William Davis's Blog: Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog, page 119

Wheat elimination shows on the face

Beth shared her 3-month chronicle of her facial transformation.

“3 months no gluten, sugar, or dairy. Major changes in my looks and life!”



Beth chose to also exclude dairy and cut back on non-wheat grains. Her face is thinner, but she also shows the characteristic facial changes that we see so often around here: less facial/cheek edema, less edema/bagginess around the eyes, bigger eyes.

Wheat Belly faces do indeed reflect the substantial weight loss most people experience but, just as important, perhaps even more important, they also reflect diminishing skin inflammation. If we were to measure blood tests such as c-reactive protein, or CRP, or monitor gastrointestinal or joint inflammation, we’d also see these phenomena improving in parallel.

Removing all the components of wheat and grains—gluten, gliadin, wheat germ agglutinin and other lectins, prolamin-derived peptides from partial digestion, the hyperinsulinemia that derives from high blood sugars from the amylopectin A, a multitude of allergenic proteins—and you remove a collection of potent inflammatory factors from your body. And it even shows on the face in such wonderful ways.

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Come on: You can’t tell me the Wheat Belly lifestyle doesn’t make you thinner, smarter, faster. . . sexier?!

Hang around here for a while and you get the impression that those of us following the Wheat Belly lifestyle march to a different drummer. Yes, we lose weight and look like our grandmothers and grandfathers: slender, sinewy muscle, no humongous 21st century belly, 46-inch belts, or XXXL pants in sight.

Remember Kay’s Wheat Belly success story? I posted Kay’s original story in July, 2015. She was the former Weight Watchers instructor who struggled with decades of bloating, abdominal cramping, and yo-yo’ing weight until she discovered the Wheat Belly lifestyle and lost 68 1/2 pounds and 34 inches:

Here she is just 4 months later, getting better and better by living wheat- and grain-free. The right sided photo at the top of the page is Kay’s most recent update: “My 76 pound/36 inch loss is from going completely grain-free.

“Now in my life I have discovered that wheat is a health hazard to me. Dr. Oz brought Dr. William Davis on his show to help us learn and be enlightened to what was really in our food. When I first heard the explanation and what he was challenging me to do, I thought to myself ‘I’ve eaten pizza for the last 40 years every Friday night, I can’t start now,’ but I did and I’m glad to say that, in almost a year, I have a total of 76 pounds off and more than 36 inches. I have been at my goal weight since 4/2015. I am totally grain-free!”

76 pounds, 36 inches? You ever try to lift a 50-pound bag of cement mix? I know that I can carry a single bag a few feet, then have to take a breather. Kay carried around the equivalent of 1 1/2 50-pound cement bags all the time, 24 hours a day, while enduring the gastrointestinal-disrupting, inflammation-provoking, appetite-stimulating, mind-distorting effects of wheat and grains. Imagine the lightness of being freed of it all. And Kay lost 36 inches, or 3 feet, off her measurements–not 3 inches, but 3 FEET! I think her “after” photo pretty much tells the story.

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Grain Junkie

Follow these pages and you will hear these sorts of comments:

“I was addicted to bread, pizza, and cookies.”

Or “Unless I have some bread or pretzels every few hours, I will start feeling really weird.”

Or “I can’t stop bread–it’s my crack cocaine.”

I am often amazed at how many people intuitively understand that they have an addictive relationship with foods made of wheat and grains. It is often no news to them that they will experience an unpleasant withdrawal process when they are “deprived,” experience relief with another “hit.” Many are provided hints of this over the years when a few hours have passed since their last exposure to wheat/grains and the shakiness, mental “fog,” low mood, crabbiness, anxiety, and cravings set in. They will knock you over to get to the food buffet, resort to consuming a bag of stale pretzels or nasty leftover Hot Pocket. Relief is immediate with re-exposure.

