The 7-Day GL Diet: Glycaemic Loading for Easy Weight Loss. Nigel Denby
low-GL diet you’ll keep the weight off. If you just want to lose a few pounds then a week or two following the plan may be all you need. However, most people feel so well on the plans that they carry on just for the many health and emotional benefits (see research in Chapter 13).
For those of you who have more weight to lose it will take a little longer, but you will get there, just take it seven days at a time. Whatever your goals, we – and the many wonderful Diet Freedom Fighters – are here to help and support you. Check out our website to help keep you going.
You can use the plans for as long as you like. They are nutritionally balanced; there are no food groups you have to avoid; and above all you won’t be hungry. Once you have got the hang of things it becomes second nature, but to start with we really recommend you take it in seven-day steps, building on your success as each week passes.
When you reach your goal we’ve also given you lots more help to maintain it (see Chapter 4).
The Seven-day Plans
Each of the 7-day plans has a particular type of person in mind. However, because we are complicated souls, and our daily routines aren’t all the same, please remember you can jump into one plan today and another tomorrow. As long as you stick to a breakfast, lunch and evening meal plus two snacks from any of the plans you’ll be just fine.
The Seven-day Fast and Friendly Plan
This is for people who probably know there is a cooker in the kitchen somewhere but don’t have what you’d call a loving relationship with it. It’s all about fast, healthy and delicious food to help you lose weight and snacks you can munch on the run. We even give you tips for eating out and grabbing ready prepared food.
The throw-together evening meals take no more than 20 minutes from start to finish, but if there’s the odd night you do want to spend a bit longer cooking, no problem – just choose a recipe from the Foodie Friendly plan for keen cooks. Similarly, if you like to eat meat-free every now and then you can dip into the seven-day plan for vegetarians too.
What we wanted to give you was a fast, easy and convenient plan that fits in with your normal routine. This is Tina’s speciality area – she’s a great cook but far too busy to waste a minute more than she needs to in the kitchen.
Fast and GL-friendly is Tina’s mantra!
The Seven-day Veggie Friendly Plan
This pretty much does what it says! Vegetarians are so often forgotten about when it comes to weight-loss plans, but not here. We have a mixture of quick, tasty recipes and one or two that take a little more time. The most important thing is that they taste fantastic – no more ‘vegetarian lasagne’ every night for you. Our recipes use clever ingredients, imagination and lots of variety to keep you nutritionally balanced and happy with fabulously indulgent food that’s good for you and your waistline.
The Seven-day Foodie Friendly Plan
This is for the keen cooks amongst us. Deborah is a fantastically experimental cook who thinks nothing of starting preparation for a dinner party three days before anyone arrives – she’s our domestic GL goddess.
Although you might not have quite as much passion as Deborah for cooking, this plan was designed for people who enjoy winding down at the end of the day by taking a little time to prepare dinner. The recipes aren’t complicated but don’t rely on convenience and time-saving tips. While they are all delicious, don’t be fooled into thinking they must also be full of calories and luxury ingredients. We’ve kept a beady eye on our Deborah and have made sure these recipes will achieve the same weight-loss results as the other two plans.
Just in case you are wondering, I fall somewhere between Tina and Deborah when it comes to being bothered to cook – and would be the perfect example of someone who would mix and match from one plan to another throughout the week.
Activities!
OK, you know which plan you want to follow, or how you are going to combine the plans to suit your routine, so what else do you need? Ah yes, an activity plan. Don’t panic – this is going to be so easy but we do think it’s a really important part of your success.
If we asked whether you were prepared to find 30 minutes a day to get to your goals, what would you say? Just 30 minutes or 1800 seconds every day will do so much to move you towards your goals:
It will encourage your body to make new lean muscle tissue – that means your metabolic rate will speed up and you’ll burn more calories even when you are asleep.
It will exercise your heart muscle and improve your overall health and wellbeing.
It will help you tone up as well as lose fat.
It will improve your quality of sleep.
It will help relieve stress and tension.
It will improve your overall physical and emotional fitness.
It will increase your results and make them even easier to maintain.
Every Second Counts! The 1800-second Challenge
Here’s the challenge to get you moving about more and shedding those excess pounds. All we want you to do over the next seven days is find either one block of 30 minutes (1800 seconds), two blocks of 15 minutes (900 seconds) or three blocks of 10 minutes (600 seconds), and when you’ve got them we want you to walk for Diet Freedom. That’s it! It’s as simple as that – chuck on your trainers and start walking. Every step you take will lead towards your own personal Diet Freedom, and you will start to feel the benefits we’ve talked about very quickly. Your body will soon notice you’re asking it to do more than usual if you are doing this every day, and that’s when the changes will start to happen.
We find the best way to fit in those 30 minutes is to look at your routine and see where you could walk instead of drive or take the bus, or just take some of the time wasted sitting down watching television when you could be out and about.
Could you?
Walk to work, or part of the way?
Walk the kids to school?
Cancel the papers and go and collect them yourself?
Get out of the office at lunchtime?
Take a walk when you get in from work?
Get the kids away from the television or computer and walk with them?
Walk the dog or someone else’s dog?
The choices are endless. You might find it useful to have a couple of circuits in mind which will take you 10, 15 or 30 minutes, then you don’t need to worry about where you are going to walk. Make sure you feel safe walking your circuits, and if you are worried about becoming more active check with your doctor first.
If you already go to the gym, take an exercise class, swim or whatever, that’s great. But we want these 1800 seconds a day to be on top of what you already do.
Do this for the next seven days, then write a list of all the good things about getting more active – the pros. After that write another list of all the not-so-good things about getting more active – the cons. Which outweighs the other? We challenge you to come up with more cons than pros. If you do find some cons about your activity plan, look at each one in isolation and see if you can come up with a way to make it a good thing