The G.I. Diet: The Easy, Healthy Way to Permanent Weight Loss

Review By Amadan "amadanb" (NY)
The thing about diets is that any "diet" you adopt for some specific, finite purpose (e.g. "I will eat a low-carb diet until I have lost 20 pounds" or "I will reduce my intake of fat and sugar until my cholesterol levels improve") is that they assume your "diet" is temporary, and at some point (after reaching your goal, presumably), you can "go back" to eating "normally." Well, if eating "normally" resulted in your current physical condition, what do you think will happen when you resume eating that way? Hence the failure of most diets. The only way a diet is going to work for you permanently is if it can become your PERMANENT DIET, i.e., the way you eat for the rest of your life. So, who can follow a low-carb diet or a coconut diet or a no-sugar-or-fat-or-anything-tasty diet or eat supplements and prepackaged meals FOREVER? No one.

This diet you can follow permanently. Yes, it does mean giving up junk food and greasy, fatty foods or foods made mostly of sugar and starch (or at least, limiting them to the occasional cheat meal, and by OCCASIONAL I mean "every couple of months," not "a couple times a week"!). But if you're not prepared to cut McDonald's and Oreos and Haagen Daaz out of your life, or at least confine them to a RARE treat, then you're not prepared to lose weight permanently, because you'll never accomplish any serious weight loss goals eating that stuff, sorry. The thing is, the G.I. diet doesn't try to exclude entire arbitrary categories of food or tell you you can only eat foods from certain groups. Instead, it lists foods as "red light" (don't eat at all, except for those RARE treats), "yellow light" (indulge occasionally but don't make them a regular part of your meals) and "green light" (eat all you want).

Now, here's the thing -- While the G.I. diet is based on the "glycemic index," i.e., how fast different foods metabolize into sugar -- there is nothing magical about the "green light" foods. Any book on nutrition will tell you what's healthy to eat (fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lowfat/nonfat dairy, lean meats) and what's not (sugar, fatty meats, full-fat dairy, anything made of "enriched" white flour, which basically turns into sugar almost immediately upon hitting your bloodstream). So you can follow this diet without obsessing over the GI ratings of different foods. The red light/yellow light/green light system is a useful guide, so you know, for example, that bananas, while not "bad" for you, are "yellow light" because they have a much higher starch content, and apples or berries are a better choice. No surprise that bacon is "red light," but there are plenty of meats that are "green light," you just have to be choosy about both your selections and your portion sizes. (If you're a vegetarian or even a vegan, the GI diet will suit you fine too.)

Mostly what you will learn is the choices you should substitute for less optimal foods. Apples are better than bananas. Sweet potatoes are better than regular potatoes. Brown rice is better than white rice. Old fashioned oatmeal is better than "instant" oatmeal. Skim milk is better than whole milk. Canadian bacon is better than ham or regular bacon. White meat is better than dark meat, and tenderloin is better than flank or round steaks. Again, none of this is a mystery and there are no magical combinations to learn, but you have to be willing to make these kinds of substititions PERMANENTLY.

I've been following the GI diet for almost a year now, with very good results. I supplemented it with a serious exercise program, but on the other hand, I never followed the stricter "Phase I" portion of the diet (where you are supposed to eat nothing but "green light" foods). I've cut "red light" foods 99% out of my diet (I can't give up cream in my coffee) and "yellow light" foods make up less than 20% of my diet. I do not feel hungry or deprived, and I eat plenty of stuff I like.

There are several recipes in this book that work very well as meal staples. I use them repeatedly, week after week. "Living the GI Diet," by the same author, is basically a GI Diet cookbook with many more recipes, also worth getting.