Tuesday 23 March 2010

Dine out and lose weight

'Dine out and lose weight' was the first diet book from the french author Michel Montignac which, if for nothing else, should be loved for the fact it has a whole chapter on wine.

Michel was one of the first to advocate a low-glycemic index (GI) diet and was way ahead of his peers, publishing his first book on the subject in 1986 when most slimming diets were very high carbohydrate and very low in fat. Being french his diet includes way more cheese and red meat than I would recommend, but his method is helpful to apply when eating out.

The Montignac approach is that if you are going to eat a meal high in saturated fats (red or fatty cuts of meat, butter, cream or cheese), which is pretty likely in most non-Asian restaurants, then you should only eat carbohydrates with a GI of less than 35 with the meal (which basically limits you to non-starchy vegetables, pulses and wild rice). The idea behind this is that higher GI carbohydrates stimulate your pancreas to produce more insulin which in turn makes your body store more of the fat you are eating so by eating very low GI carbohydrates you limit the damage of the meal to your waistline. Conversely if you want to eat a meal with high GI carbs such as rice or potatoes you should make sure it is low in fat.

Mr Montignac is still going strong and brought out an updated book on his method 'The Montignac diet' which is worth a read for anyone who wants to lose weight whilst still eating cheese and chocolate!
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1 comment:

  1. Excellent post. In deed is a challenge to go out dining when you're trying to lose weight. Here's a video I found that gives you tips how to do it when you out to eat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNtUEXNH6-w

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