Rosemary Conley’s GI Jeans Diet

The new Gi diet book from Britain’s best-loved and bestselling diet and fitness expert

Rosemary Conley CBE is Britain’s most trusted diet expert. So who better to bring us a diet book that takes the scientifically proven success of Glycaemic Indexing (Gi) but presents it in a way that is straightforward and easy to follow.

Unlike other Gi books, Rosemary Conley’s Gi Jeans Diet will do all the hard work for you. No calculations or complex charts, but a simple, easy to follow diet plan that promises sensational weight loss results – fast!

To maximise your progress and achieve a truly great shape everyone needs to get active. Rosemary brings you her best-ever toning exercises plus the choice of a fat-burning walking or running programme – you choose.

With a choice of tried and tested diet plans and delicious low fat recipes, this is the perfect diet for getting into shape – and getting into those jeans – without even having to go hungry. It is healthy for the whole family too!

“I lost 2 stone 1 lb in 8 weeks without ever feeling hungry. It’s the easiest diet ever”

About the Author

Rosemary Conley is the UK’s leading diet and fitness expert. Her diet and fitness books and videos have consistently topped the bestseller lists with combined sales in excess of nine million copies. Rosemary has also presented more than 250 cookery programmes on TV. In 2001 Rosemary was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Leicester, and in 2004 she was awarded a CBE for services to the fitness and diet industries.

Together with her husband, Mike Rimmington, Rosemary runs four companies: Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs, which operates a national network of almost 200 franchises running over 2,000 classes weekly; Quorn House Publishing Ltd, which publishes Rosemary Conley Diet & Fitness magazine; Rosemary Conley Licences Ltd; and Rosemary Conley Enterprises.

Also by Rosemary Conley

Acknowledgments

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this book and I hope it helps you succeed in achieving a slim and fit body. I surround myself with experts in my work and I have the pleasure of working with some very special people who are far more technically knowledgeable than I am. I know that my readers want to learn how to lose weight and get fitter, healthily and safely, and I hope that I have put that knowledge into understandable language that will also motivate them into action.

For the last 12 years I have had the real privilege of working with Mary Morris, M.Sc., who heads our training department for Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs. Mary has choreographed all my fitness videos and DVDs during that time and we have enormous fun working together. The fitness programmes and the fitness quiz included in this book have been created by Mary. Thank you, Mary, for your tremendous support and continued contribution and interest in my work.

Dr Susan Jebb is an eminent nutrition scientist as well as Chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity. Thank you so much, Susan, for your encouragement and invaluable guidance with this book.

I would like to thank Julie Mayer from Radio Leicester, who so enthusiastically launched the Diet Trial which enabled my Gi Jeans Diet to be tested by her listeners before I wrote this book. Thank you also to my Trial Dieters.

My PA for the last 11 years is Melody Patterson, who has worked extremely hard in bringing the various chapters of this book into some kind of order as well as calculating the nutrient content of all the menus and recipes. Thank you, Melody, for all your support and hard work.

I also want to give enormous thanks to my editor Jan Bowmer for making my manuscript into the book it is today. Your expertise and enthusiasm for what I do, and your interest and attention to detail, are very much appreciated.

Thank you also to chef Dean Simpole-Clarke for compiling the delicious recipes in this book. I hope they will help everyone who follows this programme to feel that it isn’t like a diet at all but more a delicious way of eating.

I also want to say a huge thank you to my daughter, Dawn, who acted as my assistant when I went away to write this book. Your wisdom in knowing what my dieters want from me and your encouragement to ‘stick at it’ is appreciated more than you realise.

Many thanks also to Roger Walker, who has designed this book, and to my husband, Mike, for his total support, patience and love throughout the writing of this book.

Useful information

The diet in this book is based on sound healthy eating principles. However, it is important that you check with your doctor or GP before following any weight-reducing plan. Diabetics should always follow the eating guidelines recommended by their GP or medical practitioner.

