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Medium Glycemic Index Diet Idle to Maintain Weight

A medium glycemic index meal keeps you energetic throughout the day & helps maintain weight.

To begin with what is Glycemic index? It is a food number. This numeric value indicates how fast the carbohydrates in that food are broken down into glucose compared to a reference value. Only foods with carbohydrates have a GI; fat and protein do not have a GI.

Its difficult to know the GI of a food without looking it up, but you can make a good guess about which foods might have a higher or lower GI than other foods. You however use a glycemic index chart to quickly see the GI and often the GI values for different foods.

Food Division based on Glycemic Index

  • Low glycemic index (GI of 55 or less): Most fruits and vegetables, beans, minimally processed grains, pasta, low-fat dairy foods, and nuts.
  • Moderate glycemic index (GI 56 to 69): White and sweet potatoes, corn, white rice, couscous, breakfast cereals such as Cream of Wheat and Mini Wheats.
  • High glycemic index (GI of 70 or higher): White bread, rice cakes, most crackers, bagels, cakes, doughnuts, croissants, most packaged breakfast cereals.

Smart Tips to Manage GI

  • Add Protein and fat in your diet for they tend to lower the GI.
  • Fiber is a type of carbohydrate, but your body cannot digest it, and fiber tends to lower the GI.
  • Processes such as cooking, mashing, and juicing tend to raise the GI.
  • Eat less processed foods, such as whole grains, tend to be lower-GI than more processed foods, such as refined grains like white bread and pasta.

Medium GI Foods

Medium-GI foods are somewhere between low and high-GI foods. Examples include:

  • Sweet corn and winter squash.
  • Bananas, kiwi fruit, and mangos.
  • Bran cereal, Total, muesli, and Cheerios, oat breakfast cereals, and multigrain, oat bran or rye bread.
  • Whole grain pasta.
  • Potato chips.
  • Pizza, burgers, and chicken and turkey sandwiches on white bread.
  • Ice cream.
  • Raw pineapple, raisins.

Select foods based on a glycemic index or glycemic load value to manage your weight because many foods that should be included in a well-balanced, low-fat, healthy diet with minimally processed foods are whole-grain products, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products.

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