You have probably heard about the benefits of following a low GI diet for weight loss, but you may not know that it is also great for your skin and can help keep it young as you age.
If you are new to this diet, a low GI diet means you are eating foods that are on the lower end of the glycemic index, an index that measures how quickly your body breaks down food and turns it into sugar. Foods that are filling and take the longest to convert are at the lower end of the GI index. Those that are less filling and break down faster are on the higher end.
Ideally, you would like to eat at the lower end of the GI scale, with some foods being in the mid-range and only a few being at the higher end.
It may not seem obvious at first, but eating this way can be beneficial for the skin and not just the body. Here’s how: When you eat high-GI foods, your blood sugar spikes, causing your insulin levels to spike. Insulin is the hormone that promotes fat gain.
Keeping insulin levels high results in the conversion of type 3 collagen to type 1, which is the most fragile collagen. Your skin, then, also ends up looking brittle and old. By following the principles of the Low GI diet, you feed your body and skin with foods that rank low on the GI scale and keep your skin healthy, supple, and looking youthful.
Following the low GI diet is not too difficult. It may take a bit of planning if you are eating out, but it is not a complex diet to follow.
Let’s say you’re having breakfast and you normally choose a boxed cereal. Most processed cereals are high GI so this is not a good option, but you can choose to eat oatmeal (unsweetened) and add some toasted nuts to make them crisp. You can top it with skim milk and even a tablespoon of yogurt. And if you want, eat a boiled egg too.
It is important to make a distinction: this is not a high protein diet. You can eat oatmeal and whole grain breads. In fact, it is recommended that those on the low-GI diet consume cereals, but they should be of the low-GI and whole-grain variety.
For lunch, you can make some easy changes. Stay away from burgers, which are often interspersed with empty white bread (big spike in blood sugar), but go for a healthy salad with a vinaigrette. Or you can choose a veggie burger on a whole grain bun. There are no fries made with regular potatoes, but if there are new potatoes on the menu, enjoy them.
Dinner is probably the easiest meal of the day for low GI dieters. It’s easy to toss some meat on the grill, add some veggies and a salad, and say you’re done. If you normally like rice with your meal, swap white rice for basmati rice, which ranks low on the GI index. Skip the garlic bread. Add a salad.
As a snack, simple! Instead of cookies and cakes, eat yogurt, either vanilla or fruit. Yogurt has good protein levels that slow down the absorption of carbohydrates, which helps to lower the GI value of any food.
So there you have it.
If you are eating well off the GI scale, you will feel it. Not only will your skin look better, but you will have more energy. That, in turn, will provide you with the energy to exercise and continue your new way of eating. Then you are likely to lose weight, which helps your skin in other ways. All in all, it is a win-win eating plan.