cook or are too busy to spend any time preparing a meal. The main challenge is not to succumb to junk food - at least not for more than 10% of the time - which some people will find difficult. With calorie-controlled plans, you can indulge yourself to a certain degree and even eat 100% junk food if you wish (though that's neither healthy nor recommended!), but you can't do that with the GI plan so there's less flexibility in that respect. However, if you find counting calories tedious, the GI Diet releases you from that chore.

WILL I LOSE WEIGHT?

If you manage to stick to the plan, yes. Even Gallop acknowledges that it works first and foremost because you're reducing the number of calories. Without exercising, most people will lose (according to Gallop) 1lb a week on the GI Diet. Other diets allow you to lose 2lbs a week, which is still healthy - experts agree that losing more than 2lbs a week frequently is unhealthy unless you're very overweight and you will probably be losing muscle as well as fat, which decreases your metabolism and makes it even harder to lose fat. You can lose 2lbs a week on the GI Diet by exercising, which is recommended because fitness is a crucial part of your over all health. You may well lose slightly more at first, as with most diets, due to water retention.

The GI diet focuses on long-term weight loss: you're expected to follow Phase II for the rest of your life. This sounds scary, but at least it's honest. The fact is that you can't go back to eating the way you did before the weight loss and expect not to gain the weight again. You have to control your diet somehow and the GI Diet is easier to implement than most other diets - especially if you don't want to be counting calories in the long term, once you reach your ideal weight.

AM I GOING TO FOLLOW IT?

Yes and no. Whilst I will be implementing a lot of the advice and have already copied down some delicious-sounding Low GI recipes, I can't imagine giving up so many of my favourite foods - even 10% of the time - so I will be using GI principles in conjunction with a calorie-controlled, largely-healthy diet. Low GI foods fill you up for longer, so they're an essential part of any healthy weight loss diet. This is just as sustainable and effective as the GI diet, if not more so for me personally.

Another reason for me doing this is that there are some anomalies within the GI system: broad beans, swede and parsnips are all in the high GI (red) category, despite being relatively low in calories (depending on how you cook them). When was the last time you came across someone whose sole reason for being overweight is because they eat too many broad beans?! On similar grounds, I disagree with the idea of eating egg whites in Phase I but shunning the yolks because they are medium GI. Yes, the yolk contains more calories, but not a huge amount and it's the most nutritious and flavoursome part of the egg. If you're eating one or two eggs at a time, the extra calories aren't going to make a huge amount of difference to your weight loss. It also seems wasteful to discard the yolk.

THE BOOK ITSELF

I am reviewing an updated edition of The GI Diet that was first published in Britain in 2004 and written 2 years after the first edition. It obviously makes more sense to buy or borrow this updated version, as the food charts have been updated and it includes recipes that weren't in the original. The tone is friendly and informal, making the reader feel at ease rather than confused by jargon. Everything is explained clearly and the charts are very clear and colour-coded, so you shouldn't have any problems understanding it. Gallop explains the theories and principles behind The GI Diet straight off, but the website (www.gidiet.com) has FAQs and other information if you're unsure about anything.

The Phase I chapter is divided into sections that focus on one meal at a time, teaching you how to adapt bought lunches and throw together meals. The GI charts are included in these sections, but there's an appendix with all the charts which is easier for reference and copying. This approach answers many questions of practicality - you don't get thrown into the deep end wondering "What on earth can I have for dinner?" and is extremely easy to read. There are summary boxes at the end of the sections which allow you to check the key points without reading through the whole section again.

Gallop's meal ideas are mostly basic ad fairly uninspiring, but the inclusion of low GI recipes from Emily Richards, who developed recipes in Living The GI Diet (which may be useful for further info), more than makes up for this. There are cereal bars and muffin recipes that you can eat during Phase I and some inspired vegetarian recipes that sound delicious. All the recipes are clearly laid out and easy to follow, but there are no pictures. Some of the ingredients may be slightly difficult to find, but most of them are basic, wholesome foods.

As much as I like the informal tone, some of the comments are a little annoying and unnecessary. As a vegetarian who needs to lose 3.5 stone and wants to lose over 5 stone, I didn't need to read "most people I know who are vegetarian don't need to lose weight" or to hear about the example of Gallop's skinny vegetarian son. Not only is this very off-putting, but it's also inaccurate: many studies have shown that switching to a vegetarian diet does not automatically guarantee weight loss and any idiot can tell you that most cakes, sweets, chocolate, crisps, fries, etc. are vegetarian. And I've met many overweight vegetarians. Any link is probably due to those health-conscious people who give up meat (especially red meat) for health reasons and thus follow a healthy, junk-free diet anyway.

I also found this comment a little disturbing: "soon you will have choruses of 'Mum, you can't serve that - it's red-light!'". It's not particularly healthy to raise children to think of certain foods as 'bad' - no more so than it is to serve them junk food - and as someone who is recovering from an eating disorder, it sends a shiver down my spine. And not in a good way. By all means, teach kids to eat healthily and that some foods should be eaten only in moderation, but taking a black-and-white approach often leads to either extreme of kids growing up to be extra-sensitive about what they eat or rebelling and stuffing themselves with junk food. I know because I did both.

There are short chapters on Exercise, Health and Supplements which act as a guideline and Gallop gets brownie points for mentioning resistance exercise as an integral part of any healthy exercise regime (increasing your muscle increases your metabolism, so you use up more energy all day every day). However, you probably will need to do further reading if you wish to follow up on these, or at least find a good gym employee or fitness fanatic to give you advice. These chapters really serve to underline the healthy approach that The GI Diet takes.

SHOULD YOU BUY IT?

If you wish to be introduced to The GI Diet, this is your book. You can certainly follow the diet purely by using the advice in this book; although you may want to read more if you're serious about adopting the GI way of life. I was glad I borrowed a copy from the library first, as I have decided not to follow the diet completely so it would have been a waste of money, and I recommend that you do the same to check whether this is the diet for you. It's available for £6.59 on Amazon, a few shades below the RRP of £10.99, with the sister book Living The GI Diet for £4.50, RRP £9.99.

If you decide to follow the diet, it will obviously help to own the book rather than just copy down the charts and recipes like I did, so buying is recommended in that instance. You will probably want to do some extra reading in time - even if just to find some more interesting recipes! - but this shouldn't be a problem with the amount of GI cook books being published after the success of The GI Diet. It is possible to follow the diet for the rest of your life with only this book as your guide, but I know I'd need more information, meal ideas and recipes to stop myself from getting bored.

 

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