I've decided to add exercise to my health regime, and this morning I did a 20 minute workout by Jillian Michaels (30-Day Shred), which felt really good!
For the past few days, I've also been slowly re-introducing wheat to my diet because I don't want to shock my system. Because I have IBS, whenever I have a big change in my diet, it flares up. So for the past two days, I've had two graham crackers a day for my wheat serving (not a lot, I know, but I don't want to irritate my IBS)!
Today, I finally had my favourite California Rolls from Tokyo Express. That will be my big wheat splurge for the day! I'm curious to see if adding the wheat again does anything to my health. I'll keep you posted!
My husband is going to continue eating wheat-free for at least the rest of the month because he's really noticed an improvement in his health!
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Let Him Eat Cake!
Today we celebrated my father- and sister-in-law's birthdays with a family gathering at my in-laws' house. Of course, there was birthday cake! My mother-in-law made her famous pineapple upside-down cake (my father-in-law's favourite) and an angel food cake. I actually was not even a little bit tempted to have any. They both looked delicious, and I'm sure they tasted delicious, but I really had no desire to eat any. I'd call that progress!
My husband, however, couldn't resist, and he had his first wheaty food in more than two weeks. Interestingly enough he had a headache this evening (we're not sure if wheat was the cause because he wasn't feeling great this morning either, but it's interesting that his first headache in two weeks came after he ate wheat).
Food for thought!
My husband, however, couldn't resist, and he had his first wheaty food in more than two weeks. Interestingly enough he had a headache this evening (we're not sure if wheat was the cause because he wasn't feeling great this morning either, but it's interesting that his first headache in two weeks came after he ate wheat).
Food for thought!
Friday, August 10, 2012
Two Weeks Down!
It has now been two weeks eating wheat-free. It actually hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. Once I got through the initial wheat and sugar withdrawal, which lasted about five days, I have felt fine. I haven't craved wheat or snacks, and I really don't miss it a lot. What I do miss is the convenience of wheat-filled snacks and meals as they are much quicker to prepare and eat. I find we're eating a lot of meat, which can be expensive, so we're going to have to look at ways to keep our costs down and stay within our grocery budget!
My husband is loving this! He has lost seven pounds in two weeks, his headaches are gone, he's not snacking, he has lots of energy. This wheat-free eating obviously agrees with him! I, on the other hand, have not lost any weight in the past two weeks, despite following Weight Watchers for this past week in addition to my wheat-free eating. I will admit that I've found it easier to follow Weight Watchers because I haven't been craving anything, but it's frustrating to not lose any weight. I don't feel a lot different, health-wise, either.
So I don't think that eliminating wheat has really done a lot to affect my overall health. I've decided to continue eating wheat-free as much as possible, but I'm not going to avoid wheat altogether. For snacking, I will not be eating wheat-filled snacks. I will just have a little for main meals if I feel so inclined. For example, I really love California Rolls from Tokyo Express, but there is wheat in the artificial crab that they use. My husband and I figure that the amount of wheat in the crab is probably not substantial enough to make a huge difference, so I'll be okay eating them once in awhile.
I'm going to try that for this week, while still following Weight Watchers, and see if that makes any difference to my weight loss. I certainly don't want to go back to craving snacks and wheat, and I think it's important to keep my blood sugar levels even and not spiking up and down, so I won't be having lots of wheat. I'm just going to be very careful about portion size and eat wheat-free as much as possible.
My husband is loving this! He has lost seven pounds in two weeks, his headaches are gone, he's not snacking, he has lots of energy. This wheat-free eating obviously agrees with him! I, on the other hand, have not lost any weight in the past two weeks, despite following Weight Watchers for this past week in addition to my wheat-free eating. I will admit that I've found it easier to follow Weight Watchers because I haven't been craving anything, but it's frustrating to not lose any weight. I don't feel a lot different, health-wise, either.
So I don't think that eliminating wheat has really done a lot to affect my overall health. I've decided to continue eating wheat-free as much as possible, but I'm not going to avoid wheat altogether. For snacking, I will not be eating wheat-filled snacks. I will just have a little for main meals if I feel so inclined. For example, I really love California Rolls from Tokyo Express, but there is wheat in the artificial crab that they use. My husband and I figure that the amount of wheat in the crab is probably not substantial enough to make a huge difference, so I'll be okay eating them once in awhile.
