Weight gain and celiac disease

[Guest guest]

MessageOne thing celiacs should be aware of is that many of the foods

celiacs can eat are " high glycemic. " This means that they are quickly and

easily metabolized. This puts lots of glucose (energy) into the body very

fast. Unfortunately too much all at once overwhelms the body's ability to

absorb it, and excess glucose is toxic. This can result in insulin

resistance (which has it's own set of symptoms) and, for some, type 2

diabetes (whether you have this problem is individually determined by your

metabolism and is not related to CD). Another result is that some of the

extra glucose is converted to fat. That is a very simplified version of how

this all works (for more information on insulin resistance--sometimes

referred to as syndrome X--there are many sites in the web; also a good

article about this appeared in the February 2004 Discover magazine), but the

upshot is, for most of us, eating lots of high-glycemic foods leads to

weight gain. Not only that, but now that you are on a gluten-free diet,

your gut has healed and is able to absorb fat and carbohydrates from your

food much better than it ever has before.

Some high-glycemic gluten-free foods:

white rice

potatoes, potato starch

tapioca starch

corn

refined sugar, honey, molasses

Alternate lower-glycemic foods:

Brown rice

Soy beans, soy flour

nuts (almonds and hazelnut make good flour; pistachio, pine, macadamia, and

pecan are good sources of protein)

Teff grain, teff flour

chestnut flour

agave nectar

splenda

stevia

Food for Life rice-almond bread is a good low-glycemic gluten-free bread, or

you can make your own (let me know if you want my recipe for low-carb

gluten-free bread). Reducing high-glycemic foods and substituting lower

glycemic foods for many things can make a big difference in weight gain.

Eating protein (eggs, cheese, poultry, pork, fish, beef) with carbohydrates

is another way to even out your blood sugar.

This is not to say that anyone needs to avoid high-glycemic foods in the

same manner celiacs must avoid gluten. However, if weight gain is a

problem, knowing what foods are high-glycemic and avoiding large amounts can

help. For instance, choose whole-grain brown rice instead of Minute rice.

Use brown rice flour instead of white rice flour and mix in some soy flour,

almond flour, or other low glycemic flour in place of all or part of the

potato starch and tapioca starch typically used in the gluten-free flour

mix. Get the small size fries at Mcs instead of the super size (you

are already escaping lots of carbs by having the hamburger without the bun).

Try one of the alternate sweeteners when you bake. Use agave nectar mixed

with maple syrup on your pancakes. If you are really serious and need to

loose weight, look into the syndrome x diet (low carb) or Atkins diet (more

drastic: almost no carbs). There are even gluten-free low-carb bars that

you can have instead of eating a candy bar (Think-thin now states

gluten-free on the labels of their low carb bars that are GF; they are

available at Trader Joes).

I know that the idea of adding further restrictions to an already-restricted

diet can be frustrating, but at least cheating isn't life threatening and it

isn't a required diet for life (unless you are diabetic), but just when you

want to loose weight. If anyone wants gluten-free low-carb recipies and

suggestions, let me know.