I’ve had enough questions about the glycemic index and the glycemic load that I’ve decided to take the time and explain what it all means.  If you know what the glycemic index and glycemic load are, then you might want to skip this post unless you’re just here for the scintillating writing.

If I were to bring you into my office while you were fasting and check your blood sugar, then check it again every 15 – 30 minutes over the next two hours, I would find that your blood sugar levels wouldn’t change much.  Your blood sugar would remain at about, say, 85 mg/dL over the entire two hours.  Now, suppose I bring you in fasting, measure your blood sugar, then give you a piece of cake.  You eat the cake and I measure your blood sugar over the next two hours.  Your blood sugar would rapidly rise, then fall slowly, and return (assuming you’re not diabetic or glucose intolerant) to around your normal 85 mg/dL.

Scientists have known for years that normal blood sugars follow this kind of rapid increase, slow return to normal curve.  At some point someone asked the question: do different foods cause a different curve?  In other words, if someone eats a piece of cake does that make a different blood sugar curve than if that person eats a bowl of ice cream?

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Although certainly the less glamorous part of the entire weight-loss picture, maintenance is undoubtedly the most important as well as the most difficult. It’s so important that MD and I wrote an entire book on it: Staying Power.

In our experience, protein consumption plays a major role in weight maintenance. A prepublication online article from the journal Appetite supports the use of added protein in maintenance diets (and in all phases of weight control).

The authors of the Appetite article in a previous paper showed that the addition of protein to a maintenance diet virtually eliminated the regain of fat over a three month study period.

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