Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox (27 page)

First of all, make sure you are indeed following all the strategies contained here. For instance, many people discover that they are getting exposed to wheat and grains in some condiment, snack, or other food that continues to stimulate appetite and inflammation, even foods you thought would never contain grains, such as a seasoning mix, broth, or tomato sauce. Also take a look at your nutritional supplements, protein or energy drinks, and prescription drugs to identify hidden wheat and grain sources that have the potential to stimulate appetite. Even a tiny exposure can be sufficient to impair your entire detox process. Consult labels on nutritional supplements and see
Appendix B
for some resources to help answer questions about prescription drugs.

If
you've continued old habits, such as eating a whole piece of fruit twice a day, then you have been exposing yourself to carbohydrates and sugars sufficient to trigger insulin and turn off any hope of weight loss. Yes, an apple a day turns off the ability to lose weight. Refer back to
Chapter 2
to refresh your memory on carbohydrate counting and make the correction. (Eat no more than half an apple, for instance, to stay below our 15 g net carbohydrate per meal cutoff.)

If you have indeed carefully followed the advice we've included, but aren't seeing the scale drop, then consider the issues in the checklist below. The strategies in this detox are extremely powerful, but they cannot undo, for instance, the weight-loss-blocking effects of some prescription drugs or low thyroid hormone activity created by iodine deficiency. The issues in this checklist can also be helpful if you lose, say, an initial 20 pounds, only to hit a plateau that lasts for several weeks or longer. Removing the barrier can allow healthy weight loss to proceed.

When encountering resistance to weight loss, consider:

Embrace the Fat

Giving up your fear of fats and oils can be tough, given the brainwashing we've all suffered from the repeated advice to “cut your fat and cholesterol,” “cut saturated fat,” “avoid artery-clogging fats,” etc. You have to give it up because none of this is true. Adhering to these fictions impairs weight loss, not to mention makes reversing health conditions, such as diabetes and fatty liver, tougher or impossible. The misinterpretations, bad science, and profiteering that drove the hugely destructive low-fat era is detailed in
Wheat Belly Total Health.
Rest assured that the “science” purported to support the idea of reducing fat intake was nearly nonexistent in the first place. It is among the biggest blunders in the history of dietary advice, along with the “healthy whole grain” message.

Fat
does not make you fat; fat helps make you thin, and failing to embrace this concept can impair your ability to gain control over appetite and weight. This message is entirely lost, for instance, on many popular TV chefs in which the well-meaning host turns a high-fat, high-calorie dish into a low-fat or nonfat and lower-calorie one, proudly proclaiming that this remade version will help you lose weight and be healthier. It's absolute, utter nonsense. (Of course, the chef making such claims typically sports a substantial wheat belly, the signature of a fat-deprived, grain-heavy lifestyle.)

You should have already cleared your shelves of all low-fat and nonfat foods. When you buy meats, don't be afraid of buying fatty cuts, including less expensive ground meats with greater fat content. Don't trim the fat off the meats—eat it. Bacon and sausage? Go right ahead. Use healthy oils like coconut, olive oil, organic butter, and avocado oil, and use them liberally. Don't toss out the oils remaining after cooking meats; save them for reuse (in the refrigerator). Buy lard and tallow, if you can find nonhydrogenated versions. And don't be afraid to pack a bit of healthy oil for travel or eating outside the home (e.g., a small bottle of olive oil, a small container of coconut oil, or even a Fat Blaster or two).

Fats and oils induce satiety (a sense of fullness) without triggering insulin. Even high intakes of protein can provoke insulin (though not as vigorously as grains or other carbohydrates). But fat does not. Fat is therefore the perfect weight-loss food. This is one of the reasons why the Wheat Belly Detox Shakes have plentiful fat, around 80 to 90 g per serving—a wallop of fat for breakfast that can keep you satisfied all the way through to dinner.

If you are dealing with hunger or food cravings, this nearly always represents a failure to take in sufficient quantities of fats and oils, a virtual “fat deficiency.” Whip some coconut oil into your coffee with an immersion blender, drop a big dollop of melted coconut oil into your smoothie, eat the fat on that
pork
or beef, or slather more organic butter or extra-virgin olive oil over your eggs and vegetables and salads, and cravings will disappear.

You will also rediscover the lost dimensions of flavor added back when you include more fat. Meats taste more flavorful, baked dishes will be richer, even simple eggs cooked in leftover bacon grease will bring “oohs” and “ahhhs.” This is one of the main reasons why your unconverted family members, skeptical of or resistant to making the shift to the Wheat Belly lifestyle, will still enjoy the deeper flavors of your cooking.

No Gluten-Free Foods

I've said it before, but it is surprising how many people completely booby-trap their wheat- and grain-free lifestyle by using gluten-free foods made with awful ingredients that shut down any hope of losing weight: cornstarch, rice flour, tapioca starch, and potato flour. Gluten-free foods made with these ingredients, in fact, typically cause substantial weight
gain
, as well as a host of other health problems. You can indeed follow a gluten-free lifestyle, but just don't fall for the terrible products sold by unscrupulous food manufacturers smelling a profit opportunity. Absolutely avoid gluten-free foods made with these ingredients.

Keep an Eye on Carbs

While we've discussed this before, it is such a common tripping point that it is worth reiterating. Managing carbs is like managing money: Stay within your budget and everything balances out, and maybe you'll have a little left over at the end of the month for something special; overspend and it's going to hurt.

While carbohydrates and sugars tend to largely manage themselves after wheat and grains have been removed, some people
continue
to stick to old habits and take in enough carbohydrates to provoke insulin and thereby turn off the capacity to lose weight. This is where an awareness of carbohydrate intake can play a role.