Recall that the gliadin protein of wheat, the secalin protein of rye, hordein of barley, and perhaps the zein of corn, upon partial digestion, yield 4- to 5-amino acid long peptides that exert opioid properties, including appetite stimulation, addictive and repetitive desire, and withdrawal upon cessation. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand this basic principle. Instead, we call people “lazy,” “fat,” “slothful,” or other derogatory terms, when many such people are nothing of the kind. They are addicts, grain junkies. You wouldn’t make fun of someone hopelessly addicted to opiate pain killers; we should not misconstrue what a helpless, overweight, ceaselessly hungry person is all about: they are victims of this ridiculous notion of a diet dominated by “healthy whole grains,” as well as the proliferation of grain ingredients, especially wheat flour and cornstarch, in processed foods.

The dietary advice from “official” sources, such as the USDA, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and others, that tell us to cut fat and eat more “healthy whole grains” are like offering advice to drink more booze to an alcoholic, snort more cocaine to a cocaine addict, smoke more cigarettes to a cigarette smoker. They are not helping the situation–they are making it worse.

But remember: if you are just starting out on your Wheat Belly wheat- and grain-free journey, the next week can be very unpleasant as you experience the opiate withdrawal syndrome from stopping gliadin-derived opiate peptides and related peptides from grains. There are ways to soften the blow discussed in the Wheat Belly Total Health book and summarized here. Or, if you want a day-by-day, meal-by-meal map of how to accomplish this, get the new Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox book that lays it out in as foolproof a way as possible.

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I will personally coach you through your 10-Day Grain Detox!

I am looking for a handful of people who have not yet started their Wheat Belly lifestyle but would like to:

1) Receive a free copy of the new Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox book

2) Agree to provide a 1-minute video (e.g., on your smart phone, texted or emailed to us) of yourself day-by-day describing how you feel during the 10-day experience–good and bad–and allow us to use your videos for national TV

3) Receive personal coaching on the Detox process from me (by phone).

A big plus: You are willing to be in New York City on October 28, 2015 to be filmed for a national TV show. I will share the stage with you. You will just need to say a few words about what you experienced.

If you are interested, your schedule will need to allow you to devote some time every day to reading the Detox book, talking with me by phone, some time to round up the handful of nutritional supplements we use in the Detox process, and to shop and cook some of the recipes from the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox Menu Plan. It’s not that tough, but will require this 10-day commitment. You will likely be rewarded with results that go beyond expectations, supercharging your start to this empowering lifestyle.

If you are interested, please post a comment to this blog post or respond to the Wheat Belly Facebook page post about this and tell me something about yourself: age, how you feel, why you would like to do this. Then let’s talk!

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Be better than gluten-free: Be GRAIN-free

Katelyn shared photos comparing her experience starting with a gluten-free lifestyle, then graduating to the next level that yields even greater health benefits: grain-free.

“The picture on the left is from 2 years ago when I was gluten-free. The picture on the right is after being wheat and grain-free for nearly a year. HUGE difference!!”

By following the Wheat Belly concept of complete grain elimination, Katelyn has clearly lost weight, particularly from her abdomen. By eliminating gluten-free processed foods made with cornstarch, rice flour, potato flour, and tapioca starch, she obtains the following benefits:

She no longer experiences the extravagant provocation of insulin that blocks weight loss and causes weight gain.
She no longer experiences high blood sugars that are followed by low blood sugars and associated cravings/mental “fog/fatigue.
She no longer disrupts bowel flora by removing the bowel flora-disruptive components of gluten-free products such as lectins and glyphosate.
She is no longer exposed to the exceptional glycation of proteins that result from the high blood sugars of these foods, a process that over time leads to formation of cataracts, heart disease, and increased risk for cancer and dementia.

Katelyn made the right move by also removing the most offensive and plentiful of all grains in the human diet, wheat, but then also removing all related seeds of grasses, “grains,” that can overlap in effects with wheat. While corn, for example, has no gluten, it has a closely-related protein (called prolamin proteins as a class) called zein  that can still trigger/reactivate autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. Oats raise blood sugar sky-high, among the highest I’ve ever witnessed. Rice likewise, being heavily starch-laden, also raises blood sugar to high levels, not to mention poses a potential risk with its arsenic content. (The entire concept of total grain elimination is discussed in detail in the Wheat Belly Total Health book.)

