It may seem like I am stating the bloody obvious with the title of this post, but there is yet another index I should cover before I get to what I feel is the most important factor in fat loss.  This index offers a few benefits over the Glycemic Index (GI) and the Glycemic Load (GL) covered in the previous posts, and gets us closer to what is really important.

The Satiety Index

“The Satiety Index of Common Foods”, was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 1995. In this study, the researchers fed human test subjects fixed-Calorie portions of thirty-eight different foods, and then recorded the subjects’ perceived hunger following each feeding.
The results of this study clearly indicated that certain foods are much better than others for satisfying hunger. The researchers used white bread as their reference point, and arbitrarily assigned it a “Satiety Index” of 100. Foods that did a better job of satisfying hunger were given proportionately higher values, and foods that were less satisfying were assigned lower values. Among the most satisfying foods they tested were plain boiled potatoes, raw fruits, fish, and lean meats. Subjects that consumed the prescribed portion of these foods were less likely to feel hungry immediately afterward. Foods that did the poorest job of satisfying hunger included croissants, donuts, candy bars, and peanuts.

It is interesting to note that the food that scored by far the best for satisfying hunger was boiled white potato (a high GI food). It scored a whopping 323!  Now Don’t use this as an excuse to gobble down french fries.  They only scored 116. Also some of the foods that scored the worst for satisfying hunger, like peanuts (84 SI), are low GI (14 GI).

It is very easy to see that comparing foods across these various indexes gives very different results.  Many foods that would be shunned because of their high GI look not so bad under the GL scale and even better under the SI. The opposite is also true.

Choosing foods that satisfy you faster is certainly a step in the right direction when it comes to dropping bodyfat, but it is not the only factor. Relying on indexes to tell you what foods to eat can be tedious and quite honestly a pain in the ass.   In the next post I will finally bring this all together and show how you can choose foods that will get you going towards your fat loss goals, no index required.

Tags: abs, fat burning, Fat Loss, how to lose fat, how to lose weight, how to stop cravings

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