Holiday Damage Control Bootcamp Challenge 1

Welcome to week one of the Holiday Damage Control Bootcamp.  Each week we will post a nutritional challenge to accompany your workouts.  The challenges are intended to build on each other and over the course of 6 weeks develop habits that promote health.  In addition to establishing specific challenges I'll try to provide justification for why each challenge promotes health.  I encourage you to post questions, share your strategies for successes, and discuss difficulties in the comments.  Keep in mind that all recommendations you see in this blog are general in nature and are not intended to diagnose or treat disease.

Week 1 Challenge:  Eliminate Wheat

This will probably be the most difficult of the weekly challenges.  It also has the greatest potential to improve your health.  Wheat is in almost all packaged processed foods.  If you don't believe me go to the grocery store, walk down any of the food aisles in the interior of the store, grab a box and read the ingredients.  Assuming you aren't in the "gluten free" section I can almost guarantee you will find wheat in one form or another.

Why: Wheat contains the protein gluten.  It's what makes bread light and fluffy.  It's also what drives celiac sufferers to sprint for the bathroom when they eat it.  In addition to celiac disease, according to Profesor Loren Cordain, PhD, gluten has been implicated as a contributing factor in a number of other illnesses and autoimmune conditions including:  acid reflux, alopecia, anemia, canker sores, asthma, ataxias, ADD, Autism, autoimmune thyroid disease, dementia, depression and anxiety, eating disorders, epilepsy, Graves disease, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, infertility, IBS, liver disease, migraines, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, type 1 diabetes, and vitiligo.  Additionally, wheat is relatively  calorie dense and nutrient poor [1].  In a 2005 paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Prof. Cordain he compared seven food groups for their content of the thirteen nutrients most lacking in the U.S. Diet.  He ranked 100 calorie portions of vegetables, seafoods, lean meats, fruits, whole grains, whole milk and nuts/seeds for their content of B vitamins, phosphorus, folate, vitamin C, iron, magnesium, calcium and zinc.  In the sum rank scores whole grains fell behind vegetables, seafoods, lean meats and fruits [1].

Strategies for Success:  Wheat and wheat containing products make up a substantial portion of most American's daily calorie intake.  Unless you're eating significantly more calories than you need in a day, you need to replace these somehow.  I don't recommend running out and replacing all your wheat items with "gluten free" versions of those same foods.  Instead increase your consumption of vegetables.  Leafy green, non-starchy veggies are great for obtaining vitamins and minerals and making you feel full, but they aren't very calorie dense.  If you need to replace alot of calorie from wheat add ample butter (real butter, not margarine.  I like Kerrygold Irish Butter.  You can find it at Trader Joes) to your veggies and/or incorporate starchy veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes and winter squash.

References:
1.  Cordain, Loren PhD., The Paleo Answer. pp 107-113, 119-121.