Testing Interactive GI Diet Plans
It’s been well over a year since we posted a detailed review of the flow & features interactive GI diet plans provide. Online plans like the one featured by eDiets make it easier to jump start a weight loss plan by getting starter guides, interactive menu’s, and more. Costs are about $4/week. If you’re looking for convenience, you can also find glycemic index delivery plans.
Let’s take a closer look at the sign-up process and features provided by eDiets. They’ve also offered 25% off to Glycemic Edge readers if you’re interested.
The sign-up process is painless. The usual Q&A involving your age, height, and weight. eDiets also asks some good questions about the type of foods you like and can live with (lifestyle), as well as targets and time frames (goals). These are good as they offer well over 20 nutrition plans to choose from – we’ll select their glycemic impact plan of course for our discussion…
The profile page allows you to drill down into more detailed information about the plan, how it works, and how you’ll be using it. They also discuss support points and have details on fitness plans. Surprisingly, they don’t show any glycemic index food values or glycemic index chart information. They do however provide glycemic friendly foods, menu’s, and shopping lists — so you get the result without having to watch the label. This is good for many, keeps it easy – but we’d like to see a more thorough education on “why” and “how” the foods we’re selected and how they interact.
Once you’ve selected your plan and enrolled, you’re free to explore. They have a wealth of sections to assist you – including News, Diet, Shopping lists, progress meters, Tools, Behavior trackers, Fitness planners, Recipes, and a community section for support and forums for those also starting out on the plan.
The fitness planner is an interesting feature. It’s nice to have, has actual demo’s and instructions – focused on cardio and light resistances. None of this is customized to the GI diet, it’s the same across all their plans.
The meal planner is where you really get down to business. Here is where the speed of an online GI diet plan assist helps – allowing you to plan and print daily meals for up to weeks at a time. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and dinner – all GI friendly foods.
Tracking your progress is also easy – with detailed progress and weight loss charts that demonstrate where you are compared to initial goals, your calculated body mass index (BMI), and your complete history since starting. Think of it as a virtual check in. We wish they showed more detail, such as what an average plan would be, or an easier trendline to compare if the exercise level increased so you could predict future results.
Browsing their recipe guide and printable shopping lists are the 2 features we like most. It makes choosing the right foods, without having to lookup GI food scores on your own, a bit easier.
Overall – despite a few areas we would like to see improved – getting help with an interactive glycemic index diet plan makes sense for a lot of people. This will work best if you combine it with some research and nutrition planning from sites like Glycemic Edge.
If you want to give eDiets a try – be sure to use their 25% off coupon offer available here.
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