Steve’s wife, Jenny, shared these photos of her husband feeling well off all wheat and grains, then after a wheat exposure:
“Went to a party last night. Thought he could have pizza since he’s looked so good for so long. This is him before and after.”
Of course, Steve will survive after enduring some misery and perhaps embarrassment. But the whole business of re-exposure to wheat and related grains can be quite nasty. Among the most common wheat/grain re-exposure reactions are:
- Abdominal distress–bloating, diarrhea, discomfort, even severe acute pain
- Joint pain–in fingers and wrists, as well as large joints
- Skin rash–particularly if you had some form of rash, such as seborrhea, rosacea, eczema, or psoriasis during prior grain-consuming days
- Mental/emotional effects–anger, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, depression, restlessness/restless legs, insomnia/disrupted sleep, impulsive behaviors
If you obtained relief from an autoimmune or neurological condition after several months of the Wheat Belly lifestyle (and the Wheat Belly Total Health additional strategies), wheat/grain re-exposure can re-activate your disease. One of my most memorable examples: I was seeing a 52-year old male businessman for mild coronary disease prevention a few years ago. As he had the typical lowish HDL, highish triglycerides, and plenty of small LDL particles underlying his coronary disease, I advised him to eliminate all wheat/grains, as well as add vitamin D and fish oil. (This was prior to the added strategies surrounding cultivation of bowel flora.) He also had rheumatoid arthritis, mostly affecting his hands and resulting in the typical disfigurement, now starting to involve his knees despite receiving a monthly intravenous drug and two oral drugs. On each return visit over 2 years, the pain and disfigurement were receding, enough for him to stop the intravenous drug and one of the oral agents. He reported that he was about 80-90% relieved of his joint problems. He then planned a trip to Germany where he declared “It’s my one and only trip of a lifetime to Germany: I’m having some damned pumpernickel!” He did, and the joint pain and swelling returned in full force, necessitating a return to all 3 drugs for 6 months before pain/swelling receded back to their prior level–6 months.
Some people say that, given the severity of some of these reactions, it’s not worth being wheat/grain-free in the first place. This is nonsense, of course, as it would deny you the extravagant long-term benefits of this lifestyle such as weight loss, freedom from inflammation, reversal of autoimmune conditions like ulcerative colitis and rheumatoid arthritis, reduced insulin and blood sugar, reversal of diabetes, protection from dementia, improved HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, precipitous drops in small LDL particles that lead to heart disease, etc. Why would anyone deny themselves such wonderful health benefits to avoid the occasional or rare exposure?
On the other hand, let’s face it: even the most meticulous among us will experience an occasional re-exposure, particularly when eating at restaurants, friends’ homes, and other social events. It could be a sauce, it could be cross-contamination from cooking utensils, or a “stealth” ingredient, but it can happen. As time has gone on, I have cut my inadvertent exposures to perhaps once a year, nearly always a presumed cross-contamination exposure. But the benefits I gain from the other 364 days of the year without such re-exposures are well worth the small risk.
I am a happy Wheat Belly-ER. I have kept up a 15 lbs weight loss since Nov. I live in a resort town, my husband is a trained chef and I work with many food stylists and chefs. So, in short, I am around trays and spreads of delectable food all the time. Occasionally, I fall off the wagon for a day or two. A homemade cinnamon roll or a night of wood fire pizzas will get the best of me. I usually get bloated and experience diarrhea and cramping for a few days. It is not fun. But, I get right back in the WB lifestyle.
I am human and I am not perfect. But falling off the diet occasionally helps me make this a long term way of living. I know a lot of people are purists and they approach WB as an all-or-nothing way of eating. But I am happy with my approach!
Re: I know a lot of people are purists and they approach WB as an all-or-nothing way of eating.
Actually, it’s important for us to NOT be zealots (allowing the principles to become a new dogma that are more important than the original goals: outcomes).
What matters is actions and consequences.
