The Facts About The Glycemic Index
What is the Glycemic Index? The number is a ranking figure (like 72 out of 100). It ranks carbohydrates as to how much they cause blood sugar to rise 2-3 hours after ingestion. A food with a high glycemic index shoots your blood sugar up; a food with a low glycemic index doesn’t cause a spike in blood sugar.
Why is it important? It was developed to help diabetics control their blood sugar. The closer you keep your blood sugar under control, the less likely you are to have complications of diabetes. The glycemic index helps diabetics choose foods that don’t cause their blood sugar to rise as much.
What’s the big deal with the glycemic index for weight loss? High glycemic index foods make your blood sugar spike whether you are diabetic or not. Non-diabetics simply have the ability to respond more rapidly to the increase in blood sugar. This causes two problems:
- When your blood sugar rises rapidly, you send out a bunch of insulin to take care of it. Sometimes your pancreas overshoots, and you have more insulin circulating than you do sugar, and you develop low blood sugar. Which not only makes you feel terrible, but it makes you ravenously hungry.
- Some people have a tendency to insulin resistance. Even when their body responds appropriately to an increase in blood sugar, their cells can’t use the sugar and it gets converted to fat.
Eating low glycemic index foods keeps your blood sugar more even, and prevents hypoglycemic crashes and binges. It may decrease the tendency to insulin resistance.
Glycemic index lists are widely available. Remember, though, that you still have to watch how much low GI foods you eat, and the GI only applies to carbohydrates. You also have proteins and fats to worry about. They don’t affect your blood sugar as much, but they do affect your weight.