Low GI is the way to go, but low carb will do for now
After deciding against joining a weight loss group, and using what I'd learned from The Powerhouse Diet a low GI diet seemed the most sensible way to go. Low GI should be seen as a permanent change in the way you eat, but you can also use it as a weight loss diet, by restricting high GI items.
I wasn't satisfied with the diet plan offered in Rick Gallop's The GI Diet (too much use of sweeteners and special ingredients), so a bought a new book The Low GI Diet 12-Week Action Plan, by Jennie Brand-Miller. 12 weeks seemed like a good number, and I wanted structure.
However it just churned out the same stuff I'd read elsewhere but made it last for pages and pages, spouted rubbish about all saturated fat giving you heart disease (which nearly made me put it down on the spot) and provided a recipe plan that didn't conform to their own diet rules and had so many different ingredients in the recipe plans that I did, in the end, put it down.
So I went on the search for a good guide to low GI foods. I wanted a book that would give me some food lists, and recipes with pictures. They are hard to find. Then a book caught my eye. Lose Your Middle-aged Middle - the Simple 6-week Plan to Flatten Your Belly by Michael R. Eades and Mary Dan Eades. Not a low GI diet, more of the (now old fashioned) low carb variety.
On quick inspection in the store it ticked a load of boxes for me:
A fatty liver is when the cells of your liver get blocked up with fat. You see, if your liver is busy processing a higher priority chemical - such as alcohol, it puts the fat processing on hold, and the fat accumulates. Shockingly you can get a fatty liver from a single drinking binge, because it takes so long for the liver to breakdown the alcohol.
It seems logical that you can also get it from drinking every day for several years too, and have been wondering if this is partly what is keeping the kilos so firmly around my middle. A few years ago my chronic fatigue turned out to be depleted B12, and I've been on intravenous supplements for several years.
Now, low B12 is usually something that affects vegetarians, as it is most easily created from meat intake. And the liver can store enough B12 for many years of supply. So it seems logical to me that I do, indeed, have a fatty liver caused by too much of the "good stuff".
This book claims to target the fat around your internal organs first, because you can't burn fat if your organs aren't working. So I bought the book, read it, and in two days time will embark on a new way of eating.
However it just churned out the same stuff I'd read elsewhere but made it last for pages and pages, spouted rubbish about all saturated fat giving you heart disease (which nearly made me put it down on the spot) and provided a recipe plan that didn't conform to their own diet rules and had so many different ingredients in the recipe plans that I did, in the end, put it down.
So I went on the search for a good guide to low GI foods. I wanted a book that would give me some food lists, and recipes with pictures. They are hard to find. Then a book caught my eye. Lose Your Middle-aged Middle - the Simple 6-week Plan to Flatten Your Belly by Michael R. Eades and Mary Dan Eades. Not a low GI diet, more of the (now old fashioned) low carb variety.
- That saturated fats are not the baddies they're made out to be
- That a fatty liver is common amongst overweight adults who eat a diet high in carbs or drink too much alcohol (which also processes as a carbohydrate)
- That you need to sort out your liver before you can burn fat as fuel
- And the diet plan at the back looked to be a fairly simple introduction to changing the way I cook
A fatty liver is when the cells of your liver get blocked up with fat. You see, if your liver is busy processing a higher priority chemical - such as alcohol, it puts the fat processing on hold, and the fat accumulates. Shockingly you can get a fatty liver from a single drinking binge, because it takes so long for the liver to breakdown the alcohol.
It seems logical that you can also get it from drinking every day for several years too, and have been wondering if this is partly what is keeping the kilos so firmly around my middle. A few years ago my chronic fatigue turned out to be depleted B12, and I've been on intravenous supplements for several years.
Now, low B12 is usually something that affects vegetarians, as it is most easily created from meat intake. And the liver can store enough B12 for many years of supply. So it seems logical to me that I do, indeed, have a fatty liver caused by too much of the "good stuff".
This book claims to target the fat around your internal organs first, because you can't burn fat if your organs aren't working. So I bought the book, read it, and in two days time will embark on a new way of eating.
Comments