Cali Sweden's Diary

[irish molly]

Roast chick peas
Preheat oven and tray to 220c.
Drain a can of chick peas and dry them in kitchen paper. They need to be nice and dry going in.
If you want, toss them in a Tablespoon of olive oil, some cayenne or chilli or garlic salt.
Spread them on the heated tray.
Depending on your oven, roast for 30-40 minutes. Check them after 30 as they can burn easily and then taste terribly bitter.
Mine do in 30 mins and have a nice nutty flavour. I put them in an airtight container but they get used pretty quickly!!!

[AshieFan]

My GI chart says that canned beans are high GI. I get so confused

Chickpeas are definitely low GI, have a look on the glycemicindex.com website.

Thanks Molly, will give that a go and let you know how it went!

[CaliSweden]

Wow that sounds really yummy! I will have to try them out. Thanks for sharing the recipe

[CaliSweden]

I'm going to try to make low GI friendly chili beans today. I've already soaked the kidney beans and chickpeas over night. I have canned soy beans to add when cooking begins, and will add the red lentils at cooking time too. I will also add some ground beef, onions, garlic, bell peppers and tomatoes. I plan to have a salad with the chili beans in order to up my veggie intake

Does that sound low GI???

[irish molly]

Holford says canned are fine. I've used canned all the time. When I was in weightloss mode I could lose 2 or 3 lbs with little effort and I eat bean dishes maybe four days a week so it did not affect my losses.
Soaking and cooking beans is too much like hard work for me!

[CaliSweden]

Wow 2-3 lbs a week!?! I want to do that! Did you follow a book or something in the beginning? Or what types of food did you eat? Like recipes etc? Sorry about all the questions and everything, I just want to be where you're at You're my GI/GL role model Maybe you should write a GI/GL weightloss type book, to help others out .

Cool so we can use canned beans and it doesn't make a difference, that's really great to hear. Sometimes it's really a hassel to make sure you soak the beans before you go to bed. Having cans around is much easier. I can be quiet lazy at times, nor do I want to always stay at the stove for hours. Again thank you for the tips!

[irish molly]

You make me blush hon. No, no magic just grim determination to get back to the size I knew was manageable for me.
Holford et al will say that losses of up to 3-4 lbs per week are achieveable on GL. When I switched to GL I was in no hurry as I had decided that this was my plan for life. Approaching it with a "diet head" would only set me up for failure. I am not active either so I accepted losses might be slow. Some weeks I lost a pound or had a STS and others I lost 2, 3 ,4 lbs. This is the monthly record for my weightloss phase of GL
Wk 29-32 207 to 208 +01 Small gain as I switched from TFR.
Wk 33-36 208 to 200 -08
Wk 37-40 200 to 195 -05
Wk 41-44 195 to 192 -03
Wk 45-48 192 to 186 -06
Wk 49-52 186 to 178 -08
My calorie intake averaged about 1400 per day so I was eating plenty.
I did not follow any one plan. Again, this would feel more like a diet. I cut out completely bread, potato, pasta and rice for the weightloss phase. I had oat cakes, rye crackers, quinoa, lentils, all types of beans to substitute for those.
In maintenance mode I have just small amounts of those high car foods.

[irish molly]

This is a link to a thread where some info on GL was discussed.
http://www.minimins.com/gi-diet-supp...-gl-rocks.html (One Year on GL and it rocks!!)

[CaliSweden]

Thank you Molly, I will finish reading that thread when I get home. I read about half of it. I need to go to the grocery store, as I'm out of anything I can eat immediately, only the musli. Also I need things for tonight's dinner.

I'll buy some oat and rye crackers too, and stock up on some canned beans. I'm gonna have to order a GL book today Okay wish me luck at the grocery store.

[CaliSweden]

Before I went grocery shopping I went and did a couple of errands. I also stopped by Lindex (clothing store) to try on some jeans. My jeans are getting loose on me. But it looks like I'm inbetween sizes, so I didn't buy any. I'll wait a couple more weeks to see if I lose weight to go in the smaller one. I got a new shirt though, again I was inbetween sizes. The L has a bit of space, but the M felt a little snug. I got the L because it's 100% cotton and it'll most likely shrink. I can't wait until I fit not inbetween sizes.

