Anybody read/try "Wheat Belly"

I've been primal for about five months now. I'm currently reading Wheat Belly (don't have a lot of time to read in general) and think the principles are good.

I just read the Perfect Health Diet which is similar to Paleo/Primal (it's Paleo based with a few other points). I never though I would be convinced to give up gluten and sugar, but that book totally convinced me and I've heard similar things about Wheatbelly. It's only been about 2 weeks for me and I feel amazing!

I'm doing Keto, which pretty much removes wheat from the food equation for me, along with most carbs. I feel 100% better eating this way and it simplifies things for me. The less I have to think about what I'm eating, the better off I am.

Some of what I've heard (I haven't read it yet) makes sense to me but, at least personally, it conflicts with the fact that I love wheat, have no physical problems with it, and seem to lose weight just fine (I'm averaging 7 pounds per month for months) eating things like whole wheat toast or a bowl of bulgur wheat with grilled chicken on it (love it, love it, love it!) fairly often. I don't eat pizza or sandwiches or burgers unless they are bunless but that's just because bread is dense with calories and unnecessary for those meals. But maybe it depends on the person.

I haven't read it but I follow the paleo lifestyle about 90% of the time which I heard was close to being the same. Cutting out the grains REALLY cut down on my bloating as well as the majority of dairy. It hasn't done much else besides cut out the bloat. Some people say they get more energy or whatever but that wasn't the case for me!

I decided to give up wheat for 3 weeks. They just passed. My experience was very similar to the one described above: no dramatic weight loss but there was definitely a difference in my bloating which resulted in a slightly flatter stomach.

My main problem is bread. If I bake it or buy it, I tend to eat it for breakfast AND dinner because it's the easiest and the simplest solution. This leads to eating less protein and veggies. So I'll do my best to avoid doing it. However, in those 3 weeks I really got into baking with coconut flour and I am slowly learning to bake with almond flour as well. I really enjoy the results and may replace all my wheat based recipes with the gluten free ones. If I can eat yummy gluten free pancakes loaded with fiber and protein, why go for the wheat version? And if I can bake yummy wheat free muffins, why not stick with them?

I love pasta, too, and the only kind that I liked so far was the buckwheat one (pasta made of rice flour tastes terrible imo). But I'm fine with having regular pasta once in a while.

I've read it. I have a somewhat mixed opinion.

On one hand, I feel like it was 100% circumstantial "evidence." He presented this HUGE case about how wheat has changed over the years. Ok, I can buy that. Then he jumped straight into all the ways he believes that wheat can damage your body...but while he seemed to give some science about how the damage occurs, he totally lacked any scientific explanation for why "modern" wheat would be processed in your body any differently than "ancient" wheat past that the DNA is different. That made me immediately suspicious - it didn't make any sense to me how the human body can be so sensitive to the DNA in wheat while not having any issue with other plant or animal DNA, given the extraordinarily wide variety of foods in the human diet.

Additionally, he basically took a South Beach/Atkins/keto-style diet and packaged it up in his "wheat free" claims. He spent however many pages talking about all the reasons WHEAT is bad, then you get to his diet recommendations at the end of the book and it's "don't eat wheat....oh yeah, and by the way, don't eat any other carbs, either." Well, OF COURSE his patients are going to drop significant weight in the first 4 weeks or so. That's what happens on a low carb diet - you drop a crap-ton of water weight. Again, suspicious.

BUT...I have recently eliminated wheat from my diet, along with most other grains. Not because of the book (I actually read it after I started down that path, simply out of curiosity), but because they're just trigger foods for me and I wanted to see what would happen. The weight is coming off at about the same pace you'd expect based on my deficit...but I do have to say that my joints (I have had degenerative arthritis in my knees and spine since high school) feel better than they have in years and the small amount of acne I get periodically as a 32 year old has totally gone away. I've been doing that for 7 or 8 weeks now...in the middle of that I did go for a week or two where a small amount of wheat sneaked back into my diet in the form of a few crackers here, a bit of bread there, etc...and immediately my pain and acne returned. A week or so of elimination again took care of it.

So, in conclusion...is my personal experience totally coincidental, and really due to just better eating overall, working out, the weather, whatever? Maybe. Do I believe everything he says? No way. But, I think I'll continue down the path I'm on for as long as I can, because I feel and look better, and that's what counts.

For me, it has more to do with carbs than anything else unless you truly have a tolerance issue. By reducing or eliminating bad carbs, you end up eating less and craving less "naughty" food. The bloat does go away and you do lose weight. Again, maintaining a wheat belly or paleo diet can be difficult for some and in my case, unnecessary but I do agree with this poster - to reduce carb intake!