Solo. I have many of the same dietary beliefs as you. Since this is an “iDave diet” thread, where do you stand on legumes? As far as i (and the paleosphere in general)am concerned, at best they’re just reasonably safe starches. I don’t see any reason to eat them for that reason, and if i need carbs beyond my normal intake of veg – e.g. prior to a four hour bike ride on the weekend – i go for white rice instead. Thoughts?

Cut and paste from something I have just been reading…

It turns out, however, that we might not know as much about the glycemic index as we think we do. Nutrition scientists are now finding that the effect of foods on blood glucose levels may have more to do with individual biochemistry than with the foods themselves. For example, the glycemic index of white bread is 70. But in a recent study involving 14 subjects, the individual glycemic index scores of white bread ranged from 44 to 132. Sure, the average score was 70, but that score was irrelevant to most of the study participants’ bodies!

What’s more, the Tufts University Researchers who conducted this study also found a high degree of variation in the blood glucose response to specific foods within individuals depending on when they ate them—as much as 42 percent variation. That means a low-fat muffin could be a low GI food for you in the morning and a high GI food in the evening!

What does this mean for you? It means that it’s rather pointless to base your food choices based on foods’ glycemic index, which represents an average value that might not apply to you.

Eating a high GI diet is no more likely than eating a low GI diet to make you fat or diabetic or to cause a heart attack.

The health benefits of a low glycemic index diet are also being questioned. Several studies have shown that switching to a low GI diet improves insulin sensitivity in individuals with type 2 diabetes, but the effect is small compared to that of exercise. And a recent study found that 18 months on a low GI diet had no effect on weight loss in Brazilian women compared to a high GI diet. What’s more, when confounding variables such as fiber intake are removed, the glycemic index of one’s habitual diet is a poor predictor of overweight, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In other words, eating a high GI diet is no more likely than eating a low GI diet to make you fat or diabetic or to cause a heart attack.

Increasingly, experts believe that it’s not the glycemic effect of certain foods that makes them healthy but their fiber and perhaps also their antioxidant content. For example, a large, recent Dutch study found no association between glycemic load (which factors in both the glycemic index and the total amount of carbohydrate) in the individual diet and various cardiovascular disease risk factors. There was a link between the glycemic index of the individual diet and these risk factors, but the study also found that a lower GI diet was typically achieved through all-around healthier food choices (such as more fruit and fewer sweets).

Conventional wisdom holds that a high GI diet increases metabolic disease risk by causing repeated glucose and insulin spikes. But this study suggests that the truth is less complicated. High GI diets simply tend to contain lots of high-calorie foods that make people fat. Thus, the glycemic index is really just a stand-in for other food qualities that affect metabolic disease risk: specifically, calorie density and satiety. Foods that contribute to lowering the GI of one’s diet, such as fruit and vegetables, provide more satiety per calorie, whereas foods that contribute to increasing the GI of the diet, such as sweets, are more calorie-dense and less filling.

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/11/nutrition/sports-science-update-revisiting-the-glycemic-index_43324

Edit: phil.w and I obviously read the same webpages 🙂

Thus, the glycemic index is really just a stand-in for other food qualities that affect metabolic disease risk: specifically, calorie density and satiety. Foods that contribute to lowering the GI of one’s diet, such as fruit and vegetables, provide more satiety per calorie, whereas foods that contribute to increasing the GI of the diet, such as sweets, are more calorie-dense and less filling.

Well said, plenty of food for thought (sorry) in your post …..

si_progressivebikes – Member
I’m struggling to read any of this due to all the damn smillies.

Smilies are the ‘get out of jail free cards’ of forum discussions 😉

The Edinburgh defence in pictorial form? 😉

so if something annoys me, its Ok if there is a smiley? nob eds 🙂

phil.w, very interesting, where is that taken from?

The iDave diet was ‘put out there’ as a means of helping people lose weight quickly, safely, without the hunger pangs or energy slumps caused by other ways of eating/diets. It seems to be pretty effective at getting someone down to around 12% body fat and increasing energy levels and general well-being. Like any diet or indeed exercise program, the complexity of the human body and in particular individual variations in our biochemistry mean that it isn’t the ‘perfect’ solution. But it’s a bloody good one. I believe I have enough professional and personal experience to make a call on what I feel is best for me as a recreational athlete and also as a coach who advises elite athletes – and if others find it works for them too, then thats lovely.

I may find something more effective next year, I may not. In the meantime, I feel it’s a healthy and easy to follow (and very cheap) way of eating food (and drinking red wine).

Conventional wisdom holds that a high GI diet increases metabolic disease risk by causing repeated glucose and insulin spikes.

I’d have said that ‘conventional wisdom’ is saying that fatty foods cause metabolic disease?

Not as cheap as the cheapest meal though… is it? *insert smiley*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15752918

that’s quite poetic TSY, I might have one of those on Saturday

iDave i dont think you’re remotely qualified enough to comment the iDave diet… please leave it to the experts to discuss ffs.

phil.w, very interesting, where is that taken from?

The link I gave.

idave – came through on my RSS feed from triathlete europe. They regularly have some good articles, but like all magazines just scratch the surface of the subject.

Another good resource I have been pointed to recently is the Australian Institute of Sport website.

I want one, but I don’t buy cheap as **** bread. I don’t think it’ll work with wholemeal 🙁

Regarding the diet… do those that have benifited the most of a leaning towards poorer food choices pre the diet? I’m guessing my diet has always been closer to hilldodgers than to say Molly’s. As even when following the iDiet principles I still don’t reach for a can of coke or a chocolate bar for my fast carbs.

I’m back to normal weight and I haven’t really changed my diet much. Just less beer during the week.

I heard that toast sandwich thing this morning on the Beeb and thought to myself “Jeezus, the iDietSubscribers will be frothing”. 🙂

So are you no longer DD?

I’ll always be DD TSY.

This year, I’m 40DD.

Solo – Member

A wholegrain isn’t a processed grain is it
What is your wholemeal bread made from exactly ?.
Do you know how many batches of vermin contaminated wholegrain flour, don’t get spotted.
Like its not easy seeing rat pooh in wholemeal flour.
Kinda tend to detect rat hair and pooh in white flour more easily, dont’ we.
Go ask the “farming today” folk.
They told me all about it.

Go on humour me about how much your “farming today” folk actually know about flour milling.

Nutrition scientists are now finding that the effect of foods on blood glucose levels may have more to do with individual biochemistry than with the foods themselves

Very interesting…

Re phil.w’s c&p.. not sure it’s sound analysis, is it? If only certain groups were susceptible to obesity caused by high GI diet, then comparing the population at large would not reveal a strong link, surely?

A better question would be what percentage of overweight people have a high GI diet?

Also, there’s a large amount of adaptation going on, so people who have been eating high GI for a while may have adapted which would be yet another variable because the adapations could have different consequences.

Re the timing of eating – anyone who’s been jet-lagged can tell you a bit about that.
One day we will be able to stick a chip in our brain stems and monitor our metabolisms, and then you’ll get a customised readout of exactly what causes what in your body and with your lifestyle, and a perfect diet for whatever your goals are.

Refined Carbohydrate sensitivity – some people may not be able to deal with a small or modest glucose surge without it turning into fat.

Another school of thought.