The Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox: The effortless health and weight-loss solution

PHYTATES BLOCK NUTRIENT ABSORPTION. Grains are full of phytates, compounds that block absorption of iron, zinc, magnesium, and other nutrients. (This is part of the reason why grains, such as breads, are fortified: to compensate for the nutrient-blocking effects of phytates.) Such deficiencies have implications of their own, including fatigue (if iron deficiency anemia develops), skin rashes and impaired immunity (from zinc deficiency), muscle cramps, disrupted blood sugar control, and bone thinning (from magnesium deficiency). Wheat and grain consumption is the second most common worldwide cause for iron deficiency anemia after blood loss. Given their phytate content, grains are about as nutritious as identity theft is good for your credit score. Grains are anti-nutrients.

That’s a partial list of the components of grains that mess with health; there are more. With the exception of the highly digestible carbohydrate in grains, amylopectin A, you can detect a recurring theme in the problematic proteins of wheat and grains: They are indigestible or, at best, only partially digestible, unlike, say, the fully digestible proteins of an egg or piece of fish. If we recognize that grains—literally the seeds of grasses—were added to the human diet relatively recently in human history and added during a period of desperation (after all, who would intuitively or naturally view grasses as a source of calories?), it means that humans have had insufficient time to adapt. The indigestible or partially digestible proteins harvested from the seeds of grasses therefore exert peculiar effects on us, from mind effects to autoimmunity.

Such toxins come packaged in varied and delightful, enticing ways, such as cupcakes and kids’ breakfast cereals, all gussied up with clever marketing, leading me to call wheat and grains perfect chronic poisons. I promised not to go into these effects any further, since my intention with the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox is to help you get on track as fast as possible without getting bogged down in the science and rationale (those are discussed in the original Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health and in Wheat Belly Total Health: The Ultimate Grain-Free Health and Weight-Loss Life Plan). Rest assured that this book is not based on conjecture or anecdote; it is based on real science, solid rationale, and real results. But it is important to understand that the approach outlined here achieves such huge and unexpected results not because we are just cutting back calories or because we have only reduced carbohydrate intake. It works because we are eliminating the dozens of toxic compounds that live in wheat and grains.

NICOLE, 48, flight attendant, Georgia

“If I had to pinpoint the motivation behind my grain-free journey, it would be the night my son ended up in the emergency room at midnight doubled over in pain with a severe stomachache. He had stomachaches before. Not on a daily basis, but periodically he would say his stomach hurt. Sometimes, he would feel like he had to vomit, other times he would sit on the toilet for what seemed like an hour. A lot of times he would miss school. A straight A student and gifted athlete. He had every reason to be angry and frustrated, and to have an ‘I don’t give a dang’ attitude.

“I decided that night in the hospital, when they sent my son home with a painkiller and laxatives, that I was going to try to figure out what was wrong with him. I had him undergo allergy testing, which yielded no allergies. He was tested for celiac, Crohn’s, and gluten intolerance. Nothing. I started documenting his food intake. I started noticing that he ate a lot of processed foods and easy-to-make things like sandwiches, pasta, and microwaved food. He was eating a LOT of grains. I found Dr. Davis on Facebook and immediately bought the first Wheat Belly book. After reading it, there was no doubt in my mind that my son was intolerant to grains.

“Little by little, I changed his diet. No more processed foods, no more pasta. His stomachaches started getting more infrequent, and there was a definite correlation between eating grains and his stomachaches. Sometimes the timing would be unusual, in that he would get a stomachache several days later after eating, say, chocolate chip cookies. But I could definitely see a connection.”

FEED THE INSATIABLE MONSTER

You now know that there is a soup of toxic compounds in wheat and grains. This is true even if they are organic, traditional or heirloom, sprouted, or topped with your extra-special gravy. This is because grains contain such toxic components naturally, only made worse by recent genetic manipulations.

The amping up of appetite by wheat and grains, in particular, is worth discussing further for a moment. Gliadin-derived opiates drive appetite in an “I can never get enough to eat” way, as discussed above. The amylopectin A carbohydrate drives blood sugar highs, followed by blood sugar lows that launch a 2-hour cycle of hunger. But there’s more.

WGA is also suspected of blocking leptin, the hormone of satiety charged with signaling your brain with a “stop eating” message when your stomach is full after, say, two trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet. In the presence of WGA, this signaling system is blocked, causing you to eat even after you are full, after you have taken in what you require for sustenance, making the chocolate cake, peach pie, and cheesecake at the end of the buffet irresistible—even when common sense, good judgment, and every other body signal tell you that you’ve had enough.

