Traditional thinking has told us that complex carbohydrates like rice and potatoes were absorbed slowly, and that simple and refined carbohydrates, like candies and jams resulted in a sharp rise in blood sugar. However recent research has indicated that this is not necessarily the case. There are more factors involved than just simple vs complex or refined vs natural.

The GI values are a measure of 1 to 100 where pure glucose has a value of 100. Many carbohydrate-rich foods have been tested and applied against the index. A value of 50 (for example) indicates that the food has an effect on blood sugar equal to half that of glucose.

Glycemic Index and Weight Loss

The GI has had a pronounced affect on the health community, with many Doctors now recommending the GI to patients with diabetes and/or obesity. A number of nutritionists are no longer educating people on complex vs simple carbs, but tend to favor the GI index.

Eating foods with a low GI value tend to provide a feeling of fullness for longer and therefore assist those trying to eat less or lose weight. Diabetics can now choose their foods in a more controlled manner.

The GI factor is not the key to all weight loss, but it is another excellent another tool. A diet rich in low GI foods is a good diet, provided that there is nutritional variety.

Glycemic Index Diets

There are a number of diets that are based on the GI:

Glycemic Impact Diet
A new diet introduced by eDiets – has a ratio of 40% carbs, 30% proteins, and 30% fats – where all carbs are strictly low GI. This diet is quite sensible about the GI as it user the Glycemic Load of a food to determine quality carbs. Recommended.

NutriSystem Nourish
NutriSystem is a portion-controlled weight loss program based on the GI.

South Beach Diet
This popular diet chooses carbs that are based on low GI values.

Glycemic Index Food List

Low GI eating

Here is a guide to forming your own low GI eating habits.

• Choose Basmati rice instead of normal rice.
• New potatoes have a lower GI than older potatoes. Sweet potatoes also have a low GI.
• Unrefined cereals such as oats or muesli are lower in GI than processed cereals.
• Bread with lots of grains and seeds are lower in GI than other breads.
• When eating biscuits and crackers, those with whole grains in them are lower in GI.
• Cakes and muffins made with fruit, oats, and seeds can supply more low-GI ingredients.
• Fruits – Stone fruit (peaches, nectarines), apples, citrus are lower in GI than tropical fruits such as bananas, melons, pineapple, etc.

It’s Simple. Healthy eating has never been easier, thanks to the new nutrition label. Here’s the good news:

• Most foods in the grocery store must now have a nutrition label and an ingredient list.
• You can buy with confidence. Claims like “low cholesterol” and “fat free” can be used only
  if a food meets new legal standards set by the government.

You are looking at a new label if it’s titled Nutrition Facts. Old labels may still be around for a while, so don’t be surprised if you see them.

Why Read the Label?

Read the label to help choose foods that make up a healthful diet. Eating a healthful diet can help reduce your risk factors for some diseases. For example, too much saturated fat and cholesterol can raise blood cholesterol (a risk factor for hear disease). Too much sodium may be linked to high blood pressure. High blood pressure is a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.

You can download a simple food label guide probided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Pierre Dukan, M.D.

The renowned nutritionist Pierre Dukan, M.D, in an exclusive interview for the Bulgarian National Television: There is no one hurt by the protein diet.

•    Teenagers should not follow any diet programs. Prevention is paramount for them.
•    The attack phase should last 7 days maximum.

This recommends the author of the best seller “Je Ne Sais Pas Maigrir” Pierre Dukan, M. D. in an exclusive interview for the Bulgarian National Television.

Pierre Dukan’s book released in Bulgaria with logo “Colibri”, caused a revolution among the female population. This success had the counter effect – Bulgarian nutritionists declared that the diet in question is very dangerous for the kidneys and lever and it can cause permanent damage to the population that follows its course.

Pierre Dukan as a specialist in healthy eating and nutrition offers an addition to its book called “My diet in 350 recipes” which has been recently translated and released to the Bulgarian market. There the doctor shares his personal experience accumulated during the years of study, research and testimonials.

- Dr. Dukan, you diet has become quite popular here in Bulgaria. However, there are critics, which brand your diet to be extreme. What can you answer to them?

