Weight Loss Benefits of the Glycemic Index

We all want a healthier heart and lower cholesterol, of course, but mostly we want trimmer thighs and hips and a smaller gut. Right?

Weight loss is one of the great side benefits to following the recommendations of the Glycemic Index. While the main reason for its development was to control our blood sugar from severe dips and spikes and allow our insulin levels to remain more constant, the fact is that the food choices we make when following the Glycemic Index are foods that also allow us to lose weight naturally – and even better, keep it off easily.

The reason why is because foods that keep our sugar and insulin levels on a healthy and constant plateau are the same foods that are also giving us a longer, more constant feeling of fullness and satisfaction. When our energy levels are kept “fed” on a more continuous basis, we do not feel the need to keep eating.

Everyone has had that feeling of euphoria after eating a food high in sugars and carbohydrates, but unfortunately, along with that “high” comes the equal and sometimes unbearable low. This “bottoming out” happens every time and yet we put our bodies through this sort of situation so often that we don’t even recognize it. We seem to be continuously confused as to why we are “hungry” again so soon after completing a meal, snack or binge that was made up of foods from the high end of the Glycemic Index. We don’t realize that we aren’t really hungry it is just that our hormones have just gone on such a roller coaster ride that we are trying to adjust them.

Like a swinging pendulum, our bodies react to one extreme by trying to correct it, which swings the pendulum back in the other direction. These extreme actions and reactions are the conduct that will destroy our health and keep us from losing weight successfully.

Of course, along with any change you must prepare for it mentally. Even though logically we know that what we are doing is harmful to our body it has become such a habit that we may feel helpless to break the cycle. Because as much as we hate it when our blood sugar levels are low, which leaves us feeling down and depressed, we absolutely adore those feelings of euphoria that comes with dangerously high blood sugar.

It will definitely take some time and some hard work at first, but once you learn to focus your joys on things other than food and on the way food makes you feel, following the Glycemic Index will be effortless.