I'm going to try that for this week, while still following Weight Watchers, and see if that makes any difference to my weight loss. I certainly don't want to go back to craving snacks and wheat, and I think it's important to keep my blood sugar levels even and not spiking up and down, so I won't be having lots of wheat. I'm just going to be very careful about portion size and eat wheat-free as much as possible.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Dining Out Again
I went our for lunch with my friend, Kathy, today, and we decided to try Red Robin's, as she loves it there, and I was curious to see their gluten-free options.
I went for the cheeseburger with lettuce instead of a bun, and I had a salad instead of fries with it. It was tasty, but not as good as Soda Jerks. I got way more food at Soda Jerks and for less money. It felt like a bit of a rip-off to get a beef patty with basically a bunch of lettuce (the salad had a few chunks of tomato and cucumber, but that's about it). It also came with croutons, after I had told the waitress that I was eating gluten-free (not a huge deal for me as I easily picked them out, but it would be a big deal for someone with a wheat allergy). They also charged for my club soda, which doesn't usually happen in restaurants (at least the ones I've been to), and they charged extra for lime juice to put in my club soda. So all in all, the food was good, and they had a good selection of gluten-free foods, but I wouldn't say it was great value for the money.
I did, however, have a nice visit with my friend, so that made it worth it!
I went for the cheeseburger with lettuce instead of a bun, and I had a salad instead of fries with it. It was tasty, but not as good as Soda Jerks. I got way more food at Soda Jerks and for less money. It felt like a bit of a rip-off to get a beef patty with basically a bunch of lettuce (the salad had a few chunks of tomato and cucumber, but that's about it). It also came with croutons, after I had told the waitress that I was eating gluten-free (not a huge deal for me as I easily picked them out, but it would be a big deal for someone with a wheat allergy). They also charged for my club soda, which doesn't usually happen in restaurants (at least the ones I've been to), and they charged extra for lime juice to put in my club soda. So all in all, the food was good, and they had a good selection of gluten-free foods, but I wouldn't say it was great value for the money.
I did, however, have a nice visit with my friend, so that made it worth it!
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
No Such Thing as a Quick, Easy Supper!
Today we faced our first big hurdle in that we didn't have a lot of time to cook supper. We were busy running errands all afternoon and didn't get home until about 5:00. My husband and I both had meetings tonight. I had to leave by 6:00 and he by 6:30. Normally on days like that, we would have stopped for pizza or burgers on the way home because there was not much time to cook. So what to do?
We grabbed some pork chops from the freezer and quickly thawed them in the microwave. My husband rubbed them with some olive oil and spices and barbecued them while I threw together some raw veggies and dip. We had supper ready in about 20 minutes, which was pretty good, and it tasted great! The only drawback was the added stress, but I'm proud of us for not caving and taking the easy, wheat-filled way out!
I'll have to do some more research into fast-food restaurants that offer gluten-free options!
We grabbed some pork chops from the freezer and quickly thawed them in the microwave. My husband rubbed them with some olive oil and spices and barbecued them while I threw together some raw veggies and dip. We had supper ready in about 20 minutes, which was pretty good, and it tasted great! The only drawback was the added stress, but I'm proud of us for not caving and taking the easy, wheat-filled way out!
I'll have to do some more research into fast-food restaurants that offer gluten-free options!
Monday, August 6, 2012
On Cravings and Why Eliminate Wheat
So since Friday, I've continued to eat wheat-free and sugar-free, and I've also plugged what I've been eating into my Weight Watchers points tracker to make sure I'm not overeating. I have to admit that I had been replacing my wheat-filled snacks with LOTS of nuts. Now I know a few nuts are healthy and they have lots of nutrients and oils that we need, but they should probably be eaten in moderation (which I wasn't doing)!
In the book Wheat Belly, Dr. Davis does say to eat unlimited amounts of nuts, meats, healthy oils, vegetables, etc. and that the average person will consume about 400 fewer calories per day doing this than when he was eating wheat products. I guess I wasn't eating that many wheat products before because I was consuming way more calories! That's why I decided to monitor my portions using Weight Watchers.
I have lost another pound this weekend doing this, and I also haven't felt hungry between meals, which is nice! I haven't had any cravings or hunger pangs. I still feel like snacking in the middle of the afternoon, but I think that's out of habit and not because I actually feel hungry.