- I am confident that the people saying that are not read or understood fully my diet. They accuse my diet of being only protein, which is wrong. The diet composed on four phases. Only the first phase – “attack” is based on protein consumption. However, this first phase last only 2 days for people trying to reduce their weight by 5 or 6 kilograms, and 5 or 6 days for people which are seriously overweight.
What are the proteins? There are not drugs but just a daily portion of what the primitive homo-sapiens daily intake – meat, fish, eggs, and milk. There are not poison. Eating only proteins for 5 days is not dangerous but has a rejuvenating effect. Following the “attack” phase is the so-called “weight loss” phase, which last until the target weight is reached. During that phase the average weekly weight loss is 1 kilogram. This means that if you want to lose 10 kilograms you should maintain this phase for 9 weeks. It does not include only proteins but all vegetables, which means that you can consume at least 100 different types of food. 72 are animal products, 28 – plants. The great thing to say here is that the person can eat these 100 types as much as they want. This fact gives the diet its strength.
Everyone knows that they cannot eat every food that they want to but that can consume as much as they want from these 100 allowed foods.
Fact is the vegetables and meat are hard coded into our bodies from thousand years.

- Should pay attention to something, in order to keep our health during our diet.

- No. I am putting this diet on practice for 30 years now and I do not a single patient that had even a slightest complaint or got ill. Of course, vegetarians or patients with kidney problems cannot use this program. However, such cases are rare and such people are in all case not overweight. There is not a single case that someone got ill by following my program.

- What about people with high cholesterol or predisposed to it?

- I treated 25000 people with high cholesterol. In all cases their cholesterol level was decreased due to the fact that in the diet program fat meats, butter, cheese and all fat food are avoided. If you follow the program strictly your blood pressure and cholesterol levels will improve and also the overall body condition. The diet should not be mixed up with Atkins diet, which allows all fats. My plan decreases the fat intake dramatically.

- There is something curious in your diet plan, though. You allow the intake of light Coca-Cola. By comparison all other diet programs forbid aerated beverages.

- In all countries Coca-Cola light is approved by all organizations. It contains aspartame, which is harmless. Our government allows even pregnant women to consume it. The obesity is treat, which cannot be compared with the treat of aspartame. So it does not harm if we drink a few cups of Coca-cola light. I don’t want to promote Cola-Cola since I even do not like this company. Let’s say that every aerated beverage or milk with sweeteners can be consumed.

- Do you recommend your diet for teenagers?

- No, absolutely not. I do not recommend my diet for children or teenagers. By principal they do not get fat. Nowadays, it happens as a result from too much time in front of the TV or computers. I am not supporting dieting in such early stage. It is best to try and prevent future obesity. Teenagers can drink aerated beverages because they do it all the time. However, it is best they drink such without sugar. Normally, young people are very radical and they are prone to hold the “attack” phase for too long. No, no – I do not recommend the diet for them.

- I much time should the “attack” phase continue?

If you target is to lose up to 10 kilograms, I recommend 1 or 2 days. Then 1 day with vegetables and again 1 day with vegetables. If anyone wants to lose 10-20 kilograms, the “attack” phase should last between 1 and 5 days. For people weighing over 100 kilograms can keep up the phase up to a week’s time. However, after 1 week the phase loses its effect.

- Please, say a few words for the people who are practicing your diet program.

Speaking as nutritionist with more than 30 years of experience, after researching in details all present programs and in my role a chairman of the International Nutritionist Organization, I truly believe that my diet program is the best.

Important recommendations:

•    You should drink a lot of water – 1,5 to 2 liters a day. The water has many advantages in all diet programs and in this one particularly.  The water cleanses the organism and improves the diet program results. The combination – water and clean proteins has a great effect on skin cellulite. Drink water during your meals. It fills your stomach and dampens the hunger.

•    It is good to eat oath meals – better done in the morning. The goals are two: relaxing the intestinal functions and increase of calories intake. Two possible ways for this are eating the oath meals with water or low fat milk. The only setback is that oath meals are difficult to find on the market. There can be substituted with wheat meals but you can experience stomach swell.

•    There are no limits in quantity that you consume from all foods allowed during the diet program. This is the place to say one of the most important rules: “In order to lose weight, one must eat”. Do not miss a meal, ever. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are mandatory. The best thing to do is to eat every 4 hours.