1 It really, really works!

MY GI JEANS DIET WORKS. It really, really works! You will lose weight fast but healthily and, remarkably, you will not feel hungry because the whole principle of the Gi way of eating is to eat foods that are slowly digested and absorbed, which helps you feel fuller for longer. Not only will you see sensational results faster than ever before, you will also be giving your body the best possible health boost.

I have read several of the recent rush of Gi diets that have been published and I was not only surprised at how confusing they were but, most of all, at how complicated they appeared. I felt that having to learn the Gi ratings of thousands of foods as well as count calories AND watch out for fat content was a step too far for the average in-a-rush dieter. So on that basis I set myself a challenge to come up with a weight-reducing diet that was simple to follow but Gi-based, low in fat, and calorie counted.

Gi has brought a new perspective to dieting, but the principles of weight loss remain unchanged. My goal was to create an eating plan that would be ultra-healthy and Gi-based, one that would work quickly and effectively in reducing weight and inches. I then had to add a fitness plan which would speed up the rate of weight loss and significantly improve fitness levels, one that dieters would find easy to stick with in the future. Losing weight and getting fit for the short term is a waste of time. It has to be a long-term lifestyle modification programme.

As soon as I started to put the diet together I went on local radio and asked for volunteers to try out the diet. The response was brilliant. From the dozens of volunteers, five trial dieters were selected to appear on Radio Leicester for a live weigh-in every couple of weeks, and their results and comments are included in chapter 18. Julie Mayer, the lunchtime presenter, who selected the ‘famous five’ for her new ‘Flab Fighters’ slot wasn’t disappointed with their performance. In the first two weeks their individual weight losses ranged from 5½lb to 12lb and, at the end of the eight-week trial, from 1st 3lb to 2st 1lb, making a total loss of 4st 5½lb! The two men and three women team also attended my own diet and fitness class in Leicester and quickly learned to salsacise and do aerobics to speed up their progress. The overwhelming comment from them was that they didn’t feel hungry and, considering the two guys were strapping six-footers, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Although scientific studies have shown that eating foods with a low glycaemic index can help prevent certain health problems, no clinical trials have proved that a low-Gi diet on its own helps you to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because we have known for a very long time that to lose weight we need to eat fewer calories than we actually use up each day. We also know that eating low-fat foods is an easy way to cut back on the calories as, compared with carbohydrates or proteins, gram for gram, fat contains twice as many calories. And, if we add into the mix some regular moderate exercise, we can speed up the weight-loss process as well as further improving our overall health and fitness.

The key to an effective diet is simple. A diet needs to be easy to follow, enjoyable to eat, and not leave you feeling hungry. It should allow you some freedom to make your own choices whether at home or out socially, and have fast results that you can actually see and feel. There’s nothing like initial success to inspire you on to greater success, so if you can see results on a diet, you are much more likely to stick with it. My aim is to take you on an enjoyable adventure towards the body you have always dreamed of. AND, YES, IT CAN BE DONE!

A quick guide to Gi

Gi stands for glycaemic index, which measures the speed at which carbohydrate foods are digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. Foods with a low Gi rating are slowly absorbed and cause our blood sugar (glucose) to rise gently and then fall gradually. On the other hand, foods with a high Gi rating cause a rapid but short-term surge in our blood-sugar levels, which later drop suddenly and results in real hunger cravings, leading to snack-attacks for more quick-fix, high-Gi-rated foods.

The glycaemic index was originally created with the specific purpose of helping diabetics control their insulin levels. Studies involving the use of low-Gi foods have shown that a low-Gi diet can also play a very important role in the prevention of heart disease and significantly reduce the risk of developing diabetes.

This is a weight-loss book, so you will not find detailed tables listing the Gi values of foods here, because you simply don’t need them. It is also important to realise that NOT EVERY food you eat needs to be low Gi. The aim is to eat a healthy diet that contains a higher proportion of foods with a low Gi rating than perhaps you used to eat.

Why Gi Jeans?

