A Few Key Principles Of What To Eat and Keeping A Healthy Diet!

Remember that the key to losing weight is to keep your blood sugar levels as balanced as possible.

The key to doing this is to watch the GL of the foods you eat, to choose low GL foods, and to eat no more than 40 GL’s a day. An easy way to achieve this is to divide your daily GL points into 10 GL’s for each meal, plus 2 snacks of 5 GL’s each.

Grazing is better than gorging – 3 meals plus 2 snacks is better than 2 large meals.

Eat some raw vegetables every day. Steam, steam-fry, boil, poach or bake instead of frying foods. Prepare soups raw and heat before eating. Drink freshly squeezed or liquidized vegetable or wheatgrass juice.

A good healthy breakfast diet

When you wake up your blood sugar is low because you haven’t eaten. So don’t skip breakfast! Dieters often try to not eat for as long as possible, but the longer you hold out, the lower your blood sugar level drops and the greater the chance of making bad food choices when you do finally eat.

In an ideal world, we would all eat raw broccoli and a handful of seeds for breakfast! There are many cultures that do eat vegetables for breakfast. Israelis often have a raw tomato or cucumber salad, and Thai people have a similar breakfast to that of their lunch – a soup with vegetables, a bit of protein and rice or noodles. Do try experiment with different foods for breakfast. As you learn to listen to your body, you may be surprised at what you really feel like eating first thing in the morning!

Breakfast ideas

As with other meals, half your plate should consist of fresh vegetables, the other half divided into 2 quarters, one of protein and one of carbohydrate. This is usually more difficult to do with breakfast than with other meals! Start small by adding a slice of tomato and cucumber to your egg-on-toast, or having a glass of fresh vegetable juice with your cereal. See the GL chart for ideas and quantities.

If you like a traditional western-style breakfast, choose a slow-releasing cereal like oats, All-Bran or unsweetened muesli (gluten-intolerant people can make their own muesli using a mixture of different grains). For the protein portion, add a spoon of Seed Mix , some raw milk or yoghurt. The vegetable portion can consist of a few slices of tomato, avocado or cucumber on the side; or a glass of vegetable juice. Check The Glycemic Load of Common Foods for quantity.

Just yoghurt, fruit and seeds. O and A blood types, however, don’t usually tolerate dairy well.
An egg13 with toast (choose low-GL bread – seed loaf, pumpernickel or sourdough bread; look for gluten-free bread for intolerant eaters) and a slice of tomato, cucumber or avocado (check suitability for your blood type).
A piece of fish with toast and tomato, cucumber or suitable vegetable.
A warm cooked grain like quinoa, millet, brown basmati rice etc., topped with a slice of avocado and tomato, sprouts, olive oil and lemon juice. Whole grains contain a good protein content.
Salad with a small piece of protein to suit your blood type in hot weather.
Vegetable soup with a slice of wholegrain bread in cool weather.

Good healthy lunch and dinner diet

Again, half your plate should consist of fresh, low-GL vegetables. These will account for around 4 GL’s. A quarter of the remaining half plate will consist of starchy vegetables or other carbohydrates, accounting for around 6-7 GL’s. The other quarter will consist of around 5 GL’s of protein suitable to your blood type. Check quantities on the GL chart.

Low-GL vegetables

Asparagus, aubergine, bean sprouts, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, baby marrow, cucumber, endive, fennel, garlic, kale, lettuce, mange tout, mushrooms, onions, peas, peppers, radish, rocket, runner beans, spinach, spring onions, tenderstem, tomato, watercress.

Starchy vegetables or other carbohydrates

Pumpkin, squash, carrot, swede, quinoa, beetroot, cornmeal, pearl barley, whole meal pasta, brown rice, couscous, broad beans, corn on the cob, boiled potato, baked potato, sweet potato.

Protein-rich foods

Tofu and tempeh, chicken and turkey (no skin), salmon and trout, tuna and sardines (both canned in brine), cod, clams, prawns, mackerel, oysters, cottage cheese, hummus, skimmed milk, eggs, quinoa, baked beans, kidney beans, black eyed beans and lentils.

Beans and lentils are a fantastic choice because they balance your blood sugar levels, as well as providing the correct mix of protein and carbohydrate. Even O blood types should include these foods regularly in their diet. Adding canned beans or chickpeas to salad or bolognaise is a tasty way of doing this.

Healthy snacks

It is normal to feel a bit peckish between meals, and eating more often helps keep your blood sugar level even. The key is to eat a snack according to the principles of this diet; and no more than 5 GL’s. Have 2 snacks a day.

Snacks Ideas:

Fruit plus a dessertspoon of nuts or pumpkin seeds (not for type B).

A small slice of wholegrain bread/rice cakes/oatcakes, or crudits, with cottage cheese (B and AB blood type); or hummus (chickpea spread) – O blood type; or peanut butter (A blood type); or fish pt, bean dip etc.

Healhty drinks

The best drink in the world for the human body is pure water. But life would be pretty boring if that was all we drank!

Add a squeeze of lemon or lime to your drinking water; or pieces of fruit like watermelon, star fruit or kiwi fruit to a jug of water. Fresh mint adds a lovely subtle flavor.

A close second is herbal tea, which comes in an enormous variety of flavors. Look for caffeine-free ones. You can chill these for different iced tea flavors. Sweeten with Xylitol, or add lemon juice.

Reasons You Should Avoid or at Least Limit Alcohol Consumption

There are also good coffee substitutes available. Coffee is really only suitable to blood type A and even then in limited quantities because of its stimulant properties.

Fruit juice is best avoided, unless you squeeze your own. All fruit juice available in supermarkets is pasteurized, which destroys any beneficial enzymes and nutrients altogether. You may as well drink sugar water for the nutrient value it offers. Even if you squeeze your own, because the fiber is removed, it has a far more drastic effect on your blood sugar levels than a piece of fruit. If you do drink it, dilute it at least half with water.

Avoid fizzy drinks of any type. The regular ones contain enormous amounts of sugar, and diet drinks contain aspartame, which is poisonous to the human body. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of the body, so drinking it in fizzy drinks just adds more waste! Many ‘sports’ drinks and ‘health’ beverages are no more than sugar water. The calories from drinks are easy to forget about when calculating your daily GL intake, and can be very high.

With all drinks, you need to deduct the GL you consume from your daily allowance of 40 GL’s.

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