"Wheat Belly"
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aagaag
Posts: 89 Member
Just finished to read a book called "Wheat Belly". The author, an MD specialized in endocrinology, posits that wheat is the main culprit in weight gain. Some of his remarks are extremely astute and plausible.
I support his contention that many overweight people (including myself) are extremely disciplined in most aspects of their life - some of them even exercise dutifully and conscientiously (I do, for one!). It follows that the weight issue is not so much one of strong will (which they have proven to possess, e.g. in their profession), but rather that it depends on "exogenous" factors beyond their control. One such factor, says the author, might be wheat.
I will not go through the reasoning of why wheat might be bad (you may still want to read the book!). But I tried removing all wheat from my diet for the past 2 months. Wheat-free means much less complex carbohydrates. Hence it goes in a direction similar to Atkins, but just not as radical. I still eat plenty of carbohydrates, notably tons of joghurt in the morning and late evening.
Wheat removal is, admittedly, not the only thing I changed in my nutrition - but the fact remains, I lost >7kg rather effortlessly within 2 months, and I still enjoy life and good food.
My bottom line: Wheat removal may not work for everybody and may not be the solution to everything (and some of the author's arguments are implausible and undocumented), but for me it worked surprisingly well. So, I'll stick to it! I would be happy to expand if somebody wants to ask me questions.
I support his contention that many overweight people (including myself) are extremely disciplined in most aspects of their life - some of them even exercise dutifully and conscientiously (I do, for one!). It follows that the weight issue is not so much one of strong will (which they have proven to possess, e.g. in their profession), but rather that it depends on "exogenous" factors beyond their control. One such factor, says the author, might be wheat.
I will not go through the reasoning of why wheat might be bad (you may still want to read the book!). But I tried removing all wheat from my diet for the past 2 months. Wheat-free means much less complex carbohydrates. Hence it goes in a direction similar to Atkins, but just not as radical. I still eat plenty of carbohydrates, notably tons of joghurt in the morning and late evening.
Wheat removal is, admittedly, not the only thing I changed in my nutrition - but the fact remains, I lost >7kg rather effortlessly within 2 months, and I still enjoy life and good food.
My bottom line: Wheat removal may not work for everybody and may not be the solution to everything (and some of the author's arguments are implausible and undocumented), but for me it worked surprisingly well. So, I'll stick to it! I would be happy to expand if somebody wants to ask me questions.
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Replies
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One question upfront (:-)) - why are we writing in English? Any specific reason?
To the "Wheat Belly" book ("Weizenwampe") - I found one interessting comment on Amazon:
"Jedem, der dieses Buch als neue Bibel und bahnbrechende Neuerkenntnis für gesunde Ernährung ansieht, sei das Interview mit Professor Dr. med. Wolfgang Holtmeier ans Herz gelegt. Der Mann ist Chefarzt der Klinik für Gastroenterologie, Diabetologie und Innere Medizin am Krankenhaus Porz am Rhein (ein Lehrkrankenhaus der Uni Köln). Titel des Interviews: "Weizenwampe - ein Buch, das in die Irre führt". Das Interview ist im Internet nachzulesen.
Prof. Dr. med. Holtmeier antwortet in diesem Interview auf - natürlich - gezielt gestellte Fragen aufgrund von wissenschaftlich fundierten und belegbaren Erkenntnissen.
Er räumt an gewissen Stellen Forschungs - und Diskussionsbedarf ein, stellt jedoch keine Thesen auf, die er mit abgekürzten und aus dem Zusammenhang gerissenen Studien zu belegen versucht.
Das Interview ist wissenschaftlich / sachlich / klar und widerlegt grundlegende Aussagen des Dr. Davis, dessen Buch ist pseudowissenschaftlich und eine (auf für den Leser nur schwer nachprüfbaren Beispielen und Studien basierende) als Fakt verkaufte persönliche Meinung.
Ich bin über die vorbehaltlose Begeisterung von "Weizenwampe" wirklich überrascht:
Schon das Vorwort ließt sich wie das Plädoyer in einem trivialen amerikanischen Gerichts / Verschwörungsdrama.
Die Einleitung strotzt vor Unwahrheiten (unsere Grosseltern waren alle schlank ?!), Pauschalisierungen (übergewichtige Triathleten durch Weizen ...???) und schlichtem Blödsinn ("wie oft ist Ihre Mutter um den See gejoggt" / die körperliche Betätigung meiner Mutter beschränkte sich auf das Saugen der Treppe").
