……that is the question.

There are lots of other questions too, such as does eating cholesterol laden foods increase your cholesterol, or is it due to another reaction?  Low-fat or real fat?  Carbs or no carbs? High or low protein?  Sugar?!  Where does it all fit in?

Well as a lifetime fatty, I can tell you that the whole diet thing isn’t as easy as you think.  Calories in equals calories out, so eat less, move more and you’ll lose weight.  Right?  Well, not exactly, as far as I can tell.

I’ve been on loads of different diets, Weight Watchers, soup diets, cutting specific things out, adding certain things in, and to be fair, I’ve lost weight at times, but I’ve ALWAYS put it back on, with a little bit extra added for good measure too.

So this brings me back to the title, to wheat or not to wheat?  This is something I’ve been toying with on and off for over a year.  I saying ‘toying’ because I’ve had times when I’ve cut it out completely, times when I’ve cut it down by a lot, then other times when I’ve eaten whatever the hell i liked.  (BTW you may start to see a pattern here – consistency is not my thing, especially when it comes to food.  I go from eating well to bingeing on rubbish on a regular basis…..).  However, I’m starting to see patterns, and notice effects wheat has on my body when I eat it.  The problem is, the lack of consistency in my diet means it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what foods are causing specific effects.  I’ve been reading a lot lately on various dietary issues: wheat; saturated fat; cholesterol; sugar.  I’ve read some books, I’ve even managed to read some journal articles from the British Medical Journal after signing up for a free 14 day subscription.  What I’ve read and learned so far has certainly given me a thirst to learn more.  Of course I could ignore all that and just eat lots of fresh food, cut out the crap and do more exercise and I’d lose weight.  But I almost guarantee I’d put it back on because I’ve done this before and I’m still fat.  What do they say, the definition of madness is to keep repeating an action and expect a different outcome? Yep, i am the QUEEN of madness.

So this blog post is really just a holder – I’ve a lot more to read to try to make sense of all the science.  I’m not a doctor or a biologist or chemist, but the engineer in me wants to understand the fundamentals of what is happening when I eat certain foods, and I want to try to discover if by adapting my diet I can finally make the weight-loss breakthrough I’ve always wanted.  So I’m going to do a few different blogs on individual topics based on what I’ve read, as much for myself, as a place to record all the info., as for anyone else who might be reading this.  I’ll hopefully get that started next week.  So watch this space 🙂

 

On a more physical note, I’m running (well, staggering to be more precise…) a marathon this weekend, and I’m actually really looking forward to it.  I’ll report back once it is done 🙂

Have a great week folks 😀