Making matters worse, high blood insulin provoked by amylopectin A causes belly fat to grow, viewed on the surface as a “muffin top” or “love handles” and seen on imaging tests such as CT scans as deep visceral fat encircling the abdominal organs. This belly fat is inflammatory fat that drives insulin levels up even further. Insulin causes fat storage and prevents mobilization of fat for energy. Eat grains, increase appetite, provoke high insulin, grow belly fat, increase inflammation, provoke even higher blood insulin—around and around it goes, a vicious cycle that ensures weight gain, the entire process initiated by a friendly looking blueberry muffin or bowl of organic oatmeal.

You’ll find these phenomena reflected in the comments of some of our detox panelists, such as Rebecca, Alexandria, and Joan. All of them struggled mightily with incessant, unstoppable, insatiable appetites while eating grains, and all were magnificently relieved of this monster by banishing them.

This is why I call wheat and its closely related grains not just perfect chronic poisons, but also perfect obesogens: foods that are perfectly crafted to make you fat, especially in the abdomen, what I call a wheat belly. If you have struggled to lose weight despite doing everything “right” while including plenty of “healthy whole grains,” you now understand that you were actually following a weight gain program—not too different from a cigarette smoking cessation program that bases its success on smoking more cigarettes. If your waist size expanded, the scale registering higher and higher, while metabolic distortions like high blood sugar and triglycerides accumulated as you blamed yourself for weakness, gluttony, or sloth, well, you succeeded in allowing the perfect obesogens in wheat and grains to do their dirty work.

YVETTE, 50, history professor, New Jersey

“The weight gain was really depressing. I had always been slender. Suddenly, I was a different person. Nothing in my wardrobe fit; my body felt like a stranger to me. I could tell that people were looking at me and wondering what happened. It’s been humiliating and embarrassing. I just didn’t feel like I had the mental energy to tackle a traditional diet such as Weight Watchers. A big part of our social life is sharing meals with our friends, and I like to cook and bake, and I did not want to give that up either. What I really want more than anything is just to get back to a place where I feel comfortable and healthy and confident in my own skin again.”

Understand these simple truths and you will understand why removing wheat and grains completely—without hesitation, without compromise, without a tearful goodbye—finally points you in the right direction, allowing control over weight and health. You were not weak, gluttonous, or slothful; you were feeding the insatiable monster created by eating grains.

We will also discuss why, once you are wheat- and grain-free, it is important to remain that way, or else you can be reexposed to their appetite- and weight-increasing effects. While one cookie or pretzel does not, of course, trigger a 30-pound weight gain by itself, all it takes is just one such indulgence and—bam!—the appetite-igniting effects return in all their lip-smacking, mind-clouding, bowel-agitating glory. I called this the “I ate one cookie and gained 30 pounds” effect in the original Wheat Belly book because I’ve seen it happen many times. Go wheat- and grain-free for, say, 3 months, then have a cookie or inadvertently get exposed to the flour in a sauce or bread crumbs in meat loaf, and your appetite is powerfully triggered, your resolve disintegrates, and your size 10 pants no longer fit. You regain 10, 20, or 30 pounds over a month because you lost control due to reexposure to all the components of grains. You may suffer some depression, mind “fog,” joint pain, and diarrhea on top of it, as well. Some indulgence!

This is why I tell you about such effects, so that you understand this can and does happen. Don’t let it happen to you in your quest for grain-free, fully empowered health.

ELIZABETH, 48, sales consultant, New York

“I spent most of my adult life overweight. I exercised regularly and was probably cardiovascularly fit, but I was also anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds overweight. Then in 2010, I got breast cancer at 42. It was like a punch in the gut. I didn’t see it coming. I was very fortunate that my cancer was treatable, and I had surgery to remove my left breast, then I started chemo about 6 weeks later. Chemo was awful. I have no words to describe how horrible it makes you feel. And one of the presents that I was left with after treatment was this chronic joint and muscle pain, mostly in my knees and legs, but also in my hips and upper back.

“I started reading up on grain elimination diets, and the part about wheat consumption triggering autoimmune disease really intrigued me. The more I read, the more I felt that I wanted to try eliminating wheat to see if it could help me manage my pain.

“I used to LOVE going for walks. If I walk now, even just for a few miles, I am in so much pain it’s just not worth it. What motivates me is to just keep improving, to prove to myself that there’s an inner athlete inside of me, a woman who is in control of her destiny and her health, not at the mercy of this chronic muscle and joint pain. If following this lifestyle truly helps diminish some of the chronic pain that I feel, that would mean more than anything to me. That’s my goal: to live life to the fullest, to treat my body with respect by exercising regularly and eating foods that nourish it, and to just feel good and pain-free every day.”

A WHEAT BELLY HEALTH MAKEOVER

Recognize these essential truths about wheat and grains and you will be empowered in ways and to a degree that you thought unattainable. Because of previous failures, you may have come to believe, for instance, that you would never again achieve high school weight, or fit into a size 8 dress or skinny jeans, or have a flat tummy, or not rely on prescription medications, or simply go about your day unimpaired by stiffness and fatigue. Part of the transformation of the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox is to start believing again that you can achieve these goals.

