Hereditary Disease: Inherited or learned?

I am fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your view) to be able to reason and theorize on many subjects.  While running down the nutritional tree of though, something occurred to me.  What if things we view as genetic are really not genetic at all?  I know this flies into the face of conventional thought, but to me I see this in a different perspective.

Diabetes, breast cancer etc. are considered to be hereditary.  Chances are greater that you will develop the disease if your ancestors had it.  But at some point, no one in your family tree had it, and they developed the disease.  So one has to conclude that it is in fact not hereditary at all.  More importantly, I think modern medicine has accepted this as fact due to no competing hypothesis.  Until now.

What if hereditary disease is nothing more than hereditary life style?  Maybe a diabetic becomes a diabetic through learning the eating habits of their parents rather than some fixed DNA structure.  Maybe these people are not as doomed to a disease as previously thought.  If you were to take a person whose entire family tree is riddled with diabetes, and taught them to eat a diet that was not conducive to promoting the disease, would they in fact never get diabetes?  I would wager that this, more than anything is what dictates a predisposition to disease.

As us WF people have/are learning, there is a host of diseases that are caused by the consumption of wheat and/or grains.  I think our medical system needs to change and quit working to find drugs to mask an ailment, and focus more on what is it we are consuming that is causing the disease.  Thomas Edison once wrote that the future of medicine did not involve prescribing medicine, but rather treating ailments through nutrition.  I believe he may have been dead on in his belief, but underestimated the power of money and influence.  If it could be proven that diet can cure any ailment, would we need Pfizer or Bayer or any of the other pharma companies?

Take control of your health and write your own story of personal health.  Change your habits and change your life.

A Cold?

On Christmas day I started feeling a sore throat coming on.  I started the regimen of taking zinc, vitamin C and echinacea.  After nearly two weeks, all I have managed to do is to get rid of the sore throat.  After reading about some other WF people, I am beginning to wonder if this is wheat withdrawal I am going through.  I have a foggy brain most days, my sinuses are whacked and just an overall icky feeling.  Nothing I take seems to make a difference.  Nyquil, Sudafed, nothing.  No relief just the same symptoms day after day.

I have read that wheat withdrawal can have similar symptoms as cold/flu.  I can only conclude that this is what is happening to me.  I think it is improving as I have slept through the night the last two nights.  If this is indeed the case, it is a strong argument for not eating wheat.  If it can make you feel this bad removing it from your diet, imagine what it is doing to your system while consuming it!

I am hoping that over the next couple of days my symptoms improve and I get back to a normal state of being.  I do not want to go through this again, that is for sure!  I have read about different levels of severity for wheat withdrawal.  I don't want mine to be the gauge others use as it may not be typical withdrawal.  The level of withdrawal a person experiences may be related to the amount of wheat being consumed.  Mine was a high level, your mileage may vary.

Welcome New Year!

Well, I managed to make it through the holidays.  Cookies, cakes, pies, rolls, oh the wheat products that flourished!  Then add a small trip to the mix and you begin to wonder if you can truly be wheat free.  While I did not do as well as I had hoped, I did manage to keep my weight under control, and even lost a pound.  The last time I was down this much weight I was feeling hungry all the time.  Not now.  I feel satiated most of the time, and not as tired.

One thing that did surprise me though was the number of people who were actually paying attention to what I was doing and posting.  I got a wheat free cookbook from friends, and found that she had actually bought the book and read it.  Another friend borrowed her book as she wanted to know about wheat as well.  It was refreshing to have serious conversation about our health and how to address it.  It was also nice to be able to share ideas about how to accomplish going wheat free with others.  I can't wait to see the results from them.  It should be an exciting time!

As I move forward into the new year, I am encouraged by not only the acceptance by others for this change in diet, but also at finally having my wife getting on board with it.  We haven't gotten into the recipes yet, and there are still meal plannings we have to conquer, but at least we are moving in the right direction.

Are We Truly Healthy?

I am amazed at how we Americans view our health.  We have come to accept that as long as we don't have cancer or a heart attack we are healthy.  We think that because someone is thin, they are healthy.  Outside appearances can be very deceiving.  We are anything but healthy.

Our bodies are factories.  They have evolved to be very efficient, and it knows what it needs to be healthy and efficient.  When we crave a food, it means our body is missing some nutrient and the food we crave is high in this nutrient.  Diseases are a result of poor nutrition.  When we fuel our bodies with the correct fuel, it will protect itself.  Our bodies have built in defense mechanisms and will try it's best to protect itself from foreign invaders.  However, when we introduce foreign matter into our systems, over time the bodies defenses will wear down and we get sick.  A fever is the bodies attempt to kill this foreign matter.  Cancers are a result of the body not being able to expunge these foreign materials.

If you were to look back about 100 years ago in America, you would find there were no records of heart attacks, and cancer was rare as was diabetes.  Doctors and hospitals were for things like severe cuts or broken bones.  We were able to keep ourselves healthy by what we ate.  We used to know the foods that kept us healthy.  We have lost that instinct due to all the processed foods that we have been consuming over the last 60 years.  People who want to lose weight will try any diet that agrees with their personal views, or ones that promise to be easy.  There is no easy path.  We have allowed ourselves to be fooled into thinking the government knows what is best when it does not.