Why did I call it the Gi Jeans Diet? Because I know how I feel when I look good in my jeans – I feel top dollar! I am very conscious of what I eat, so my weight only fluctuates by a few pounds from time to time, but my jeans are my barometer of how I’m doing on the weight front. Virtually everyone – both men and women – likes to look great in jeans, with no stomach overhanging. And almost every overweight person I have ever met wants to look good in jeans as an incentive to stick with their diet programme. Jeans are unforgiving, so we know that if we look and feel good in them, then we feel more confident about our bodies and ourselves generally. If you can trim your body so that you look great in yours, you will have every incentive to keep eating healthily, working out regularly and enjoying life in the long term, and THAT is what we are after!

About the Gi Jeans Diet

My Gi Jeans Diet includes two eating plans. The main Gi Jeans Diet is the most effective and will give the fastest results. However, for those people who hate sticking to a diet plan, I have created the No Diet Gi Jeans Diet plan, which gives you more freedom, although there are still guidelines on which foods you can and can’t eat! You will also find lots of easy-to-prepare, delicious recipes, the most effective body toning exercises ever (to help improve your shape while you slim) and fat-burning aerobic exercise suggestions to help you burn your body fat faster. And, if you are not keen on exercising, I’ve included a quiz to enable you to find out which type of exercise is best suited to your personality so that you will have a greater chance of success. In between all this there is bags of motivation and information so that you can make informed choices about your lifestyle in the future.

GI AT A GLANCE

2 A crash course in Gi and GL

WHEN WE TALK about the glycaemic index we are talking about carbohydrates – that’s foods such as bread, rice, pasta, cereal and potatoes, although carbohydrate is also found in all fruits and vegetables and some other foods.

We have always been led to believe that ‘simple’ carbohydrates, such as refined sugars and sweets, are bad and that ‘complex’ carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, pasta, rice and potatoes, are good. The rationale behind this theory was that ‘simple’ carbohydrates are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream whereas starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes, rice and pasta are more slowly digested. In reality, it is not as simple as that. The rate at which the energy from carbohydrate enters the bloodstream depends on many different factors, including the exact type of starch and the method of cooking.

The glycaemic index is a way of ranking foods based on the rate at which they raise our blood sugar (glucose) levels. Each food is given a rating on a scale of 1-100, and the lower the rating, the better. Glucose is the highest-ranking food at 100 and other carbohydrates are gauged somewhere in between. Generally speaking, anything with a rating of 70 or over is considered ‘high’ Gi, a rating between 69 to 55 can be considered ‘medium’, and under 55 is considered ‘low’. However, you can ‘shift’ the Gi value by combining different foods. Most of the foods included in my Gi Jeans Diet eating plan are low Gi, but occasionally I have combined ‘high’ Gi foods with ‘low’ Gi ones to make a ‘medium’ Gi meal which is still healthy and most likely an improvement on what you used to eat prior to following this plan.

Keeping our blood glucose levels stable can improve our sensitivity to a hormone we all have in our body called insulin. It was for this reason that the glycaemic index was originally created, as diabetics struggle to keep their insulin levels balanced. Failure to do so can result in serious consequences for them.

People who are overweight can be less sensitive to insulin, compared to people who are a healthy weight. This makes them more prone to diabetes, and it can also lead to heart problems. It makes sense, therefore, to take preventative action to avoid serious health risks, and we can do this easily by incorporating low-Gi foods into our daily diet and losing those unwanted pounds to achieve a healthier weight.

Low-Gi diets are based around fibre-rich foods and include lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and generous helpings of legumes (beans and pulses). Fibre is a crucial component of any healthy Gi diet, and in many cases, the higher the fibre content, the lower the Gi ranking is likely to be. So when you are shopping check the labels and always opt for the higher-fibre alternatives. However, be aware that some low-Gi foods can be quite high in fat, so only select foods with 5% or less fat content.

