I went to a naturopath the other day and she told me to get on a grain free diet. I gave her a deer-in-the-headlights look. She laughed, “It’s not as bad as it sounds” She then gave a few ideas on how to get started. After my appointment I got onto Google and started searching for meal ideas. I found some great information! I will talk more about it as the weeks go on. Over the next month I will be creating some grain free meal plans and we will start incorporating the into our life. I am very excited about it. I will be using the Plan to Eat website to assist me. During my search I found a VERY cool website that if you are grain free or are thinking about becoming grain free you should check out! It is called Elana’s Pantry follow this link to see more www.elanaspantry.com I also recommend her book, look in the amazon box at the right of the page to find out more about it.
So far the biggest benefit I have found that the grain free diet does for you is help you lose belly fat and help your heart by increasing your consumption of healthy fat and reducing the consumption of carbohydrates and bad fat. It is not the Atkin’s diet. I wondered that when I started my research about it. I found the answer to my Atkin’s question at www.nograindiet.com, Dr. Mercola talks about the differences…
“Dr. Atkins provided a major jumpstart to help establish the connection between obesity and insulin, and major studies now validate this approach. I have enormous respect for him for providing us a deeper understanding to the riddle most people face with weight loss.
Unfortunately, Dr. Atkins didn’t take his program far enough as he labeled all carbohydrates as bad.
As most of you already know I happen to believe that vegetable carbohydrates are quite grains and as such do not need to be restricted to effectively reduce weight.
When you understand Metabolic Typing it becomes obvious that some people indeed require up to two-thirds of their diet as vegetable carbohydrate. So these people are actually on a high-carbohydrate, but no-grain, no-sugar, diet.
This failure to recognize that each person has a unique biochemistry is the critical piece of the puzzle that Dr. Atkins was missing. However, once you understand this, it is easy to discern why studies that evaluate Dr. Atkins’ approach are not able to consistently validate its effectiveness.
This is largely related to the fact that one-third of people should never be on a low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diet such as the Atkins diet. Although they may lose weight initially, it is ultimately a prescription for disaster for them. These heavy individuals actually require a high-vegetable, no-grain, no-sugar diet along with low fat and protein intake.
This is their ideal fuel mixture, and if they don’t receive it they will not burn calories effectively and will use the extra fat and protein and deposit it as fat in their bodies.
Additionally, in the Atkins program very little attention is directed toward encouraging people to focus on the quality of their food. Dr. Atkins’ newer books provide some mention of the need for this, but the mentions are brief and cursory.
Fried meats like bacon and heavily processed meats like lunch meats are fraught with their own long-term complications. While they may promote weight loss in the short term, it is shortsighted to load your body up with trans fats, which have been associated with cancers and chronic diseases.
While most people will indeed benefit from restricting grains and sugars from the diet, it is important to remember that there is no perfect diet for everyone or every condition. Diet really needs to be modified and adjusted to fit each specific person with his or her own unique genetic requirements.”
See the question and answer here… http://www.nograindiet.com/expert/20030628.htm
I am excited we have started this new diet so far it’s been a fairly smooth transition. I think it’s tasty and easy! I do not believe everyone needs to be on a grain free diet but I am sure having fun with it! Have a wonderful day!
~Mae
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