Family G.I. Diet

FOREWORD You've got to start somewhere, but there's no point starting a diet unless you intend to be successful. That's what this book is all about: helping you succeed in reaching your goal of a much healthier lifestyle, not just in the short term but from now on. And it's not just for you but for your entire family. What's so special about this diet book? Why follow its advice rather than the suggestions found in all the other diet books on the shelf? The G.I. Diet is nutritionally sound and scientifically based. It takes complex nutritional concepts and makes them easy to understand and put into practice with a creative traffic light system. The G.I. Diet offers no gimmicks or quick fixes. It is sustainable. It is transforming. This book, The Family G.I. Diet, takes the proven, best-selling concepts of the original G.I. Diet one important step further: it addresses the entire family. It allows spouses to support one another in the difficult tasks of weight control and eating properly. It deals with age and gender differences. It encourages parents to serve as role models for their children. It makes parents aware of the various behavioural stages of childhood that must be appreciated to improve that most basic of activities, the family meal. The author, Rick Gallop, is a very special person. He is bright, articulate and innovative. Rick's credentials for writing a diet book are a bit unusual. He is not a nutritionist, nor is he a physician. But for fifteen years, he served as president of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. He developed a passion for promoting healthy lifestyles that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and its devastating consequences. Rick became frustrated at the high failure rates associated with most diet plans. So, true to his character, he sought to devise a better diet method. And he did. Ultimately, improving how you and your loved ones live is up to you. If you need some help with this, The Family G.I. Diet is a wonderful guide that will make your entire family feel better and stay healthier. Enjoy the book and enjoy each other. Norman R. Saunders, MD, FRCP(C) Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto What is special about being a family doctor is having the chance to accompany a family through many of life's stages. Where else in medicine does one get to witness children progressing from birth to adolescence and on to adulthood, or middle-aged patients moving on to grapple with retirement or deteriorating health? I have been practising for over twenty years, and the infants I once cared for are now expecting their own children, the young mothers whom I once commiserated with about their sleepless nights are now losing sleep because of hot flashes. As time has passed I have also witnessed the impact of information technology, which has transformed passive patients into active health care advocates who are interested in maintaining health and preventing illness. At any life stage, nutrition is a primary concern. For this reason, I have welcomed the G.I. Diet as an excellent resource when counselling patients. Diets in general have been anathema to me, because by their very nature they have a start point and an end point, with consequent rebounding and accumulation of even more weight. The G.I. approach is more of a lifestyle than a diet, and it is sustainable because it is based on sound scientific principles. Organizing foods in categories based on the colours of a traffic light provides a straightforward system of eating that anyone can grasp and apply. In The Family G.I. Diet, Rick Gallop takes the program further by recommending practices to lGallop, Rick is the author of 'Family G.I. Diet', published 2005 under ISBN 9780679313212 and ISBN 0679313214.