Wer um Himmels Willen nimmt jemanden, der so einen Quatsch auf den ersten Seiten seines Buches schreibt noch ernst??? Zumal die Sensationshascherei im Buch doch in einer Tour so weitergeht!!!
Noch kurz zum im im Vorwort angestrengten Vergleich mit dem Rauchen: In Deutschland sterben jährlich ca 130 000 Menschen an den Folgen des Rauchens, ca. 3000 bis 5000 Menschen an den Folgen des Passivrauchens - wissenschaftlich fundiert und nachgewiesen durch das Deutsche Krebsforschungszentrum.
An den Folgen von Weizenverzehr allein ist wissenschaftlich fundiert und nachgewiesen noch kein (nicht vorerkrankter / Zöliakie) Mensch gestorben - und das, obwohl fast alle Menschen (bis auf an Zöliakie Erkrankte 1% und Weizensensible 1-3%) Weizen essen. Rauchen tun die Wenigsten.
Dr. Davis will weder aufklären, noch helfen - er will mit Hilfe von plakativem Sensationsjournalismus sein Buch verkaufen.
Dass ihm so viele Leser vorbehaltlos auf den Leim gehen, finde ich erschreckend.
Davon einmal abgesehen wird eine ausgewogene, bewußte Ernährung (nach zB. DGE e.V.), wenig Alkohol, kein Nikotin und regelmäßige Bewegung niemandem schaden und wohl am ehesten zum gewünschten Erfolg führen - aber wer das ohne plakativen Aufhänger nüchtern, sachlich und fundiert schreibt, hat zwar recht, produziert aber keine Schlagzeilen und verkauft keine Bücher."
What do you think about that?
Cheers
Dirk0 -
Hi Dirk Blaubär, and welcome to this group!
My response to your first question: it is perfectly OK to write posts in German/French/Italian/Romantsch in this forum! However, English is the most convenient lingua franca because it's the language that is being shared by Swiss and expats alike. I, for one, was naturalized Swiss last year yet my mother tongue is "southern European". I am fluent in German though.
As for Dr. Holtmeier, I would agree with 95% of what he says. His fallacy, however, is to hold the book up to the standards of a scientific dissertation - which it clearly isn't and was not meant to be. But Holtmeier is right in saying that the book contains many stupid remarks, and I also find it frightening that there is a kind of cult around it. Just read the Amazon reviews: any critical voice (including mine) was countered by vitriol, insults, and ridicule!
On the other hand, I found one question to be extremely compelling: why are so many people overweight although they exercise like crazy? I do not believe for a minute that wheat accounts for the entire problem - but I find it plausible that wheat may be a significant part of it. Other claims though, such as that wheat can contribute to psychiatric disease, are clearly baloney!0 -
Another aspect that is worth mentioning is Davis' remark that complex carbohydrates, such as specifically wheat-derived starch, display a glycemic index (GI) that is even higher than that of pure sugar. That was not what I learned in medical school (25 years ago), and I was surprised. I researched the issue though, and he is clearly right. I am grateful to author if only for this revelation!
Now, why is that important? The GI describes the increase in blood sugar ("glycemia") at a defined time point after eating a specified amount of a given food. The higher the GI, the higher the "spike" in your glycemia. The thing is, your pancreas reacts to a glycemic spike by shooting out a burst of insulin - in an attempt to rein in the glucose. If the spike was very steep (as with high-GI food) insulin typically overshoots, leading to a trough in blood sugar ("hypoglycemia").
Both the hyperinsulinemia and the following hypoglycemia create an almost irresistible sensation of hunger - which inevitably leads to eating the next piece of cake. And there goes your diet down the drain...0 -
Thanks for inviting me to this group! I have been living in Switzerland since 13 years (Geneva and now Luzern).
I find your post about the "Wheat Belly" interesting! Is it only wheat which has to be excluded in the diet while it is allowed to eat other grains?
Since I have joined MFP, I have added a lot of items in the DB.
Thanks for starting the Swiss group!0 -
I can give you my own experience, which is anecdotal and has no pretense of "statistical significance". It may or may not work for others. 4 months ago, I changed four things in my life:
(1) I completely eliminated bread, pasta, and anything containing wheat (cookies, biscuits, etc. etc.). But the wheat avoidance was just one thing. In addition, I severely reduced all other carbohydrate-rich stuff (rice etc.). One exception is joghurt of which I still consume large amounts (however, only nature joghurt, not the sugary "fruit" variants (which contain very little fruits and truckloads of sugar).
