Britney Spears and Sharon Stone are two celebrities who follow a low-GL diet, but it doesn't need a famous person's endorsement for you to see that it's actually one of the least painful ways to lose weight.
GL refers to the glycaemic load in a foodstuff, and the lower the better because it chiefly concentrates on how quickly or slowly eating something increases your blood sugar.
Dietitian, Juliette Kellow explains: "The Glycaemic Index runs from 0 to 100 and usually uses glucose - which has a GI value of 100 - as the reference. The effect other foods have on blood sugar levels are then compared with this. In simple terms, the GI index tells us whether a food raises blood sugar levels dramatically, moderately or a little bit.
"Foods that have only a slow, small effect on blood sugar have a low GI value, while those causing a rapid and massive rise in blood sugar have a high GI value."
In other words, eating food that is more complex and slowly releases sugar is much better for you. Patrick Holford, who wrote the book Burn Fat Fast with Kate Staples (the former gladiator Zodiac), say that with the diet, "you will stop producing more glucose than you can use, so won’t gain fat. You won’t suffer from food cravings. Your body will be reprogrammed to burn fat rapidly. You will be able to lose weight and sustain your weight loss permanently."
THE THREE SIMPLE RULES ARE:
1. Eat no more than 40 GLs a day
2. Eat protein with carbohydrate
3. Graze don't gorge
Similar to the 5:2 diet, it also uses the idea of fast and feast days. We've featured six recipes from fast and feast days in the slideshow below. They each are around 250 calories and don't contain more than around 10 GLs. Day 1 features feast recipes, while day 2 has some good fast recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Burn Fat Fast, Patrick Holford, £6.99, published by Piatkus