THE GI DIET - Support, Tips, Recipes And So Much More!!!!

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

A thread for all us GI diet followers (and anyone interested in it).

If you have any yum recipes or tips to share, please do .

If you have any questions about following a GI diet, there's bound to be a Mumsnetter who knows the answer .

I'll be posting my progress on the thread weekly - if anyone else wants to - great!

Here are some useful links (some posted on other threads, but I thought I'd bring them together here):

Sunday Times GI Diet

The Glycemic Index (including database of foods)

GI diet recipe ideas at bottom of this page

You can have bacon (it's included in one of the recipes in HF book) but try to make it crispy to burn off the fat and keep your serving to no more than two rashers. You can also have cheese but low fat or only use a little of something strong like parmesan. Other trick is to keep your serving of pasta to no bigger than your fist so pad out the calorie high stuff (bacon/cheese/pasta) with lots of tomato and other cooked veg...leeks, courgettes, peas etc.

Hope this helps.

Also meant to ask...what weight do you think I should be if I'm 5'8"? Don't want to be stick thin just comfortable in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

Okay, I have just looked these up for you SW. In the Rick Gallop book both bacon and cheese are "red" foods so you should eat them in small quantities and combine with low GI foods. In the Helen Foster book it says that bacon is a low GI food! She gives a nice sounding recipe for a herby lentil salad with bacon and uses 85g for 4 people (back bacon).She also classes cheese as low GI but advises eating the low fat stuff (not worth it in my opinion). Boy this can get confusing!

Flicking through the recipes in the HF book I think a portion of pasta is 50g of dried pasta.

You can eat most things on this diet but it is the quantities of the high GI stuff that you have to watch. There is somewhere the suggestion that eating high with low gives you a medium meal overall.

I still think you should get the book and follow the plan. I think Happymerryberries did follow it quite strictly and lost loads of weight. I think there is a plan on the ivillage website too. Good luck.

thanks for that yoyo, I will trot off to the book shop and get the Rick Gallop book, is that the one you recommend. Hope he has reached the Antipodes though

(how's the early mornings, getting any better for you?)

Personally I think the Helen Foster is better. The menu plans are quite straight forward and you can eat loads. This is the one HMB used (I think). I have them both next to my computer. The ISBN is 0-600-61002-0 if that's any help.

right I will demand it at the bookshop on my morning off on Friday, well three hours off but mustn't grumble

I think all meat is low GI because it contains no carbohydrate, but Rick Gallop places bacon it in the red category because it is high fat. His categories are not just based on GI but on calories as well. So you can have bacon but need to keep an eye on the calories. Those little tubs of pancetta are quite good for adding a bit of flavour to a dish - I usually dry fry them so the fat comes out and rather than adding any oil.

I'm having real problems getting back into this. I have porridge for breakfast and usually soup and bread for lunch, then reasonable healthy dinner, but as soon as dd goes for afternoon nap, I eat anything in sight, same thing after dinner.

I think I had psyched myself up so much to lose weight before the holiday, that now I'm back I can't be bothered.

Can you set yourself another deadline like a wedding or a big night out? Could you get a friend or relative to award a prize for keeping going (so dinner out next Friday if you loose weight) or get people to sponsor you and do some fund-raising?

You know you are allowed a snack such as a yoghurt and a piece of fruit in the morning and the afternoon - or is that not enough? You could probably have a bit more than soup and bread for lunch - e.g. seafood and salad or cottage cheese.

Sorry CQ I was getting you muddled up with Octopussy and thinking you were new to the diet. You obviously know all that if you were doing it all before and don't need some young upstart like me (only 3 weeks on the diet as yet) telling you what to do .

No problem saker, any tips always welcome!

robin3 - thanks for the advice. I'll try and plan a new deadline or to work towards.

We could all plan to get together once we've reached an agreed target. I'd love to meet you all and share recipes....yes I'm very very sad .
Puff...when you've finished you could be an ambassador and set up a business like Weight Watchers.

CQ, are you having anything at all in between the meals? Sounds like you do need to build in some snacks - I have crudites/couple of crispbreads plus either tzatziki or hummus, or a piece of fruit and a yoghurt or some salad with a sprinkling of grated cheese mixed through and a few olives.

Oops, posted before finishing message!

robin3 - lol - would love an ambassador role, as long as it involves a uniform .

Having put on 6lbs in 2 days (I suspect due to eating bread), I've lost 3 of them without too much trouble - phew! I do miss bread though .

I can't get the Helen Foster book so have been looking at the Timesonline diet article which is very informative. And from what I can gather I think this may fit the guidelines;

Chorizo and Chickpeas in a thick tomato sauce with paprika and onions and celery and red pepper and a dollop of greek yogurt to finish. Can anyone see any voerboten food items in that?

And... I went clothes shopping yesterday and was inordinately smug to find I had dropped a size in tops from a 16 to a 14 after only one week!

Sounds good sw - just go easy on the chorizo - not sure of the fat content, but yum!

Made a lovely meal last night:

smoked mackerel
mixed green salad
salad of tomatoes, peppers and cannellini beans
couscous salad with grated courgettes, herbs and garlic

Yum yum.

Brilliant news Suzywong...well done.

Yum yum anorak...might have that tomorrow.

Puff...If I have the wheat tortillas filled with veg, guacamole or grilled with homous this seems to satisfy my bread craving. Or you can use them like a pizza base and spread on tomato sauce/veg and a little cheese. I'm pretty sure tortillas are ok GI wise.

thank you

yes that does sound delicious and satisfying anorak

but tell me, do I have to give up my nightly glass of red wine?

Not if it's one glass...for me one glass always turned in to three so I don't start unless it's the weekend.

well that's a good point, when I say one I mean I can count them on one hand some nights, you know how it is

right must plan my weekend menus from the sunday times website