There are all sorts of reasons for dieting. For most people it is a question of losing weight by eating less. Your eating habits, food preferences, your desires are not much changed.

For most people this is what dieting means - same old food, same old body, but rather less of both (you hope). It is common knowledge that such hopes are difficult to sustain, especially after your first few efforts ate dieting.

However a GI diet is a bit different. Can I give some clues from our own recent experience ?

I was overweight, verging on the obese. I had had a painful injury which for six months reduced my mobility and for which I found that alcohol was the best pain relief I could use. I had started suffering bouts of thrush (=Candida albicans) for which I was prescribed fungicides. I was fairly fit physically, though I had high blood pressure approaching the figures which would require treatment. I was having a certain amount of pain from my knees. I was less energetic than I thought I ought to be.

I try to avoid doctors (nothing serious there - it is a widespread English attitude) but at the same time my wife was diagnosed with "Syndrome X" and was told to regulate her blood sugar levels or to expect type 2 diabetes, and so we embarked on a low GI Diet together.

We cut out all the high GI foods. These are the ones which contain sugars and other carbohydrates in such a form that they are rapidly converted into glucose in the blood. When the blood is flooded with glucose the pancreas produces insulin which has the effect of removing glucose from the blood into storage. Too much sugar in the first place usually means that too much insulin is produced, the blood sugar level is decreased too much; you feel hungry; you need another sugar fix.

When this cycle is repeated too often and too wildly, type 2 diabetes is often the result.

The GI diet aims to reduce this fluctuation.

Six months later we have each lost a stone in weight (=14 lbs; 7kgs.). I no longer have thrush (which is medically named Candida albicans). I feel better and my knees are no longer a problem. I no longer feel as hungry between meals; I don't continually nibble small snacks; I don't pig out when meal times come.

We considered that we had had a healthy diet beforehand, and the big surprise was that white bread and potatoes had a higher potential to raise blood sugar levels than sugar itself.

They went, and it was fairly easy. When tempted you simply have to say "I'd love a slice of bread/some potatoes/a sweet pudding (whatever is on offer at that instant) - but unfortunately I don't eat them anymore".

Knowing the principles behind the GI Diet, I know that I can control my appetite to a certain degree. If I chose to I could lose more weight - but what's the point - that wasn't the primary purpose of the low GI diet in the first place.