5 “MUST-HAVE” starters for low GI-ing

Yes, I’m going to do it. I have got on the “so many things you must do… ” bandwagon but, I kinda like it!

When I started being fascinated with and following low GI-ing, I soon came to realize there were common elements in all
that I did, to make that happen.
I realize now, that low GI is to our ideal weight and our ideal life, as egg whites are to pavlova. Well, you just can’t make a pav without egg whites!

Here are my top 5 “must haves” to beginning your low GI life:

1. Read the label on packaged foods.
There is really helpful information to be gained by doing this. The thing I have learnt and look for – the amount of sugar. I look for 15g or less of sugar/ 100g serve. I love it too when I see the GI symbol and am assured it is low GI certified.

Look for the amount of sugar per 100g serve

2. The less processed the better.
Good quality carbohydrates or low GI carbohydrates, as a general rule, are foods that are the least processed. Grainy; seedy; fruity; vegetabley. Skins on; husks in place; require some good, sturdy chewing. As I said above, some packaged low GI foods now, thankfully, have the symbol showing they are low GI certified. (I wish it were always that easy).

Tomato and basil sauce

Fresh fruit and dark chocolate fondue 

Lemon caper fish with homemade potato wedges and salad

3. Lemon and vinegar are my new best friends.

It is well documented and researched that the acidity in each of these, can help slow the rate at which carbohydrates are absorbed into your body. So, add vinegar or lemon juice to salads and vegetables or put a tablespoon of vinegar or the juice of a lemon, in a glass of water to sip with your meal or, you could just drink it neat! Doing this simple measure will help lower the overall GI of your meal.

The beautiful lemon.

I have a thing for making my own vinegar – simple and I know what’s in there. Equal quantities of:

• Apple cidar vinegar
• Wine – red, white, champagne, any wine you want to put in – I have also used sherry

Sherry and white wine vinegars at home

• Optional: I add fresh tarragon to my white mix for tarragon vinegar; other options are chilli, herbs, garlic…

Mix together and pour into a bottle. Let stand for at least a week before use – the longer it sits,  the better the flavor.

4. Combining foods can bring the GI down, down, down.
If you combine a high GI food with a low GI food, you can actually lower the GI of the overall combination. For example, I want to exonerate the humble potato from total extinction, in your life – a baked, jacket potato (high GI), topped with some healthy fat – eg. olive oil, a little butter or sour cream (low GI) and chives, can bring the overall combination to an acceptable medium GI. Combined with protein (no GI) and non-starchy vegetables or salad (low GI), for your meal and you’ve succeeded in lowering the GI of the meal, even further.

Baked potato with proscuitto,  garlic chives and a drizzle of olive oil.

5. The plate is important! The hands really do have it!

I do not walk around with scales to weigh things all the time and I’m pretty sure you don’t either.
I do bang on about this but portion size, though not directly a low GI thing to do, is important to your health and that is why I live the low GI life – for my health. Why’s the portion size important? Too much of any food is going to put pressure on your digestive system and cause your body to struggle with digestion. That is then going to affect how your body manages the breakdown of your food, including the carbohydrates and then where it stores the excess (a story for another day). So, when choosing a plate for you, “the hands have it”, literally.
A. Go to your cupboard, right now and get out your dinner plate

My dinner plate

B. Your hands, like in the picture, need to fit inside the rim of the plate – that is going to be your guide to serving size.

Portion sizes – the hands have it.

C. General rules:
– One whole hand or half the plate, is going to be your salad or vegetables;
– The out-stretched fingers, on your other hand, are going to be the size of your portion of starchy carbohydrates.
When these fingers are curled over, like in the picture, those fingers are going to be the thickness of that serve.

The starchy carbohydrate serving

– The palm of that same hand is going to be the size of your protein serve. For meat, beans, lentils etc.- the thickness of your palm, like in the photo, represents the thickness of that serve of protein.

The measure for your pile of protein.

I have found when giving talks about low GI-ing, this is the one thing that everyone wants to try out then and there. So, I take my dinner plate with me to show them. The great thing is that once you have this trick under your belt, you can go anywhere for a meal and be able to judge your portion sizes easily.

Low GI-ing, no denying..

Where does your passion come from?

It’s going to be a low GI snacking good time.

Question: What to snack on through the day?
I always am amazed how the “universe” steers you in directions  unconsciously in your life. As I have said before, I don’t have Diabetes but Mr. GiGi was diagnosed with type 2 about 3 years ago. For some unknown universally planned reason, I was well and truly “in the know” about low GI before knowing about Mr. GiGi’s impending need for its magic.

First up, I think about the hot topic of how many times to eat in the day. We hear all sorts of “theories” on this one and truly – eat when your hungry!
If you are eating the low GI way and maintaining a recommended plate size for 3 meals a day,

My plate size – yes, my hands too.

you may not need snacks, as the content of the meals will be slowly releasing their goodness into your system. However, if you like to eat little amounts throughout the day – that’s OK too. If you can plan to bake some great low GI snacks on the weekend for your week, that’s great but there are lots of products at the supermarket that are delicious and low GI. One that comes to mind and available in  Australia,  is Vita Wheat Lunch Slices – Soy and Linseed. Add some low fat cheese – could be a cheddar, some cottage cheese or ricotta – some tomato and YUM. The important element of these are the inclusion of the seeds and less processed grains and that’s what I look for when I shop.

