Lately, I have been having a hard time sleeping. Actually, let me correct that statement. I have been having a hard time staying asleep at night and staying awake during the day, especially when I am at home. Before or after work I usually have plans to get something done, clean something up, read something, write something, make something beautiful, etc., but as soon as I wake up, I know I need more sleep. As soon as I sit down on the couch, I pretty much pass right out. This isn’t normal behavior for me. I’m usually a on-the-go-sort-of-person. I can’t sit still for too long and my version of sitting down to watch a movie or binge on a tv show involves me constantly getting out of my seat to do something else and use the TV as background noise. I would even comfortably get an average of 5-6 hours of sleep a night and wake up refreshed the next morning. Yeah... one of those A type personalities, I guess.
Lately, though; I would say the last week; I haven’t been my usual self. My brain is foggy, I have headaches, no willpower, bloated, sluggish, exhausted, depressed, bored with no real motivation to do something to entertain myself.
My job isn’t that demanding so it couldn’t be that. I’m not in a relationship to keep me on my toes. Everything is pretty squared away with the people I know... for the most part. So what is the culprit?
Well, I’ve been doing some reading. Not in particular to my own situation. It was for my general amusement. I found and checked out two books from the library I work in called “Grain Brain” by David Perlmutter, MD and “Wheat Belly” by William Davis, MD. Both books discuss the food industry lies concerning the healthful claims when it comes to consuming wheat, whole wheat, whole grain, etc. and it allegedly being a necessary staple to every diet... that is unless you have celiac disease.
Of course, I wont be the one to say that no one should eat wheat products... ok... I will be that one, with the help of these two authors. But before I go on to defame wheat, I’m going to talk about my own personal experiences when it comes to food.
I’m not typically one that eats a lot of bread. The closest thing to bread that I probably consume the most of is pasta, which, let’s face it, is just wet bread. I don’t usually consume sugar too often and typically stay away from carbs with the exception of potatoes and the aforementioned pasta. It’s not so much a rule I have for myself, it’s mostly a preference. I have also gone keto a few times in the past with great success and one of the highlights of being on a low carb diet is that my brain felt clear. I had energy, I slept well and I could focus. The added bonus was that I actually felt happy. Happy in a content sort of way, but that’s a hell of a lot better than feeling like a piece of stomped on shit every day, which is what I kind of feel like right now.
If you have ever successfully switched to keto and gotten past the dreaded “keto flu” at the beginning, then you probably know what I’m talking about.
A little fun-fact about the keto diet is that, in it’s earlier stages of development, it was actually created for people that suffer from schizophrenia and epilepsy. Dieticians and scientists found that a low carb diet reduced the instances of seizures or schizophrenic episodes within sufferers of these ailments while a high carb diet increased the chance of these episodes.
Most people that keep out or a reduced amount of complex carbohydrates will most likely tell you that they feel awake, energized and are more often than not, in a good mood.
So, what does that mean, exactly? Why do people often suggest whole grains or wheat products as a large part of what our diets should look like if people who limit their complex carbohydrates are seemingly living their best lives, so-to-speak?
Well, that answer comes with a ton of different explanations that I could get into.... It’ll take a while. I’ll try my best not to get carried away and write a book of my own, but as I’m sure you’ve heard, the human body is meant to use the food we eat as energy. Our bodies especially love to use carbohydrates as fuel which is why you’ll often see runners “carbo-loading” before a marathon. But unless you are a runner or someone who uses up every last calorie as energy those carbohydrates tend to stick around in the places we don’t want them to stick around and we also seem to have a sort of “sugar crash” if we consume too many carbs and too little proteins. Not to mention that carbohydrate energy doesnt last for very long. This is what I am starting to realize about my current predicament. Too many carbs. I even bought some bread recently, which I have been snacking on. Low and behold, I feel like crap. The bread of course, isn’t the only culprit. No, im not blaming the innocent bread for existing. There are many other foods that contain a high carb content that I’ve been munching on. More so than I normally would. I’ll probably be switching back to keto in the very near future.