In the matter of re-exposure, the immediate symptoms may be severe, mild, or even apparently nil. But there can be long term consequences, not all of which are necessarily reversible.
It’s very much like an ex-smoker having an occasional cigarette. It’s a matter of Results, not Religion.
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Butterfly rash and SLE
that’s exactly what I thought, Unc… enough to have gone & google-imaged “lupus rash”…
candida can look similar but not so much this specific pattern… even more reason if has an auto-immune syndrome to avoid the grains!
At times I had a butterfly rash before finally going fully ketogenic. I’d eliminate another carb. The rash would go away only to come back again. SLE is usually secondary, or an end stage, to other autoimmune conditions. It can crop up by itself. However, in my opinion those are cases where nobody was able to find the primary autoimmune disease …..perhaps because there was very little time between wellness and SLE onset to isolate the primary autoimmune disease.
SLE happens when the immune system gets so activated that it attacks the nuclei to all of the cells in the body. The anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) test is a commonly tested marker of SLE.
……It’s serious business.
I would be on high alert, were I him!
I think he will never touch again wheat products.!
It looks like he has rosacea.
Green Juicing will definitely get those symptoms going away a lot faster too and cleansing out the blood. Don’t suffer wheat re-exposure a lot longer than you have to. Investing in a good green juicer is worth it.
«Investing in a good green juicer is worth it.»
Do you have a specific recipe in mind?
And what, in general, does juicing bring to the table that eating the whole vegetable does not?
Wheat Belly promotes certain smoothies, but not juicing per se. As you probably know, juicing otherwise OK-carb fruits is discouraged, because it really spikes sugar intake.
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That’s what I mentioned green juice and not fruit juice. You are totally right, no point in juicing sugary foods. Things like juicing cilantro, ginger, parsley, and watercress along with water veggies like cucumbers and celery help remove toxins. Of course throw you need to throw in some things like spinach, kale, or chard. Throwing in a bunch of lemon makes it taste well, but if your looking for a drink to taste well, this is not for you.
Definitely no substitution for eating fiber veggies. But you can ingest a lot more vegetables in a 16 oz cup of juice than you can eating plates of veggies. Drinking it first thing on an empty stomach, it hits your blood steam right away and starts the detox process of digestion and liver.
«Things like juicing cilantro, ginger, parsley, and watercress along with water veggies like cucumbers and celery help remove toxins. Of course throw you need to throw in some things like spinach, kale, or chard.»
WB doesn’t presently recommend green juicing per se for detox. The only mention of any detox protocol I could find in Wheat Belly Total Health is on page 265 of the print edition, which avers that isothiocyanates from cruciferous vegetables (such as those you mention), and phytoalexins can activate liver enzymes that clear toxic chemicals.
«Definitely no substitution for eating fiber veggies.»
I’m not so sure. I would expect that juicing veggies causes a lot less to be lost as completely undigested fiber.
I suspect that perspiration also has some detox value, perhaps for different threats than veggies address. Thyroid detox isn’t yet on the table (or on the horizon, even).
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Maybe my comments should have never been posted since this is a Wheat Belly forum, if so I apologize to Dr. Davis.
That’s fine if you are skeptical,, and I don’t represent Wheat Belly and I am not trying to. And I really don’t care what you think either. You can “suspect” and be “not sure sure” all you want while others enjoy the benefits.
«Maybe my comments should have never been posted since this is a Wheat Belly forum»
You are misreading my questions and responses, Ben.
What you are proposing may well have value, and isn’t necessarily inconsistent with Wheat Belly Total Health (which is about much more than wheat). I just wanted to clarify what you were proposing, and position it in the context of what WB presently endorses.
I might add, however, that a lot of what people are trying to detox from is pesticides applied to crops. It would be important in juicing vegetables to select organic, so that we aren’t juicing in more toxins.
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RA or lupus? The re-exposure rash sure looks like the typical butterfly!!! Sorry that the exposure is a 6 month set back!!