The Glycemic Index, What You Should Know About It

As of late, there has been much mention about the glycemic index. People everywhere talk about it and food advertisements use it liberally to promote certain products. But just what is this glycemic index and what does it mean for you? Why is it that people are resorting to it as a means of weight loss and overall healthy eating choices? What is the reason that the G.I. is becoming the staple food guide of the free world?

The glycemic index is a means of measuring the effects of different foods on your blood sugar levels, in other words, how rapidly carbohydrates (sugars) are absorbed. Foods with a high G.I. release quickly into your blood causing a rapid rise in your blood sugar levels. Foods with a low G.I. release slowly into your blood helping to keep your blood sugar levels more stable and steady.

When a high G.I. food is eaten and blood sugar levels rise rapidly, there is a high response of insulin (a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels). The insulin works quickly to deposit this excess blood sugar into muscle cells in the form of glycogen (stored energy), and when the glycogen stores are full, the rest is stored in the fat cells as, yes, you guessed it, fat! Because of the over-response of insulin caused by the over-response of blood sugar, the blood sugar is quickly depleted to lower than normal levels, causing that burst of energy you felt to crash quickly.

Low G.I. foods which release at a slower rate do not cause such an insulin response. This allows for a blood sugar level stabilization over a longer period of time because a slow release of blood sugar means a slow release of insulin meaning that it can regulate blood sugar levels more accurately. And as you may have guessed, there is much less of a deposit to the fat cells also! This is why when you eat a low G.I. food your energy levels stay up longer and you don