My days are packed with hearing the success stories of people who have lost as much as 150 pounds, have dropped from double-digit dress sizes to single digits, are able to stop long lists of prescription drugs, have regained youthful energy, and are earning compliments from friends and family who are convinced they’ve either discovered the Fountain of Youth or undergone expert plastic surgery without the scars. While the weight loss and youth-restoring effects are indeed wonderful, it’s the turnaround in health that is most exciting: No other lifestyle approach has the potential to minimize, even fully reverse, the hundreds of health conditions that the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox can address.

The full benefits of this lifestyle can only get a powerful start during these first 10 days, with longer periods required, of course, to drop 12 dress sizes, lose 100 pounds, or reverse more complex health conditions. But you will more than likely get a powerful sense of the tidal wave of changes that are going to take place. You will see this reflected, too, in the stories of our detox panelists—the ups, the downs, the tsunami of body changes—as they begin their health-restoring and weight-loss journey.

Weight loss can be achieved by cutting calories and portion sizes (though it is a painful process that requires monumental willpower), counting “points,” cutting carbs, and even cutting fat (at least at first). But such weight-loss efforts achieve just that: weight loss, often accompanied by plenty of tears, doubts, cravings, swearing, self-loathing, and temptation. Weight loss can restore limited aspects of health, but it certainly won’t reverse unhealthy bowel flora, or provide relief from joint pain or bowel urgency, or reverse inflammatory, autoimmune, or neurological conditions. Losing weight alone is like applying new cosmetics: You may look a little nicer and present a better face to the world, but your underlying health is not improved by a new eye shadow or shade of lipstick.

Let’s instead view excess weight not as just excess weight, but as a reflection of disrupted health, an outward sign of hormonal and metabolic signals gone haywire. In other words, if you carry excess weight, look at this no differently than, say, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, an inflammatory condition, or lupus. They are all abnormal health conditions. Losing weight is just losing weight—that is not what you should be achieving. If that were true, starvation would be a perfect health strategy. You should aim to achieve health; weight loss will follow naturally, effortlessly, without counting calories, without limiting portions, without reducing fat. You are going to experience a genuine head-to-toe, inside-and-out body makeover. We will, however, have to talk about carbohydrates, as they have proliferated in modern foods to such an extraordinary degree, thanks to the misguided low-fat message that now determines food manufacturers’ product designs.

PHILIPPA, 40, administrative assistant, Virginia

“The way that I felt at 20 versus 40 years old is dramatically different. If I project out another 20 years to 60 years old, I’m not sure how motivated I’ll be to stick around. The joint pain and exhaustion could be ridiculous by then. I have to figure out how to feel better.

“I don’t want to retire and feel awful. I don’t want to shop in the plus sizes. I don’t want another 10 years of avoiding family pictures because I’m not comfortable in my own skin. I used to be confident and aggressive. Now I clam up because I feel ugly and weak. I want to play tennis and basketball with my 12-year-old instead of being tired. Why does my desk job exhaust me? It’s not normal!

“I HAVE to do this for me.”

While banishing all things wheat and grains sounds like an overwhelming process to some, it is readily accomplished once you understand the rules on how to navigate foods. But it doesn’t end there. Just as an alcoholic who stops drinking two fifths of bourbon a day on Tuesday is not restored to perfect health by Thursday, or even a year later, so it goes with wheat and grains. There are additional steps you must take to heal the wounds incurred from 10, 20, 40, or more years of their consumption. These further steps are necessary to regain health, reprogramming your body by following this new dietary script. Gastrointestinal, immune, and metabolic health, in particular, require special coddling, even during our rapid-fire 10-day timeline.

Some of you may also want to achieve as much weight loss and health in as short a time as possible (while doing it safely, of course). Perhaps you allowed weight to get far out of control while enduring years of prescription drugs for a variety of health struggles, never once suspecting that your high-fiber breakfast cereal or the drug prescribed for high blood pressure or an allergy was among the culprits causing weight gain.

Upon learning that simple food choices are to blame for starting the entire list of health disruptions, you may now be motivated and excited to reverse this disastrous health mess as fast as possible. But let’s be realistic: If you have, say, 150 pounds to lose, it’s not going to happen in 10 days. But the health benefits that get jump-started during these initial 10 days, even if the weight loss amounts to no more than 5 pounds, are going to be crucial in setting the stage for future continued success because, remember, you are trying to reestablish health, not just a healthy weight.

PUT ON YOUR BEST PERFUME, LIGHT SOME CANDLES . . .

All right, enough of trying to get you in the mood. Let’s get down to business.