Gluten-free foods, i.e., foods that contain no more than 20 parts per million gluten residues, can indeed be made to be healthy. But there is no way to disable the health-impairing and weight-increasing effects of the four most common gluten-free ingredients chosen by misinformed (or indifferent) food manufacturers. And you obtain even further benefit by also avoiding the booby-traps contained in grains beyond wheat. And just look at what can happen.

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Glyphosate: not JUST a carcinogen

One of the most potentially harmful aspects of genetically-modified crops, or GMOs, are that such crops are often engineered to be resistant to an herbicide. A farmer therefore can spray the herbicide to kill weeds, while the GM crop plant survives. But it means that the plant now has herbicide residues in it. So GMO crops pose a double-whammy: the crop itself with new genetically-programmed components, especially proteins, coupled with an herbicide.

Glyphosate is the most widely applied herbicide in the world, in part because GM corn and soy have been engineered to be glyphosate-resistant. So much glysphosate is being used in modern agriculture that EcoWatch tallied up the total of 2.6 billion pounds having been sprayed on crops in the 20 years between 1992 and 2012. Glyphosate is also used as an herbicide and dessicant in other agricultural applications outside of GM crops, though grains and soy carry the highest levels of glyphosate residues. If livestock such as cows and chickens are fed glyphosate-containing feed, glyphosate residues can be found in meat, eggs, and dairy products. And, to make matters even worse, glysphosate, because of its widespread, high-volume application, is now found in drinking water throughout the U.S.

And, given the bulk of animal and human data, there is no remaining doubt: glyphosate is carcinogenic, increasing risk for non-Hodgkin’s lympnhoma, B-cell lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, in particular. The Seralini study that showed a dramatic increase in breast cancer from glyphosate is also worrisome. (This was the study that was mysteriously retracted by the publishing journal without explanation, but has been rereleased.) But there’s more to the glyphosate story.

There is growing suspicion that glyphosate can act as an antimicrobial or antibiotic. (Monsanto even has a patent for glyphosate as an antimicrobial.) Animal model data demonstrate that glyphosate selectively kills beneficial bacteria, such as Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Bacillus badius, Bifidobacterium adolescentis and Lactobacillus species, while allowing the proliferation of undesirable, even disease-causing, species such as Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella gallinarum, Salmonella typhimurium, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium botulinum.

Lactic acid producing bacteria that have beneficial effects, such as lactobacilli, lactococci, and enterococci, generate bacteriocins, or factors that suppress growth of undesirable bacterial species. Specifically, the bacteriocins produced by lactic acid producing bacteria help keep Clostridium species at bay, such as C. difficile that often emerges after antibiotics are prescribed. (Farmers in Europe are even seeing an increase in botulism in livestock due to emergence of Clostridium botulinum that is suspected to be due to glyphosate.) This selective effect of glyphosate, killing off lactic acid producing bacteria while leaving undesirable species untouched, may be one of the ways by which humans develop dysbiosis, or disordered growth of bowel flora, that can cause abdominal distress, irritable bowel syndrome, the intestinal “leakiness” that adds to risk for autuoimmune diseases, and other conditions.

In food, glyphosate persists for extended periods, is not removed by rinsing with water, and is resistant to cooking temperatures. Some forms of processing can even concentrate glyphosate residues, such as processing of wheat bran. There are limited data on the concentration of glyphosate in food, but the UK government has performed some studies in wheat products:

 

 

By eating food containing glyphosate, you are therefore exposed to at least some of these effects, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract.

In a nutshell, the problems with glyphosate can be summarized as:

Glyphosate residues in crops, especially grains and soy, are at levels too high for human health.
Glyphosate may act as a selective antibiotic in the human gut, killing off beneficial bowel flora species, while encouraging proliferation of pathogenic species.
Glyphosate acts as an antimicrobial in the soil, accelerating the deterioration of topsoil, a major problem for agriculture and a phenomenon that has essentially undone every civilization ever since the advent of agriculture.