The path to success:

•    Be patient. The program works slowly in small steps. There period during which you lose weight, and ones when you keep you current one.
•    Measure your body. The program will help you decrease your measurement faster then your weight. Measurements are more important than kilograms.
•    Listen to your body. Different things work for different people. Often removal of milk products from the daily diet increases the weight loss. The last to exclude is the yogurt.
•    Be mindful of your daily salt intake. It leads to holding water in your body and slows the weight loss process.
•    Read food labels. Many meat products often contain ingredients like salt and other that will slow down your progress.

Translated from Bulgarian by Ivan Georgiev.

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Caffeine is a naturally occurring stimulant found in the leaves, seeds, or fruit of over sixty plants around the world. Caffeine exists in the coffee bean in Arabia, the tea leaf in China, the kola nut in West Africa, and the cocoa bean in Mexico. Because of its use throughout all societies, caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. The most common caffeine sources in North America and Europe are coffee and tea. Since about 1980, extensive research has been conducted on how caffeine affects health. Most experts agree that moderate use of caffeine (300 milligrams, or about three cups of coffee, per day) is not likely to cause health problems.

How Caffeine Affects the Body

Caffeine is best known for its stimulant, or “wake-up,” effect. Once a person consumes caffeine, it is readily absorbed by the body and carried around in the bloodstream, where its level peaks about one hour after consumption. Caffeine mildly stimulates the nervous and cardiovascular systems. It affects the brain and results in elevated mood, decreased fatigue, and increased attentiveness, so a person can think more clearly and work harder. It also increases the heart rate, blood flow, respiratory rate, and metabolic rate for several hours. When taken before bedtime, caffeine can interfere with getting to sleep or staying asleep.

Exactly how caffeine will affect an individual, and for how long, depends on many factors, including the amount of caffeine ingested, whether one is male or female, one’s height and weight, one’s age, and whether one is pregnant or smokes. Caffeine is converted by the liver into substances that are excreted in the urine.

Some people are more sensitive to the effects of caffeine than others. With frequent use, tolerance to many of the effects of caffeine will develop. At doses of 600 milligrams (about six cups of coffee) or more daily, caffeine can cause nervousness, sweating, tenseness, upset stomach, anxiety, and insomnia. It can also prevent clear thinking and increase the side effects of certain medications. This level of caffeine intake represents a significant health risk.

Caffeine can be mildly addictive. Even when moderate amounts of caffeine are withdrawn for 18 to 24 hours, one may feel symptoms such as headache, fatigue, irritability, depression, and poor concentration. The symptoms peak within 24 to 48 hours and progressively decrease over the course of a week. To minimize withdrawal symptoms, experts recommend reducing caffeine intake gradually.

Caffeine In Food and Beverages

Caffeine in Food and Drugs

Due to its stimulant properties, caffeine is used around the world in any of its many forms, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, and chocolate. The accompanying table displays the amount of caffeine in foods. An eight-ounce cup of drip-brewed coffee has about 85 milligrams of caffeine, whereas the same amount of brewed tea contains about 47 milligrams. Twelve-ounce cans of soft drinks (soda) provide about 35 to 45 milligrams of caffeine.

The caffeine content of coffee and tea depends on the variety of the coffee bean or tea leaf, the particle size, the brewing method, and the length of brewing or steeping time. Brewed coffee has more caffeine than instant coffee, and espresso has more caffeine than brewed coffee. Espresso is made by forcing hot pressurized water through finely ground, dark-roast beans. Because it is brewed with less water, it contains more caffeine than regular coffee per fluid ounce.

In soft drinks, caffeine is both a natural and an added ingredient. About 5 percent of the caffeine in colas and pepper-flavored soft drinks is obtained naturally from cola nuts; the remaining 95 percent is added. Caffeine-free drinks contain virtually no caffeine and make up a small part of the soft-drink market.

Numerous prescription and nonprescription drugs also contain caffeine. Caffeine increases the ability of aspirin and other painkillers to do their job, and it is often used in headache and pain-relief remedies as well as in cold products and alertness or stay-awake tablets. When caffeine is an ingredient, it must be listed on the product label.

When it comes to losing fat there are many diets to choose from. There are thousands of diets that combine food choices in such a way to reduce caloric intake and cause fat loss. Most diets work, however not every diet works for every person. One of the goals of dieting is to find a diet that you can follow. Hopefully, you’ll find a lifestyle diet that will be easy to stick to once the excess fat is gone. Picking a diet that restricts you too much will be difficult to follow and will increase your chances of failure.

