Kay shared her Wheat Belly experience over her first 4 weeks:
“After over 30 years of battling food addiction and morbid obesity, I had just about given up. You name it, I have tried it, even lap-band surgery which worked temporarily but, of course, did not solve the problem.
“Now, for the first time in my life, I am not struggling with food: I am not craving, obsessing, or even really thinking about food. I’ve been doing Wheat Belly about a month and am down about 20 pounds, but the most striking thing is that my desire to eat compulsively is GONE. I am utterly stunned by this.
“I can’t begin to express how huge it is for me and what a profound effect this way of eating is already having on my life. In addition, I’ve never done a food regimen that is so easy and manageable that I could see doing it for the rest of my life. Dr. Davis, thank you for your incredible, life-saving work.”
Kay understands just how powerful an appetite-stimulant wheat and grains can be, creating obsessive, 24-hours-a-day cravings, always struggling to hold back the floodgates of excessive food consumption. People blame themselves for lack of willpower or weakness of character. But it’s really—for many people—nothing more than, like high blood sugar, an effect of consuming wheat and grains.
Kay’s experience reveals a basic truth about wheat and related grains: They act as opiates. (From here on, when I say “wheat” I really mean wheat and closely related grains, especially rye, barley, and corn, those that have overlapping protein sequences in their gliadin, or “prolamin,” proteins.)
I don’t mean that wheat is an opiate in the sense that you like it so much that you feel you are addicted. Wheat is truly addictive.
Wheat is addictive in the sense that it comes to dominate thoughts and behaviors. Wheat is addictive in the sense that, if you don’t have any for several hours, you start to get nervous, foggy, tremulous, and start desperately seeking out another “hit” of crackers, bagels, or bread, even if it’s the few stale 3-month old crackers at the bottom of the box. Wheat is addictive in the sense that there is a distinct withdrawal syndrome characterized by overwhelming fatigue, nausea, headache, mental “fog,” inability to exercise, even depression that lasts several days, occasionally several weeks. Wheat is addictive in the sense that the withdrawal process can be provoked by administering an opiate-blocking drug such as naloxone or naltrexone.
But the “high” of wheat is not like the high of heroine, morphine, or Oxycontin. This opiate, while it binds to the opiate receptors of the brain, doesn’t make us high. It makes us hungry.
This is the effect exerted by gliadin, the protein in wheat that was inadvertently altered by geneticists in the 1970s during efforts to increase yield. Just a few shifts in amino acids and gliadin in modern high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat became a more potent appetite stimulant.
Wheat stimulates appetite. Wheat stimulates calorie consumption: 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year, for every man, woman, and child. (440 calories per person per day is the average.) We experience this, sense the weight gain that is coming and we push the plate away, settle for smaller portions, increase exercise more and more . . . yet continue to gain, and gain, and gain. Ask your friends and neighbors who try to include more “healthy whole grains” in their diet. They exercise, eat a “well-balanced diet” . . . yet gained 10, 20, 30, 70 pounds over the past several years. Accuse your friends of drinking too much Coca Cola by the liter bottle, or being gluttonous at the all-you-can-eat buffet and you will likely receive a black eye. Many of these people are actually trying quite hard to control impulse, appetite, portion control, and weight, but are losing the battle with this appetite-stimulating opiate in wheat.
Ignorance of the gliadin effect of wheat is responsible for silly comments like this from Dr. Peter Green of Columbia University who declares:
“We tell people we don’t think a gluten-free diet is a very healthy diet . . . Gluten-free substitutes for food with gluten have added fat and sugar. Celiac patients often gain weight and their cholesterol levels go up. The bulk of the world is eating wheat. The bulk of people who are eating this are doing perfectly well unless they have celiac disease.”
Wow. In the simple-minded thinking of the gastroenterology and celiac world, if you don’t have celiac disease, you can eat all the wheat you want . . . and never mind about the appetite-stimulating effects of gliadin, not to mention the intestinal disruption and leakiness generated by wheat lectins, or the high blood sugars of amylopectin A of wheat, or the iron deficiency caused by phytates. And because gastroenterologists don’t know any better, they advise people with celiac disease to consume gluten-free foods made with cornstarch, rice flour, potato flour, and tapioca starch—horrible substitutes that, no surprise, cause type 2 diabetes and weight gain.
If you are following the Wheat Belly lifestyle, you have been freed from the imprecise thinking of gastroenterologists, finger-pointing by primary care physicians, as well as the stimulation of appetite by gliadin-derived opiates.
i could never understood why would anyone treat opiate addiction with administering opiate blockers ? preventing endogenous opiats from binding is even more shock for the body than stopping taking artificial opiates
i havent eaten wheat since october and i am never hungry any more. my size 3x shirts fit tight before and now feel loose and i wear a 2x now and some shirt an xl works. my 42 pants are super loose and i wear a 40 and they are loose.
i never diet per say and i buy full fat milk and yogurt. eat steaks etc and i never am hungry. the whole milk in the fridge will usually go bad and expire before i drink it all.
this works for me where 30 years of dieting never did.
For me, the food cravings were gone in just a few days time, which is absolutely amazing to me. Now, I eat everything that is allowed on Dr. Davis’ wheat free diet, am never hungry or feeling deprived, have tons of energy, sleep like a kitten, & best of all, the horrible migraine headaches are gone! So happy I am following Dr. Davis & his miracle diet plan!
13 months ago I stumbled across Dr Davis at my gym while I was on the treadmill and he was a guest on PBS. Watching that program that day changed my life! I believe there are no coincidences in life.
I had bulimia from the age of 16 yrs old, on and off until 50yrs. I was no longer purging, but was still suffering from the binging. I truly believed this was going to be apart of my life forever. I am a personal trainer, advocate of healthy living and was struggling daily with the binge.
I finished my workout that day, went directly to Barnes and Noble and bought his book. I shared my new found knowledge with my husband and told him I was going to give this a “good college” try for 2 weeks. He was supportive and willing to do the same. I was convinced after a week of being grain free that my struggles were over and they are. I lost 5 lbs, didn’t really need to lose weight, I needed to be healed from the damage grains were doing to my body, mind and spirit. My husband lost 20lbs and has kept it off. He occassionally still eats a tiny bit of grain and always feels awful afterward. However, for me I know that I will and more importantly never bring grains back into my life. I am 53 yrs young, renewed, restored and illuminating health and happiness.
Thank you Dr, Davis for helping me become whole again!
Alana Harndon
This is an excellent article Dr. Davis.
Do you offer a camp where people can go and try the 30 day challenge?
KT wrote: «Do you offer a camp where people can go and try the 30 day challenge?»
Where are you finding a reference to a 30-day challenge? The current challenges are “10-day detox”.
As far as I know, all the challenges are self-directed.
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