The Hidden Dangers of Gluten-Free Foods
Are you gluten-free?
In my experience, there are three main reasons people go gluten free, they’ve been diagnosed with celiac disease, they are gluten-sensitive, or…the most common they simply want to lose weight. Yes, people have discovered that reducing gluten helps them actually lose weight effectively even quickly. So, if you are gluten-free awesome…Or is it…?
Gluten is a protein that is found in grains such as wheat, barley, and rye. Think of this cheer, “When I say gluten, you say wheat.” Gluten….Wheat…Gluten…awkward silence…
Moving on, generally gluten gives food texture and helps make the food “chewy.”
However, gluten also has a dark side, it is heavily used in processed foods, which is the process of making real food into “fake” food. In processed foods, it helps add protein, thickness, and even flavor.
Now, for the vast majority of people who choose to go gluten-free, they do it to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat, which puts them in a caloric deficit and they lose weight. In my experience that’s the true reason why most people choose to go gluten free.
This means things like breads, pastas, cookies and pretty much every simple carbohydrate there is, which contains wheat is eliminated from their diet.
Basically, when you go gluten free you’re eliminating a lot of eating options, especially when it comes to carbohydrates. As a result of this lifestyle, the amount of calories one eats drops a lot and the amount of protein and produce one eats goes up and the end result is lost weight.
Now important caveat, before everyone reading this goes gluten free.
Just because you have fewer choices, does not mean you have no choices. There has been a big BOOM of gluten free choices and products. There are tons of things you can now buy that are gluten free. There’s a blessing and a curse to this.
The blessing is there is now a lot of variety. Your gluten free lifestyle no longer needs to be boring.
The curse is now you can get donuts that are gluten-free, you can get cookies that are gluten-free, you can get pretty much anything gluten-free.
BEWARE!
Just because it’s gluten-free, does not mean it is calorie or carbohydrate free. Generally these new gluten-free foods are laced with lots of sugar. They’re laced with lots of sugar because they’re trying to make up for the difference in texture and taste. So, if you’re trying to restrict your calories by eliminating carbohydrates those items are not going to do you any good. In fact, quite the opposite.
The danger is that gluten free, does not mean carb-free. Today when you go to the store, when you see gluten-free, remember, it most likely does not mean carb-free and often not even sugar-free. You need to look at the back to make sure your gluten-free product is free from sugar. Especially if you’re trying to eliminate carbs to lose weight.
And I get it, it is super tempting to view something that says gluten-free like brownies or doughnuts or whatever it is and be like, “Hey, those muffins are gluten-free. I can eat all of them, they are good for me.” Unfortunately, all you’re doing is trading one kind of carbohydrate (wheat) for another (sugar), most of the time any way. So, if your goal is to reduce your weight and improve your physique through carb restriction then you need to be extremely careful regarding gluten-free foods.
The best defense is a good offense.
Therefore, you need to know what to eat. Before you go and buy a whole bunch of gluten free products you need to read the labels and see what ingredients are in them. See how many carbohydrates there, check how many grams of sugar they packed into this “natural” product. Lastly, make sure you’re weary and on the lookout for items that are advertised as low carbs and or low-gluten when really they’re probably still got more than 10 grams of sugar in them.
As a general rule if it’s too good to be true it probably is and the best way to lose weight is to simply track your calories and eat like an adult ;-).
Awesome have a great weekend!
KELLEN LAKE – TRUST BUT VERIFY…READ THE INGREDIENTS LABEL
PS – See an optional weekend workout below ;-).
Warm-up with 5- 10 minutes of light cardio, then dynamic stretches (leg swings, arm circles, etc.). After the workout, cool down with light cardio (walking, etc.) to bring down the heart rate, and then stretch.
4 Rounds:
25 Double Unders or 75 singles (jump rope)
10 Inchworms (no push-up at bottom)
10 Groucho’s (1-1)
10 Cross Body Mountain Climbers
10 lunges with a twist (1-1)
10 Burpee with a push-up at the top and then a v-jump!
