"Wheat Belly" Progress

I found that I only had to give up conventional processed wheat, not everything wheat. Durum wheat, a different subspecies which is used for pasta, doesn't have the same bad effects for me as common wheat. Since I can't always trust that store bought pastas only have durum wheat, I make my own (ridiculously simple!). I also use hard wheat berries that I grind into flour right before I use it for things like bread and pizza crust rather than using pre-processed white or whole wheat flours, but I do limit these to once or twice a week. However, there are many different grains that can be used to make breads and such, and often just reducing the amount of common wheat by using other grain flours has a significant positive health effect. I make several flat breads from these alternate grains instead of typical yeast breads... you should check out recipes for no/low gluten baking.

I do not have the same bad effects from organic emmer, einkorn, and durum wheats and only minor issue with spelt and triticale... only common wheat causes me problem. I think if you grew any of the older wheat varieties instead of common (hard/soft, red/white, winter/spring) wheat you'd be fine.

The wheat that the ancient Romans and Egyptians made bread with is NOT the same as the cultivated common wheat we have now, most likely that wheat was much closer to emmer or einkorn based on the wheat samples they've found at archeaological digs. Very different genetic structure and nutritional make-up.

Ancient peoples also expended massive amounts of calories working themselves to death simply finding/producing enough daily food and protecting themselves and their property.

This is the thing my husband doesn't get. Can't just free feed on roast pork and salad and expect to massively lose. Caloric intake and expenditure have to be taken into account.

We are doing this pretty much lately, my husband pretends he is on Atkins and I've got celiac. I feel better - biggest difference I see is in the kids (teenage boys). They had a very rapid loss of the bit of muffin top belly fat they were carrying.

The one thing I really notice when I lay off the wheat is my arthritis is MUCH less painful. All other issues aside, wheat will never be a big part of my diet because of that.

Would like to add, sometimes when you start out on this way of eating you might think the substitutes make it easier, but in time IMO it's best to drop them out. Don't have a bread substitute, just relearn to eat without needing bread, without needing pizza, etc. It takes time to really change eating habits, but the gains you can make in your health are amazing.

Good luck to all.

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-Northern NYS

Thank you YFR for the thread and your information. Also to the rest for chiming in. Lots of great ideas.

"I do not have the same bad effects from organic emmer, einkorn, and durum wheats"

BUT if you have read the book you will realize that these wheat's are not the "Wheat of today". As far as organic or open pollinated there is no magic "Organicness" that can reverse what has been bred into modern wheat Genetically. And if you read the book (I can't stress this enough to find out what wheat and wheat gluten do to the human body) you will find that emmer and einkorn wheat won't behave like the wheat you are used to using today. The author talks about what a bagel and a muffin would look like if using the ancient Emmer and Einkorn wheats and we are not talking about a bagel or a muffin in any stretch of the imagination. What makes modern wheat perform like modern wheat in baking is the Gluten and the digestion of the Gluten in modern wheat is approx 1/2 of what damages the Human body - the other half is the rapid digestion of the starches in wheat which have the highest Glycemic Index of anything except Glucose.

For me, it's easy. If I want to eventually become grossly obese and have diabetic problems I can continue to eat wheat. If I want to live healthier, have low blood glucose levels and skip diabetes I can skip the wheat. It's a simple choice to me, and we all get to make our individual choices.

"I bought the book and decided that (for me) the food is unappetizing and a lot of the stuff is expensive and, for me, hard to find. By the way, I am "burley", "husky" (fat). I can appreciate that others will like it."

I can appreciate the Expensive and Hard To Find comments. Expensive is a matter of tradeoffs - either the food may be expensive or the doctor bills might be expensive. The Hard to Find, unless you are in a really small town only applies to the things like Flax Seed meal, Almond Meal, Coconut Flour, Guar Gum and maybe coconut milk. Just about all the other stuff any grocery store has, and most have the things I listed - you just have to hunt for them - they won't be in flashy colored boxes occupying a whole section of the store by themselves. Oh, and yes to eat healthy you need to (dare I say it) cook. As for unappetizing - Some people are hard to please I guess, to me it's just good food minus the whole grains - exactly what you wouldn't have any choice but to eat if you had celiac disease (or develop celiac disease) or heart problems or diabetes.

"Can't just free feed on roast pork and salad and expect to massively lose" Uh - yes you can - as long as you leave the croutons, sugar and flour/wheat out, neither will make you fat. One thing I have found is once I lost the wheat and got control of my blood sugar the amount I eat has dropped dramatically. I just don't get hungry anymore - just like when I was on Atkins (my whole Navy Career it seems). If it weren't for my wife being hypoglycemic I could get by on one meal and a bowl of soup (with a slice of the fruit bread I posted the recipe for above). I have to have more regular meals for her, but we are usually down to only 2 meals a day. Fortunately I am a good cook, because she is abysmal in the kitchen.

Hannah your two comments are contradictory (". I get the whole changed wheat thing. Makes total sense in my mind... but what if one were to grow their own wheat from heirloom open pollinated wheat seed? I mean.... people have eaten bread and wheat and other gluten grain products for centuries. So, I have a hard time understand this."). If you re-read the book, it's the "changed wheat" that makes today's wheat products so vastly different from the "centuries". Yes you could grow Einkorn and Emmer wheat and probably safely eat them, but you won't be able to cook/bake with them like you can with today's wheat. While they are "wheat" they are not what we have come to consider "wheat". Even what our mom's used in the 40's and early 50's isn't the same as today's wheat.

