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

PTMD - I'll add that to this week's recipes. Just the stuff DH loves so will please him no end and he won't even realise it is doing him good.

There's an article in today's Observer about children's health and, guess what, it recoommends eating low GI! I'll be buying all the beans in Sainsbury's at this rate!

Well done grumpyfrumpy .

The recipe sounds delicious.

Just had a great light supper. Haloumi cheese, with a dressing of toasted hazel nuts, lemon and herbs, grilled. Seved on bugar wheat and beetroot in a mustard honey and orange dressing, with a large green salad. Very yummy.

Enjoyed the meal 'off diet' last night but felt quite ill at the end of it. GI def makes you feel better!

Ooh, I love haloumi cheese - is this a GI diet recipe hmb - if so it means I can indulge!

Yes it is!!!!! It is in the GI recipe book that goes with the Easy GI diet book if you have it.

For those that don't

4 tablesppns chopped herbs
rine and juice of one lemon
1tbsp taosted hazelnuts
1 tablesoon olive oil (whizz all of these together and marinade the haloumi)
100g of haloumi cheese sliced (we did a bit more tbh as it was for dinner)
5 oz blugar wheat cooked
2 cooked beetroot sliced
mixed green salad
rind and juice of orange
2 teasoons clear honey
1 teasppon of dijon mustard (last 3 miexed and used to dress the bugar wheat which you mix with the beetroot

Serves 4 297 kcal per serving

Ooh, I'm going to buy some tomorrow, thanks .

There is a big feature on low GI in today's Daily Mail. Extracts are from Helen Foster's book and there are recipes too. Might be useful as an intro for anyone who is interested but yet to be converted. DS in destructive mode so haven't read it (will sneak a read tonight as DH will rib me mercilessly about buying DM!).

Lost 1 lb this week.

PTMD - still going in the right direction. Well done. Just think of your Summer wardrobe!

I'm finding a little conflict too, Rick Gallop os the hard core version I think
For one I will not eat margarine, I adore butter but have happily eliminated from my diet for 3 weeks.Ditto artificial sweeteners - although happily use fructose sugar So many of his recipes include marg and art sweeteners.
I know I have taken the sunday times recipes to heart, the lamb pitta are sensational and a firm favourite.
I want to do the aubergine spaghetti soon too!
Some of the recipes on this thread look amazing
I also found a plain roast chicken minus skin, with nice green salad and a side serving of tagliatelle in tomato and chilli (arrabiata) sauce was immensely filling!
Also bulgur wheat is grand stuff!!!!!!!!!
Breakfast is hard for me
I like toast with half a banana or peanut butter which also conflicts in the bloody GI books!

also see Sir Trev McD is doing the GI on his next programme weds 8pm is it???
Examining the science

I have found loads of recipes in ordinary cookbooks which fit low GI really well. I have a vast selection but am using them more than ever so another plus. DH is delighted to have a change from our usual fare. Made a Boston bean soup with watercress last night and it was excellent (and very filling). Not really a way of eating for people who don't like cooking though - I have friends who would find it very difficult to cook every day. It is suiting me fine at the moment - still waiting for that energy surge though!

I'd quite like to do this diet, so far I've just been basically trying to follow a low fat diet and have cooked various meals that caught my fancy from the diet recipe books I've got at home (I've got 2-3 stone to lose). I like the idea of the science behind this though, especially if it really will mean that I'm less hungry.

I've picked up details from various places but really need to buy one of the books to get the full info and enough meal ideas and recipes to follow.

Which book do you all recommend as I don't want to buy more than one? There are loads of them on Amazon, including cookbooks.

By the way I can contribute a recipe that I cut out of Sainsbury's magazine last year because I fancied it, I wasn't interested in the GI diet at the time (was pregnant anyway). Think these are meant to be low GI biscuits (although they're not low cal. so not great for diets):

150g (5oz) unsalted butter or sunflower margerine
75g (3oz) fruit sugar
1 medium egg (at room temperature)
100g pack pecans, coarsley chopped
110g (4oz) plain flour
75g (3oz) porridge oats
butter or oil for greasing
salt

Preheat oven to 180 C/gas mark 4. Cream butter and fruit sugar until pale and smooth then beat in egg. Fold in nuts, flour, oats and pinch of salt.

Spoon golf ball sized amounts of mixture onto a greased baking sheet leaving enough room between each and gently flatten to approximately 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick. Bake for about 15 mins until golden around the edges and lightly browned on top.

Cool on metal rack (if these are eaten still hot they won't taste sweet as fruit sugar sweetens as it cools)

Recipe says these should be eaten with a peach, an apple of a glass of milk to maximise energy levels (it is specifically a GI diet recipe as it came with a list of low, medium and high GI foods but the bit I tore out doesn't state the GI of the biscuits themselves)

Each oatcake (based on making 15) has 190 calories, 14g fat (6g saturated), 2.5g protein, 15g carbohydrate, 5g added sugar, 1g fibre.

I made these with ordinary sugar, which means that I should really have used 1/3 more, but I didn't and they were sweet enough so could maybe use even less fruit sugar.

They're really yummy anyway and dead easy to make .

i am still doing well on gi - great idea to post recipies on here, still have yet to cook as recently moved and not unpacked spices , it is wonderful not to feel hungry and to feel so well on a diet, did the atkins in the past and the prospect of it turns my stomach now it worked but could never give up my porridge, pumpernickel,
recently discovered barley sourdough bread which is delicious

I did really well the first week, lost another pound the second, but have slipped back to eating chocolate the last week or so. Not sure why, but I find it easier to be good when dh is not around!

I'm fine on the meals, but eating pretty crap, chocolatey snacks.

HELP!!!

I don't particularly like dark chocolate but I do find a cube or two with a cup of tea satisfies my craving and stops me eating much, much more milk chocolate.

carribeanqueen, have you tried keeping a food diary?

Distracted, the Helen Foster book that's mentioned on here is meant to be good (I've ordered it from Amazon).

Having been on this diet a while now, what's interesting is that my appetite has changed considerably. I don't have mad cravings for things in the way I used to, it's really stabilised the way I eat.

cq, agree with pinksofa re the food diary, it really helps in getting back on track.

I'll try the food diary, thanks.

I have started making cocoa instead of hot chocolate to try and satisfy cravings that way. I put a bit of fruisana in it to sweeten it and it's quite nice.

Back on track tomorrow!!

Thanks puff - maybe I should order the Helen Foster book then rather than the Rick Gallop one.

Does anyone else have an opinion?

I ordered both but the Helen Foster is the one I have gone through thoroughly. It is explained very simply and the menu plans are v. good. Will get to the Rick Gallop this w/e I hope.