It pays to look at the nutritional content of foods, both processed and unprocessed, as discussed in
Chapter 2
. Choose a resource—smartphone app, handbook, Web site—that lists the total carbohydrates and fiber in various foods, and perform this simple calculation:

NET CARBS = TOTAL CARBS – FIBER

Do not exceed 15 g net carbs per meal because each time you exceed this value, you trigger insulin that, in turn, turns off your ability to lose weight. Simple habits, such as a glass of orange juice with breakfast or a container of flavored yogurt with lunch, are among the booby-traps that will trigger this weight-loss-blocking effect.

Managing carbohydrates is important even before and during exercise, a confusing point for many people who enjoy casual, or even serious, levels of exercise (see “
Don't Booby-Trap Your Health with Exercise Carbs”
).

Is Dairy Getting in the Whey?

Just as carbohydrates trigger insulin, so can some proteins. This insulin-provoking effect is especially powerful with the whey protein of dairy. For this reason, any whey-containing form of dairy turns off the ability to lose weight in many (though not all) people. It has nothing to do with fat or calories, so don't be sidetracked by low-fat or nonfat dairy products; it's the whey.

The only practical way to determine whether this effect is impairing your ability to lose weight is to eliminate all dairy for 4 weeks. If, after stalling at a weight plateau, you suddenly lose, say, 8 pounds, then the whey effect likely applies to you and you
will
need to avoid dairy products for as long as you desire weight loss. If nothing happens, then it likely does not apply to you.

Cheese is an uncertainty, since most of the whey is removed in the process of cheese making. There is some residual whey that remains, which may be enough to stall your weight-loss efforts. It is therefore best to eliminate cheese, or at least minimize it, during a weight-loss effort.

Avoid Diet Sodas and Soft Drinks

Diet sodas and soft drinks sweetened with aspartame, sucralose, or saccharine, despite lacking calories, are still responsible for weight gain or blocking weight loss. This is likely due to changes in bowel flora that impair insulin responses, the same sorts of changes that grains provoke. If you desire something beyond water, coffee, or tea, see the suggestions for livening up your water in on “
Herb- and Fruit-Flavored Drinking Waters
”.

Prescription
Drugs That Ambush Weight Loss

A number of drugs prescribed to treat common conditions, such as hypertension, allergies, depression, inflammation, and diabetes, block your ability to lose weight. Further, several of these drugs actually cause weight gain, and most doctors fail to inform their patients of such effects.

Among the drugs that block weight loss are:

•
Antidepressants—amitriptyline (Elavil), nortriptyline (Pamelor), doxepin, paroxetine (Paxil), trazodone, and others

•
Steroids such as prednisone and hydrocortisone (but not inhaled or nasal steroids for allergies)

•
Antihistamines—diphenhydramine (Benadryl), fexofenadine (Allegra), cetirizine (Zyrtec), cyproheptadine (Periactin), and
others;
note that the widely used sleep aid Tylenol PM contains diphenhydramine

•
Lyrica for fibromyalgia and pain

•
Valproic acid (Depakote) for seizures

•
Actos and Avandia for prediabetes and diabetes

•
Insulin—injectable insulin can actually be responsible for astounding quantities of weight gain

Manage Sleep

You have to face a basic health truth: If you compromise on quantity or quality of sleep, you will not lose weight.

Sleep deprivation has numerous health implications beyond just crabbiness and daytime sleepiness. The physiologic disruptions of sleep deprivation include increased risk for high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Lack of sleep increases cortisol and insulin, impairs the effects of insulin, and increases appetite, resulting in an increased calorie intake of 300 to 559 calories per day, mostly from snacking. The
entire
process adds up to stalled weight loss or weight gain. And the less sleep you get, the worse it gets, starting with just a single night of reduced sleep.

Several days per week of lost sleep can therefore yield substantial impact on appetite and calorie intake. If you do the arithmetic, three nights a week of poor sleep can add 22 pounds of weight gain over the course of a year.

How much sleep is enough for overall health and to gain control over weight? It varies from individual to individual, but most people require 7½ hours every night. After several days of reduced sleep, a “sleep debt” accumulates that magnifies the metabolic distortions that contribute to weight gain and unhealthy effects. One night of adequate sleep does not fully pay down the sleep debt. Several days of full sleep beyond the usual 7½ hours may be required to normalize glucose, insulin, and cortisol distortions.

You may have noticed that normal, uninterrupted sleep occurs in 90-minute cycles (e.g., 6 hours, 7½ hours, 9 hours) that allow your brain to cycle through all sleep phases, from light sleep to the deepest phases, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep filled with dreams. Because it's best to adhere to this normal cycling of sleep, set your clock or alarm to a quantity of time that adheres to this rhythm, as it increases daytime alertness and mood. There are also several devices now available that can waken you gently at the set time using, for instance, increasingly bright light, sound, or vibration. Smartphone apps are also appearing, often coupled to a device (such as the Lark wristband or the UP system by Jawbone) to gently awaken you after tracking your sleep behavior and quality over the preceding night.

Sometimes, a little help may be necessary to reestablish healthy sleep habits. Useful natural sleep aids include:

MELATONIN.
Melatonin is the natural hormone of sleep and circadian rhythms, its release activated with dark and inhibited with light. (Sleeping in complete darkness, with no exposure to a
bathroom
light when going to the bathroom, for instance, is a natural way to increase melatonin release.) It is not a sleeping pill; it is a sleep hormone, simply making your body more receptive to sleep. Melatonin supplementation can hasten the onset of sleep, make sleep deeper, and discourage early awakening. It also has substantial effects in reducing blood pressure, especially when taken as a sustained-release preparation. Melatonin is not habit forming and has proven safe, even with extended use.