The scariest thing to me is the world really can't go without this pseudo-wheat we have now. To go back would kill the yields and there is barely enough food to feed the worlds population now. Decrease the wheat and for that matter GMO corn production and you have mass starvation.

I'm not a fad diet kind of person. I found the best diet was to eat less food, get more exercise. I could write a book about it, but it would be the size book you get in a cracker jack box.

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~Only the rocks live forever~

I wholeheartedly agree, modern hexaploid common wheat is genetically nothing like the ancient wheats. Since it has been cultivated and bred over centuries to have a gluten content, other genetic changes have also occured that don't make it a good thing for the human metabolism.

Now diploid and tetraploid wheats like durum, emmer and einkorn don't have a high gluten content, so they don't make the soft yeast breads with uniform crumb that seems to be preferable these days with common hexaploid wheat flours. You'll be out of luck if you love Wonderbread and other sandwich loafs; but if you like pasta, flatbreads and dense loafs they are AWESOME! I think that the homemade sourdough bagels and pretzels I make with emmer wheat and rye are way better than anything I can get at the grocery store bakery. And you can get some very nice crusty hearth breads from these wheats and other grains if you use a pre-ferment sponge/poolish method... you won't get velvety "window pane" but the crumb is still pretty open.

Modern common wheat is evil stuff and has a terrible impact on your
metabolism. It should be avoided at all cost, especially processed white bread & cake flour. Period. It doesn't matter if it's organically or conventionally grown.

But giving up modern common wheat doesn't mean you have to give up ALL wheat, and you can do a lot of things with low/no gluten grains like rye, oats, amaranth and quinoa as well.

Many of these grains also grow quite well organically with minimal maintenance on a small scale; unlike common wheat which often requires synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides which are only cost effective in large scale operations. Anything that requires less work, less amendments, less potential toxins to grow, and is nutritionally healthier for you gets two thumbs up in my book

Is this just another fad diet?

This particular proscribed eating plan may be a "fad" but it is just a continuation of the advice that nutritional and medical communities have been advocating eating lower carb, lower gluten, balanced protein/fat diets for the past couple decades based on real scientific evidence of the negative health effects brought on by the low fat & high carb craze in the 70's. Most of evidence and repeatable, peer-reviewed studies indicate a diet balanced between protein (preferably animal), monounsaturated & saturated (but not polyunsaturated) fats, and complex carbohydrates is optimal for our omnivorous digestive tracts and metabolisms. Human beings just aren't designed to eat as much simple sugars & grains as we do and it wreaks havoc on our pancreas, liver and other organs.

Exactly. And the fact that it has a catchy name and is easy to follow makes it even more wonderful.

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Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Supper:
Cajun roasted chicken stuffed with Boudin. Mexican squash sauteed in butter. Salad made from home grown leaf lettuce, swiss chard, kale, etc.

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Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Theres something about not living "by bread alone"in there,but nothing about NO BREAD.

Hotdogs with no roll,Hb's with no bun and country redeye gravy with nothing to sop it up with? Long life is great,but is it really that great without the bread??

My son and his wife are on a no wheat diet, but when they visit us they gunna be temped,but I'm sorry about that.

The bread they ate in Biblical times has NO relationship with today's bread.

I can make Paleo biscuits, too.

A chili dog without the store bought fake fluffy white container is not a problem.

Burgers topped with everything, on a plate, no bun. Don't miss the bun, and I'm not overstuffed at the end of the meal.

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Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Plicketycat,
I would be interested in seeing some of those sourdough recipes. I have been considering growing some grains. I am not sure if I can find seed for emmer or einkorn.

I didnt mean to be contradictory. Just trying to understand. I wasnt sure if the heirloom variesties were still considered "modern."

__________________
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Biscuits and gravy:
http://robbwolf.com/2011/01/05/glute...aleo-biscuits/

__________________
Alice
* * *
"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

but humans have eaten wheat for thousands of years. The ancient egyptians raised a mighty empire up from wheat and other cereal grains. where those people ill from wheat back then?

I am not challanging you all. just discussing.

From the quick research and blurbs from the book, apparently the wheat then isn't the same as today as the other folks here have said. If only I could look back and see what they were making.

I think now days breads have become a delicacy. A dessert almost. I blame the french ;-)

__________________
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

I don't have the book or have I read it but with help from Alice & a few others have been eating Wheat & Gluten free since the 1st of the year.

I am not obese but do have a few pounds to loose but I also have terrible arthritis & the last time I had blood work my cholesterol was high. I've never had high cholesterol.

Well I haven't noticed a lot of difference in my arthritis yet but I know it will take awhile for that. I have lost 13 pounds so far & have my annual doctors appointment coming soon so I'm curious as to what my blood work will show this time.

As long as I feel better, my arthritis isn't as painful & I can loose a few pounds I'm happy.

I don't really feel like I'm giving up a whole lot.
Like Alice said I eat a lot of dairy, fruit, veggies & meat. I haven't made any GF bread or pizza crust yet but I'm sure I will occasionally but haven't really felt the need yet.

There have also been studies done where wheat may contribute to dimentia, diabeates & I can't remember what else. I also got a new computer & haven't figured out yet how to get all my favorites from the old PC to this new one so I can't link anything for you yet.