Gi and weight loss

A low-Gi diet will only help weight loss if it helps to cut calories. Low-Gi foods such as beans and pulses, vegetables and fruit are naturally low in calories. In addition, the high fibre content of many low-Gi foods helps to keep us feeling fuller for longer as the stomach doesn’t empty as fast as it does after eating very highly processed foods. Since a diet based on low-Gi foods reduces dramatic fluctuations in blood glucose and insulin levels, it decreases hunger pangs – a real bonus when trying to lose weight. Also, by eating foods which have a low Gi rating, you will automatically be giving many high-fat, high-calorie foods such as cakes, biscuits, confectionery and high-sugar soft drinks a miss, which will, of course, speed up your weight-loss progress.

There is no EU law or legal definition of low Gi and, technically, it is not a nutrition claim for a product. Currently a Gi claim on a product needs to be substantiated by a controlled feeding trial to measure the release of sugar into the blood compared to glucose. There are numerous factors that affect the glycaemic index, so usually a high, medium or low system, rather than a specific number, is used by manufacturers and retailers, such as Tesco, who are the leaders in this field.

Since the fat content can lower the Gi rating of foods, don’t fall into the high-fat trap. Remember, fat makes you fat! The purpose of this book is to help you lose weight. The most effective way to lose weight is to follow a low-fat, calorie-controlled diet and that is the difference between the diet in this book and many other Gi diets that have been published. So, you need to choose low-fat foods, then select low-Gi ones, too. Make sure that you only select products with 5% or less fat, i.e. 5 grams or less per 100 grams of product, unless otherwise stated in the diet plan. Providing you follow that guideline and keep within the calorie allowance given for that meal, you will be able to substitute your own choices for some of the Gi Jeans Diet meal suggestions.

General Gi guidelines

BEANS AND PULSES are naturally high in fibre and offer slow-releasing energy, which makes them ideal low-Gi foods. Adding them to casseroles and soups can reduce the Gi rating of the dish.

BREAD varies enormously in its Gi rating. These days you can find a wide variety of grains made into bread. As a rule of thumb, the critical factor is the fibre content, so ideally choose seedy loaves made from stone-ground flour rather than plain bread. When it comes to labelling statements, avoid those with descriptions such as ‘unbleached’ or ‘enriched’ flour, which is actually white flour when all the nutrients from the wheatgerm and bread have been stripped away but a few minerals and vitamins have been added back. Whenever possible, choose bread where the flour has been stoneground, as it will be coarser, or loaves with seeds and grains still intact. Some loaves are now being produced with added ingredients such as beta-glucan (usually found in oats) to lower the Gi. These breads tend to be more expensive but may be worth investing in if you eat a lot of bread. Pitta bread and tortilla wraps have a lower Gi than ordinary loaves and so are good choices, too, and make great sandwich alternatives for a quick lunch.

CEREAL is another minefield but the frontrunner here without a doubt is oats and the coarser the flakes the better. While oats are around 8% fat, they are packed with essential nutrients and are usually cooked or served with water or milk, which brings down the overall fat content. Instant porridge oats are also good – make them up with water and serve with semi-skimmed milk and a little sugar or honey for a long-lasting, energy-giving breakfast. Wholegrain muesli that has not been overly processed is a good choice, too, as is any high-fibre cereal such as All-Bran, Bran Buds and Shredded Wheat. Special K is also a low-Gi food. Weetabix is borderline medium Gi but is included in this eating plan because of its natural nutritional qualities.

A QUICK GUIDE TO LOW GI

PASTA has a lower Gi than bread, potatoes or rice and so is a great food to include in a low-Gi diet.

POTATOES vary quite dramatically in their Gi ranking. Sweet potatoes have the lowest Gi rating. New potatoes, with their waxy texture, are also a good choice, whereas old potatoes are a high-Gi food. However, if you cook a jacket potato (‘high’ Gi) in the oven and then serve it with baked beans (‘low’ Gi), it becomes a ‘medium’ Gi meal, which is fine and healthy. Always cook potatoes in their skins for increased fibre.

RICE varies enormously in its Gi content. Basmati rice has a much lower Gi than regular varieties. Easy-cook rice has a particularly high Gi, so it’s worth taking a few more minutes to prepare the traditional varieties.

