The G.I. Diet: The Easy, Healthy Way to Permanent Weight Loss - Rick Gallop - Mass Market Paperback

Introduction While I was president of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario for fifteen years, my job was to raise funds for research into heart disease and stroke and to promote healthy lifestyle choices among Canadians to reduce their risk for those diseases. The Foundation has developed the most comprehensive set of heart disease, stroke and healthy lifestyle resources in Canada. We now know that smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, a sedentary lifestyle and being overweight are all major risk factors for heart attacks and strokes. So a few years ago, when I was twenty pounds overweight, I knew I had to reduce. And with all the information and resources I had, I thought I knew how: I went out and bought a Nordic ski machine and a stationary bike, and I started working out every day. But however hard I exercised, I found I could only stabilize, not lose, the weight. For the first time in my life, I realized I had to go on a diet. Conventional nutritional wisdom at the time recommended a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. All I had to do was stop eating fatty foods like cheese and ice cream, and start eating more low-fat carbohydrates like pasta, rice and vegetables -- right? Wrong. Though I stuck diligently to the diet, eating pasta and tomato sauce instead of steak and Caesar salad, I wasn't losing any weight at all. In frustration, I turned to the filing cabinets at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. The Foundation receives literally hundreds of diet books, products and recipes every year, all hoping for support or endorsement. Looking through the files, I quickly ruled out food-specific diets, such as the grapefruit or banana diet, because they have no scientific basis, are risky to your health, and are impossible to sustain over the long term. I also decided to avoid high-protein diets since various studies had found them to be a real health hazard. High-protein diets, which drastically limit the amount of carbohydrates you consume, put the body in a state of ketosis. As the body is starved of carbohydrates, your principal source of energy, it starts breaking down protein, including the body's own lean muscle, for energy, which releases a lot of water weight. This creates toxic by-products called ketones, which are removed from the body through the kidneys and can cause an array of problems, from mild nuisances like bad breath to toxic side effects such as kidney damage, diarrhea, dizziness and kidney stones. And because so much protein blocks calcium absorption, people who follow high-protein diets develop bone weakness too. To complete this tale of woe, when you go off the diet, the water weight loss is quickly replaced, and unless you are into a heavy exercise regimen, the weight you gain back will all be fat; the muscle loss will not be recovered. So, diets based on a single food, and high-protein diets were out. I was still left with a whole host of diets to try, and I selected one that appeared to be based on sound nutritional principles. After several unsuccessful months with that one, I embarked on another, and then a few months later, another. In the end I tried I don't know how many of them. I counted calories. I studied labels -- a real challenge with Canadian labelling regulations (or lack thereof). I starved. I hallucinated about food. Sometimes I did lose a few pounds, but then I'd hit the inevitable plateau, unable to go any further. And since I was constantly hungry, I'd soon start eating what I wanted and gain back the few pounds I'd managed to lose. It seemed like I was destined to spend the rest of my life overweight. It was the most discouraging thing I have ever experienced. I couldn't understand why losing weight was so difficult, and I felt there had to be a way to slim down and maintain a healthy weight without having to feel hungry every moment of the day, jGallop, Rick is the author of 'The G.I. Diet: The Easy, Healthy Way to Permanent Weight Loss - Rick Gallop - Mass Market Paperback' with ISBN 9780770429546 and ISBN 0770429548.