Wheat Belly diet

Unless you have an intolerance to gluten, there's no reason to stop eating it.

Weight loss = burning more calories than you consume. So if you eat at a reasonable deficit, you will lose weight. Not because of any fad diet.

I have a hard time with this because I have made several attempts to lose weight by creating a calorie deficit with no results what so ever. It's made me give up many times over the years. Why should I work so hard to lose weight when I get the same results doing nothing?

Recently I cut gluten out of my diet, which forced me to find more complex grains. I dropped 10 lbs in 2 weeks. I am also a vegetarian so finding things to eat is really complicated, but I eat more fruits and veggies than ever before and have discovered all of the wonderful non-wheat grains.

when you tried before did you weigh, measure, log everything? Did you use a food scale? There was a study saying something like 50% of people who start on diets thought they were eating less, when in fact they were not < paraphrasing so numbers may be off.

more than likely you thought you were in a deficit and were not. Then when you cut out gluten, you cut out a lot of high calorie foods and were in a true deficit and started losing..

Tru dat.

I eliminated all gluten (except beer) from my diet, for a month. My sinuses cleared up, my resting heart rate dropped, I started sleeping better, and my chronic heartburn utterly dissapeared.

I added back home made bread (five or six ingredients, locally sourced wheat), and none of those problems reappeared. I added back home made crackers. No problems.

I ate two slices of store bread, WHAM.. same symptoms.

FOR ME, the issue appears to not be gluten at all, but the chemicals and preservatives used in commercially produced products that contain gluten, for things like consistancy, shelf life, and presentation.

So.. would going "gluten free" rid me of all my symptoms? Most likely. Is gluten the issue? Not even a little bit.

"not eating gluten" is not an elimination diet for diagnosis of allergy or adverse reaction.

Unless you have an intolerance to gluten, there's no reason to stop eating it.

On the other hand, it will do absolutely no harm to cut out gluten. Grains aren't particularly nutritious--even whole grains--and there's no nutrient in wheat that you can't get easily from other foods. You do have to watch out for hidden sources of gluten in processed foods, condiments, even some OTC medicines. If you don't notice any difference after several weeks on a gluten-free diet, then go back to eating grains. No problem.

Right, so mesolithic people started storing huge quantities of "worthless foods" and neolithic people started actually cultivating "worthless foods" because of course people put that much effort into securing their supply of "worthless foods"

...

Eating nothing but grains would be unhealthy because that's an unbalanced diet and they don't contain sufficient quantities of all 8 essential amino acids, but that doesn't mean they provide no nutrition at all.

...

Vegans can survive without animal products, does that make animal products worthless?

Where did I say grains were "worthless foods"? Or that there was "no nutrition" in them? Looks like you're setting up a straw man here.

Modern dwarf wheat has three times the gluten of the heirloom wheat of millennia past. We eat much more wheat than the peoples of old did, and it's processed much more heavily--basically, all the nutrients are removed, and then a few synthetic vitamins are added back (fortification).

I don't know whether vegans see eating animal products as worthless; but by definition, they consider it unnecessary, even though a vegan diet must be supplemented to fill in missing nutrients.

Some people don't tolerate milk well, others are intolerant of nightshades, or peanuts, or shellfish. So they don't eat those things. It shouldn't be any different for someone who can't handle gluten, even if they don't have diagnosed celiac disease. No one's going to develop a nutritional deficiency from not eating wheat, as long as they're otherwise eating a reasonably balanced diet.

Why are you so angry at the idea that people can be healthy without eating grains?

Someone on the thread said they were worthless foods. If I replied to the wrong post then apologies.

I'm not angry. Sorry that you read my post in an angry tone of voice, I didn't type it in an angry tone of voice.

I take issues with foods being demonised, which wheat currently is (and grains generally) - they are nutritious; they contain protein, several B vitamins, vitamins E and K and several minerals including iron and zinc. Yes people can survive without grains, but people can survive without all kinds of foods, humans are very much generalists in terms of diet. What is a staple in one culture is absent from the diet of another, and pretty much any food in any diet can be replaced with others that provide the same nutrients. People can survive without any seafood at all and some people are allergic to seafood, but seafood is very nutritious and if you're not allergic to it, it's benefical to eat it.

Yes I know all about food allergies and intolerances, my younger daughter has allergies to several foods (including to wholegrain duram wheat, although she's fine with regular wheat and not allergic to gluten, it's something in the husk of duram wheat that she's allergic to). But it doesn't make those foods bad for other people and like I said, I don't agree with the demonisation of grains, and I thought I was replying to a post that said wheat and grains were worthless foods. If you didn't say that then I clicked reply on the wrong post.

