So a few years ago I lost 60 lbs on a medifast type diet. I maintained that for a while. But I hit the same problem I always do... I just couldn't lose anymore weight. I finally decided I had to go back up the scale to try to wake up my metabolism. I started eating what I kind of wanted. Though I tried to keep calories reasonable. I ate what I had been craving...wheat. Bagels... bread, stuff like that. I gained 25 lbs quickly. I was not that upset because I figured it was a product of my suppressed metabolism. But I even wrote about this on diet sites.. I absolutely felt weird. I noticed immediately I was tired. I felt in a trance a lot. I also felt amazingly happy.. I even said to people that I felt like I was on a high.

I kept trying to get off the eating poorly but I kept failing. I would go about 3 days and then dive in.

But then something happened that got my attention. Before going on the diet, I had been eating similarly poorly. For about 3 years... I had been eating whatever I felt like which really had skued toward wheat. During those three years I had been insanely klutzy... I had fallen three times. It was mortifying. Having to go to work with a broke foot... or a smashed up face. Or having to call out sick because I had fallen. I even wondered myself what the **** was happening to me. When I went on the diet, I stopped having this issue.

This week I fell in the shower, in an extremely klutzy and unpredictable way. Fortunately nothing bad happened.... but it was the final straw. For months I had been dropping things ... and I wondered what was up with that. I wondered if it had to do with what I was eating ... I just felt like it had to be... I felt just like I had before the diet... tried and klutzy and almost a little crazy...

I even googled wheat and klutzy behavior.. but didn't find anything. But yesterday I got "wheat belly" and ...

OMG... I knew it.

In addition... I have suspected for a while that wheat is making me act funny... behavior changes. Before starting the diet .. I had an explosion at work.. it was justified, but.. I shouldn't have done it. I yelled at my supervisor. Even then I thought that was crazy and unlike me.. but now I am feeling that building again.. I don't understand it...

So ... here is something scary to consider... my entire life, entire, I have eaten wheat more heavily than others... my entire life I have had sportatic issues... including... klutzy behavior... and at times.. emotional outbursts that I didn't quite understand. What if my entire life has been ruined / impacted by wheat.

I am stopping wheat, as of this weekend.

Another reason I found this was that.... my cat just developed asthma. There is overwhelming evidence.. that cat asthma can be an allergy to grain. Just before he developed this issue I had fed him a new dry grain food for a year. Once I gave him straight wet grain free food... the asthma improved.

So tough to do this though... wheat is in everything. I perhaps now know why low carbing didn't work for me. I went to the store yesterday and wheat was in sausage and some veggie mixes. Even some of the medifast type foods had it in there. Even egg beaters had it. Even some gum.

Good luck, be happy you realized its an issue. Check out paleo eating might help it tends to more clean eating...and no wheat.

What a great revelation! there are so many gluten free items now and recipes!
no reason at all to not eat gluten free replacement foods for those things
that are made with wheat.

I think we are our own laboratories! if we'd just listen and trust what our
bodies are telling us, speaking for myself as well.

Good luck on your better health!

Emma4545….congrats on your new diet change! I've also started the wheat/gluten free diet this weekend and in just two days I don't feel as tired and my belly bloat is in check!

All other diets haven't helped me so far. I either have seen no improvement or they just help me lose overall weight but not the midsection which is my biggest problem, I walk two hours a day but still other diets haven't helped me.

I'm thin but have the belly and every time I eat any form of bread my stomach bloats making me look pregnant! Also I get so tired when ingesting these foods that I have to take coffee before going out! This makes me think that I'm obviously gluten intolerant and want to give this no wheat thing a try.

I have to say I love not feeling tired n less bloated so far!

I know what you mean. I could never get any good results on Low carb, and now, I possibly know why. Wheat is in EVERYTHING. I found wheat listed in veggie mixes (presumably in the sauce); frozen foods even when it doesn't appear to be -- rice and grilled chicken; and the Atkins type bars. They might have been low carb... but they contained wheat. I even found it listed in sausage -- which I surely would have eaten before.

I also found when I lost 60 lbs I still had a belly and upper thighs... but my wrists, ankles and lower arms were very thin, but things still didn't fit right.

When I lost weight on the Meal Replacement plan, I had been given the wrong info and I ate mostly shakes and soup. Though the soup has some wheat in it, when I was just dieting with this, the weight FLEW off. I lost 18 lbs the first month (literally a 1b per day the first week) and a steady 3 lbs for the next four, but then they introduced me to those "candy bar" type foods and, eventually entrees. All of which had a ton of wheat. I can literally track my results and see that the more non-shake foods I had, the slower my weight loss got.

Here is a scary question though... do you find people in general to have things wrong with them? Unable to remember things... vast mood swings... What if wheat is having effects on people today and they don't even know it. Just eating normal food -- even if it is low carb... you are going to get wheat.

Well I noticed this in myself, being forgetful a lot and I'm only 38!! I have read that wheat can cause this, scary if it really messes with the brain

I'm going to pay attention now to mind and body now that I started this diet and see which changes I notice….like I said my fatigue and belly already have improved in two days, so can't complain so far. My weight hit a plateau and I need to do something about it!

The only thing is it will be a double challenge for me because I steer away from meat and dairy but I do eat fish.

Also yes I noticed that everything has wheat in it so I have to really pay attention to the labels, things like hummus even. For so long I thought whole wheat is good for you then I heard how one slice of bread can raise your GI higher than a candy bar and I was like what!!!!

I am a believer that it does. It was ME who started to wonder on my own if it was messing with my head. Messing with my coordination and also, messing with my ability to think and also my emotional state. This is what caused me to seek out Wheat Belly in the first place. I noticed I had this kind of trace like state where I always felt rushed and like things were spinning out of control.. but they weren't. I noticed I was upset too easily. But also, didn't want to do anything. I was tired all the time and have taken to afternoon coffee just to keep me awake after work.

I have long maintained I find most people crazy these days... in sporadic ... bouts... but now I wonder... is it wheat? The only reason I noticed what was happening was because I had a time period were I was eating these MRs that largely didn't have wheat. It was only when I increased the volume of wheat in my diet for a sustained period that I started to notice something was wrong... if you have eaten wheat your entire life you might just think that is the way things are.