A couple of months ago, I was told that all that cooking I'd been doing - all the cooking classes where I taught baking and pastry, desserts and pies, doughnuts and panna cottas, had impacted on more than my waistline. I was diabetic. Actually, that's not strictly true. Initially I was told I was pre-diabetic which was a diagnosis I hadn't known existed, but later the doctor told me that I should have been told I was Type 2 diabetes, with a reading of 130 (where the safe range is 75-115)  and it was time to really get my life together.

Now, the doctor told me I should get the right nutritional info, but, as we live in a place that is so far from developed, that if I wanted to see a nutritionalist, I'd have to fly to another country. It was suggested I google it. So google it, I did.

I'd vaguely heard of Low GI. It was Atkins, right? Maybe with a bit of that caveman's diet thrown in - paleo? Weren't they unhealthy? Missing out carbs completely, even veggies and fruit. Raw food maybe. All a bit wishy washy and bad for the long term health. Except that the low GI diet wasn't that. It was backed by good science, rather than gut instinct.

It took me a while and lots of misunderstandings to start to get a feel for it. Of course with something like this, there is a lot of good info and a great deal of nonsense out there on the web. It could be hard sifting through it. Even little things became complicated - peas, for instance - were they low or high GI? Why did most of the books and articles I read seem to revolve around flour, potatoes, and rice. These were on my list of no nos. Slowly but surely things became clearer, and so did my way forward.

Firstly, I decided not to worry about my weight to start with. Getting my blood sugar down was the priority.

Secondly, I wasn't keen on completely giving up sugar. But I figured I could cut right back on it.

Thirdly, it seemed the major villains (apart from sugar) were rice, flour,  most things grown underground and cooked, fruit juice, mixers, sweet fruit and beer. So no potatoes, pastry, cakes, bread, rice, noodles, mangos - and just as mango season was kicking in - and gin and tonics.

But that left a lot. The good things were meat and green veggies (though being careful with which ones, broad beans and peas aren't great), fish, chick peas (and therefore lashings and lashings of houmous), chocolate wasn't bad, in moderation, nuts were great and a wonderful filler, and fruit, particularly when not too ripe was great. Think bananas like in the UK, rather than the tropics, unripe papaya or mango salad was great, though the ripe versions not so much.

It also took a while to suss the Glycaemic Index (GI) against Glycaemic Load (GL) thing. Broadly if it has a high GI, it might still not have a high GL because of the fibre, etc. in it. Hence fruit is much better than fruit juice, a watermelon has a terrible GI of between 70 and 80 (against 100 for sugar) but the load is just 4 or 5 (pasta, rice, noodles, sweetened condensed milk and energy drinks all come in at around ten times that for a comparison), so whilst it wasn't the best fruit, it was still much better than those items on my banned list, so I'd allow it on to my occasional and only in small quantities list that was rapidly piling up in my head.

Now, I cook. I like cooking. I like working on new menus. I have worked out how to cook the things I'm missing from home that here are just impossible or financially prohibitive to buy, at least often. And I teach cooking classes. I teach western cooking, and local cooking to kids and adults. So, this was just going to be the next phase in the cooking.

I set to, devising lists of foods that would work, making menus, creating courses so that others who wanted to cook this way too, could.

At first it seemed so easy. Until I started trying to visit restaurants. Very few could cater for my needs. But with a bit of switching around, and careful choosing of the restaurants, it all came together.

And the weight started dropping off.

I started to eat a low GI diet on 7 February and so far I've lost a little over 20 kilos (43lbs, or just over 3 stone) and that is without being hungry. It's been no problem being in a restaurant with friends tucking into their high GI choices as I'm full. Almost all the time. I'm forgetting to eat, which is something I never thought would happen to me as food is such a passion. Most of the time I don't feel like I'm denying myself as I'm eating delicious food, as much as I want. Cheese, chocolate, cream, meat, all are low GI, so as long as I don't get too stupid with them, they are all fine. And any diet that allows me chocolate and cheese, well, that works for me. Without trying to lose weight - just an utter determination to lose blood sugar.

And talking of blood sugar. My blood sugar dropped to 83 after a week and has since averaged 91. Slap bang in the middle of the recommended range.

And so, I decided to blog the recipes, as I continue on this journey, in the hope that it'll help others. It's just my journey, of course, but it feels like the most amazing discovery to me, and I hope it works for you too.