Resolution #4: Keep it Low & Slow

I've learned a lot about healthful eating recently from J, who's interested in the topic for the sake of intellectual curiosity and athletic performance and also my brother Dan, who was diagnosed with diabetes last year.

The most interesting thing I've learned is that although their goals are different, their methods are almost identical.

Even though J wants to maximize his performance and Dan is looking to stay healthy, they've both adopted the same philosophy on diet and exercise.

It mostly boils down to regular, vigorous exercise combined with careful monitoring of the glycemic index (GI) measure for the foods they eat.



Now, since I've never been on the South Beach Diet (which apparently relies heavily upon monitoring foods' GI), I missed out on the whole glycemic index bandwagon. It goes like this:

Glucose is simple sugar. When you eat a low GI food (eggs, meat, fish, beans, nuts, most vegetables), glucose is released into your bloodstream slowly and steadily. You need a little to keep your muscles working and your brain happy.

But when you eat high GI foods (sugar, white bread, baked potatoes, corn flakes) your blood sugar spikes and then crashes.

You've probably actually felt your blood sugar spike. It's the "sugar crash" after you eat a piece of cake or the "I need to nap" feeling you get after devouring a big plate of pasta.

Day after day, year after year, all that spiking and crashing can wear out your organs, fatten you up and even make you depressed.

That's why my Resolution #4 this year is: Keep it Low (the GI) and Slow (the digestion)

South Beach has a chart of where foods' glycemic index registers (high-medium-low) and there's another printable table over here at Diabetesnet.

You'll notice that things like potatoes vary greatly depending on how they're cooked (the slow temperature increase of baking tends to convert more of the vegetable's starches to sugar), but it's generally a good bet to fill your weekly shopping list with foods that rate a GI of 55 or less.

Compose your meals and snacks around:

Fish & Meat

Eggs & Dairy

Beans

Most Fruits (except for bananas, dates and watermelon)

Most Vegetables (except for potatoes & parsnips)

Whole grains

High fiber is good. Whole foods are good. Junkfood is evil. Looks kind of like what you should be eating anyway, right? No revelations there.

The one major problem with eating this way is that it tends to be more expensive.

All those cheap extenders (rice, pasta, potatoes bread, croutons and the like) tend to be high glycemic index foods. And restaurants just love to fill you up with extenders. Full customers are happy customers.

That said, good old fashioned beans, oatmeal, apples, soy, barley and a bunch of other inexpensive ingredients are still low, slow and ready to go.

With that in mind, why not ditch the breakfast cereal and start tomorrow morning with a bowl of yogurt or some oatmeal? Top it with chopped apples and cinnamon... or currants and walnuts, depending on how you're feeling. Happy pancreas, happy liver, happy belly, happy you.

Just one more resolution tomorrow and that'll cap off the week.

To our health!