Alan Chasen

Living a wheat-free lifestyle means eliminating wheat from your diet. To get the most health benefits, you should also cut back on the amount of processed sugar you consume. When you follow these guidelines, you return to a low-to-no-grain, low-sugar, high-fat diet that was far more common many decades ago.The idea is to enjoy real food and limit the foods you eat from a box or a drive-through window.

More and more restaurants are reaching beyond their traditional customer bases to tap into the market of those who can't or don't eat wheat, grain, or gluten. This shift has increased in the number gluten-free menus chain restaurants offer. However, many restaurants with gluten-free options haven't taken the final step of creating gluten-free kitchens to avoid cross-contamination.

You obviously avoid wheat-based products when you adopt a wheat-free lifestyle. Experts also recommend that you avoid processed foods containing sugar and vegetable oils. However, that runs counter to everything you've been taught about healthy eating. Since the early 1960s, conventional wisdom has been to eat a lowfat, high-carbohydrate diet.

If you're on a business trip or at a conference and want to be discreet about your wheat-free or grain-free lifestyle, ordering room service may be the best way to get a meal suitable for your dietary needs. It's also a good option when an extra-long business meeting or a delayed flight means you get to your hotel after the restaurant has closed.

Eliminating wheat from your diet is a significant decision, so you should prepare yourself for this dietary change. Preparation for wheat-free living means identifying your priorities so you can stay motivated as you eliminate wheat. Many other grains can affect your system the same way as wheat. As you prepare to cut wheat from your diet, consider expanding the ban to all grains.

When people consider giving up wheat, they often think about all the wheat-filled foods and ingredients they love. "I'd have to give up too many of my favorite foods," they lament. However, you can easily replace many common wheat-based ingredients in recipes with ingredients that provide more nutrients and better health.

To take full advantage of the health benefits of a wheat-free lifestyle, experts recommend that you also eliminate as much processed sugar as possible. One of wheat's worst effects is that it causes an increase in blood sugar, which leads to weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes. Foods that contain lots of sugar have the same effect, so you need to watch your sugar intake.

Spotting wheat in an ingredients list can be more difficult than it may appear. Wheat has many different forms and names and can appear multiple times in the same list. Acquainting yourself with the following list as you start your new lifestyle makes your trip to the grocery store much easier. As you become more comfortable with your wheat-free lifestyle, you'll develop a repertoire of go-to foods, and this list will become less important.

Wheat in diets has been linked to gut permeability, also known as leaky gut, which started out as just a theory in the alternative medicine crowd but has since been proven to be a real and measurable syndrome. Science is still trying to figure out the ins and outs of the whole process, which is one reason many doctors are slow to (or fail to) recognize and diagnose leaky gut.