After six months gluten-free, I asked my gastroenterologist about feeling full early ... he said he didn't know what I was talking about! *shrug*
But *I* knew -- it was the gluten/starches! My satiety level has totally changed, and for the first time in my life I feel NORMAL!
Feeling satisfied with less is a prominent effect in my experience, too. You need to eat less, you're driven to snack less, less likely to give in to those evil little bedtime or middle-of-the-night impulses that make you feel ashamed and guilty.
An anonymous (female) commenter said:
My life changed when I cut not only all wheat, but all grains from my diet.
For the first time in my life, I was no longer hungry -no hunger pangs between meals; no overwhelming desire to snack. Now I eat at mealtimes without even thinking about food in between.
I've dropped 70 pounds, effortlessly, come off high blood pressure meds and control my blood sugar without medication.
I don't know whether it was just the elimination of grain, especially wheat, or whether it was a combination of grain elimnation along with a number of other changes, but I do know that mere reduction of grain consumption still left me hungry. It wasn't until I elimnated it that the overwhelming redution in appetite kicked in.
As a former wheat-addicted vegetarian, who thought she was eating healthily according to all the expert advice out there at the time, I can only shake my head at how mistaken I was.
That may be a record for me: 70 lbs!!
Stan said:
It's worth it and you won't look back!
Many things will improve, not just weight reduction: you will think clearer, your reflexes will improve, your breathing rate will go down, your blood pressure will normalize. You will never or rarely have a fever or viral infections like cold or flu. You will become more resistant to cold temperature and you will rarely feel tired, ever!
Ortcloud said:
Whenever I go out to breakfast I look around and I am in shock at what people eat for breakfast. Big stack of pancakes, fruit, fruit juice syrup, just like you said. This is not breakfast, this is dessert ! It has the same sugar and nutrition as a birthday cake, would anyone think cake is ok for breakfast ? No, but that is exactly the equivalent of what they are eating. Somehow we have been duped to think this is ok. For me, I typically eat an omelette when I go out, low carb and no sugar. I dont eat wheat but invariably it comes with the meal and I try to tell the waitress no thanks, they are stunned. They try to push some other type of wheat or sugar product on me instead, finally I have to tell them I dont eat wheat and they are doubly stunned. They cant comprehend it. We have a long way to go in terms of re-education.
Yes. Don't be surprised at the incomprehension, the rolled eyes, even the anger that can sometimes result. Imagine that told you that the food you've come to rely on and love is killing you!
Anne said:
I was overweight by only about 15lbs and I was having pitting edema in my legs and shortness of breath. My cardiologist and I were discussing the possible need of an angiogram. I was three years out from heart bypass surgery.
Before we could schedule the procedure, I tested positive for gluten sensitivity through www.enterolab.com. I eliminated not only wheat but also barley and rye and oats(very contaminated with wheat) from my diet. Within a few weeks my edema was gone, my energy was up and I was no longer short of breath. I lost about 10 lbs. The main reason I gave up gluten was to see if I could stop the progression of my peripheral neuropathy. Getting off wheat and other gluten grains has given me back my life. I have been gluten free for 4 years and feel younger than I have in many years.
There are many gluten free processed foods, but I have found I feel my best when I stick with whole foods.
Ann has a different reason (gluten enteropathy, or celiac disease) for wanting to be wheat-free. But I've seen similar improvements that go beyond just relief of the symptoms attributable to the inflammatory intestinal effects of gluten elimination.
Wccaguy said:
I have relatively successfully cut carbs and grains from my diet thus far.
Because I've got some weight to lose, I have tried to keep the carb count low and I've lost 15 pounds since then.
I have also been very surprised at the significant reduction in my appetite. I've read about the experience of others with regard to appetite reduction and couldn't really imagine that it could happen for me too. But it has.
A few weeks ago, I attended a party catered by one of my favorite italian restaurants and got myself offtrack for two days. Then it took me a couple of days to get back on track because my appetite returned.