Ok so my shopping trip today went fairly good, I took my sweet time looking at things and reading labels. I think I was in the grocery store for over an hour. I did find a lot of goodies. I found organic peanut butter, and it doesn't have any sugar in it. I also found jams that didn't have any added sugars in it, thank goodness for the French. It was a French jam company, quiet little expensive things. All the Swedish jams and preserves had way too much sugar in them.

I also figured out that Rye crackers are knäckebröd(crisp bread), because we have Ryvita here too and it's called knäckebröd here. We are the land and home of crisp bread. You should see the selection we have, it took some time to pick a good one. I got one from Leksand that's made also with quinoa and rye sourdough. I also picked out a rye bread that has a lot of seeds and grains in it. It's one of those uber super healthy breads. I couldn't find any oat cakes though

I found Agave sirup, I was so shocked, I didn't think they'd have it. Though it's a bit expensive for the little thing. The fruit sugar is much cheaper compared to Agave sirup. I checked the small frozen healthy imitation meat section and sure enough at the very bottom of the wall, they had Quorn, and another company's soy meats. I didn't buy them because well I prefer meat But it was just really cool that I found them

I picked out a lot of fruits today, peaches, nectarines, and a melon. They had quiet a nice sale going on. So now the fridge is full of yummy fruits and veggies. This is the rotting season, so the fruits and veggies rot very quickly. I try not to buy too much at once, or else you'll find liquidfied fruits and veggies in the fridge.

[CaliSweden]

Wow Molly your monthly weightloss on GL was really good! It's great that you were able to still consume about 1400 calories a day and still lose weight.

I guess with GI/GL we tend to snack a lot less and consume less sugary drinks. I notice I don't crave colas or anything while on GI/GL. I think the fruits do the trick for the sweet craving.

[CaliSweden]

The first half of the food for today wasn't exciting since I needed to go grocery shopping this afternoon. Thank goodness that I wasn't hungry today like I was yesterday.


Breakfast: My usual unsweetened musli with dried raspberries, peaches, goji berries, sultanas and milk.

Snack: Didn't have one, as I wasn't hungry.

Lunch: Unsweetened musli with dried raspberries, peaches, sultanas, almond slices, crushed walnuts and milk. I was hungry but didn't have anything else GI/GL friendly to eat besides my musli.

Snack: Rye cracker (crisp bread) with cottage cheese and a nectarine.

Dinner: Homemade chili beans, with kidney beans, soy beans, chickpeas, red lentils, tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, onions, garlic and ground beef. I put a lot of veggies in that chili beans, so I didn't make a salad. I had a bigger serving then I should have but it's a lot of water in my chili. I baked cornbread for my guy, as he said it wasn't the same to have chili without my cornbread. Nothing beats the smell of freshly baked homemade cornbread, so I took two bites

Exercise: 30 minute walk with the dog, pushups, crunches and 25 minutes of yoga.

[irish molly]

I am impressed with your shopping trip. Well done on nearly fitting down a size. A few weeks more and you'll be there. Seeing the inches drop off is a good incentive to keep going.
Your shelves are well stocked now. I really like the sound of your crispbread with quinoa in it. It does get a bit addictive, checking out labels and realising just how many additives, sugars etc are in foods.
Enjoy trying your new foods.
Did you order a book? What one did you go for?

[CaliSweden]

Yeah I was so shocked at what things have sugar as the first or second ingredient. Or which things use normal flour, I put all those things back on the shelf right away. They don't get anywhere near my basket.

I haven't had time to look at any books yet. I went to run errands, came home my guy and his buddy came home. I started cooking dinner, then we ate and hungout for a bit. Soon after our guest left I began posting on here

Maybe I can get a couple look at a few books before I go to bed

[irish molly]

Wow Molly your monthly weightloss on GL was really good! It's great that you were able to still consume about 1400 calories a day and still lose weight.

I guess with GI/GL we tend to snack a lot less and consume less sugary drinks. I notice I don't crave colas or anything while on GI/GL. I think the fruits do the trick for the sweet craving.

Once the blood sugars are level through the day, we should be craving free. You may find certain foods will still kick off cravings but you can learn to avoid them.
When having fruit, I always chop it up finely and then have it with a few mixed seeds. This way I eat more slowly, and the brain has time to receive a tummy full message. Otherwise if I just munch down an apple or a couple of plums they are gone in an instant.