Yesterday, it was my turn to bring a snack for church. Since I haven't really practiced any gluten-free baking, I made blueberry muffins and streusel coffee cake with my regular recipes using wheat flour. I didn't eat any, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't even tempted to taste any! (Usually I'm a notorious "sample-while-you-bake" baker!) I even gave the leftover cake to another family to make sure I wouldn't eat any! This is really a big step for me, as I'm a HUGE lover of baking, particularly if it involves brown sugar!
A few people have asked me why I would give up wheat products to lose weight. Here is an explanation from Wheat Belly that explains it:
"Wheat triggers a cycle of insulin-driven satiety and hunger, paralleled by the ups and downs of euphoria and withdrawal, distortions of neurological function, and addictive effectsm all leading to fat deposition. The extremes of blood sugar and insulin are responsible for growth of fat specifically in the visceral organs. Experienced over and over again, visceral fat accumulates, creating a fat liver, two fat kidneys, a fat pancreas, fat large and small intestines, as well as its familiar surface manifestation, a wheat belly." (p. 60)
"Why is wheat so much worse for weight than other foods? The essential phenomenon that sets the growth of the wheat belly in motion is blood sugar (glucose). High blood sugar, in turn, provokes high blood insulin. (Insulin is released by the pancreas in response to high blood sugar: The higher the blood sugar, the more insulin must be released to move the sugar into the body's cells, such as those of the muscle and liver.) When the pancreas' ability to produce insulin in response to blood sugar rises is exceeded, diabetes develops. But you don't have to be diabetic to experience high blood sugar and high insulin: Nondiabetics can easily experience the high blood sugars required to cultivate their very own wheat belly, particularly because foods made from wheat so readily convert to sugar. High blood insulin provokes visceral fat accumulation...
"Nutritionists established the fact that wheat increases blood sugar more profoundly than table sugar thirty years ago. As we've discussed, the glycemic index, or GI, is the nutritionist's measure of how much blood sugar levels increase in the 90 to 120 minutes after a food is consumed. By this measure, whole wheat bread has a GI of 72, while plain table sugar has a GI of 59 (though some labs have gotten results as high as 65). In contrast, kidney beans have a GI of 51, grapefruit comes in at 25, while noncarbohydrate foods such as salmon and walnuts have GIs of essentially zero: Eating these foods has no effect on blood sugar. In fact, with few exceptions, few foods have as high a GI as foods made from wheat." (pp. 62 - 63)
Interesting, isn't it? I never would have thought that so-called "healthy whole grains" would spike blood sugar levels, but they do. This triggers insulin release, which in turn means more visceral fat deposited in the body. And because wheat converts to sugar so quickly, it is quickly digested, resulting in a drop in blood sugar within about two hours of consumption. This usually triggers a craving for more wheat to raise the blood sugar levels again, and the cycle continues. As I mentioned above, I have found that my food cravings have subsided since going off of wheat and sugar, I suppose as a result of more steady blood sugar levels instead of spikes and drops. I'm curious to see what the next few weeks hold as we continue our experiment!
In the book Wheat Belly, Dr. Davis does say to eat unlimited amounts of nuts, meats, healthy oils, vegetables, etc. and that the average person will consume about 400 fewer calories per day doing this than when he was eating wheat products. I guess I wasn't eating that many wheat products before because I was consuming way more calories! That's why I decided to monitor my portions using Weight Watchers.
I have lost another pound this weekend doing this, and I also haven't felt hungry between meals, which is nice! I haven't had any cravings or hunger pangs. I still feel like snacking in the middle of the afternoon, but I think that's out of habit and not because I actually feel hungry.
Yesterday, it was my turn to bring a snack for church. Since I haven't really practiced any gluten-free baking, I made blueberry muffins and streusel coffee cake with my regular recipes using wheat flour. I didn't eat any, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't even tempted to taste any! (Usually I'm a notorious "sample-while-you-bake" baker!) I even gave the leftover cake to another family to make sure I wouldn't eat any! This is really a big step for me, as I'm a HUGE lover of baking, particularly if it involves brown sugar!