(2) I started counting calories earnest, i.e. stopped kidding myself that my eating was under control (it wasn't). That is the amazing thing about MFP: it makes you AWARE of what you do, and reinforces the necessary behavioral changes.
(3) I moved to eating ginormous amounts of salad (lettuce, cucumber, etc.) with liberal amounts of no-carb dressings (e.g. Coop fine food Wasabi dressing and Dijon Mustard dressing, which are delicious),
(4) I raised my workout to ca. 1'000/kcal/day by increasing my biking (see my other posts).
Believe it or not, I shed 15kg in this relatively short time frame of four months, while not suffering any hunger in the process. As I said, it worked for me and others may need other strategies - but I was pleasantly surprised. The outcome was much better, much faster, and much less painful than I had expected. I still want to shed 5kg, and I see no trouble getting from here to there at this point.0 -
Thanks for your reply! I am really interested to try out this but was wondering what to eat for breakfast as I usually eat Muesli, porridge, wholewheat bread with butter & jam, or egg.
What is your typical breakfast, lunch and dinner like?
Do you have to eat loads of meat? Or protein?
A lady I know lost a lot of kilos in a short time by following a similar diet.
I am 10 kg overweight. I have started since 2 weeks to run or walk (very brisk) in order to burn 300-500 cal a day!
Thanks in advance for taking time to reply to me.
Best regards,0 -
I do nature joghurt in the morning, and two extra-large cappuccinos with 1.5% milk. For me, I know that eating bread will completely kill my diet and prevent me from losing any weight. So, my clear recommendation is: stay away from bread! Bread is your enemy,. it's pure poison. Stay away from bread!0
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I do nature joghurt in the morning, and two extra-large cappuccinos with 1.5% milk. For me, I know that eating bread will completely kill my diet and prevent me from losing any weight. So, my clear recommendation is: stay away from bread! Bread is your enemy,. it's pure poison. Stay away from bread!
Have you tried the (new) Legér Protein Bread from Migros? It is really tasty and the numbers per 100 g. are like this:
Energy: 266 kcal.
Protein: 27 g.
Carb.: 7g. ---> WOW!!
Fat 12 g.
Fiber: 11 g.
CHF 4,50 for 400 gram.
Look for the blue Legér bag in the bread section.0 -
I am going shopping this afternoon in migros, and will look out for the protein bread! Thanks for the tip!
Bread.... is it only wheat bread which is the enemy or all breads! I am really thinking of reducing wheat product!0 -
Thanks, lq!!! The 7% carb bread sounds amazing! I love this forum - I wouldn't have ever found out! However, at 266 kcal/100g you still need to be careful. Low-carb is no license to gorge, unfortunately (sigh!).
Honau, the problem with bread (no matter whether white, "vollkorn", "bio", or whatever) is that is it full of complex carbohydrates. Now, think of an amount of sugar that weighs exactly the same as your slice of bread. As a responsible dieter, you wouldn't dream of ingesting all that sugar in one go, right? Well, turns out that eating a slice of bread is - metabolically speaking - exactly the same as eating the sugar, or even slightly worse (the glycemic index of starch is higher than that of pure sugar!).0 -
Ok! I have got it! I will try to reduce at much as possible wheat in my diet.
Good exemple today, I ate for lunch green beans with chickpeas!
Dinner mixed green salad with mushroom, mais, sprout, sunflower seeds - dressing oil, vinegar, yoghurt
cheese and half slice of the protein bread!!! Actually it is full of seeds and it quiet filling.
Here under is the information on the protein bread!
Produktbeschreibung
Léger Spezialbrot mit besonders viel Protein und verhältnismässig wenig Kohlenhydraten. 400 g. 100 g =1110 kj (266 kcal). Auf 100 g: Proteine 26g, Kohlenhydrate 7g (davon Zucker 0,6g), Fett 12g (davon gesättigte Fettsäuren 1,5 g), Ballaststoffe 11g, Natrium 0,4 g, Kochsalz 1g. Zutaten: Pflanzliche Proteine 21% (Weizen, Soja, Lupinen), Wasser, Leinsamen 14%, Sonnenblumenkerne 7%, Sojaschrot 6%, Sojamehl 5%, Sesam 4,5%, Weizenkleie, Vollkornmehl aus Weizen, pflanzliche Nahrungsfasern (Äpfel, Hafer), Hefe, Kochsalz, Emulgator: Sojaleticthin, geröstetes Malzmehl aus Gerste, Säuerungsmittel: E 262. Kann Nüsse, Milch, Eier enthalten. Elaboré en Allemagne0 -
Hi all. I've just joined this group so thankyou for inviting me. I just wanted to add that I cut out wheat a long time ago and feel so much better. I was eating porridge (oats) for breakfast but this week I've just started eliminating that too. I now have a fruit smoothie with added whey protein and almond butter. It's yummy!!