What about glycaemic load?

A recent progression of the glycaemic index has been the discovery of glycaemic load (GL). This is a calculation of the Gi value and carbohydrate content per serving of food. It takes into account the amount of carbohydrate in the meal and the type of carbohydrate (its Gi value). Both are equally important and they both have an effect on blood sugar levels. Researchers at Harvard University in the USA came up with a way of combining these two factors and called it the ‘glycaemic load’.

Calculating the GL values of food is particularly beneficial for diabetics, but it should not be used on its own as a weight-loss tool as the likelihood is that the dieter will not eat a balanced diet, which would be counter-productive. However, by incorporating low-Gi foods into your diet you will automatically reduce the glycaemic load.

This is a weight-loss diet book designed to give you the optimum healthy diet to achieve a dramatic weight loss. There are many other books on the market outlining specific Gi and GL values of foods if this is of particular interest to you. What is different about this Gi Jeans Diet book is that the diet has already been tested by real dieters – with amazing weight-loss results – without resorting to counting every Gi point.

3 So you want to lose weight?

YOU’VE MADE THE decision to lose weight. Now it’s time to put it into practice. Take it one step at a time – start by focusing on the benefits you will reap – and you will definitely achieve your goal.

It may be the first time you have tried to lose weight or it may be that you have been trying to lose weight for a while. Nevertheless, look upon today as the day you start your diet. It’s good to see each day as a unit. If it turns out to be a good diet-day you can feel proud of yourself. If it becomes a disaster diet-day, just ‘turn the page’ in your mind and start afresh tomorrow.

You will achieve your new slim figure over time – it’s a ‘work in progress’, but it is the best ‘work’ you will ever do. Why? Because achieving a healthy weight will make a major contribution to your achieving a healthier body.

You may want to lose weight to make you look and feel better but you should never underestimate the dramatic effect it will have on your health. We keep telling ourselves that heart disease and diabetes are conditions that affect other people. They’re not. They can affect all of us and it’s important to take action NOW to reverse any damage done so far. The good news is that your body will respond very quickly to the positive changes the diet in this book will help you to make.

More and more scientific research shows that obesity is a major cause of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and high blood pressure. These are serious life-threatening conditions, yet it is totally within your control to turn your risk of suffering them around. All you have to do is make some small lifestyle changes. If you were to eat less fat and fewer processed foods, give yourself smaller portions and become generally more active, you could dramatically reduce your chances of suffering a premature death.

Find a reason to lose weight

When I ask successful slimmers what made them stop gaining weight and start losing it, I receive the same answers I’ve heard so many times before. ‘I didn’t want to be the “fat mum” at the school gates.’ ‘My doctor told me I would die early if I didn’t lose weight.’ ‘I saw a photograph of myself at my niece’s wedding and I couldn’t believe that great fat person was actually me,’ and the all-time favourite: ‘I saw myself on video.’ The problem is that lots of overweight people are in denial about how big they are.

Many overweight people don’t even possess a mirror that shows below shoulder height. They buy clothes with elastic waistbands so that they don’t know what their size really is. They often wear the same few clothes that fit, for months, not daring to go into a dress shop to buy new ones in case the size is bigger than last time. Being overweight, or dare I say obese, is like having a great big cloud affecting every minute of every day and indeed everything in your life – how people treat you, how fast you can move about, the pain you feel in your knees when you climb the stairs and, of course, the feeling of permanent exhaustion.

The word ‘obese’ is an ugly word that brings with it connotations of greed, lack of self-respect and laziness. Change those unkind words to ‘love of food’, ‘lack of confidence’ and ‘inactive’ and you realise it describes a totally normal person who has ‘let things get a little out of control.’ It happens. Many people have a part of their life that is out of control. It may be debt, addiction, infidelity – who knows? But the fact is that if you are seriously overweight or obese it’s OK! You are not ready to be ‘certified’ but you are a good and worthy member of society who has the CHOICE to change your body size and become healthier.

