and grains, in particular, is worth discussing further for a moment. Gliadin-derived opiates drive appetite in an “I can never get enough to eat” way, as discussed above. The amylopectin A carbohydrate drives blood sugar highs, followed by blood sugar lows that launch a 2-hour cycle of hunger. But there’s more.
WGA is also suspected of blocking leptin, the hormone of satiety charged with signaling your brain with a “stop eating” message when your stomach is full after, say, two trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet. In the presence of WGA, this signaling system is blocked, causing you to eat even after you are full, after you have taken in what you require for sustenance, making the chocolate cake, peach pie, and cheesecake at the end of the buffet irresistible—even when common sense, good judgment, and every other body signal tell you that you’ve had enough.
Making matters worse, high blood insulin provoked by amylopectin A causes belly fat to grow, viewed on the surface as a “muffin top” or “love handles” and seen on imaging tests such as CT scans as deep visceral fat encircling the abdominal organs. This belly fat is inflammatory fat that drives insulin levels up even further. Insulin causes fat storage and prevents mobilization of fat for energy. Eat grains, increase appetite, provoke high insulin, grow belly fat, increase inflammation, provoke even higher blood insulin—around and around it goes, a vicious cycle that ensures weight gain, the entire process initiated by a friendly looking blueberry muffin or bowl of organic oatmeal.
You’ll find these phenomena reflected in the comments of some of our detox panelists, such as Rebecca, Alexandria, and Joan. All of them struggled mightily with incessant, unstoppable, insatiable appetites while eating grains, and all were magnificently relieved of this monster by banishing them.
This is why I call wheat and its closely related grains not just perfect chronic poisons, but also perfect obesogens: foods that are perfectly crafted to make you fat, especially in the abdomen, what I call a wheat belly. If you have struggled to lose weight despite doing everything “right” while including plenty of “healthy whole grains,” you now understand that you were actually following a weight gain program—not too different from a cigarette smoking cessation program that bases its success on smoking more cigarettes. If your waist size expanded, the scale registering higher and higher, while metabolic distortions like high blood sugar and triglycerides accumulated as you blamed yourself for weakness, gluttony, or sloth, well, you succeeded in allowing the perfect obesogens in wheat and grains to do their dirty work.
YVETTE, 50, history professor, New Jersey
“The weight gain was really depressing. I had always been slender. Suddenly, I was a different person. Nothing in my wardrobe fit; my body felt like a stranger to me. I could tell that people were looking at me and wondering what happened. It’s been humiliating and embarrassing. I just didn’t feel like I had the mental energy to tackle a traditional diet such as Weight Watchers. A big part of our social life is sharing meals with our friends, and I like to cook and bake, and I did not want to give that up either. What I really want more than anything is just to get back to a place where I feel comfortable and healthy and confident in my own skin again.”
Understand these simple truths and you will understand why removing wheat and grains completely—without hesitation, without compromise, without a tearful goodbye—finally points you in the right direction, allowing control over weight and health. You were not weak, gluttonous, or slothful; you were feeding the insatiable monster created by eating grains.
We will also discuss why, once you are wheat- and grain-free, it is important to remain that way, or else you can be reexposed to their appetite- and weight-increasing effects. While one cookie or pretzel does not, of course, trigger a 30-pound weight gain by itself, all it takes is just one such indulgence and—bam!—the appetite-igniting effects return in all their lip-smacking, mind-clouding, bowel-agitating glory. I called this the “I ate one cookie and gained 30 pounds” effect in the original Wheat Belly book because I’ve seen it happen many times. Go wheat- and grain-free for, say, 3 months, then have a cookie or inadvertently get exposed to the flour in a sauce or bread crumbs in meat loaf, and your appetite is powerfully triggered, your resolve disintegrates, and your size 10 pants no longer fit. You regain 10, 20, or 30 pounds over a month because you lost control due to reexposure to all the components of grains. You may suffer some depression, mind “fog,” joint pain, and diarrhea on top of it, as well. Some indulgence!
This is why I tell you about such effects, so that you understand this can and does happen. Don’t let it happen to you in your quest for grain-free, fully empowered health.
ELIZABETH, 48, sales consultant, New York
“I spent most of my adult life overweight. I exercised regularly and was probably cardiovascularly fit, but I was also anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds overweight. Then in 2010, I got breast cancer at 42. It was like a punch in the gut. I didn’t see it coming. I was very fortunate that my cancer was treatable, and I had surgery to remove my left breast, then I started chemo about 6 weeks later. Chemo was awful. I have no words to describe how horrible it makes you feel. And one of the presents that I was left with after treatment was this chronic joint and muscle pain, mostly in my knees and legs, but also in my hips and upper back.
“I started reading up on grain elimination diets, and the part about wheat consumption triggering autoimmune disease really intrigued me. The more I read, the more I felt that I wanted to try eliminating wheat to see if it could help me manage my pain.
“I used to LOVE going for walks. If I walk now, even just for a few miles, I am in so much pain it’s just not worth it. What motivates me is to just keep improving, to prove to myself that there’s an inner athlete inside of me, a woman who is in control of her destiny and her health, not at the mercy of this chronic muscle and joint pain. If following this lifestyle truly helps diminish some of the chronic pain that I feel, that would mean more than anything to me. That’s my goal: to live life to the fullest, to treat my body with respect by exercising regularly and eating foods that nourish it, and to just feel good and pain-free every day.”
A WHEAT BELLY HEALTH MAKEOVER
Recognize these essential truths about wheat and grains and you will be empowered in ways and to a degree that you thought unattainable. Because of previous failures, you may have come to believe, for instance, that you would never again achieve high school weight, or fit into a size 8 dress or skinny jeans, or have a flat tummy, or not rely on prescription medications, or simply go about your day unimpaired by stiffness and fatigue. Part of the transformation of the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox is to start believing again that you can achieve these goals.
My days are packed with hearing the success stories of people who have lost as much as 150 pounds, have dropped from double-digit dress sizes to single digits, are able to stop long lists of prescription drugs, have regained youthful energy, and are earning compliments from friends and family who are convinced they’ve either discovered the Fountain of Youth or undergone expert plastic surgery without the scars. While the weight loss and youth-restoring effects are indeed wonderful, it’s the turnaround in health that is most exciting: No other lifestyle approach has the potential to minimize, even fully reverse, the hundreds of health conditions that the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox can address.
The full benefits of this lifestyle can only get a powerful start during these first 10 days, with longer periods required, of course, to drop 12 dress sizes, lose 100 pounds, or reverse more complex health conditions. But you will more than likely get a powerful sense of the tidal wave of changes that are going to take place. You will see this reflected, too, in the stories of our detox panelists—the ups, the downs, the tsunami of body changes—as they begin their health-restoring and weight-loss journey.
Weight loss can be achieved by cutting calories and portion sizes (though it is a painful process that requires monumental willpower), counting “points,” cutting carbs, and even cutting