In fact myself and my husband have been paleo for some time now - slowly getting stricter and stricter with it - although we haven't eliminated dairy.
I've not eaten bread or pasta for so long and I don't miss it at all. I'm currently trying to slowly eliminate gluten from my kids' diets - it's tough going!!!
Bye for now.
fitsnowflakey :-)0 -
I love so much my porridge & muesli... and my pasta
I don't think I will be able to stop it for ever but I will strict myself to have it once a week. I think to do it gradually will help!
Hey by the way, where do you find whey protein in CH. I would like to give it a try. Have a smoothie in the morning as well to start the day instead of the oats!
I am going for a run now!0 -
Honau, you have to define what is a reasonable, working strategy for you. But here are a few ideas for thought.
- For one thing, something's gonna give. Weight loss will not happen by itself, hence there are some sacrifices to be made.
- The "FDH diet" never ever works for anybody. FDH means "Friss die Hälfte", or eat-half-as-much. The reason is that it is painful, and nobody is nearly as disciplined to accept self-inflicted pain for a long time.
- running is good, and will improve your fitness which is a good thing. But forget the idea that running alone will make you slimmer. It will not. It helps - but it does not suffice.
In view of the above, radically cutting carbs is found by most successful dieters (myself included) as the most efficient, least painful way of losing weight. Therefore my exhortation is: if you are serious about weight loss, get rid of oatmeal, porridge, bread, and pasta. Not forever: you can start again once you are in "maintenance mode". But when you are in "induction mode", i.e. at the start of your diet, these foods are simply and completely wrong and will prevent you from losing weight.0 -
Thanks a lot! I did a second day without bread, porridge or any carbs! Finally, it is not that hard! I am proud of myself.
I am very disciplined person and eat quiet a balanced, homemade food! Hardly any junk! Why I gained weight is not becausse I eat a lot, but the opposite (I always ate fewer than 1200 cal a day) and because of hormone inbalance. Since I have joined MFP, my relationship with food has improved, I have learned to eat more (1600 cal a day average). I burned average 400 cal a day, and some days like today almost 1000 cal by running 14 km I mostly run, brisk walk, or hike up a hill. I will start strengh training soon and I am looking forward too it.
I can't wait to see a difference now! And you will be the first one to know
Best regards,0 -
I buy my whey protein at Migros. It's from the Sponsor range - you can get it in Ochsner Sport too. Also I buy a neutral isolate protein powder from Sport Tjedje online, although sponsor do a neutral one now. I'm also really into baking and I bake paleo cookies and protein bars a lot - plus an awesome paleo chocolate cheesecake so if you ever need a recipe for a treat let me know!!! Obviously these are not all low cal - but then it's not always about cals!!
:-)0 -
Migros! It is interesting! Which section should I look! What is neutral isolate protein? I am really new to this!
I am very interested to get the recipe as well!
Thanks!0 -
It's in the sports shop - sorry I didn't mean the supermarket bit (except I go to a big Migros so they have a sports section!)
It's Sponser Whey Protein 94 (Isolate CFM). They do neutral, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and banana flavours. I really like it - if you're trying to increase your protein it's good. I'm not so keen on egg whites!! :-)0 -
Thanks! I will check next time I go to town. The migros we have here is a small one! I have checked the product online, so I know what to look for. I am looking forward to try it to increase my protein intake.0
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Well, it turns out that I am very disciplined in all matters of life EXCEPT eating. I was ca. 30 hours in Turkey, giving a talk at a congress and partaking in 2 social dinners, a huge breakfast, and a posh lunch at an upscale restaurant. Result: caloric intake entirely out-of-control. I mean entirely! Only good thing, I managed to squeeze 2 sessions (1 hr each) on the elliptical, totalling some 1800 kcal - which does not suffice (by any measure) to atone my sins! Back to Helvetia now, and back to disciplined eating!!!0
