Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox (4 page)

FEED THE INSATIABLE MONSTER

You now know that there is a soup of toxic compounds in wheat and grains. This is true even if they are organic, traditional or heirloom, sprouted, or topped with your extra-special gravy. This is because grains contain such toxic components naturally
,
only made worse by recent genetic manipulations.

The amping up of appetite by wheat 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.

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 6 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.

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 4 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 Grain 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 Grain 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 fat (at least at first). But such weight-loss efforts achieve just that: weight loss, often accompanied by plenty of tears, doubts, cravings, swearing, self-loathing, and temptation. Weight loss can
restore
limited aspects of health, but it certainly won't reverse unhealthy bowel flora, or provide relief from joint pain or bowel urgency, or reverse inflammatory, autoimmune, or neurological conditions. Losing weight alone is like applying new cosmetics: You may look a little nicer and present a better face to the world, but your underlying health is not improved by a new eye shadow or shade of lipstick.

Let's instead view excess weight not as just excess weight, but as a reflection of disrupted health, an outward sign of hormonal and metabolic signals gone haywire. In other words, if you carry excess weight, look at this no differently than, say, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, an inflammatory condition, or lupus. They are all abnormal health conditions. Losing weight is just losing weight—that is not what you should be achieving. If that were true, starvation would be a perfect health strategy. You should aim to achieve health; weight loss will follow naturally, effortlessly, without counting calories, without limiting portions, without reducing fat. You are going to experience a
genuine
head-to-toe, inside-and-out body makeover. We will, however, have to talk about carbohydrates, as they have proliferated in modern foods to such an extraordinary degree, thanks to the misguided low-fat message that now determines food manufacturers' product designs.

While banishing all things wheat and grains sounds like an overwhelming process to some, it is readily accomplished once you understand the rules on how to navigate foods. But it doesn't end there. Just as an alcoholic who stops drinking two fifths of bourbon a day on Tuesday is not restored to perfect health by Thursday, or even a year later, so it goes with wheat and grains. There are additional steps you must take to heal the wounds incurred from 10, 20, 40, or more years of their consumption. These further steps are necessary to regain health, reprogramming your body by following this new dietary script. Gastrointestinal, immune, and metabolic health, in particular, require special coddling, even during our rapid-fire 10-day timeline.

Some of you may also want to achieve as much weight loss and health in as short a time as possible (while doing it safely, of course). Perhaps you allowed weight to get far out of control while enduring years of prescription drugs for a variety of health struggles, never once suspecting that your high-fiber breakfast cereal or the drug prescribed for high blood pressure or an allergy was among the culprits causing weight gain.

Upon learning that simple food choices are to blame for starting the entire list of health disruptions, you may now be motivated and excited to reverse this disastrous health mess as fast as possible. But let's be realistic: If you have, say, 150 pounds to lose, it's not going to happen in 10 days. But the health benefits that get jump-started during these initial 10 days, even if the weight loss amounts to no more than 5 pounds, are going to be crucial in setting the stage for future continued success because, remember, you are trying to reestablish health, not just a healthy weight.

PUT
ON YOUR BEST PERFUME, LIGHT SOME CANDLES . . .

All right, enough of trying to get you in the mood. Let's get down to business.

I'd like to make one last request before some of the most profound changes in your life get under way. The Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox process is contrary to prevailing nutritional “wisdom” and will cause you to discard most of the ideas about health and nutrition that you may have held for most of your life. This means that you'd do best by starting with a clean slate, free of decades of misinformation and marketing. I'm asking you to open your mind to the possibility that the worldwide epidemic of obesity is not due to new and widespread extremes of gluttony and laziness, that the boom in diabetes should not be blamed on human weakness, that the explosion in autoimmune diseases should not be blown off as inheriting a bad genetic hand, and that the process of detoxification should not involve ingesting juices with magical properties or tubes inserted in uncomfortable places. Be open to the possibility that real answers lie elsewhere and you will be empowered to enjoy the solution.

In the interest of getting you to your goals as quickly and powerfully as possible, I won't dwell anymore on the science or ponder how and why this lifestyle achieves so many goals that previously eluded you. In the rest of the book, we will be concerned with the practical steps that get you to your weight and health goals as quickly, effortlessly, and effectively as possible.