ETA: you did say that they were "not particularly nutritious" even so - well I'd disagree seeing as they contain protein, carbohydrate, several vitamins and several minerals.... that is quite a lot of nutrition.... and the point about replacing those nutrients easily with other foods.... that applies to any food.

There is no test I'm aware of for lactose intolerance, yet it's accepted as a fact. So why is gluten intolerance blown off as a fad when so many people have adverse effects of consuming gluten? Just because it can't be seen under a microscope does not mean it doesn't exist. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

If you can drink milk without adverse effects, drink milk. If you can't drink milk without adverse effects don't drink milk.
If you can eat gluten without adverse effects, eat gluten. If you can't eat gluten without adverse effects don't eat gluten.

It's no reason to dismiss someone else's discomfort because another person doesn't experience it and there are no "studies". Studies are often bull**** anyway.

Nobody is saying that. However, "get rid of gluten, live to be 1000 and lose weight without even trying" is the fad diet du jour.

There's an entire industry trying to convince you YOU ARE allergic to gluten.

And you may be!

Or, you may not be, and "cutting out gluten" really means "cutting out a whole lot of really high calorie foods".

Over and over, people have said (in one specific forum I hang out on) "you cannot get healthier till you stop eating gluten, it's poison". Not true for a remarkably large number of people.

If cutting out gluten makes you feel better, f'n go nuts man.

If it just makes you miserable and hungry and pissed off at the world.. then you are gaining no benefit from restricting it.

U mad?

I think I said all that. But I didn't say anything about calories or dieting at all.

I have no issues at all about people with allergies and intolerances giving up foods they're allergic or intolerant to. Of course those things exist. It's the fearmongers who convince people that those foods are harmful to everyone that's the issue. Lots of people really enjoy eating foods based on grains. There's no reason for those people to give them up if they're not allergic to them, and they can eat them in moderation and still lose weight. That is the whole issue.

That's it exactly. The people who listen to the fearmongers wrt gluten are the same people who went crazy eating fat free cookies and cakes and got fat. They listen to anything and everything they are told without any discernment or discrimination. You won't find those people in sites like this, for the most part.

There is no test I'm aware of for lactose intolerance, yet it's accepted as a fact. So why is gluten intolerance blown off as a fad when so many people have adverse effects of consuming gluten? Just because it can't be seen under a microscope does not mean it doesn't exist. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

If you can drink milk without adverse effects, drink milk. If you can't drink milk without adverse effects don't drink milk.
If you can eat gluten without adverse effects, eat gluten. If you can't eat gluten without adverse effects don't eat gluten.

It's no reason to dismiss someone else's discomfort because another person doesn't experience it and there are no "studies". Studies are often bull**** anyway.

Nobody is saying that. However, "get rid of gluten, live to be 1000 and lose weight without even trying" is the fad diet du jour.

There's an entire industry trying to convince you YOU ARE allergic to gluten.

And you may be!

Or, you may not be, and "cutting out gluten" really means "cutting out a whole lot of really high calorie foods".

Over and over, people have said (in one specific forum I hang out on) "you cannot get healthier till you stop eating gluten, it's poison". Not true for a remarkably large number of people.

If cutting out gluten makes you feel better, f'n go nuts man.

If it just makes you miserable and hungry and pissed off at the world.. then you are gaining no benefit from restricting it.

U mad?

I think I said all that. But I didn't say anything about calories or dieting at all.

he didn't say you said it.... it's what gets bandied about the internet by a lot of people who are trying to convince everyone that wheat is the sole cause of obesity, that it makes everyone ill and has no nutritional value. that's why threads like this often end up being arguments, because people who can tolerate wheat and gluten just fine get sick of being told it's making us ill (or fat) when it's not....

Dr Oz is a quack!....but i have read a lot about wheat...its a killer.....try not eating for a good month and you will be amazed..

Oz suggests too many pills for everything...

and he makes a fool of himself every day...he is a spaz


the book Wheatbelly is great

Dr Oz is a quack!....but i have read a lot about wheat...its a killer.....try not eating for a good month and you will be amazed..

Oz suggests too many pills for everything...

and he makes a fool of himself every day...he is a spaz

Yet you say wheat is a killer....ok.

I think not eating for a good month would probably be the killer there.

Tried it and it sucked.... don't see how anyone could eat some of that crap they had in that book. .... just go low carb if you wanna cut out that stuff.


ETS Dr. Oz promoted Raspberry Keytones too.... js

I went on an elimination diet last year that was insanely difficult and when I started to add things back into my diet, I had a horrible reaction to wheat. Scared the living crud out of me since I'd never had a full on allergic reaction to anything in my life.

I've found that living without wheat hasn't been all that hard especially with the gluten free craze going on right now.