My husband and I went grain-free and sugar-free last October, two weeks before Halloween. It was a hard time of year to make a change like that; Halloween was coming up, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas. I thought to myself, it's never gonna last, but sure, I'll play along. He had me read Wheat Belly: Lose the Weight, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by Dr. William R. Davis. While I was doing that, he threw away every bit of wheat and things that contained wheat in the house. It was hard to throw away all that food, the cost alone was temendous; we did give some to friends.
I thought, here we go again, this is Atkins revisited ... but it wasn't. Dr. Davis had one message pretty clearly: eating wheat will kill you. It'll make you dependent on drugs that pharmaceutical companies thrive on. Not eating wheat makes it stop.
So we stopped. Pounds are coming off from both of us. I put on a size medium sweater and it fit. The fuzzy-headed feeling left our brains. My depression disappeared. I have less dandruff. I don't want to snack. As a matter of fact, my calorie intake has dropped at least 30%; we only eat two meals a day now, and sometimes we don't even want that. Have you noticed my improvements, walking and moving now? That's a direct result of having more energy and a better mind-set. My cats like it because I can actually bend down now and take their water bowls to the sink, fill them, and put them back. The ways my life has improved has only begun, and I will continue to see improvement the longer I am wheat-free. I only wish that book had been written before I had my stroke!
Since the 1970's, wheat has not been the same. It is NOT genetically modified, but gene manipulation has taken place, with no testing or FDA regulation telling us it was ok to eat it. So we ate it, and we got hungrier, and we exercised more, but the weight just wouldn't come off. So we ate more "healthy grains" and got hungrier and fatter, diabetes soared from around 5 million people in the early 80's to the 20 million people now. People are sadly addicted to the food on their own dining room table. The addiction is real, but you won't know that until you aren't addicted anymore. So many people say they can't live without that bagel in the morning, the noodles in their lasagne, the crackers with their cheese ... but no, they aren't addicted. Right.
Read the book. It will scare you and it will make you better.
So I do not eat wheat, or oats, and gluten-free things made with other form of grains. We eshew rice flour and rice noodles, but the occasional Pad Thai is very nice -- one serving gives us both two or three meals, though; portion sizes are much too large in restaurants! I don't eat sugar; although I do slip on that occasionally. We have real maple syrup on our pancakes. We have dark chocolate chips in our cookies. We don't eat bananas or pineapple or any kind of juice like orange juice or apple cider, but we do have lots of berries. We buy half and half by the half gallon now, and use it exclusively for baking and drinking (I love half and half in my coffee). We have lots of cheese and cream cheese and sour cream. We use real butter and real fats, real meat and lots of vegetables. We use almond flour and coconut flour and flax meal instead of flour or grains. Friends who come over can have a cookie or a brownie with their coffee and they exclaim over how good it tastes. Everything tastes good.
I don't call it a "diet". A diet is something you go off. It's a way of life now, it's my way of being healthy. I am not trying to push it on anyone. It works for me and my husband, and that's what we wanted. We aren't addicted anymore, and that makes us very happy.
I am so glad it is working for you. What does he say about white potato?
Posted by: Anne Hetherington | February 16, 2012 at 07:58 AM
It depends on why you want to change your way of eating. Cutting out the potato (as well as squash and rice and beans) cuts out the sugars in them. If you're losing weight, they're good to cut out. We still eat a little bit of potatoes and squash and beans and rice, but only small amounts, and not every day, probably 3 or 4 times a week. The book has a lot of different audiences, and weight loss is only one; there's also diabetics, celiac sufferers, people with 'mental fog' issues, people who suffer from acid reflux, lots more. It's not a diet book, it's a book about wheat and it warns how bad wheat is. He gives some ideas about what to cut out, but no menu plans or recipes, at least I don't recall any. There's more here: http://www.wheatbellyblog.com
Posted by: Beth Collins | February 16, 2012 at 09:20 AM
That was interesting, my daughter hs IBS and was told to cut out wheat. She did it for a while and it helped, I will talk to har aout it again. Thanks for posting this.
Posted by: Anne Hetherington | February 17, 2012 at 08:41 AM