Originally posted by Dr. Davis on 2015-11-09
on the Wheat Belly Blog, sourced from and currently found at: Infinite Health Blog.
PCM forum Index of WB Blog articles.

Tom muscles up with the Wheat Belly lifestyle

Tom lost 45 pounds following the Wheat Belly lifestyle and look what it did for his physique.

It’s clear that he lost fat body-wide, but the bulk of weight/fat loss was clearly from his abdomen, representing the loss of visceral belly fat. It means that Tom is enjoying a dramatic reduction in the inflammation of visceral belly fat that will help reduce blood pressure, insulin/blood sugar, and risk for cancer, heart disease, and dementia, the long list of health problems driven in part by inflammation. This can even be tracked with measures such as a drop in c-reactive protein, fibrinogen, and other inflammatory markers.

When you lose weight, about 30% of the weight lost is from muscle–not a good thing. (This explains why someone who loses, say, 60 pounds of total weight that included 20 pounds of lost muscle, then regains the fat weight, will have an even harder time losing weight in future–they now have a higher total fat weight and lower lean muscle mass.) But Tom’s experience may be consistent with what we tend to see with weight loss on the Wheat Belly lifestyle: there does not seem to be the same amount of muscle lost. In fact, I’ve heard from weight lifters and strength trainers who have experienced an increase in strength with this lifestyle, suggesting that muscle is not lost as it does with other methods of losing weight.

In all fairness, Tom did not go into detail about his exercise efforts during his Wheat Belly lifestyle. But it is indeed something we are seeing more and more: an increase in strength with preservation of muscle with wheat and grain elimination, yet another unique aspect of living this way.