How we lose weight

With so many different types of diet around, it’s not surprising that people get confused. You may have followed endless diets and even enjoyed some success but it is really important to understand the basic facts of how a diet works if you are going to lose weight satisfactorily.

The human body needs food to give it energy to function, in the same way that a central heating system needs fuel in the form of gas, electricity, oil, or solid fuel. Whereas a central heating system is designed to accept as much fuel as it needs, when it needs it, we have to rely on meal times and snacks to give our bodies a regular supply of fuel. The problem comes when our ordering system is out of sync with our bodily needs. This results in an over-delivery of food, which then has to be stored – as fat. That’s when we gain weight. It is the same as having excess deliveries of fuel for your central heating system and having to build extra coal bunkers or oil tanks in which to store it. Fat is stored in fat cells all around the body and when each fat cell is filled to capacity, we automatically create more, but we are in control of how full or empty they are.

To lose weight you need to adjust your ‘goods inwards’ deliveries so that you receive fewer food calories than you actually burn each day and start using up some of your existing fat stores to make up the difference.

Metabolism

Every day the body spends around 2000 calories (around 3000 for men) to make it function and to enable you to be physically active – in other words, just ‘living’. You can’t stop yourself from using that fuel (although you would burn around 600 fewer calories if you stayed in bed all day). Unless you are ill, you are unlikely to be in bed all day – you will be out and about, living your daily life. The body HAS to get those calories from somewhere. If they don’t come from food (because you are on a calorie-reduced diet), your body will automatically make up the difference by calling on the calories stored around your body as fat. This will lead to weight loss and inch reduction. It’s a simple matter of physics. For any diet to enable you to lose weight, it HAS to feed you fewer calories than your body actually burns up.

You should never follow a diet of fewer than 1200 calories for more than two weeks as this would result in your body holding on to your fat to protect you against future starvation. You would then lose muscle instead of fat, which is the very last thing you want. This is why crash diets don’t work, because if you follow them for longer than two weeks your body’s metabolic rate could slow down to conserve energy.

Muscle is energy-hungry tissue and needs calories to sustain it, whereas fat requires very little energy. So, if you give your body sufficient calories to meet its basic needs (around 1400 –1500 calories a day for women and 1700–1800 for men, depending on your age and current weight), your body will not think it is starving and will tick over very happily.

However, by reducing your food intake by a further 200 or 300 calories, down to 1200 calories, for just a couple of weeks, which is what my Gi Jeans Kick-start Diet does, you will see a dramatic fall in weight as, in effect, you take the body by surprise. But if you were to continue on the lower calorie level after two weeks your rate of weight loss would slow down considerably. That is why, after week two, I have given you a more generous calorie allowance. The interesting thing is that your overall progress will ultimately be faster by eating more, as in Part 2 of the Gi Jeans Diet, because your body will not feel under threat of starvation and will happily burn up its fat stores to meet its energy needs. This doesn’t mean to say that you can’t reintroduce the Gi Jeans Kick-start Diet again for a week or two every couple of months if you can cope with it. If you can, your rate of progress will be amazing, but it’s important that you do not stay on it for longer than two weeks at a time.

So, a daily calorie allowance of around 1400 or 1500 would sustain your basal metabolic rate (BMR) but cause your energy supply to fall short of its needs by about 600 calories a day. As those calories have to be found from somewhere, 600 calories-worth of body fat gets burned away as emergency fuel to make up the difference. Brilliant! And here’s the clever bit. If you eat your 1400 or 1500 calories in the form of food that is low Gi and low in fat, you shouldn’t FEEL that you are eating less quantity of food than you did before.

Once you have completed the Gi Jeans Kick-start Diet, turn to the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) charts see here. These illustrate your personal calorie allowance, based on your age, gender and current weight. This will enable you to eat sufficient calories to meet your bodily needs yet few enough to affect a weight loss. With this information at your fingertips you can be sure you will be maximising your potential success. As you lose weight you will be able to adjust your calorie allowance to ensure that your rate of weight loss is maintained.

Why low fat?

