I've been reading a book about G.I. Diet ("Living the G.I. Diet" by Dr. Rick Gallop) lately and found it very interesting. The more I savour it, the more sense I found it makes. The basis of this diet is the concept that every type of food has its glycemic index, or G.I., which indicates the rate at which carbs break down and release sugar into the bloodstream. The faster the food breaks down, the higher the rating on the index. By consuming foods that're low in G.I., people can graduately lose weight in a long run as those foods stay in the stomach for longer time and also have a slower energy release effect, resulting in a longer and fuller sensation. Therefore, you're less likely to feel hungry so soon after a meal and opt for more. So the concept of this diet is you should go for the foods that are low in G.I. and avoid those high in G.I.. To identify which are which, there are some rules to follow: normally foods are high in fibre and low in fat (bad fat: saturated ones) are low GI. For example, wholegrain bread- low GI/ white bread- high GI as it's low in fibre; and almost all fruits and vegetables are low GI therefore you can add plenty of them into your diet; lastly, of course nearly all the processed snacks fall into the "bad for you" category such as chocolate, crisps, deep fried food, etc. The reason is quite simple, usually this type of food is rocket high in either sugar or fat, so I'm sure no matter what types of diet you're following, these foods will be encouraged to cut back (or cut off!!). To make the idea easy to follow, the author recommend we divide our plate into three parts. The first part makes up half of the plate and should be filled by fruits and vegetables, the second part is half of the rest of the room on the plate and it should be filled by starchy food that's low in GI, and the last part, which is a quarter of the plate is the room for some low GI meat product. The reason I think this diet is making sense is it's based on scientific findings. In theory, it could not only aid weight loss (given it's strictly followed and the people who follow it had relatively bad diets before), but it's good for stablising blood sugar which is quite beneficial for people at risk of high blood sugar or heart problems. In my own experience, I quite often feel the kind of acute hunger after a breakfast involving a cup of coffee and only some white bread as my blood sugar level just spikes and drops so sharply that the hunger is almost unbearable that my hands shake. Or the same feelings would also occur when I had some watermelon (mind you, watermelon is the only fruit that's high in GI) in a hot summer afternoon. And I reckon many folks would agree that two wheatabix biscuits or some oatmeal porridge for breakfast can enable you stay full until early afternoon, and you feel the your energy level is steady rather than fluctuating. All these experiences we had all match the G.I. concept in some way, which conviced me more that this diet could work, not just in the sense of losing weight but in a sense of improving health, pysically and socially.