After a week and a half of assorted holiday madness, I finally
left my parents' stately Long Island manse on Dec. 30 and returned
to New Jersey.
And, no, I wasn't empty-handed.
Mama mia's care package included one zip-lock bag filled with
chicken; another filled with leftover baccala salad (cod, black
olives and vinegar peppers); and two heads of romaine lettuce.
"In case you want to make a salad," she said of the romaine,
since -- as I'm sure you know -- they don't sell lettuce in New
Jersey.
So ... is that it?
Nope.
Just as I was about to waddle out her front door, she called out,
"Do you want a loaf of Italian bread? In case you decide to go off
your diet?"
Uh ...
"No thanks," I replied. "I'm fine. Love you. 'Bye."
I'm guessing that half of the United States went on a diet last
week. But I started mine during the summer.
In fact -- I can hardly believe I'm writing this -- I've been off
wheat for a whopping seven months now, chugging along on the same
"Wheat Belly" diet that I wrote a feature story about in The Record
a couple of weeks ago.
Italian boy gives up pasta. And pizza. And bread.
Hard to believe, isn't it?
Even harder to believe: The person who turned me on to the diet
was my brother Don.
Neither of us had ever been on a diet before. And neither of us
had to lose more than 10 pounds. But we were having other problems.
Namely: We had wheat bellies, also known as beer guts, and all the
bloat and gastrointestinal problems that go along with them.
After two weeks on the diet -- which, wheat aside, allows me to
eat anything I want -- my belly shrank to nothing and I felt great.
Not that anyone believed me.
"How can you give up pasta and feel great?" one friend asked.
"I'd go wacky."
I shook my head. "I was afraid of that," I replied. "But it
really hasn't been that difficult. And, to be honest with you, I
can't remember the last time I felt this clear-headed and
energetic."
There were other side effects, as well. Three months after I
began the diet, the physician's assistant at my doctor's office
called to congratulate me on significantly reducing my bad
cholesterol and raising my good cholesterol.
"The doctor's very pleased!" she gushed. She then attributed the
turnaround to a statin drug the doctor prescribed for me five months
earlier.
I told her I only took the drug for four days and didn't like the
way it made me feel.
"Oh," she said. "Are you taking something else?"
"Yes! I'm taking no bread, pasta or pizza."
Silence.
"Well, OK," she said, finally. "Take care!"
It's difficult to find a medical professional who's willing to
believe that cutting out bread can reduce your cholesterol. Even
more difficult: Finding a supportive relative.
Changing my diet so drastically had a profoundly negative effect
on my mother, who's been crying non-stop since June.
On Christmas Eve, I added insult to injury by eating her crab
sauce on spaghetti squash. So did my brother. We agreed it was
delicious. But my father was enraged.
"What's the matter with you two?" he yelled at Don and me. "Where
did your mother and I go wrong?"
"Dad," I replied, "we didn't join the Moonies. We just stopped
eating wheat!"
In December, after my feature story on the Wheat Belly diet ran,
I even stirred the ire of the Grain Foods Foundation. They're not
happy about my diet either, although they "fully support" gluten-
free diets for those with diagnosed celiac disease or wheat
sensitivity.
I'm not sure if I have either of those things. But what's the
difference? After all these months, my diet seems perfectly normal
to me -- even if it makes my friends uncomfortable. They stare at
me, suspiciously, whenever we go out to dinner and I shun the bread
basket, de-bun my burger or ask our waitress for a bacon, lettuce
and tomato sandwich -- minus the sandwich.
Dinner invitations are another problem. Most hosts have finally
gotten used to accommodating guests who are vegetarian or lactose
intolerant.
Wheat-free is another layer of annoying.
"So what does THIS mean?" one angry friend asked when I told him.
"You're like one of those kooks now who doesn't eat meat?"
"Exactly!" I said. "Except that I eat meat."
Slowly but surely, my mother has been coming around to my new,
gluten-free lifestyle.
"You do seem healthier," she admitted, begrudgingly, last week.
My father, however, remains gluten-free intolerant.
"It's ridiculous!" he insisted. "Stupid! Crazy! Being a ...
whatever. What do you gluten idiots call yourselves?"
We're leaning toward "glutens for punishment."
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