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Hi Caroline, The GI scale was the first Index created and subsequently they discovered a "flaw" which was that the measures for this scale often involved quantities of food that one would never consume in one sitting, in other words, it was done weight for weight, which if you compare the volume of lettuce for an equal weight of apple, you can see it would be inaccurate. This means that the Glyceamic Index told us if a food contained sugars and how quickly these would be absorbed into the blood stream but it did not tell us how much carbohydrate each food contained. So, water melon, which is High GI was rated as a food to eat at say the end of a meal when it would be digested with other foods, but on the GL scale the concept is that actually pound for pound water melon contains only a small amount of carbohydrate, therefore, its effect on the blood stream will be lower than something which is high in carbohydrate. The point here is really to introduce you to the idea of food affecting the blood stream and in knowing this, it almost further pushes one away from consuming sugary foods which are so prone to create havoc with blood sugar. In a way, a healthy diet including fresh or natural foods would be likely to be medium to low on the GL scale anyway. This is a measuring scale for being attentive to the effect sugar has on the system and in a way why to avoid sugar. Lucy Case Fitness Director

Posted 16 June 2009 at 18:24 by Lucy Case

Hi,I have my various pulses now,I eat brown rice n pasta anyway and I have bought some decent not over the top unhealthy sauces to make a variety of nice beany dishes which thank god I like too plus I got my squares and I am remembering to eat every 3 hours so thank you again for this lesson and will be listening up on the next one.

Posted 16 June 2009 at 01:56 by Caroline West

Hey Lucy. I'm going to go and find out about the Glyceamic Index as I have heard about it before but never quite understood it. I have also heard about the Glyceamic Load or GL so if you have a mo can you explain the difference to me. I can see the difficulty in choosing the right GI foods as you said Ice cream is low GI and not healthy so I need to investigate a bit. I am glad you bought up the topic of eating pulses,I like them mainly cannellini beans so maybe I can start introducing them a lot more into my diet and find ways of making recipes using them. I just want to say thanks for doing this series because you are a professional in the industry and know what you are talking about and not out to gain anything but help us on the site so thanks again. Caroline

Posted 13 June 2009 at 16:31 by Caroline West

Enjoying this series Lucy, told in plain and simple terms, nothing too complex. Great for new commers to fitness and wanting to just get to grips with the basic concepts of losing weight. Lesley Thomas-Cogbill

Posted 9 June 2009 at 13:22 by Lesley Thomas-Cogbill