Wheat Belly. William Davis, MD

diet that reduces appetite and requires calorie replacement with real food without intending to or, indeed, even realizing they had done so. A recent thorough review of celiac disease, for instance, written by two highly regarded celiac disease experts, makes no mention of weight loss with gluten elimination.²⁷ But it’s right there in the data, clear as day: Lose the wheat, lose the weight. Investigators in these studies also tend to dismiss the weight loss that results from wheat-free, gluten-free diets as due to the lack of food variety with wheat elimination, rather than wheat elimination itself. (As you will see later, there is no lack of variety with elimination of wheat; there is plenty of great food remaining in a wheat-free lifestyle.)

      Removal of gliadin-derived exorphins and reduction of the insulin-glucose cycle that triggers hunger reduces total daily caloric intake by 350 to 400 calories per day, not uncommonly 1,000 or more calories—without consciously restricting calories, fats, carbohydrates, or portion size. No smaller plates, prolonged chewing, or frequent small meals. Just banishing wheat and related grains from your table.

      There’s no reason to believe that weight loss with wheat elimination is peculiar to celiac disease sufferers. It’s true for people with gluten sensitivity and for people without gluten sensitivity. It’s true if you’re tall or short, wear a size 28 or size 6 dress, or whether you like shoes with 4-inch heels or sandals.

      So when we extrapolate wheat elimination to people who don’t have celiac disease, as I have done for thousands of people and observed in the worldwide Wheat Belly community, we see the same phenomenon: immediate and dramatic weight loss, similar to that seen in the obese celiac population.

      LOSE THE WHEAT BELLY

      Ten pounds in fourteen days. I know: It sounds like another TV infomercial boasting the latest “lose weight fast” gimmick.

      But I’ve seen it time and time again: Eliminate wheat in all its myriad forms and pounds melt away, often as much as a pound a day. No gimmicks, no subscription meals, no special formulas, no calorie counting, no “meal replacement” drinks or “cleansing” regimens required.

      Obviously, weight loss at this rate can be maintained for only so long, or you’d end up a pile of dust. But the initial pace of weight loss can be shocking, equaling what you might achieve with an outright fast. I find this phenomenon fascinating: Why would elimination of wheat yield weight loss as rapid as starvation? It is due to a combination of halting the glucose-insulin-fat-deposition cycle, the natural reduction in caloric intake that results, and the loss of inflammation and, most of all, inflammatory water retention. That last phenomenon—loss of inflammatory edema—can be seen in the face, as the thousands of people who have shared their “selfies” show us. The change in facial appearance alone can be so dramatic that critics have claimed that I am finding mothers and daughters and calling them “before” and “after” photos. Nope: It’s just part of the phenomenal catalog of changes that occur with wheat elimination.

      Wheat and grain elimination is, by definition, part of low-carbohydrate diets. Clinical studies are accumulating that demonstrate the weight loss advantages of low-carb diets.^{28, 29} In fact, the success of low-carb diets originates largely from the elimination of wheat. Cut carbs and, by necessity, you cut wheat. Because wheat dominates the diets of most modern adults, removing wheat removes the biggest problem source. (I’ve also witnessed low-carb diets fail because the only remaining carbohydrate source in the diet was wheat-containing products.)

      Sugar and other carbohydrates do indeed count, too. In other words, if you eliminate wheat but drink sugary sodas and eat candy bars and corn chips every day, you will negate most of the weight loss benefit of eliminating wheat. But most rational adults already know that avoiding Big Gulps and Cherry Garcia is a necessary part of weight loss. It’s the wheat that still seems counterintuitive.

      Wheat elimination is a vastly underappreciated strategy for rapid and profound weight loss, particularly from visceral fat. I’ve witnessed the wheat belly weight loss effect thousands of times: Eliminate wheat and weight drops rapidly, effortlessly, often as much as 50, 60, 100, or more pounds over a year, depending on the degree of excess weight to start. Just among the last thirty patients who eliminated wheat in my clinic, the average weight loss was 26.7 pounds over 5.6 months.

      The amazing thing about wheat elimination is that removing this food that triggers appetite and addictive behavior forges a brand-new relationship with food: You eat food because you need it to supply physiologic energy needs, not because you have some odd food ingredient pushing your appetite “buttons,” increasing appetite and the impulse to eat more and more. You will find yourself barely interested in lunch at noon, easily bypassing the bakery counter at the grocery store, turning down the donuts in the office breakroom without a blink. You will divorce yourself from the helpless, wheat-driven desire for more and more and more. And you will notice that your taste perception is enhanced. Foods like candy or cake that you formerly found tasty become sickeningly and intolerably sweet. Foods that you may not have been fond of before, such as Brussels sprouts or broccoli, yield new and delicious flavors that you couldn’t sense during wheat-consuming days, all part of the broad wave of gastrointestinal healing that occurs when your diet doesn’t include wheat and its cousins, a phenomenon that we will discuss in detail. (Apply this principle to kids, by the way, and watch them ask for veggies and chicken.)

      It makes perfect sense: If you eliminate foods that trigger exaggerated blood sugar and insulin responses, you eliminate the cycle of hunger and momentary satiety. Eliminate the dietary source of addictive exorphins and you are thereby more satisfied with less. Excess weight dissolves and you revert back to physiologically appropriate weight. You lose the peculiar and unsightly ring around your abdomen: Kiss your wheat belly good-bye.

       DOWN 104 POUNDS … 20 MORE TO GO

      When I first met Geno, he had that familiar look: gray pallor, tired, almost inattentive. At 5 feet 10, his 322 pounds included a considerable wheat belly flowing over his belt. Geno came to me for an opinion regarding a coronary prevention program, triggered by concern over an abnormal heart scan “score,” an indicator of coronary atherosclerotic plaque and potential risk for heart attack.

      No surprise, Geno’s girth was accompanied by multiple abnormal metabolic measures, including high blood sugars well into the range defined as diabetes, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, high C-reactive protein and other measures of inflammation, and several others, all contributors to coronary plaque and heart disease risk.

      I somehow got through to him, despite his seemingly indifferent demeanor. I believe it helped that I enlisted the assistance of his chief cook and grocery shopper, Geno’s wife. He was at first puzzled by the idea of eliminating all “healthy whole grains,” including his beloved pasta, and replacing them with all the foods that he had regarded as no-no’s such as nuts, oils, eggs, cheese, and fatty meats.

      Six months later, Geno came back to my office. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that he was transformed. Alert, attentive, and smiling, Geno told me that his life had changed. He had not only lost an incredible 64 pounds and 14 inches off his waist in those six months, but he had also regained the energy of his youth, again wanting to socialize with friends and travel with his wife, walking and biking outdoors, sleeping more deeply, along with a newly rediscovered optimism. And he had laboratory values that matched: Blood sugars were in the normal range, HDL cholesterol had doubled, triglycerides dropped from several hundred milligrams to a perfect range.

      Another six months later, Geno lost 40 more pounds, now tipping the scale at 218—a total of 104 pounds lost in one year.

      “My goal is 198 pounds, the weight I had when I got married,” Geno told me. “Only 20 more pounds to go.” And he said it with a smile.

      BE GLUTEN-FREE BUT DON’T EAT “GLUTEN-FREE”

      Say what?

      Gluten is the main protein of wheat, and as I have explained, it is responsible for some, though not all, of the adverse effects of wheat consumption. The gliadin protein within gluten is the culprit underlying inflammatory damage to the intestinal tract in celiac disease. People with celiac