I’d like to make one last request before some of the most profound changes in your life get under way. The Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox process is contrary to prevailing nutritional “wisdom” and will cause you to discard most of the ideas about health and nutrition that you may have held for most of your life. This means that you’d do best by starting with a clean slate, free of decades of misinformation and marketing. I’m asking you to open your mind to the possibility that the worldwide epidemic of obesity is not due to new and widespread extremes of gluttony and laziness, that the boom in diabetes should not be blamed on human weakness, that the explosion in autoimmune diseases should not be blown off as inheriting a bad genetic hand, and that the process of detoxification should not involve ingesting juices with magical properties or tubes inserted in uncomfortable places. Be open to the possibility that real answers lie elsewhere and you will be empowered to enjoy the solution.

In the interest of getting you to your goals as quickly and powerfully as possible, I won’t dwell anymore on the science or ponder how and why this lifestyle achieves so many goals that previously eluded you. In the rest of the book, we will be concerned with the practical steps that get you to your weight and health goals as quickly, effortlessly, and effectively as possible.

The Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox is a hard-hitting, no-nonsense, no-romantic-interlude kind of book, an ultra quick-start to a life-changing way of eating, unfettered by the details of the why (which, should your curiosity be piqued, can be found in the preceding Wheat Belly books). Be prepared to tighten your belt and to rediscover what freely mobile joints and normal bowel habits feel like and what it means to be clearheaded and energetic while enjoying food like you never have before.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_5fdbb7dc-f865-5fe5-8630-df862baca2f4)

YOUR 10 DAYS START NOW (#ulink_5fdbb7dc-f865-5fe5-8630-df862baca2f4)

YOUR 10-DAY COUNTDOWN to a new life that is dramatically different starts now.

Sit down, grab a handle, and strap yourself in: You are going for the ride of your life. It will be a roller coaster of emotional and physical turbulence, with a few yelps, nausea, and moments of panic along the way that will land you in a place you likely have not been before—a world of health, single-digit clothes sizes, feeling wonderful, and being the recipient of jealous looks from the perplexed and frustrated grain-eaters around you, as well as of appreciative looks from your partner. This is your ticket to that world.

It may sound like an overused, over-the-top prediction to say that the Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox experience will be life changing, but I assure you it will. It will be as life changing as surviving the throes of adolescence minus the acne and social bumbling, as life changing as having children without the diapers and sleepless nights. I predict that the changes will be so dramatic you will wonder how you managed to endure life before you discovered these answers to your health and weight struggles.

You may come to view your life as pre-detox and post-detox. Those of you who start the process with a health problem or five can typically expect dramatic improvements in health and the way you feel. Even within the first week, joint pains in the fingers and wrists, acid reflux, facial redness and rash, and bowel urgency can disappear, while over the second week and onward energy improves, the belly shrinks visibly, and pain in larger joints like knees and hips can begin to recede. It’s not uncommon for health to improve in such a broad front that it’s hard to keep up with reducing or eliminating prescription medications. People with high blood pressure or diabetes, in particular, commonly witness marked reductions in blood pressure and blood sugar within days, making it necessary to whittle down medications rapidly (to be discussed).

You may find it helpful to record your experience with this detox, as well as your long-term Wheat Belly journey. Maintaining a journal that chronicles the health and life changes that you undergo can help in the future, when you may start telling yourself things like “My life before Wheat Belly really wasn’t that bad,” or as memories of your grain-filled tribulations recede (as memories often do), or as friends try to persuade you to go back to the grain dark side. Refer back to your recorded descriptions of the changes you endured, the withdrawal effects, the health transformations you enjoyed, and the improvements in the way you feel, and you will be reminded that you did indeed undergo some dramatic changes and that going back is a really bad idea. Even better, consider also snapping some “before” selfies or find some recent photos of yourself that you can hold up against the “after” pictures. I predict that this graphic record of the changes you are going to experience will astound you with their stark contrast. Include close-up photos of your face, as these will especially highlight the changes you’ll experience.

Even people who start this process just to lose a few pounds, but feel pretty good at the start, report that they feel even better after the initial detox, noting that issues they’d come to accept as part of life, such as rashes, foot pain, or mental fog, have disappeared. People will say, “I didn’t realize that I really didn’t feel that great, but now I feel better than I have in 20 years.” In addition to feeling 20 years younger, many actually look 20 years younger.

But I won’t kid you: For many people, things may get worse before they get better. The first several days of your detox may be tumultuous, filled with emotional ups and downs and unpleasant experiences. You will see this reflected in the experiences of our detox panelists, including Jennifer, who endured a week of incapacitating fatigue and headaches before she began to emerge. An occasional person will experience transient worsening of chronic joint pain or migraine headaches. It will almost certainly disrupt the routine of your life: You may sleep longer; the dishes and dirty laundry may pile up; the family may be annoyed at your apparent malaise.