The truth about Gluten

My take on going Gluten Free (video below)

I’ve worked with thousands of people over my decade or so in this industry and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being amazed at the dramatic effect going gluten-free can have on someone’s waistline and overall health.

Even if you aren’t gluten sensitive, allergic, intolerant, a celiac or even believe in all the gluten hype almost everyone can benefit from going gluten free or low gluten. Why? Well, the reason might be different than what you are used to hearing.

As soon as you remove gluten from your diet you’ve also removed most breads, cookies, pastas, cereals and almost all processed food. Gluten is really only evident in grains and grains are one of the most processed foods on the planet. It doesn’t matter if the loaf of bread you’re eating claims it came from the “tree of life” itself…it’s been heavily processed.

Removing processed foods from your diet is one of the fastest and healthiest ways of losing weight!

There are two ways most people have trouble losing weight or are steadily gaining weight. They are regularly consuming processed foods and second, they are consuming too much food in general. Processed foods not only lack much in the way of nutritional value (so it’s easy to overeat them), they also turn into sugar quickly in your system, in return they crank the fat storage hormone Insulin. Combine this with eating too much processed food and you have an excellent environment for weight/fat gain.

If you are currently someone who lives on cereal, breads, crackers, and pastas, going gluten-free would be a huge change for you. You will now have no choice but to choose whole, unprocessed foods and your body will love you for it…although there may be a transition period.

When someone’s diet is full of processed foods (yes even the supposed “healthy” whole wheat kind) they tend to be riding a blood sugar high throughout the day. Remove the high blood sugar foods and “high” associated with them and many people tend to feel flat, low energy and lethargic for the first few days or so. Also because many grains (wheat especially) have opiate-like effects on the body (meaning they are addictive) “coming down” from them can have some negative side effects. Basically, some people can expect to feel like they are going through withdrawals in the first week. These symptoms are totally normal and the key is to stay strong and push through it!

When going gluten free you are going to come across all kinds of “gluten-free” replacement foods. Switching from eating regular cookies to now eating gluten-free cookies isn’t going to help you with your fat loss goals in any way. In fact, most “gluten-free” baked goods can have a worse glycemic reaction than the foods you were replacing in the first place. They can still be high in sugar, calories, and carbohydrates. They may be healthier from the inflammatory gluten perspective but they aren’t healthier from the lose fat perspective.

The key isn’t just to find replacement treats for all your old treats…it’s to get rid of the mindless treats that are the cause of your weight gain in the first place. If your goal is fat loss then save your treat foods (even the gluten free ones) for once per week as a reward for eating clean all week.

Is having some occasional gluten going to kill you or screw with your fat loss goals…definitely not. But, you’ll never know if you are sensitive to gluten or if eating gluten type foods too often is what’s keeping you from seeing progress with your goals unless you give going gluten free for a few weeks a solid try.

If you’re looking for a plan to help you make that Gluten Free transition as easy as possible check out my Coaching Program.

Jade McClure – Vancouver Personal Trainer & Nutrition Coach

Check out my Video Blog on the Truth about Gluten!

 

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Jade is a Vancouver Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach with over a decade of helping people get fit and healthy.

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