How my Low Carb Grain Free Adventure Began …

It started with a wrestler.  Who would have thought that a WWE athlete would put me on the path to healthy eating?  Not me!  

I was dragged to a wrestling fan event a few months back by my bf and we met DDP (Diamond Dallas Page).   For those of you not in the wrestling know (believe me I often wish I wasn’t), he started wrestling in 1991 and as you can imagine took some hard knocks in the ring.   He had issues with the discs in his back and of course a lot of wear and tear on his body through the years.  His wife got him started on power yoga.   He has developed his own yoga program (DDPYoga) and was at the event promoting it.   We purchased the DVD’s but I have not started them as yet – more to come on those.    During our chat he suggested we pick up the book Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis.   Motivating myself to read is easier than motivating myself to do yoga so I downloaded it to my e-reader and got started.

The book promotes not only eliminating wheat from your diet but ideally all grains.   It is a low carb, high fat way of eating.   I immediately dismissed it as crazy!  I can’t live without bread, crackers, cookies, gravy, tortillas, popcorn, CAKE!  What doesn’t have wheat or some grain in it?  How can high fat be good for you? 

I needed to know more.   I started reading up on Paleo/Primal and then read Wheat Belly again.  Once the initial shock wore off, Dr Davis started to make sense and I thought it might be worth a try after all.    I am not a huge meat eater, so one thing I prefer with the Wheat Belly approach over Primal or Paleo is that they allow dairy and nuts.   This fills a big void for me.  

Dr. Davis points out that replacing wheat in your diet with candy or junk food is like replacing non-filtered cigarettes with filtered – maybe a small improvement but still very unhealthy.   I think this is key.  Most people’s instinct if eliminating wheat would be to reach for gluten free products but as Dr. Davis notes, many of these are filled with unhealthy fillers and are still carb loaded.  Just like many low fat products that simply up the sugar and salt to maintain flavour, they are not healthiest choices.   Dr. Davis promotes real, fresh food with some limitations such as starchy veg.  There goes my mashed potatoes, although without the gravy they are not as tempting anyway. 

So I am giving Wheat Belly a shot.   I started on Aug. 13^th  and on Aug 20^th  had lost 7 lbs.   

I will be blogging my results, celebrations and challenges, along with recipes that I try along the way.  I have been stocking the grain free essentials so I can get in the kitchen and start experimenting!

You can check out the Wheat Belly Blog here and pick up the book if you like what you see, it is an interesting read:

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2011/10/wheat-belly-quick-and-dirty/

Also worth a look is DDP yoga.  He is such a great guy and the success stories on his site are so inspiring:

http://www.ddpyoga.com/site/index.php/en/

 Until next time,

Allana

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