Has anyone read Wheat Belly? That book is opening my eyes. I used to joke that I was addicted to Thin Triscuits, but for realz, I was. A box in two days, all by myself. I forced myself to stop eating them when I found out the soybean oil used is GMO. I already have food allergies and intolerances, since I was a kid. So I really thought going wheat-less was going to make me feel really, really desperately deprived. I cannot have dairy, citrus, or pork. That makes a lot off limits. But recently, I remembered how much I adore goat's milk cheese and yogurt. (With the cheese you have to make sure the cheese starter culture is from goat's milk and not cow's milk.) I also have tried a few of the recipes at the back of the Wheat Belly book. I also have been on a mega quinoa kick and there is no flaw in that- high in protein, even contains healthy fat. It is a near-perfect food. One of my friends made a comment that perhaps manna was similar to quinoa.

Now I have been off wheat for about 3 or 4 weeks. I am not even counting. I have NO cravings, I tend to eat less, and for the first time in YEARS, my belly is not upset ALL THE TIME. I have lost a little bit of weight, but have not being doing the greatest job of keeping up with walking.

My one concern about the Wheat Belly book is that the recipes are....not that great. The cardiac doc who wrote it, William Davis, being diabetic himself, has some diabetes educated ideas he comes to the table with that are actually not that healthy. Ironic how he is so enlightened about wheat, but still says it's ok to use Splenda or other sugar substitutes. Some of them are a good start. And I have just received the actual cookbook, so maybe it gets better, right? I have made a few adjustments to the recipes I used and they seem a LOT better. The other thing that is glaringly missing from the cookbook portion of the main book is nutritional information by recipe. No calorie counts, no sodium content, no protein, carb and fat content...yikes! After I get a chance to look at the cookbook that literally just came to my door, I will give my two cents worth on it...

I have also increased my water intake. I know this helps to lose weight as well- this cannot be underestimated!!! If you want to lose weight and you are not drinking a LOT during the day, then you don't really want to lose the weight. There is a formula for how much you should drink: take your weight and divide it by two. This is the number of ounces you should drink a day. A caveat however: For every 25 pounds you are overweight, you need an additional 8 ounces. So, if you are 60 pounds overweight, divide that by 25 and you get 2.4 which means you need about 19-20 ounces more than what you calculated above. Also consider if you live in a hot climate and/or exercise daily- that means more, depending on the weather and how much you worked out. For every caffeinated coffee you drink, you need another 8 ounces of water.

Here is something I am going to find out and will post an answer. Based on climate or exercise how much do you increase water intake?

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Simon the Cat