The Wheat Belly 10-Day Detox: The effortless health and weight-loss solution. Dr Davis William

IN THE DARKEST CHOCOLATES. Chocolates that are at least 70 percent cocoa, preferably 85 percent or higher, easily fit into your regimen. Count net carbohydrates: the delicious Ghirardelli Intense Dark 86% Cocoa chocolate bar, for instance, contains 15 g total carbs, 5 g fiber (lots of fiber in dark chocolate) = 10 g net carbs in 4 squares (45 g) of chocolate, which is half of the entire 75 g (3 oz) bar, more than enough to satisfy even the most serious chocolate habit. Remember: Wheat and grain elimination amplifies your sense of taste and sweetness so that, even if you previously found dark chocolate to be bitter and not sweet enough, you will now appreciate how delicious it is without the taste distortion of grains. And go ahead: Dip your chocolate into natural peanut butter or almond butter.

      BE AWARE OF SAFE VS. UNSAFE SWEETENERS. We have to be picky with our choice of sweeteners, as there are benign sweeteners that we will be using in some of our recipes—cookies, muffins, and pies—and there are destructive sweeteners that impair weight loss and pose other undesirable effects. You need to avoid foods sweetened with the sugar alcohols sorbitol, mannitol, lactitol, or maltitol, as they act much like sugar and cause diarrhea and bloating. Also avoid sucralose, saccharine, and aspartame as there is a theory that they result in unhealthy changes in bowel flora. We will also strictly avoid fructose-containing sweeteners: sucrose (table sugar, which is 50 percent fructose), high-fructose corn syrup, agave nectar (90 percent fructose), coconut sugar, and other sugars marketed as “natural.” Some people use honey and maple syrup, as they are natural sources of sugar, but both are high in fructose and should be used sparingly (never more than 1 to 2 teaspoons per serving).

      Among the safest sweeteners are pure liquid or powdered stevia; stevia with inulin but not maltodextrin; monk fruit (also known as luo han guo); and two safe naturally occurring sugar alcohols, erythritol and xylitol. (Be careful with xylitol around dogs, as it is toxic to them.) An occasional person will experience triggering of their sweet tooth with these sweeteners, leading to cravings for other sweet foods, but it is uncommon. Inulin is safe and has a light sweetness and even provides benefits to bowel flora.

      Important: If You Start with Diabetes . . .

      If you are injecting insulin or taking certain diabetes drugs, precautions will be necessary to avoid the potential danger of hypoglycemia (blood sugars lower than 4 mmol/L) and, less commonly, diabetic ketoacidosis, if you have diabetes associated with inadequate pancreatic insulin production. There are also the uninformed objections of many doctors who have come to believe that diabetes is incurable, irreversible, and a diagnosis for life—not true in the majority of cases of type 2 diabetes.

      Anyone taking insulin injections in any form will need to reduce the dosage in order to follow this lifestyle without experiencing hypoglycemia. An immediate need to reduce insulin by half is typical. Ideally, this is undertaken with the assistance of a health care provider with experience in helping patients reduce or eliminate their diabetes. This almost always means identifying a new practitioner, as the one who prescribed the insulin for type 2 diabetes in the first place is likely a member of the “diabetes is incurable and irreversible” school, not recognizing that insulin injections are a weight gain drug.

      I cannot stress enough that hypoglycemia must be avoided, even if higher blood sugars result temporarily (though ideally kept below 11 mmol/L throughout this process). Other medications, especially oral agents glyburide, glipizide, and glimepiride, can cause dangerous hypoglycemia. For this reason, many people eliminate these oral drugs or reduce doses, even if it means a temporary increase in blood sugars. As blood sugars trend downward, you’ll need to further reduce medications. If, for instance, you have fasting blood sugars of 6 mmol/L or less, it is essential to reduce or eliminate a medication.