*** Is Whole Wheat Bread Fattening?

People often think they are doing something healthy for themselves by switching their white bread for whole wheat bread. Although this is a better option than white, whole wheat bread can still be preventing you from losing your unwanted weight.

I am not a big fan of bread or bread type products. Actually, I think most people could feel a thousand times better if they stopped eating so much bread every single day. Toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, bread basket at dinner…we could feed a small village with the amount of bread I see some people consuming in one day (or several villages depending on who you’re talking about).

No, I am not saying to never have bread ever again (Hey, its life, you gotta enjoy it, right?). What I am saying is that 4-5 servings of some kind of bread type product every day is making thousands of people gain weight, preventing them from losing their unwanted weight and worst of all, bringing about diseases like Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease.

I don’t eat very much bread at all and I really don’t even miss it. I guess I have just come to enjoy all the other delicious food I eat each day that I don’t even feel bread is missing from my meal plans.

Here are my “bread free” strategies and exactly how you can lower your own bread intake each day:

1. When you think of breakfast, don’t automatically think toast, bagels, or a roll. A couple of hard boiled eggs over sliced tomatoes is delicious. You can also make a quick batch of oatmeal and add walnuts and berries. How about cottage cheese and pineapple? The breakfast options are endless.

2. Pack snack foods and take them with you to work. In less tha
2 minutes, I can throw natural peanut butter, raw almonds, dried fruit (no sugar added), an apple or banana and baby carrots all in a bag and be out the door. Taking these food items to work with you will help you stay away from the employee room bagels or donuts. (Don’t even get me started on how evil donuts are). Slap some peanut butter on an apple and munch away at that, all while making fun of the people eating donuts (Just Kidding, that’s not nice.)

3. Don’t depend on sandwiches as lunch every day. How about some salmon, broccoli and brown rice? Leftover chicken from last night and a sweet potato? Imagine that lunch is another version of dinner and not just a mid day sandwich inhaling contest.

4. Make “the bread basket” a once-in-while experience. You really do not need to be serving a bread basket for dinner at home if you are offering healthy carbohydrate choices like salad, cooked vegetables, brown rice, millet, or quinoa.

5. Oh, and how could I forget? Don’t think that eating “100% Whole Wheat” is any better. It is still refined flour (maybe just not bleached) and a huge contributor to weight gain. I could go on and on about this but I have covered all the details about how detrimental wheat products are to your weight loss efforts in Chapter 9 of The Diet Solution Program.

Start to think outside the “bread box” today for healthy alte
atives to your daily bread intake. What one thing can you do today to get started?