Some irresponsible authors have claimed that the only problem with wheat is its content of glyphosate which, of course, is nonsense. If that were true, all the problems of wheat would disappear just by choosing organic wheat products. It means that there would be no high blood sugars, no weight gain, no acid reflux, no bowel urgency, no cerebellar ataxia, no behavioral/emotional effects, no iron deficiency anemia, no celiac disease if you just choose organic wheat–absolutely not the case. But glyphosate is indeed yet another aspect of the wheat and grain issue for humans. And it may be one of the crucial reasons that underlies the epidemic of disrupted bowel flora. Glyphosate is something you need to avoid in order to begin the path back to restoration of healthy bowel flora.

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Toadstools, rotten meat and . . . grains

Sheli understands the incredible power of the Wheat Belly lifestyle. It’s not gluten-free, but goes several steps farther to eliminate all grains that cross-react immunologically with wheat, rye, and barley, while also correcting all the metabolic distortions that can persist even after their removal.

“I was diagnosed with many autoimmune illnesses, from celiac to Sjogren’s, and the list goes on and on. The small fiber neuropathy was so painful in my legs that I spent 1 year in bed and couldn’t walk. Gluten-free helped a little, but I was still in chronic pain and the fibromyalgia pain and fog were the worst. My husband was at his wits end trying to find something to help me get better.

“Two weeks ago, we came across your PBS program and a light bulb went off. We ordered your books and studied it and made all the appropriate changes. I have been pain-free for a week. (Unheard of). I’m excited to go back to my doctor. A couple of months of being on this new diet and retaking blood test. I’m excited to hear my doctors tell me that I am cured of the things they told me I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I am already stopping and cutting back on medications that I thought I would have to take for the rest of my life.

“I just want to thank you personally for helping me break free from my bodily prison. I owe you my life. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I will forever be grateful and I will forever use my voice and testimony to make sure this information gets out to every person you come in contact with. The world needs to know that they do not need to suffer in vain and for no reason.”

Celiac disease, Sjogren’s disease, small fiber neuropathy, fibromyalgia . . .Sheli reversed four autoimmune conditions by following this lifestyle. Autoimmune conditions come in many shapes and varieties, but they all share common features: an inflammatory response in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks an organ of the body, intestinal permeability to the the gliadin protein and bacterial lipopolysaccharide initiated by the gliadin protein itself, deficiency of vitamin D, and disruption of bowel flora that adds to the intestinal permeability. The pain and disability are managed with inevitable prescription-writing for drugs, oral and intravenous, that subdue the immune system, but do nothing to address the inciting cause, nor the factors that “permit” autoimmunity to emerge.

Yet the solution is so simple: eliminate the “foods” that were never meant to be foods for humans in the first place, then correct the associated phenomena such as vitamin D deficiency and disrupted bowel flora. Humans can’t eat toadstools, the rotted meat of animals killed by other predators who leave their leftovers exposed to the elements, nor the seeds of grasses that require extreme manipulations to make them edible, but never fully digestible nor safe.

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Raspberry Cheesecake Fat Blasters

Recipe from the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox.

Fat Blasters are bite-sized wallops of healthy fat that give you a feeling of fullness without triggering insulin—the hormone of weight gain—thereby allowing weight loss to proceed unimpeded, or even accelerating the process. Fat Blasters are high in calories and high in fat grams—and that’s good!

Fat Blasters can be eaten as a snack, or you can eat two or three (or more) as a meal replacement. (In general, of course, you should be sure to have real, whole foods for most meals to ensure full nutrient intake. Fat Blasters are meant to be an occasional component of your diet.) Fat Blasters can be especially useful when you are in the process of losing weight and want to reverse the metabolic distortions of a wheat belly!

Raspberry Cheesecake Fat Blasters Recipe

You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven with these little morsels of cheesecake. You can easily substitute any berry, such as strawberries or blueberries, for raspberries.

8 ounces organic cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup raspberries
Sweetener equivalent to 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place paper liners in 20 cups of a mini muffin pan.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, blend the cream cheese, coconut oil, raspberries, sweetener, and vanilla until thoroughly combined.

Evenly divide the mixture among the lined cups and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before eating, or place in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Store in the refrigerator.

Per serving: 114 calories, 1 g protein, 1 g carbohydrates, 12 g total fat, 9 g saturated fat, 0 g fiber, 16 mg sodium

 

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Mirror, Mirror… What Changes Can You Expect When You Do the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox?

