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Dieting for most people is a question of losing weight but not of giving up old habits. The basis of the diet may be some "magic" formula - a pill, a badly understood routine, a scientific method which by accident works for some people. For the rest of us the diet plan is to lose weight by eating less. Most of us don't permanently change our eating habits, our food shopping list, our desires and preference. So after the latest pill, the latest fad its back to the same old bad habits. What you do is to hope that the same old food will lead to a newer slightly thinner body.

It is common knowledge that such a thing does not happen - in the long term most people get back to their original weight more or less quickly. And its damaging. For example if you continually try to give up smoking you will eventually succeed. But if you continually go on "diets" you don't eventually succeed, you make yourself iller. However a GI diet is a bit different. Can I give some clues from our own recent experience ?

I was overweight, verging on the obese. I had had a painful injury which for six months reduced my mobility and for which I found that alcohol was the best pain relief I could use. I had started suffering bouts of thrush (=Candida albicans) for which I was prescribed fungicides. I was fairly fit physically, though I had high blood pressure approaching the figures which would require treatment. I was having a certain amount of pain from my knees. I was less energetic than I thought I ought to be.

I try to avoid doctors (nothing serious there - it is a widespread English attitude) but at the same time my wife was diagnosed with "Syndrome X" and was told to regulate her blood sugar levels or to expect type 2 diabetes, and so we embarked on a low GI Diet together.

We cut out all the high GI foods. These are the ones which contain sugars and other carbohydrates in such a form that they are rapidly converted into glucose in the blood. When the blood is flooded with glucose the pancreas produces insulin which has the effect of removing glucose from the blood into storage. Too much sugar in the first place usually means that too much insulin is produced, the blood sugar level is decreased too much; you feel hungry; you need another sugar fix.

When this cycle is repeated too often and too wildly, type 2 diabetes is often the result.

The GI diet aims to reduce this fluctuation.

Six months later we have each lost a stone in weight (=14 lbs; 7kgs.). I no longer have thrush (which is medically named Candida albicans). I feel better and my knees are no longer a problem. I no longer feel as hungry between meals; I don't continually nibble small snacks; I don't pig out when meal times come.

We considered that we had had a healthy diet beforehand, and the big surprise was that white bread and potatoes had a higher potential to raise blood sugar levels than sugar itself.

They went, and it was fairly easy. When tempted you simply have to say "I'd love a slice of bread/some potatoes/a sweet pudding (whatever is on offer at that instant) - but unfortunately I don't eat them anymore".

Knowing the principles behind the GI Diet, I know that I can control my appetite to a certain degree. If I chose to I could lose more weight - but what's the point - that wasn't the primary purpose of the low GI diet in the first place.

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