Beat Carbohydrate Addiction with the No-Grain Diet

What were your thoughts when you first heard about the No-Grain Diet?

Yes, it may sound extreme and radical but it’s not another fad diet.

If you have trouble sticking with a strict diet or if you find it extremely difficult to suppress your food cravings, then the no-grain diet may be just what you need.

Dr. Joseph Mercola explains that when he uses the term “no-grain,” he is not speaking solely about grains; he expands no-grain to include all forms of grains, starches and sugars that promote weight gain, food addiction and health problems.

The No-Grain Diet emphasizes that grains and sugars are a dieter’s worst enemies when it comes to weight loss and living longer.

For Dr. Mercola, overcoming carbohydrate addiction is one of the most important keys to optimal health. He explains that fats shouldn’t be blamed when people gain weight and get fat; the real villains are grains, starches and sugars.

Why Most Diets Just Don’t Work

Majority of diets fail because of the cravings for grains and sugars. Foods like bread, pizza and cookies have caused a lot of people to abandon their diets due to grain addiction.

The Atkins' diet tried to solve this problem by promoting a reduced carbohydrate diet. As a result, many people started to believe that all carbs are bad. However, it was the bestselling book The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet by Drs. Rachael and Richard Heller which first drew attention to carb addiction and its associated health dangers.

But despite their sound diagnosis, the Hellers’ food plan was ineffective because for them, it was still okay for dieters to eat ample quantities of grains, starches and sweets for a brief period every day.

Dr. Mercola explains that diets fail because you just return to your old habits after doing the diet. This is not to say that you lack the willpower; it's simply because you’re just following what your body is telling you to do because of the cravings.

The Advantages of the No-Grain Diet

The common misconception about the no-grain diet is that one has to stop eating all types of carbohydrates. Mercola explains that quality high-carbohydrate foods such as whole grains and potatoes are not necessarily bad for everyone. However, people who need to lose weight should completely avoid all carbohydrates at the beginning.

Whole grains can be healthy – if you are at your ideal weight. But if you have been struggling with your weight for the longest time, it's most likely that they aren't healthy for you, especially if you’re eating processed breads, pastas, and cookies rather than healthy grains like quinoa, teff, millet, buckwheat, and amaranth.

Therefore, the first step is to eliminate all grains, starches and sweets from your diet. This will help reorient your body's signals to help you lose weight and get fit.

One of the flaws in the Atkins' diet is that it promotes excess animal protein consumption, which hinders your ability to lose weight and keep it off in a healthy and sustainable fashion.

The no-grain diet addresses this concern and helps dieters incorporate a wider range of healthier foods than other diets. Dr. Mercola recommends the consumption of more organic foods and vegetables, and guides dieters in selecting the right source of proteins, which is crucial to any successful and long term weight loss program.

With the no-grain diet, you'll also learn about the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT, a psychological acupressure method. EFT will help you get rid of your remaining grain and sugar cravings. Once you permanently overcome your grain and sugar addiction, you effectively eliminate the biggest obstacles to weight loss.

Dr. Mercola has applied the principles of the no-grain diet for over a decade on thousands of patients with a high success rate. Slowly but surely, more scientific studies are supporting the no-grain diet’s teachings, bringing hope to those suffering from obesity and carbohydrate addiction.

Wheat Bread Is Not a Healthy Food

Bread symbolizes life and nourishment. It would be hard to look at it in another way. Since 1990, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines have recommended the daily consumption of 6 to 11 servings of bread (though the government’s food pyramid doesn’t say the types of grains you should include in your diet).

The Bleached Truth about White Bread

White bread is made from wheat flour without the bran and the germ, and is often bleached to remove any yellow coloring and extend its shelf life.

Flour mills use nitrogen oxide, chlorine, chloride, nitrosyl, benzoyl peroxide and various chemical salts as chemical bleaches. Chloride oxide is particularly worrisome because it combines with the residue protein left in the flour to form alloxan, a poison used to produce diabetes in lab animals. The use of chloride oxide strips the flour of vital wheat germ oil. The process of making the flour white also destroys half of the good unsaturated fatty acids and virtually kills all of the nutrients.

A study done by the University of California’s College of Agriculture revealed that when the wheat germ and bran are removed, the entire vitamin E content is lost and almost 50 percent of calcium, 70 percent of phosphorus, 80 percent of iron, 98 percent of magnesium, 75 percent of manganese, 50 percent of potassium, 65 percent of copper, 80 percent of thiamin, 60 percent of riboflavin, 75 percent of niacin, 50 percent of pantothenic acid and about 50 percent of pyridoxine are also destroyed.

So, aside from tasting bland, the white bread you get is left with only poor quality proteins and fattening starch.

The Many Hazards of Eating Wheat

Many consumers have become aware of the many deficiencies of white bread and are now buying wheat bread instead, believing that it is more nutritious and therefore, healthier.

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “whole wheat bread offers a nutritional advantage over white bread.”

This may be true to some extent but according to Dr. Mercola, wheat bread is likely to cause health problems for a lot of people.

It may be hard to believe this at first because of the conventional belief that organic whole grains are healthy for everyone. Even Dr. Mercola agreed to this theory as a med student and it was only after 15 years of research outside of medical school that he learned that grains — even organic whole grains, and especially wheat — are a major reason why many people get sick from a wide variety of diseases.

The main reason why grains should not be considered as health food is that they will typically lead to a rise in your insulin levels. But what happens when your insulin levels increase?

• weight problems
• high blood pressure
• high blood cholesterol
• Type 2 diabetes
• cancer

Wheat also contains mycotoxins (toxins produced by fungus), so matter what the form wheat takes — whole wheat, cracked wheat, sprouted wheat, and so on — they are all capable of causing health problems, including:

• Celiac disease
• rheumatoid arthritis
• miscarriages
• headaches
• infertility
• developmental delay in children
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Celiac disease is an autoimmune digestive disorder which has been associated with conditions ranging from diabetes, anemia, short stature, infertility, Down syndrome and diarrhea. Patients suffering from Celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley.

According to a study done in 32 states, almost 2 million Americans suffer from Celiac disease but majority of the people in the U.S. are unaware of this illness.

Another not-so appetizing fact about wheat: wheat flour is used to make glues for book binding and wall-papering and is also the key ingredient for paper mache mortar.

For Dr. Mercola, one of the most important changes you can make to your diet is to limit or if necessary, completely eliminating wheat from your diet. This will also benefit your weight loss efforts. You can also find out what foods to eat and which ones to avoid by identifying your Nutritional Type.