Fat in food doesn’t make the food ‘bigger’ or more filling, so it doesn’t affect the quantity of food you want to eat. Compared to carbohydrate or protein, fat contains twice as many calories, so reducing your fat intake is an obvious target when trying to cut calories.

Carbohydrates give us energy (like fuel in a car) and are burned as fuel very easily. Protein is utilised by the body for growth and repair of muscles, organs, tissue, and so on, and is also not easily laid down as fat. Conversely, the fat that we eat is very easily stored as body fat and is processed by the body quite differently. Nature designed us to be fat-storers because food has not always been available 24/7. There were, and still are in some countries, times of famine, so our bodies are designed to protect us in case we are unable to get food.

Let me explain this a little further. Carbohydrate is digested in the stomach and goes to the small intestine and then into the bloodstream for cellular use as energy. It is stored in the muscles for use when we need it and for energy when we exercise. If we eat too much, however, it will be stored as fat.

Protein is digested in a similar way. When it reaches the bloodstream it gets used for repair of cells around the body. Again, though, if we eat too much protein, it will be stored as fat.

Fat is digested differently. It goes to the stomach, where it forms clusters of fat. Because it is lumpy, it cannot enter the bloodstream like carbohydrate or protein but instead goes into the lymphatic system. It is then transported around the body, after which the clusters are broken down and the fat in our blood rises. Fat can stick to our blood vessels, which is why our cholesterol can rise and cause heart problems. Only a very small amount of fat – about 10 per cent – is taken up by the muscles as energy and the remaining 90 per cent will be transported around the body to be stored, making us fatter. However, if we exercise regularly, our bodies become much more efficient in burning fat as energy.

It is obvious, then, that fat really is the enemy when we are trying to lose weight. By cutting right down on our fat intake we can reduce the calories AND avoid adding to our existing fat stores, with significant benefits to our health.

If we combine low-fat eating with eating healthy low-Gi foods, with their slow-releasing energy qualities that stave off hunger pangs, we have the recipe for the perfect weight-loss diet. It really is a win–win situation.

I cannot complete this discussion about fat without mentioning saturated and poly- or mono-unsaturated fats. ALL fats have a similar fattening power, so if you are trying to lose weight, cut back on them all. Be aware that olive oil – or any oil for that matter – is 100 per cent fat! However, if you are slim and at risk of developing heart disease, then mono- or poly-unsaturated fats are fine. The only exception is that everyone should eat one portion of oily fish each week to ensure a regular intake of important omega-3 fish oils.

1 Eat three meals a day, including breakfast, plus two Power Snacks and one Treat (see here).

2 Eat a higher proportion of natural foods and reduce your intake of highly processed foods to give your overall diet a lower Gi rating. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and try to avoid highly processed, high-sugar, high-fat snacks.

3 Eat foods with 5% or less fat, with the exception of oily fish, e.g. salmon or mackerel, once a week and some brands of multigrain bread.

4 Drink lots of water and drink alcohol only in moderation.

5 Start being more active every day. Remember you burn twice as many calories standing rather than sitting, walking rather than standing, and jogging rather than walking!

Make these five golden rules part of your everyday life and you’ll change your body for ever.

4 How to be a weight-loss winner

IF YOU WANT to lose weight safely and effectively, as well as understanding the principles of a healthy diet and what types of food to eat, you need to get your mind into gear and adopt some simple strategies that will help motivate you and enable you to achieve ultimate slimming success.

Set some goals

We all need goals to motivate us into action but unless we make those goals more specific, we may never achieve them. We all need a reason for making that extra bit of effort or to try that bit harder. With goals to aim for, we will achieve so much more than if we have nothing to focus on.

If you want to lose weight you need to imagine the huge benefits you will enjoy and you need to say them to yourself in the first person, e.g. I will have more energy, I will look more attractive, my clothes will fit better, my joints won’t ache, my health will improve, my self-confidence will increase and I will receive compliments about how good I look and recognition for what I have achieved. Wow!

Contents

About the Book