Check out Jimmy Moore's website for lots of ideas about variations of foods to try. The latest thing I picked up from Jimmy is the good old-fashioned hard boiled egg. Two or three eggs with some spicy hot sauce for breakfast and a handful of almonds mid-morning plus a couple glasses of water and I'm good for the morning no problem.
I find myself thinking about lunch not because I'm really hungry but out of habit.
The cool thing too now is that the more I do this, the more I'm just not tempted much to do anything but this diet.
Going wheat-free, along with a reduction in processed sugary foods like Hawaiian Punch, sodas, and candy, is the straightest, most direct path I know of to lose weight, obtain all the health benefits listed by our commenters, as well as achieve the lipoprotein corrections we seek, like reduction of small LDL particles and rise in HDL, in the Track Your Plaque program.
Followers of the Track Your Plaque program know that we advocate periodic fasts to reduce heart disease risk.
I came across an interesting report form an abstract presented at last week's American Heart Association meetings in Orlando:
(Read the report at HeartWire. You will need to register or sign-in.)
In this study, the investigators tried to determine why members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) tended to have reduced risk of heart disease compared to others in the area but not in the LDS faith. While the reduced risk of heart disease in LDS members had been traditionally attributed to the no smoking policy advocated by the Mormon church, the investigators suspected that there was more to the reduced risk.
Of 515 people interviewed, periodic fasting, whether for religious or other reasons, was found to distinguish people who were less likely to have coronary disease by conventional catheterization (59% vs. 67%). (Since the study was published in only abstract form, it's not clear why all these people underwent heart catheterization in the first place.)
Nonetheless, it's an interesting observation and one consistent with the benefits we see when someone fasts: reduced blood pressure, reduced inflammatory responses, improved lipids and lipoproteins, weight loss.
Fasting can be an especially effective method to gain control over heart disease and coronary plaque if rapid control is desired. In fact, I wonder if the normally year-long process of plaque control that I advocate can be much abbreviated. Fasting, I believe, is a crucial component of rapid control, what I've talked about in Instant Heart Disease Reversal
Fasting is not something to fear. It can be an enlightening process that can serve to abruptly sever bad habits, perhaps even turn the clock back on prior dietary and lifestyle excesses. My favorite variation on fasting is to use soy milk (yes, yes, I know! I can already hear the the soy bashers screaming!) as a meal substitute. It is an easy, less dramatic way that still maintains most of the benefit of a full, water-only fast.
Why do stress tests so often fail to detect coronary atherosclerotic plaque? Why do even heart catheterizations--the "gold standard"--fail to disclose the full extent of plaque within the walls of coronary arteries?
We owe much of the explanation of these phenomena to Dr. Seymour Glagov, retired professor of pathology at the University of Chicago.
When studying the coronary arteries of people who died, he observed that people commonly had plenty of atherosclerotic plaque lining the artery wall, yet it did not necessarily impinge on the artery "lumen," or the internal path for blood to flow.
The only time the lumen became obstructed by plaque was when either 1) plaque grew to overwhelming levels and was severe and extensive, or 2) when a plaque had "ruptured," meaning its thin covering had been penetrated and eroded by the underlying plaque tissue like a volcano emerging from the surface and erupting.
This groundbreaking observation, now dubbed "the Glagov phenomenon," explains why someone can have a normal stress test on Tuesday but erupt a plaque on Wednesday.
The Glagov phenomenon also explains why heart scans can detect plaque when both stress tests and heart catheterizations fail to do so. Many physicians will then interpret this to mean that the heart scan was wrong. With the Glagov phenomenon in mind, you can see that the heart scan is not wrong, it is simply detecting coronary atherosclerotic plaque at a stage that is not yet detectable by the other methods.
In the illustration, you can see that the lumen of the vessel is maintained--despite the artery on the left having minimal plaque, the artery on the right containing moderate plaque. If either artery were examined by a test that relies on blood flow--stress test or heart catheterization--both would appear normal. But a test that examines the artery wall, such as a heart scan, would readily detect the artery on the right and probably even the artery on the left.
I am very grateful to Dr. Glagov and his insight into this important process. Otherwise, we might still be floundering around trying to understand the apparent discrepances between these tests that simply provide different perspectives on the same problem.