If one were to take a step back and look at all of the diets out there, they would see what they all have in common.  Processed foods are eliminated in favor of whole, natural foods.  These are the foods nature intended for us to eat.  Fruits, vegetables and meat.  For 99% of human existence we have eaten these foods.  I has only been in the last 10,000 years that we began using grains.  It has only been in the last 100 years that we have been using processed foods and oils.  Up until the 1920's there had never been a reported case of a heart attack in the US.  In the 1950's there were only about 500 cardiologists.  Today heart attack is the most common killer and there are over 30,000 cardiologists even though the population has only doubled since the mid 1950's.  Diet is the only thing that has changed for us.

Pollution levels today are far less than they were post WWII.  Prior to WWII most homes were heated with wood or coal.  People still used fireplaces, and they were breathing the dust from these fuels.  Yet cancer was not a common affliction.  One can only deduce that our current health crisis has to be our food supply.  It is the only thing that has changed for the worse.  If you want a long, healthy life, and you don't want to be on medications then you MUST change what you eat.  There is no magic pill to cure what we have done to ourselves.  There is only the magic food that mother nature gave us.

Eat to live, do not live to eat.

End of First Week

Well my first week wasn't exactly a full week, but thought I would just get things on a regular schedule.  I am happy so far with my results.  I think there is some real advantages with this way of eating.  Since starting the middle of last week, I have lost almost 6 lbs.  I am looking forward to losing another 6 this week.

The weekends are the hardest to keep on track.  I did pretty good.  My wife's company had their xmas party Saturday night, and while I was able to eat pretty good, you can assume nothing was organic.  Veggies were probably canned and who knows where the meat came from.  I ate sparingly, and avoided the bread pit.  I did indulge in some libations, but nothing to excess.

Sunday was spend grocery shopping and baking.  This is the time of year my wife makes cookies for xmas.  She gives a lot of them away though.  I convinced her that if she was going to bake, then at least use organic ingredients.  She agreed and to her surprise, they tasted better than previous years.  I cut up fruit for the coming weeks lunches, and cooked some beef tips as well.  Going to do up some chicken tonight and some salad as well.  Not going to pay $7.00 for a fast food salad ever again!

So I started this journey weighing in at 220.5 lbs.  As of this morning I am at 215 lbs.  Not too shabby for having only changed what I eat.  No exercise, nothing else has changed.  I am keeping a close eye on what I eat, and am trying to not eat anything that has been processed.

Day 2/Week 1

So I got up this morning and wasn't famished like I normally am.  A good point so far.  Had breakfast with two eggs and three sausage patties.  Did not drink milk, instead drank my coffee with breakfast.  I was a little leary about weighing myself.  I knew it was only one day, but curiosity got the best of me and I stepped onto the scale.  All I can say is WOW!!!  I was down 3.5 lbs!!!  I am used to getting that kind of weight loss only after starving myself for a week and working out 3 - 5 times.  I know it's only one day, but still!

Decided to do the same lunch again.  I stopped at the store last night and got some mixed nuts in case I get hungry mid-morning again.  Dinner is going to be a challenge as we have homemade chicken noodle soup on the menu.  Might have to find something else to eat, or just have the soup without the noodles.  We'll see how that goes.

Had the munchies around 10:30, not really hungry just wanted something to much.  I grabbed a handful of nuts and ate those.  Forgot about lunch until about 12:30.  Normally I am watching the clock for 11:30 because I am hungry.  Still did not have an afternoon snack.  Had dinner about 7:00, which is an hour later than normal.  I decided to eat some of the homemade soup, just not the noodles.  Drank water with dinner and had a small piece of chocolate.  Had some peanuts around 8:30.  We'll see how the morning weigh-in goes!  Don't feel much different, but I know the weight is coming off.

Day 1/Week 1

So today starts my journey. I know I have a lot to learn, and I am using the resources of others at the wheatbelly.org blog and facebook pages to assist me. I started today off with a breakfast of two eggs, three sausage patties and a glass of milk. One of the things I noticed was I was hungry at 9:30. I asked some others on the FB page, and they said it will go away after about 5 or 6 days. I also learned that my milk has 12 grams of sugar per cup! Wow! Didn't realize that. Guess I will stick to my coffee from now on. Having that much sugar can also trigger hunger cravings. I still have a lot to learn, but I am getting up to speed quickly! Lunch consists of beef tips, and an apple. For snack I have a grapefruit. Probably not the best thing to do, and probably should have used either carrots or celery instead. Going out during lunch to get some nuts.

After lunch I never really got hungry.  This is unusual for me as I normally have a snack around 2:30 so I am not starving on the ride home.  Nothing like that today.  Even after I got home I wasn't feeling hungry.  Dinner was at 6:00 and that was about the time I was starting to feel the need to eat.  Had apple and cinnamon flavored water with dinner.

Dinner was a boneless chicken breast with garlic salt, parmesan cheese, cayan pepper and dillweed.  Sides were steamed broccoli and a small salad with celery and ranch dressing.  Didn't check the ingredients of the ranch, so will do that tomorrow.  Had .25 oz. of chocolate after dinner and a klondike bar around 9:00.  My normal bed time is 10:00, but had to stay up to 11:00 to pick my son up from work.  I wasn't very tired, but went to bed anyways since I have to get up at 5:30.  Will check my weight in the morning.