Here at “Think Sim” we believe that any diet without coffee is going to be a miserable disaster. I’d rather be 20 pounds overweight sipping on a hot mug of freshly roasted coffee than lean with only memories of coffees consumed long ago. With that said, I decided to seek out a diet that puts coffee first. To my knowledge none exist. It is then our duty to create a diet or modify an existing diet so we coffee drinkers can lose the fat and not abandon our favorite beverage. Although we strive to drink coffee in our diets, coffee by itself shouldn’t be the basis of that diet. Most of our energy should still come from food.

Caffeine as a Fat-Loss Supplement

In addition to coffee’s role in the most popular diets, let’s briefly address how caffeine by itself can be used to lose fat. There are many fat loss supplements at the nutrition store where the primary ingredient is caffeine. Supplements with names such as Metabolife, Ripped Fuel, and Beta Lean HP all use a combination of caffeine and ephedra (Ma Huang). This combination has been effective at promoting fat loss while preserving muscle. Although there are some critics of ephedra-based supplements regarding safety, this article isn’t going to go into that debate. For more information on this topic read Muscle Growth and Fat Loss by Stimulating the Я-Agonist System – The Role of Ephedrine, Caffeine, and Aspirin by Michael C. Prevost Ph.D.

The Role of Coffee in Other Diets

Before we build or modify our own diet let’s divide the major diets into 4 groups and examine how they feel about coffee. There are other diets and there are diets that fit into multiple categories. This overview is not meant to be complete and is only intended to serve as a starting point to building a coffee-friendly diet.

1. Low-Fat/High-Carb Diet
2. Isocaloric Diet
3. Low-Carb Diet
4. Macrobiotic/Holistic

The low-fat/high-carb diet includes the Pritkin Diet, Dean Orish’s diet, and countless others. Because coffee is fat-free, this diet is the most coffee friendly. However one of the reasons fat-free diets sometimes fail is the belief that removing the fat makes one immune to excess calories. A mocha made with fat-free milk may be without fat, but it is loaded with sugars and is calorically dense. If you like the sweeter coffee choices, be aware that although the drink may be fat-free you can jeopardize your diet with too many empty calories.

By far the most popular isocaloric diet is The Zone. An isocaloric diet is one where the calories from fat, protein and carbs are equal or close to equal. In the case of The Zone that ratio is 40-30-30 (40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat). Isocaloric diets pay very close attention to the quality of carbohydrates. One of the key elements of this diet to avoid sugars. A simplistic overview is that by avoiding sugars the body can become more effective at burning stored body fat. But does Dr. Sears like coffee? No. Caffeine even in absense of calories can affect blood sugar. More on this later.

The low-carb diet made famous by Dr. Atkins restricts carbohydrate intake to the point where the body goes into a state known as ketosis. In the absense of carbs the body becomes very efficent at burning fat. Like the Zone diet, this diet is concerned with blood sugar and insulin levels; therefore, coffee is forbidden.

The last group is the Macrobiotic and Holistic diets. These diets deal with food combining, and Chinese medicines/enzyme therapy. You may be be able to guess how these diets feel about coffee. They don’t like caffeine because it is an aggressive stimulant. Often, they recommend ginseng tea or grain coffee as a substitute for real coffee. No thanks.

Coffee and Insulin

Both The Zone and Dr. Atkins frown on coffee because it can negatively affect blood sugar, which will affect the body’s ability to burn fat. How can a zero calorie beverage affect blood sugar? According to the Canadian Diabetes Association: Drinking caffeine in large amounts as coffee over a short period of time has been shown to raise blood sugar. Caffeine does this by enhancing the effect of two hormones (adrenaline and glucagon). These two hormones release stored sugar from the liver resulting in high blood sugar. And what happens when blood sugar levels are increased? From the Running Planet article The Glycemic Index – How to use it to Increase Your Energy And Lose Weight: This results in large amounts of insulin being dumped into your blood stream. Remember that the job of insulin is to regulate your blood sugar. It needs to do something with the excess glucose (sugar). The easiest thing for insulin to do with it is to store it in your body as fat. Simply put: coffee can affect your blood sugar which could interfere with the body’s ability to burn fat.