Now, as both books have suggested so far, first and foremost, this wheat-based diet that we Americans are so fond of is most likely a large factor in obesity and high mortality rates. We think of diseases such a Alzheimer's as a hereditary factor that most of us can’t avoid, but apparently wheat has been linked to the degeneration of not only or thickening bodies, but also the degeneration of our brains. The reason for this is not only due to the amount of wheat we tend to consume but also the modification of the crop over the years, in general.
We all know that our foods are constantly being experimented on to bring about a high yield crop rate for farmers and consumers alike. A lot of crops have also been genetically modified to be weather resistant, pest resistant and even modified in ways, allegedly for the consumer, such as having no seeds. The wheat crop is no exception and has been bred, and rebred over and over again until it’s basically unrecognizable to it’s origin crop. According to William Davis, MD, author of "Wheat Belly", who is done far more research on the topic while I just use myself as a human guinea pig and report my findings, he writes there is but one farm in the United States that still grows "ancient" crops in full integrity. He also happens to be an individual that suffers from a wheat intolerance and also made himself into a test subject by testing out bread made from the "ancient" wheat one day and then eating bread from the more modern wheat.
First, he reports that both bread loaves, side by side, are slightly different. When baking the breads he used freshly ground mixture of both wheat, water and yeast. The "ancient" wheat bread didn't rise as much as the modern wheat bread. In texture, he claims that the difference between the "ancient" flour is a bit coarser. But how does it taste? This is what really peaked my interest. The modern flour bread in comparison tasted more like cardboard and was a bit flavorless as opposed to the nutty, rich flavor of the "ancient" flour. He described it as tasting almost like peanut butter.
Now, while taste, texture and esthetic is all well and good, the most important part of the experiment is what the breads did to the wheat intolerant author. He wrote that he baked and tried the "ancient" wheat bread first and while he would normally be feeling the pains and anguish of consuming wheat shortly after, he was perfectly fine. Jump to the day he baked and consumed the modern wheat bread and he was welcomed with an all too familiar visitation of discomfort and awfulness.
You might say it's a coincidence or that maybe something else happened in the process of making the modern wheat bread but if a person with a known intolerance to wheat can consume wheat that has not been genetically modified with narry an issue, I feel that may be evidence enough. Seems suspicious to me.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, cause I pretty much think it too. "I don't want to be limited on what I eat." That's perfectly reasonable. After all, if you take a look down any aisle in your local grocery store they are chalk full of wheat filled items. You have the bread aisle that often has it's own row of bread, bagels, tortillas, English muffins, to name a few. Then you have the snack aisle that contains cookies and crackers, all containing wheat. Then the pasta aisle, frozen pizza aisle, frozen dinners, ready in second dinners, bakery, even the deli counter with it's fried chicken, pasta sides and sometimes dredged-in-flour-potato-wedges to make them crispier. All but the detergent aisle offers a plethora of ways to consume wheat. And who can blame us! How do you have mashed potatoes without gravy? How do you eat eggs without toast? An easy breakfast to serve to your kids is cereal or oatmeal. Wheat products has become such a necessity in our diets, not only because it tastes delicious and adds a little somethin-somethin to our meals, but also because, for many of us, the FDA food pyramid has always told us that grains were the most important part of our diet. That is, until, recently, where they changed the pyramid to a wheel. They still put the emphasis on the grains, though.
We can easily put the blame of the rising pandemic of obesity in America on things that we know aren't good for us such as alcohol, fried foods, fast food or even foods with a high caloric rating because of fat or sugar and who can blame us? We've been told all of our lives that whole grains were the way to go if we wanted to be healthy or lose weight. But as I have said before, I have had great success in switching from a "normal" American diet to a low-carb diet in the past. The past week or two I have been eating a lot of complex carbohydrates which really can be the biggest reason I'm feeling like shit run over. There's no good excuse for it other than indulgence. Especially with the rise of carb alternatives such as cauliflower substitution and so many different kinds of oils and butters being put on shelves. I really wish a lot of these items were around the first few times I went keto. Definitely makes it a lot easier.
So! If you're interested I would suggest going to your nearest library or bookstore and taking a gander at William Davis, MD books (he has a few) and David Perlmutter's, MD book, "Grain Brain". They back up a lot of their findings with research, stats, history and other little tidbits that make it hard to argue with.
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