Sourced from: Infinite Health Blog, by Dr. Davis,
originally posted on the Wheat Belly Blog: 2012-08-31
The Reluctant Wheat Belly
Blogger Gourmet Girl Cooks posted this tale of
her reluctant adventure down Wheat Free Lane:
I am now 7 weeks without wheat or grains.
I initially started WB to address my sky-high triglycerides and
small LDL, hoping that this might be the answer for me and to keep my
doctor from adding yet another medication to my routine.
After many years of losing weight, exercising,
and replacing whole grains for the “white stuff,” per my doctors orders,
to address my triglycerides (and it failing), I finally decided to give
your program a try. I have been a regular reader of your Track Your
Plaque Blog for years (way before WB) where you also talked about
abstaining from all wheat to address high triglycerides. I will
be honest with you: I started WB hoping that it would work
. . . but fully expecting it not to. I assumed this was
just another fad eating program of some sort.
I finally decided that I needed to know if
it could be my answer once and for all, so I dove in 110%.
I intentionally did NOT exercise. I wanted to put it to
the test and see if the results of just abstaining from wheat/grains
would do anything for me. It just turns out that I had a physical
before starting the program and my bloodwork came back bad . . .
again — bad enough that my doctor had me return in 3 weeks to
recheck my BP and some of my bloodwork.
Here is the surprise: After 3 weeks, my
triglycerides were cut almost in half; I had lost 16 pounds–yes
16 pounds. I gave my doctor your food plan that I printed
out from your website (the Quick and Dirty). She said it must be
working for you. Continue and come back and we will run your bloodwork
again in 8 weeks. At 4 weeks on WB, I am down
21 pounds–who knew it could be so easy??? That would have
taken months to do at any other time in my life. This is the first
time I will be looking forward to my blood test results (early October).
I started this plan intending to prove you
wrong. I am 7 weeks into this plan wondering where you
have been all my life!!! I thank you from the bottom of my
heart and I have never been so glad in my entire life to have been
proven wrong. I will keep you posted on my progress (I have
not weighed since the 4-week mark, but I am shrinking before my own
eyes. It is astonishing to say the least). Thank you, thank
you….thank you!
Isn’t that great?
Look through Gourmet Girl’s
blog over time and you can see her shift in thinking about food.
While her older posts (still beautifully photographed!) included plenty
of wheat flour and pasta, her more recent recipes reflect her new
wheat-free enlightenment. Take a look at her latest Eggplant Ricotta Bake.
It looks like Gourmet Girl is another great resource for us
wheatless folk looking for more clever recipes!
For those of you interested in
understanding high triglycerides:
The issue of high triglycerides suggests
that people like Gourmet Girl have a gene (or genes) that allow
incredibly efficient conversion of carbohydrate calories to
storage forms of energy–a survival advantage in a wild
setting with intermittent and uncertain food supply.
Carbohydrates are converted to
triglyceride-containing lipoproteins (such as VLDL) that provide
the appearance of high blood triglyceride levels. It means
high-efficiency de novo lipogenesis by the liver,
the conversion of carbohydrates to triglyceride-containing
lipoproteins. In a wild setting in which you may not eat for days
or weeks, Gourmet Girl has a wonderful survival advantage. But in
a modern setting in which foods flow many times a day, the product
of liver de novo lipogenesis–triglycerides–accumulates
to high levels. (Made worse, incidentally, by knuckleheaded advice
like “Eat many small meals every 2 hours.” Wrong!
This CAUSES heart disease and diabetes.)
The answer to reducing high triglycerides
is not to cut the “white” foods and certainly
not to cut fats, but to minimize exposure to carbohydrates, thus
limiting the process of de novo lipogenesis.
The worst carbohydrate of all? The
amylopectin A of wheat.
Anyway, welcome to the happy, healthy, and
slender ranks of the Wheatless, Gourmet!
