What actually happens to your body when you cut out bread?

Out of the thousands of diets and food crazes that we hear about, most of them generally have one thing in common: no bread.

There is no doubt that cutting out the King of Carbs is going to help with a huge range of dietary issues. But eliminating an entire food group, as well as one of our biggest energy sources, is bound to have a noticeable impact on our bodies.

Let’s look at what exactly happens when we eliminate bread from our diets.

Rapid Weight Loss

One of the first things you may notice if you completely cut out carbs from your diet is how quickly you begin to lose weight. But what may surprise you is that it’s not actually fat you are losing but water. According to womenshealthmag.com every gram of carbohydrate that is stored in the body holds three to four times its weight in water. So if you cut out carbs altogether, a lot of water weight should drop off quickly.

You can catch… the flu?

Cutting carbs out of your diet is a huge change for your metabolism. An unpleasant common symptom of cutting bread totally out of your diet is the “low-carb flu”. This happens when your body starts adjusting to the change of getting its energy from fats instead of carbs. Symptoms include fatigue, muscle cramps, headaches, bad breath, and brain fog. The good news is that it doesn’t last. Soon your body will start to run on fats in a process called ketosis.

The risk of heart disease fluctuates

This depends on what type of grains you cut out of your diet. According to Plos One, refined carbohydrates can increase the risk of heart disease. Whereas the American Heart Association says that whole grains can improve blood-cholesterol levels and lower the risks of many illnesses including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Your cravings will start to disappear

Thankfully cutting out white bread will help with your cravings for… white bread! Refined carbohydrates make your blood-sugar levels skyrocket only for them to plummet back down. A study that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition alleged that this activity can start up our addictive centres in the brain. Choosing fibre-rich whole grains can help to keep the blood-sugars from crashing back down.

Constipation can unfortunately occur

Whole-grains are one of our biggest fibre supplies so cutting out brown bread and whole-grains in general will make constipation more likely. As well as keeping your bowels running smoothly, fibre helps to keep blood-sugar levels consistent and reduces the risk of obesity. Alternative sources of fibre include lentils, beans, avocado, edamame and brown rice.

Energy levels can drop

As carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy, cutting them out will most likely see a drop in energy levels. This will make exercising more difficult as you may feel fatigued. To combat this it is important to make sure that you get enough fat in your diet to replace the loss of carbs and to stay totally hydrated by drinking loads of water.