After struggling a few days with cravings and not following my program the way I wanted to, I made a point to follow the Clean Eating recommendations of eating foods lower (low to medium) on the glycemic index, and eating more often throughout the day. I found a couple of good resources for the glycemic index. One is a brief overview from the Mayo Clinic website:
- High: 70 and up. Examples include instant white rice, brown rice, plain white bread, white skinless baked potato, boiled red potatoes with skin and watermelon.
- Medium: 56 to 69. Examples include sweet corn, bananas, raw pineapple, raisins and certain types of ice cream.
- Low: 55 and under. Examples include raw carrots, peanuts, raw apple, grapefruit, peas, skim milk, kidney beans and lentils.
The other is from a South Beach Diet website: http://www.southbeach-diet-plan.com/glycemicfoodchart.htm
This is an easy to understand chart from Kessinger Health & Wellness: http://www.drkessinger.com/images/glycemicindex.pdf
This link if for a more comprehensive Glycemic Index database by the National Cancer Institute: http://riskfactor.cancer.gov/tools/glycemic/
And in case you’re wanting to read more, this is an interesting power point that discusses a small sample research on glycemic index diet, plus benefits and drawbacks of using a glycemic index chart: http://health.utah.gov/diabetes/pdf/telehlth/glycemicindex_6color_april07.pdf
It’s interesting to me that brown rice and watermelon are both in the “high” category. I wouldn’t have thought that to be the case. The one criticism of the glycemic index that struck me was that it is not always the best indicator of the healthiest food, so you have to take the overall nutritional value of the food choices into account as well, and not just simply pick foods lower on the index.
Even though I came home and still wanted to eat a pizza, I found the cravings much more manageable. Instead of going off my program, I cooked up a quick piece of salmon (Gorton’s frozen, classic grilled), baked a butternut squash with olive oil, cinnamon & nutmeg, and cooked up some Swiss chard with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. I was pleased with the results. I managed to get in a 35 minute fast-paced walk earlier in the evening last night as well. Overall, yesterday was a good day. I ended the night with a cup of herbal tea. I’m hoping for a repeat of the same today.
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