I have said it before – and experienced it personally and professionally – giving up gluten leads to a more balanced weight. It may take some time (took me 8 months off all grains) but then the water retention etc suddenly left me; it was not a gradual weight loss at all. I have always assumed this was a result of lowered inflammation in the body no longer meaning swelling of the tissues etc. And now a recent study suggests I am on the right track with that thought.
Published in Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry this month, and titled “Gluten-free diet reduces adiposity, inflammation and insulin resistance associated with the induction of PPAR-alpha and PPAR-gamma expression, researchers tested the effects of a gluten free diet (albeit on mice) on weight, inflammation and insulin regulation. The gluten free approach reduced markers related to all three. They concluded:
Our data support the beneficial effects of gluten-free diets in reducing adiposity gain, inflammation and insulin resistance. The data suggests that diet gluten exclusion should be tested as a new dietary approach to prevent the development of obesity and metabolic disorders.
Read a useful report and comment here and the abstract from the journal here.
This is the reason why, for many years, I have always advised removal of the most common allergens – wheat, gluten and dairy – in any serious weight loss plan eg. my Belly Fat Plan. Nice to see research is bearing that experience out. We don’t always know the mechanisms for why things work; we just know they do 😉
I’d love to go totally gluten-free but just can’t quite let go of spelt, because as a former professional pastry chef its my last bastion of ‘normalcy’ in baking. I did go totally gluten free for about a year and a half and without effort lost about 2 stone. I then started ‘cheating’ and a stone of that weight has crept back on. I’m about to start training as a naturopathic nutritional therapist, so I’m hoping I can learn to improve my discipline and be able to practice what I preach!
Ha! We all do that. I never baked at all but now am quite proficient at making stuff with just nuts and eggs, which I never thought would be possible! If you already proved it works for you, take the hint would be my advice 😉 What else could that gluten be doing to you that you can’t see if it makes you hold onto fluid/fat…?