Meal or snacky goodness.

I love to bake and am a bit well, particular, when it comes to liking to know what ingredients are in my food. For this reason, it’s taken a bit for me to accept ready-made vs homemade goods. To be honest, I don’t always have the time for the baking business. However, that said I’m looking for certain things on the labeling when I buy.

What I look for on a label, before I buy.

I also use apps such as “My Fitness Pal” and put my favorite recipes in to get a better idea of their nutritional content.

My favorite bread recipe put into My Fitness Pal app.

Don’t  they say the best way to know if you truly understand  something is to teach it? For me it is. I am a really hands on learner so it’s good for me to teach as well, it beds the info down in my brain. I’m not a qualified teacher but I have always loved training others and am a workplace trainer and assessor. I wanted to know how to do it “right”. I have lots of fun training and I love living the low GI life. Made sense to me to put them together.

To start off with, I have been volunteering with Diabetes Queensland, presenting their “Know the Score” program. I love simply talking with others about the effects our choices have on our bodies and how we can change that. I don’t bring up my passion and my low GI lifestyle thing, but eating choices are a part of the presentation and I think, with my underlying knowledge and passion, I learn a little bit more everytime I get together with others. This Friday, is the next presentation and I’m excited, again!

I love my low GI life and I reckon, any way I can help spread the word means my love will become others love and we can all know that when we’re low GI-ing, there’s no denying.

Why, oh why, do I go GI?

A little serendipity goes a long way.

I let chance open this book to wherever it wanted last night and the chapter heading read,”There is nothing more pointless, or common, as doing the same thing and expecting different results”.

Nothing is the same or acts the same as it used to but you know, I think to myself, “it’s just a phase”. Like all the years and experiences of my  life, I think that if  I can accept that life is about “phases” and nothing is ever set in concrete, then I have the best chance possible of “getting there”!

Gordon Livingstone’s book” Too soon old, too late smart”, is one of my many favorites. I’m a bit a of the D & M’er and am big on my self reflection and asking  “How could I do this so that I have a better outcome?” I jumped on into reading the presented chapter and the line that resonated most? “The process of learning consists not so much in accumulating answers as in figuring out how to formulate the right questions”.

I know, deeeeeep… but then again, what’s the point in buckets of answers to questions, that didn’t necessarily relate to you, when you could have come up with questions, that REALLY lead you to the answers you wanted. So, think about the questions that are nearest and dearest to you, in this journey and ask them.

They are really what you want to know.

You have to be prepared to work harder at gaining insight and mastery into YOU and seeking to understand what makes YOUR body tick – emotionally, hormonally, in response to your environment.
Living the Low GI Life is about exploring, through science, with insightfulness and mastery, what makes YOUR healthy and rich you.
Having an abundance of what matters most to you.
For me?
Low GI-ing, no denying…

For you? Come low GI too!

Bringing home the bacon in a low GI life.

Why not try a low GI Caesar Salad for dinner tonight with Proscuitto, croutons, boiled egg, a little Parmesan cheese, lots of lettuce and an easy low-fat Caesar Salad dressing?

Doesn’t it make you happy when unbeknownst to you, you have created something memorable that someone then wants to share with their friends? This is one such recipe. My friend Ann asked me for this dressing recipe recently and posted her picture, to display her joy.

I have such innovative friends and I guess one of the reasons we each gel with the other, is the conversations we had, way back when, that invariably included food and solidified the friendship.

The solidifier in this case:

* 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
* 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
* 1/2 cup (125g) low/no fat natural yoghurt
* 2 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise
* 2 cloves garlic, peeled
* 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
* 2 anchovies OR 1 tablespoons of  fish sauce (optional)

Put all the dressing ingredients in the container for your stick blender and whizz together.
Voila!
Remember the addition of the acidic to your salads and meals, (vinegar or citrus),  in dressings or by themselves, helps your body deal with the sugars in your foods more effectively, by slowing down their breakdown and importantly helping balance your post meal blood sugars.

A great source for more info about this and other similar tips is by Sally at Diabetes Counselling Online.

Low GI-ing, no denying…

GI GiGi and don’t call me sweetie!

I love this as a title for a book about low GI-ing.

Like my book, I am writing this with much love. Taking time out, at the end of the day’s rcelebrations for Mr.B’s birthday.

Aside – EVERYTIME I type the “ing” part of GI -ing, it autocorrects to GI-“OMG”. See, even the universe knows how awesome going the low GI is! Makes me laugh everytime it happens – and as we all know, laughter is a great medicine.

I attended the book launch a couple of weeks ago for Helen Back’s book Happy Apples that discusses very proactive strategies for managing depression and anxiety. I have a rudimentary understanding of both of these but after listening to Helen interviewed and her obvious enthusiasm, compassion and knowledge was compelled to find out more. I am very interested in the way we all think and why some of us are more easily affected by what others of us see as everyday ups and downs. The night was interview style, Helen answering questions about finer details of “Happy Apples”, including the important role different foods have in  balancing our mental well-being.

It’s no surprise that fresh foods, as un-processed and as near to their original form as is possible, provide us with the best of mood-foods.

LOW GI, slow-release carbohydrates minimize blood sugar highs and lows and so, by being mindful of what foods this includes and what we consume,  we can support our very important mental and physical health by ensuring nutritional balance.

Low GI-ing, no denying.