A few people have asked me why I would give up wheat products to lose weight. Here is an explanation from Wheat Belly that explains it:
"Wheat triggers a cycle of insulin-driven satiety and hunger, paralleled by the ups and downs of euphoria and withdrawal, distortions of neurological function, and addictive effectsm all leading to fat deposition. The extremes of blood sugar and insulin are responsible for growth of fat specifically in the visceral organs. Experienced over and over again, visceral fat accumulates, creating a fat liver, two fat kidneys, a fat pancreas, fat large and small intestines, as well as its familiar surface manifestation, a wheat belly." (p. 60)
"Why is wheat so much worse for weight than other foods? The essential phenomenon that sets the growth of the wheat belly in motion is blood sugar (glucose). High blood sugar, in turn, provokes high blood insulin. (Insulin is released by the pancreas in response to high blood sugar: The higher the blood sugar, the more insulin must be released to move the sugar into the body's cells, such as those of the muscle and liver.) When the pancreas' ability to produce insulin in response to blood sugar rises is exceeded, diabetes develops. But you don't have to be diabetic to experience high blood sugar and high insulin: Nondiabetics can easily experience the high blood sugars required to cultivate their very own wheat belly, particularly because foods made from wheat so readily convert to sugar. High blood insulin provokes visceral fat accumulation...
"Nutritionists established the fact that wheat increases blood sugar more profoundly than table sugar thirty years ago. As we've discussed, the glycemic index, or GI, is the nutritionist's measure of how much blood sugar levels increase in the 90 to 120 minutes after a food is consumed. By this measure, whole wheat bread has a GI of 72, while plain table sugar has a GI of 59 (though some labs have gotten results as high as 65). In contrast, kidney beans have a GI of 51, grapefruit comes in at 25, while noncarbohydrate foods such as salmon and walnuts have GIs of essentially zero: Eating these foods has no effect on blood sugar. In fact, with few exceptions, few foods have as high a GI as foods made from wheat." (pp. 62 - 63)
Interesting, isn't it? I never would have thought that so-called "healthy whole grains" would spike blood sugar levels, but they do. This triggers insulin release, which in turn means more visceral fat deposited in the body. And because wheat converts to sugar so quickly, it is quickly digested, resulting in a drop in blood sugar within about two hours of consumption. This usually triggers a craving for more wheat to raise the blood sugar levels again, and the cycle continues. As I mentioned above, I have found that my food cravings have subsided since going off of wheat and sugar, I suppose as a result of more steady blood sugar levels instead of spikes and drops. I'm curious to see what the next few weeks hold as we continue our experiment!
Friday, August 3, 2012
One Week Down, (at least) Three More to Go!
Well, we've lasted a week without eating any wheat, grains, refined flours or sugar/glucose/fructose. After my inital three days of withdrawal (not sure if it was a combination of wheat and sugar withdrawal or one of those), I still feel about the same health-wise, and I still feel hungry between meals. I still have cravings, but apparently the cravings are supposed to go away after about a week, so hopefully this week will be better. I've lost a pound, though I was hoping to lose more than that.
My husband, on the other hand, feels fantastic! He's lost five pounds this week, he no longer has the urge to snack between meals, and he hasn't had any headaches since the first day we went off of wheat. (I am trying not to be jealous!)
So obviously this is working great for him, but for me, I'm not so sure! One of my biggest motivations to go off of wheat was to lose weight. According to Dr. Davis' book Wheat Belly, people who switch to a wheat-free diet generally eat about 400 calories less per day than they did before. I decided to plug in what I'm eating to Weight Watchers to find out how many "points" I've been eating, and it turns out that I'm actually eating more being on this wheat-free diet, so it's kind of working against what I'm trying to do! In analyzing my diet before starting this, I actually didn't eat a lot of wheat before-hand except for snacks and lunch. So my plan now is to continue eating wheat-free for this month at least, but I'm going to follow Weight Watchers points to make sure I'm not eating too much to lose any weight.
So far, I'm not too convinced that this is going to make a big difference for me, but my husband is sure happy!
My husband, on the other hand, feels fantastic! He's lost five pounds this week, he no longer has the urge to snack between meals, and he hasn't had any headaches since the first day we went off of wheat. (I am trying not to be jealous!)
So obviously this is working great for him, but for me, I'm not so sure! One of my biggest motivations to go off of wheat was to lose weight. According to Dr. Davis' book Wheat Belly, people who switch to a wheat-free diet generally eat about 400 calories less per day than they did before. I decided to plug in what I'm eating to Weight Watchers to find out how many "points" I've been eating, and it turns out that I'm actually eating more being on this wheat-free diet, so it's kind of working against what I'm trying to do! In analyzing my diet before starting this, I actually didn't eat a lot of wheat before-hand except for snacks and lunch. So my plan now is to continue eating wheat-free for this month at least, but I'm going to follow Weight Watchers points to make sure I'm not eating too much to lose any weight.
So far, I'm not too convinced that this is going to make a big difference for me, but my husband is sure happy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)