Combining Foods For The GI Index Diet

The GI Index diet doesn’t have any “forbidden” foods, but you do need to plan your meals properly in order for this way of eating to be most effective. The goal is to feel full longer so that you eat less, therefore you want to make your whole meal as low on the glycemic index (GI) as you can.

You can do this by eating more of the low GI index foods and less of the high ones. The combination of the foods “averages” out to provide a medium or low GI index meal. Since no foods are prohibited on this diet, you can still eat your favorite high GI foods but you will have to eat less of them and be sure you combine them with other foods that have a low ranking on the index.

Now here’s the tricky part, in order for the diet to work, you should make sure you are eating the same amount of carbs of the low index foods as you are of the high index foods.

For example, lets say you want to have mashed potatoes with your meal – these have a high GI index rating of 70, to balance that you should include a low GI index food (or even several) such as broccoli, or lettuce – each with a low GI value of 15. Now the tricky part of the diet is that you can’t just have equal amount – you need to have equal carb amounts in order for them to balance out. 1 cup of mashed potatoes has about 32 grams net carbs while 1 cup of broccoli has only about 3.5 grams!

In order to figure out the average glycemic index of these foods in these amounts you need to do some math. First off, you have roughly 9 times the amount of carbs from the potatoes as from the broccoli so multiply 9 * 70 (the proportion of carbs * it’s gi index number) = 630 then add in 1 * 15 for the broccoli (the proportion of carbs * it’s gi index number) for a total of 645. Now you have broken up the meal into 10 “units” ( 9 parts mashed potatoe and 1 part broccoli) so divide 645 by 10 for the total average GI of the meal which is 64.5.

As you can see, this is still too high, but you can remedy it by eating half the amount of potatoes or adding in more low GI index foods like lettuce, green beans or even yogurt as a dessert.

Lets see what happens if you ate only ½ cup of potatoes and 1 cup of broccoli. Now you are eating about 16 g carbs from the potato and still 3.5 from the broccoli. the proportion of potato carbs is about 5 to 1. The proportion of carbs from the potatoe is about 4.5 so multiply 4.5 * 70 (carbs * gi index) = 315, then add the broccoli which is still 1 * 15 for a total of 330. Now you divide your total number (330) by the amount of “parts” which is now 5.5 and you get an average GI index of 60.

It’s too complicated!

If you think this is too much work to go through just to plan a meal, you are probably right. But the GI diet doesn’t require that you have to be so exact. Simply educate yourself about the GI index values of the foods you eat and eat more of the low and less of the high. So your best practice is to fill up half your plate with low GI foods, ¼ with medium GI foods and ¼ with high GI foods. Experiment a bit and see which combinations make you feel full longer. It’s that simple.

Tip:

Lemon juice and vinegar slow the absorbtion of food and help make you feel full longer. Try drinking water with lots of lemon in it and having a salad with vinegar dressing (red wine vinegar is best) before your meal.

Low Gi Diet Vs Low Carb Diet
Find out the differences and similarities between the two diets.

Glycemic Index Food List
Wondering where your favorite food is on the list? Find out here.

Table of Glycemic Index Values For Fruit
All the fruit values we could find .. and still growing.

Table of Glycemic Index Values For Vegetables
All the vegetable values we could find .. and still growing.

Foods Low In Glycemic Index Values
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