Cecilia Rockford
Glycemic index: to eat or not to eat?
Updated: Mar 20, 2021

Low-glycemic diet can lead to a body-fat decrease without the decrease in muscle mass [1,2,3]. However, if you enthusiastically started throwing out toasts from your egg-and-toast breakfast, stop doing it immediately!
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- YES, it can be beneficial to eat low-glycemic food for beginners.
- BUT - most of the researches were designed on a group of overweight people, in case you are not in such a group, your results can vary.
- AND high-glycemic food DOESN’T cause a rapid increase of the body-fat. To gain fat you need excess calories, not magic fats.
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- Our body composition depends on Protein-fat-carbohydrates intake, not on the carbohydrate type. Recently, researchers [4] compared 3 groups of people: those on a low-glycemic diet, calorie deficit and smaller portions. There was no significant difference after 12 weeks of dieting.
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Thus:⠀
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- For beginners, results of a low-glycemic diet can be positive without a calorie deficit. But also, there can be no result at all - nobody knows.
- You will lose your weight even without lowering the glycemic index!
- In case you love experiments, but don’t want to throw smash potatoes out, try to change consuming time - breakfast for dinner and vice versa.⠀
- High-glycemic carbohydrates are better digested. If you are not struggling with hunger, it’s not a problem for you.
- Interesting: increase of adequate physical activity and daily calories intake leads in changes of food preferences for simple food: high-protein, complex carbohydrates, less sugar - more fibre (fruits and fructose are not included). ⠀
Currently, I’m on calorie deficit before new muscle-gain cycle -1900kkal only. Subconsciously, my diet is changing towards complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins. It’s a popular tendency - the more you eat - the fewer doughnuts you want.⠀
What’s your opinion about the glycemic index?