Wheat Intolerance and Weight Loss

Most wheat based products are low in fat making them ideal for use in weight loss diets. WLR's dietitian Juliette Kellow explains that wheat intolerance is rarely to blame for weight gain, and wheat can be part of a healthy, balanced diet to lose weight.

Wheat Intolerance and Weight Loss

With so much written about the weight-loss benefits of wheat-free diets, it’s easy to think intolerance to wheat may be the reason you’re finding it difficult to lose weight. However, experts suggest that fewer than one in a thousand people suffer from wheat intolerance.

Support for the idea that weight gain – or difficulty in losing weight – is caused by a wheat intolerance stems mainly from people who’ve followed a wheat-free diet and found they’ve lost weight as a result.

Unsurprisingly though, most experts believe the weight loss that occurs is due to a reduction in calories and fat, thanks to cutting out not just bread and pasta, but also biscuits, cakes, pastries, pizza, puddings and processed foods such as battered fish or breaded chicken.

In other words, if you stop eating wheat, you often end up de-junking your diet and filling up on healthier and lower-calorie alternatives such as fruit, veg, lean meat, fish and low-fat dairy products.

Finally, if you genuinely believe you may be intolerant to wheat, keep a food and symptoms diary to see if there’s any connection with what you eat and the symptoms you suffer with – then see your GP for a proper diagnosis.

You can keep a food diary to track your food and calorie intake, along with notes about how you feel each day in weight loss resources. Take a Free Trial to see how it works.

More on Food and Weight Loss:

Fruit and Vegetables in a Weight Loss Diet

Rice, Bread and Pasta in a Weight Loss Diet

Milk, Cheese and Dairy in a Weight Loss Diet

Soup in a Weight Loss Diet

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