Generally speaking I don’t believe in diets as such, and every time I hear about a new one coming out I just want to turn the other way screaming: “Do not buy into it!” at the top of my lungs. But people do buy into all sorts of things anyway, because everybody wants to look good, slim and sleek. And they usually want to achieve it the easiest, fastest and cheapest way possible. Which is why “diets” that claim to provide just that tend to do very well on the market.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t read books about food. Quite the contrary, I enjoy reading such books and every so often I’ll reach for a new one, but on that another time. I did say that generally I don’t believe in diets, which means that there was a point in my life during which I was desperate enough to try out one of those magic diets. It is called the Montignac Method and as such isn’t really referred to as a diet by the author, Michel Montignac. The basis for this method is very simple and logical and its explanation can be found in his most popular book called “Slim Forever the French Way“. First of all get rid of all processed and refined foods such as white sugar, flour and rice and replace them with their wholegrain unrefined versions aka good carbs. Same applies to fats such as fat from meat, butter and dairy that are all to be replaced with their good equivalents from olive oil and fish aka good fats. And proteins should come from lean sources (vegetable or animal). Montignac doesn’t believe in counting calories, but portions should be reasonable and overeating is discouraged. So far it makes perfect sense. But then on top of that Montignac adds on what’s called Glycemic Index (GI for short) which can get pretty complicated and difficult to keep track of.
So what is this GI anyway? First of all, each food is assigned a numerical value and the lower the number the better it is for you. The foods are then categorized into 3 groups: Low GI, Medium GI and High GI. How is it decided what food gets what number? The foods that have the least effect on your blood sugar get a low number and therefore get a green light and the ones that affect your blood sugar and spike up your insulin levels get a red light. The foods that are somewhere in between the two are OK-ish and get an orange light, but you should try to avoid them. So how does GI affect your weight? Montignac says that if we eat the wrong foods that are high in GI our pancreas will secrete more insulin than is required to take sugar present in blood down to its normal level. This is commonly known as a hyperinsulism disorder, which gears your body’s metabolism toward production and storage of fat. This, of course, is a very simplistic explanation of the GI and for a more in depth, scientific approach I would have to ask you to google it.
So we have eliminated bad carbs and bad fats and we are only eating lean protein. We are also constantly consulting a list of foods to verify whether or not we get a green light with the GI police. Doesn’t seem that difficult so far, but then there is more. You also have to make sure that you don’t mix certain foods! You either eat carbs with protein or protein with fat or just high-fiber carbs alone. You can’t eat carbs with saturated fat from meat, because that will stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin which will trap the meal’s fat in the body as stored fat. So, for example, your breakfast can be either carbs such as rye bread, wholewheat bread/cereal with protein such as fat-free cheese/cottage cheese/natural yogurt, skim milk OR protein such as eggs, fish, meat, poultry with fat such as bacon, cheese, sausage. Same for lunch and dinner: if you put some meat on your plate, don’t accompany it by rice, eat it together with veggies and if you have high-fiber carbs don’t add meat to it, have it with veggies. That’s not all… Bread can only be eaten in the moring, forget about bread for lunch. Certain foods can’t be cooked, because cooking them will raise their GI and we don’t want that to happen : raw carrots are ok to eat, because they have a low GI due to their fiber, but the moment we cook them the fiber is no longer present and the carrot turns into a useless high GI starch. Pasta should also always be cooked al dente. And the list of things to keep in mind goes on….
Now, the most important part of this method is the fact that you can’t really get off it. Most people treat diets as if though they were a temporary thing. They get on them and then they get off them. They not only get off them, but they also go back to their old eating habits. Montignac or not, if one is overweight or obese and they change their eating habits to loose weight, it is only natural and logical that the moment they get off their diet and go back to their normal style of eating that their weight is going to crawl back! One doesn’t have to have a PhD in nutrition or biology to understand that if we come back to the wrong way of eating our bodies are going to respond to it in the same way they did the first time around. Unfortunately, most people use diets only for a period of time, after which they sit back and relax with their plateful of steak and fries, which according to Montignac is heresy!
So, I did try this Method. Am I still on it? Not to the full extent, but I didn’t go back to my evil ways either. I do keep the principles in mind when I eat. For example, I learned to recognize the GI of foods and now avoid the high ones. I’m also not consuming any bad carbs or fats, which is referred to by some as Clean-eating. But as far as the combination of foods is concerned, I ditched it. Instead, I keep my portions reasonable.
Did the Method work for me? Yes, it certainly did. It was a pain in the derriere for 7 months or so, but it did help me shed all the unnecessary weight. I should point out though that I used it along with daily pilates sessions.
Like anything that makes it to the media, this Method received both negative and positive criticism so please use your own common sense in learning about it.