As you proceed through your Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox, you are likely to see some changes when you look in the mirror, changes you’ll find empowering, encouraging, even thrilling. While weight loss, of course, brings its own collection of improvements, there is more that actually changes in some wonderful ways.

Yes, if you lose, say 5 to 7 pounds over the 10 days of your detox, your face is going to look thinner. But you will likely notice that your face changed more than those few pounds would explain.

You may observe reduced swelling or edema over the entire face and reduced puffiness around the eyes. If you compare your before-and-after photos, you may notice that your eyes look larger. If you started with redness or the wheat/grain signature seborrheic rash on the cheeks or along the sides of the nose, you will likely see this rash recede, then disappear, during the first week. Facial contours will change more than you expect, with sharpening of the jawline and cheekbones.

Don’t be surprised if friends ask whether you’ve undergone expert cosmetic surgery to achieve such dramatic effects. These are the changes that lead people on Wheat Belly social media to see that the before-and-after pictures look like two different people. (The photos are of the same person, of course, but the contrast reflects the often breathtaking transformations of this unique anti-inflammatory lifestyle.)

You may also observe the following:

Loss of cellulite. The retreat of cellulite can begin during the 10 days of your detox and continue over a longer period.
Thicker hair. Because hair grows slowly, this effect will take longer than the 10 days of your detox to notice.
Changes in your nails. Fingernails and toenails often become thicker and smoother over time as they grow.
Teeth improvements. I predict that you will experience dramatic changes in dental health: improve in gum health and gingivitis and less plaque formation.
Breast changes. Breast size can be reduced a cup size or two, changes that are not explained by weight lost alone. While some women find this undesirable, it can be a reduction of breast cancer risk. Males celebrate the reversal, or course.

If you’re ready to jumpstart your weight loss—or give yourself the reboot you need to get back into the Wheat Belly lifestyle, go ahead and preorder your copy of Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox and stay tuned to the Wheat Belly Blog and social media for tips and tools to get you from 0 to sixty fast.

The post Mirror, Mirror… What Changes Can You Expect When You Do the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Mirror, Mirror

As you proceed through your Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox, you are likely to see some changes when you look in the mirror, changes you’ll find empowering, encouraging, even thrilling. While weight loss, of course, brings its own collection of improvements, there is more that actually changes in some wonderful ways.

Yes, if you lose, say 5 to 7 pounds over the 10 days of your detox, your face is going to look thinner. But you will likely notice that your face changed more than those few pounds would explain.

You may observe reduced swelling or edema over the entire face and reduced puffiness around the eyes. If you compare your before-and-after photos, you may notice that your eyes look larger. If you started with redness or the wheat/grain signature seborrheic rash on the cheeks or along the sides of the nose, you will likely see this rash recede, then disappear, during the first week. Facial contours will change more than you expect, with sharpening of the jawline and cheekbones.

Don’t be surprised if friends ask whether you’ve undergone expert cosmetic surgery to achieve such dramatic effects. These are the changes that lead people on Wheat Belly social media to see that the before-and-after pictures look like two different people. (The photos are of the same person, of course, but the contrast reflects the often breathtaking transformations of this unique anti-inflammatory lifestyle.)

You may also observe the following:

Loss of cellulite. The retreat of cellulite can begin during the 10 days of your detox and continue over a longer period.
Thicker hair. Because hair grows slowly, this effect will take longer than the 10 days of your detox to notice.
Changes in your nails. Fingernails and toenails often become thicker and smoother over time as they grow.
Teeth improvements. I predict that you will experience dramatic changes in dental health: improve in gum health and gingivitis and less plaque formation.
Breast changes. Breast size can be reduced a cup size or two, changes that are not explained by weight lost alone. While some women find this undesirable, it can be a reduction of breast cancer risk. Males celebrate the reversal, or course.

If you’re ready to jumpstart your weight loss—or give yourself the reboot you need to get back into the Wheat Belly lifestyle, go ahead and preorder your copy of Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox and stay tuned to the Wheat Belly Blog and social media for tips and tools to get you from 0 to sixty fast.

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