Both the glycemic index and glycemic load are useful concepts in improving your health. Reducing your dietary glycemic index can help you lose weight, improve your diabetes control and prevent cardiovascular disease, while reducing your dietary glycemic load can help you prevent chronic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.
Glycemic Index
The glycemic index, abbreviated GI, can help you assess the quality of carbohydrate-containing foods. A low GI food is metabolized at a slower pace, which results in a smaller and smoother increase in your blood sugar levels after eating. On the other hand, high GI foods are metabolized a lot more quickly, which leads to a sharp increase in your blood sugar levels. This can eventually make your blood sugars crash, and cause hypoglycemia, within a few hours. The glycemic index allows you to compare only the quality of carbohydrates, gram for gram.
Glycemic Load
The glycemic load, abbreviated GL, was developed later to complement the concept of the glycemic index. While the GI reflects carbohydrate quality gram for gram, the GL allows you to evaluate the quality of the carbohydrates according to the quantity consumed. The GL is therefore a more comprehensive concept, and allows you to compare the influence of carbohydrate-containing foods over your blood sugar levels without having to compare gram for gram, as with the GI.
Reducing Your Glycemic Index
If you decide to use the GI concept, you simply need to look at the GI values of carbohydrate-containing foods in your diet. Avoid high GI foods, such as potatoes, most breads and breakfast cereals, rice, granola bars, pretzels, rice cakes and candies, and replace them with low GI options, such as sourdough bread, steel-cut oats or plain old-fashioned oatmeal, Basmati rice, whole grain pasta, barley, quinoa, legumes, milk, plain yogurt and temperate-climate fruits. Meat, poultry, fish, egg and cheese do not have a GI because they are free of carbohydrates; these foods can fit in a healthy low-glycemic-index diet without compromising your blood sugar levels.
Reducing Your Glycemic Load
To reduce your dietary glycemic load, look at both the glycemic index and the carbohydrate content of the carbohydrate-containing foods in your diet. You reduce your glycemic load by replacing high GI foods with lower GI alternatives, by replacing high GI foods with protein or fat, or using a bit of both strategies. For example, you can replace your toast with either sourdough bread, which has a lower GI value, or with eggs or cheese, which are good sources of protein and fat but are low in carbohydrates. Alternatively, you can reduce your GL by combining both strategies, and replace your two slices of toast with one slice of sourdough bread and an egg or cheese.
