Glycemic Index Impacts Diet

If you have diabetes, you must maintain proper blood sugar levels in order to avoid having complications from your condition. In order to do this, you must carefully monitor your diet. This can often be the most difficult part - monitoring and controlling the blood sugar levels. You need to know which diets can harm you and which can help you control your weight and your diabetes

The Glycemic Impact Diet focuses on low carbohydrates and is based on the glycemic index of foods. The glycemic index categorizes carbohydrates and measures them based on their sugar levels. Simple carbohydrates stay at one end of the scale and complex carbohydrates are on the other. Your simple carbohydrates will include such foods as white sugar and flour. Complex carbohydrates will include such foods as grains and vegetables. The South Beach Diet is similar to some degree to the Glycemic Impact.

Simple carbohydrates such as sugar and flour make you retain fat and raise your insulin levels while complex carbohydrates do not. The goal of the Glycemic Impact, like the South Beach Diet, is to focus on the good carbohydrates, the complex carbohydrates and to avoid the simple carbohydrates that will raise insulin levels. Maintaining this type of diet is supposed to help control the negative effects of diabetes while enhancing the overall health of the patient.

The problem with both of these is the restrictions placed upon them. Because many foods are strictly regulated, it is often difficult to continue the diet over time. You have to carefully watch your food intake. You have to be able to count the values in certain types of foods and adapt recipes in order to accommodate the strict guidelines encompassed in the diets.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has stated that the glycemic index is not nearly as important as the total amount of carbohydrates eaten. So, instead of completely eliminating simple carbohydrates from the diet, you instead reduce total carbohydrates. This gives people a much more balanced intake. Success rates much higher in eating smaller portions and a balanced diet rather than completely restricting certain food items.

A flexible diet based on the food pyramid and glycemic index is much better to sustain. The index rates the types of foods. Sometimes, it is necessary to eat foods with a higher glycemic index. For example, if your blood sugar is dropping during exercise, you would eat carbohydrates with a high glycemic index to raise your blood sugar. For regularly maintaining your diet, you will probably want to eat more foods with a lower glycemic index.

Experts agree that diets such as South Beach and Atkins work and will be beneficial to your health if followed closely. Watching your carbohydrates is very important to staying healthy and is especially important for those who have diabetes. Eating balanced meals filled with small portions and healthy foods from all the food groups and adding an exercise program to stay active and reduce weight is also an important aspect of changing to a healthier way of living is the best diet maintenance possible.

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