Read Online Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Davis
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areas of the United States. His travel often took him to the southwest, where he hiked for up to six hours. He also prided himself on following a healthy diet: limiting his red meat and oils and eating plenty of vegetables and fruit and, yes, an abundance of “healthy whole grains.”
I met Larry because of a heart rhythm problem, an issue we dealt with easily. But his blood work was another issue. In short, it was a disaster: blood glucose in the low diabetic range, triglycerides too high at 210 mg/dl, HDL too low at 37 mg/dl, and 70 percent of his LDL particles were the small heart disease-causing type. Blood pressure was an important issue with systolic (“top”) values ranging up to 170 mmHg and diastolic (“bottom”) values of 90 mmHg. Larry was also, at 5 feet 8 inches and 243 pounds, about 80 pounds overweight.
“I don’t get it. I exercise like nobody you know. I really
like
exercise. But I just cannot—
cannot
—lose the weight, no matter what I do.” Larry recounted his diet escapades that included an all-rice diet, protein drink programs, “detox” regimens, even hypnosis. They all resulted in a few pounds lost, only to be promptly regained. He did admit to one peculiar excess: “I really struggle with my appetite at night. After dinner, I can’t resist the urge to graze. I try to graze on the good stuff, like whole wheat pretzels and these multigrain crackers I have with a yogurt dip. But I’ll sometimes eat all night from dinner until I go to bed. I don’t know why, but something happens at night and I just can’t stop.”
I counseled Larry on the need to remove the number one most powerful appetite stimulant in his diet: wheat. Larry gave me that “not another kooky idea!” look. After a big sigh, he agreed to giveit a go. With four teenagers in the house, clearing the shelves of all things wheat was quite a task, but he and his wife did it.
Larry returned to my office six weeks later. He reported that, within three days, his nighttime cravings had disappeared entirely. He now ate dinner and was satisfied with no need to graze. He also noticed that his appetite was much smaller during the day and his desire for snacks virtually disappeared. He also admitted that, now that his craving for food was much less, his calorie intake and portion size was a fraction of its former level. With no change in his exercise habits, he’d lost “only” eleven pounds. But, more than that, he also felt that he’d regained control over appetite and impulse, a feeling he thought he’d lost years earlier.
WHEAT: APPETITE STIMULANT
Crackheads and heroin addicts shooting up in the dark corners of an inner-city drug house have no qualms about ingesting substances that mess with their minds. But how about law-abiding citizens like you and your family? I’ll bet your idea of mind bending is going for the strong brew rather than the mild stuff at Starbucks, or hoisting one too many Heinekens on the weekend. But ingesting wheat means you have been unwittingly ingesting the most common dietary mind-active food known.
In effect, wheat is an appetite
stimulant:
It makes you want more—more cookies, cupcakes, pretzels, candy, soft drinks. More bagels, muffins, tacos, submarine sandwiches, pizza. It makes you want both wheat-containing and non-wheat-containing foods. And, on top of that, for some people wheat is a drug, or at least yields peculiar drug-like neurological effects that can be reversed with medications used to counter the effects of narcotics.
If you balk at the notion of being dosed with a drug such as naloxone, you might ask, “What happens if, rather than blocking the brain effect of wheat chemically, you simply remove the wheataltogether?” Well, that’s the very same question I have been asking. Provided you can tolerate the withdrawal (while unpleasant, the withdrawal syndrome is generally harmless aside from the rancor you incur from your irritated spouse, friends, and coworkers), hunger and
I met Larry because of a heart rhythm problem, an issue we dealt with easily. But his blood work was another issue. In short, it was a disaster: blood glucose in the low diabetic range, triglycerides too high at 210 mg/dl, HDL too low at 37 mg/dl, and 70 percent of his LDL particles were the small heart disease-causing type. Blood pressure was an important issue with systolic (“top”) values ranging up to 170 mmHg and diastolic (“bottom”) values of 90 mmHg. Larry was also, at 5 feet 8 inches and 243 pounds, about 80 pounds overweight.
“I don’t get it. I exercise like nobody you know. I really
like
exercise. But I just cannot—
cannot
—lose the weight, no matter what I do.” Larry recounted his diet escapades that included an all-rice diet, protein drink programs, “detox” regimens, even hypnosis. They all resulted in a few pounds lost, only to be promptly regained. He did admit to one peculiar excess: “I really struggle with my appetite at night. After dinner, I can’t resist the urge to graze. I try to graze on the good stuff, like whole wheat pretzels and these multigrain crackers I have with a yogurt dip. But I’ll sometimes eat all night from dinner until I go to bed. I don’t know why, but something happens at night and I just can’t stop.”
I counseled Larry on the need to remove the number one most powerful appetite stimulant in his diet: wheat. Larry gave me that “not another kooky idea!” look. After a big sigh, he agreed to giveit a go. With four teenagers in the house, clearing the shelves of all things wheat was quite a task, but he and his wife did it.
Larry returned to my office six weeks later. He reported that, within three days, his nighttime cravings had disappeared entirely. He now ate dinner and was satisfied with no need to graze. He also noticed that his appetite was much smaller during the day and his desire for snacks virtually disappeared. He also admitted that, now that his craving for food was much less, his calorie intake and portion size was a fraction of its former level. With no change in his exercise habits, he’d lost “only” eleven pounds. But, more than that, he also felt that he’d regained control over appetite and impulse, a feeling he thought he’d lost years earlier.
WHEAT: APPETITE STIMULANT
Crackheads and heroin addicts shooting up in the dark corners of an inner-city drug house have no qualms about ingesting substances that mess with their minds. But how about law-abiding citizens like you and your family? I’ll bet your idea of mind bending is going for the strong brew rather than the mild stuff at Starbucks, or hoisting one too many Heinekens on the weekend. But ingesting wheat means you have been unwittingly ingesting the most common dietary mind-active food known.
In effect, wheat is an appetite
stimulant:
It makes you want more—more cookies, cupcakes, pretzels, candy, soft drinks. More bagels, muffins, tacos, submarine sandwiches, pizza. It makes you want both wheat-containing and non-wheat-containing foods. And, on top of that, for some people wheat is a drug, or at least yields peculiar drug-like neurological effects that can be reversed with medications used to counter the effects of narcotics.
If you balk at the notion of being dosed with a drug such as naloxone, you might ask, “What happens if, rather than blocking the brain effect of wheat chemically, you simply remove the wheataltogether?” Well, that’s the very same question I have been asking. Provided you can tolerate the withdrawal (while unpleasant, the withdrawal syndrome is generally harmless aside from the rancor you incur from your irritated spouse, friends, and coworkers), hunger and
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