Cutting It Out

By M Ryan Taylor

I have had a religious connection with wheat and wheat products almost since my birth. Cereals, bread, pastries, donuts, mmm . . . . Wheat is great. It is versatile, has a pretty nutritious profile (if left in its whole-grain form) and is absolutely wonderful as a high-energy staple for people who have very little to eat. Where I see wheat becoming a problem is in a culture that is overflowing with abundance, where most of the wheat has most of the nutrition processed right out of it.

Like the culture that surrounds me, I am also personally overflowing with abundance. I want to trim that abundance down to a respectable size. In order to do that, I have cut wheat out of my daily regimen (though it did tend to creep in on my holidays). This was one of the decisions I made last summer when I started paying attention to what I was eating and not just trying to “eat less.”

Why wheat, lovely wheat? I am not dealing with Celiac disease or a gluten allergy, but whole wheat bread (my primary source of wheat) is relatively high on the glycemic index (68-85). That means two things to me. First, the bread is easily processed by my body and therefore I will be hungry again that much quicker. Second, with such a high GI, bread has a potential to spike my blood sugar which in turn will tell my body to store fat. Neither of those things is conducive to my goals.

When I reach that “ideal” weight, I may reconsider this as I switch to a maintenance plan, but for the time being, I don't eat wheat.