These fears of coffee may be over-stated. Even though the authors of these 2 diets do not favor coffee, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that either of these diets can be successful despite the continued consumption of coffee. And there is some non-ancedotal research, which indicates that exercise helps stabilize blood sugar after ingesting caffeine. Our goal, as defined above, is to get lean while continuing to enjoy coffee. So let’s address the problems coffee could pose to a diet, and find a solution.

Step 1 – Clean Up Your Coffee

Coffee by itself is perfect. It has zero calories, zero carbs, and zero fat. It even has properties that assist with fat loss. Coffee by itself isn’t the problem. Lattes, mochas, iced espresso blended with sugar, whipped cream, ice cream, flavored syrups, alcohol, and caramel are just a few of things we add into our coffee. Coffee is derived from the old Arabic word “qahwah” which means “gives strength”. Consuming popular coffee drinks today that are as calorically-dense as desserts has the effect of giving coffee a bad name, and changing the meaning of coffee from gives strength to gives girth.

In order to succeed on our diet, we must get back to basics. Regular coffee and straight shots of espresso are fine. As for milk, that depends upon your specific diet. An Atkins diet may allow half and half, whereas a low-fat diet would insist upon skim milk. If you must use sweeteners, at least make an effort to cut down: go from 2 packets to 1 packet.

Step 2 – Reduce Your Coffee Intake

If too much coffee can affect blood sugar then it only makes sense to reduce your caffeine intake. However, you don’t want to reduce your coffee intake at the same time you are reducing your caloric intake unless you have super willpower. Less calories and less caffeine usually means a reduction in energy which could lead to binge eating. A smarter move is to reduce your coffee intake for a week prior to the diet. Once the diet starts, you can slightly increase your coffee levels. It’s good to have a clear head when you’ve got an empty stomach.

Another idea is to space out your coffee intake. Instead of drinking 4 mugs of coffee back to back, consider spreading those 4 mugs throughout the day. One at 6am, 10am, 1pm, and 5pm. As long as you don’t consume too much, caffeine can be an appetite suppressant. Spreading that effect throughout the day will not only reduce your chances of increased blood sugar, but it will also help you cope with the reduced caloric levels.

Reducing your coffee intake is important, but it can be painful. Cutting back on caffeine can cause headaches and constipation. A good article on reducing caffeine intake is Accelerated Detox by Rachel Elliot.

Step 3 – Avoid Eating Simple Carbs with Coffee

Now if you’re on a low-carb diet, you’ll want to avoid simple carbs completely. However, it is a wise idea not to eat simple carbs on any diet while drinking your coffee. You know the simple carbs I’m referring to: the bagels, croissants, and scones that you see in every coffee shop. Going back to the insulin argument: if caffeine could affect blood sugar negatively then the last thing you want to do is combine it with something that is certain to cause an insulin spike.

Step 4 – Exercise

It’s common sense that exercise helps one lose fat on almost any diet. In the words of the The Illinois Department of Human Servies exercise …helps the body use insulin more efficiently, and this lowers blood sugar. If exercise can help us stablize our blood sugar then maybe we don’t have to get rid of our coffee in order to get lean. So lift some weights, do some aerobic activity, and keep drinking coffee. If you don’t have access to a gym, you can perform body-weight exercises such as the push-up and the Hindu Squat.

The 4 Diets Revisited

People are often more fanatical about their diet choice than their religion. So far be it from me to slam or endorse any particular diet. Each of the four groups mentioned restrict food selection and the result is often a caloric reduction, which translates to fat loss. What happens behind the curtains may be different, but a combination of healthy eating and exercise has always been the secret to getting lean. Using the above steps we can keep our relationship with coffee while dieting. Even a macrobiotic diet will be successful if your only deviation is pitching the herbal coffee in favor of the real stuff.

Everybody Is Different

It is possible to try the above steps with your chosen diet and not succeed. If you find that you must decide between coffee and getting lean, that’s a personal decision you should discuss with your doctor and roaster. In addition to weight training and power walking, this author followed a modified Zone Diet using the above 4 steps. The result was a body fat reduction from 18% to 9% in 4 months.

Related articles: Caffeine in food and beverages, caffeine in drugs