The No Flour, No Sugar Diet is written by Dr. Peter Gott – a popular health columnist and medical practitioner.
Subtitled “The Simplest Way to Lose Weight”, the book is based on a simple premise….
Eliminate all foods that are flour-based or contain added sugars.
Sounds easy, right?
The book has been popular for many years now, perhaps indicative of our desire for a simple solution.
The trouble is, a truly simple solution wouldn’t fill a book, and to fill up a book, simple can become convoluted.
No Flour, No Sugar Diet Highlights
Eliminating flour and sugar effectively reduces the amount of “empty” calories from your diet. Many of these foods (based on refined carbohydrates) are also high in fat (pizza, donuts, etc).
The premise is a good one. Despite all the contrary dietary advice of recent years – there does seem to be a growing consensus about refined carbohydrates: We eat too much of them and they provide us with little nutritive value – not to mention the issue of glycemic response.
No Flour, No Sugar addresses the finer points of reading food labels (and determining what is a flour or sugar).
The book also gives a nod to the value of exercise – suggesting half an hour a day. In keeping with simplicity Dr Gott doesn’t bother with complex phases or waves – from Day 1 you “simply” eliminate flours and sugars.
Inconsistencies
In Dr. Gott’s introduction he mentions that “no one wants to be bothered with counting calories” and “you don’t want to memorize daunting lists of food”.
However as you progress through the book, you do indeed come across daunting lists of food, and a detailed chart of daily calorie requirements.
Like many diet authors, Gott takes great pains to deride “fad diets”, and in particular low-carb diets. What is ironic here, is that by reducing refined carbs (i.e. flour and sugar) from your diet – you are, by default, embarking on a form of a low or reduced carb diet.
This is unless you continue (or begin) to eat lots of rice or potatoes (which are perfectly acceptable in this diet).
Is It Practical?
Simple in concept may not necessarily be simple in execution. The No Flour, No Sugar Diet has 80 pages (almost half the book) devoted to meal plans and recipes.
Call me cynical, but if the diet is as simple as dropping flour and sugar, then why do we need loads of recipes?
For a person who lives on pizza, bread rolls, and donuts – suddenly eating Spiced Edamame and Vietnamese Shrimp Wraps (p. 101) may present something of a challenge.
Luckily, Gott also published a recipe collection to accompany his diet for those that struggle without bread and pasta.
Could it Work?
If the average person removed flour and sugar-based foods from their diet they would probably experience weight loss. These kind of foods make a large part of our modern diet, and, in my opinion, are at the root of many health issues.
Gott has the right premise, but fails to address behavioural issues – or the reason why we eat the way we do. Those who are already familiar with the basic mechanics of healthy weight loss will find nothing new here.
Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet by Peter H Gott. 186 pages, available at Amazon.
I have been doing this “diet” for two years. I have lost over 30 pounds just taking it easy. I have been developing my own recipes – such as no sugar, no flour muffins, to which I add raisins, cranberries, chopped up dry apricots, apples, nuts, you name it. There are tons of recipes on the internet that are good – to me, it is an EASY diet. Just eliminate sugar and flour. I still eat corn tortillas, Ezekiel bread, (tuna sandwich, egg salad, grilled cheese sandwiches), mayo, potatoes and egg white omelettes with lots of cheese and veggies (ham or bacon too). I am not deprived…and on rare occasions I will eat cake or ice cream…or a crispy roll with butter, Then STOP.
I use saccarin for sweetening my coffee, Splenda for cooking, Crystal Lite to drink, Truvia to dip strawberries in and green tea with one saccarin tablet…the alternatives are endless if you look for them.
There is a great recipe for corn bread with corn kernals added and no sugar or flour…Cheese on top…
Did you know Nutella has corn syrup in it?? Way worse than sugar. Also, a lot of the “whole wheat” bagles and bread still have white flour in them … unless it says 100% whole wheat.
A great way to thickening soups and stews is using pureed beans or potatoes.
6 lbs in 3 weeks is awesome!!! Keep it up!
I’m so glad to hear that other young people are doing this too! I’m a freshman in college and I really want to lose weight… it’s hard because I have a meal plan I need to use. I’m 187lbs and 5’6”. Do you think it’s possible for me to get to 150/145 with the NFNS plan?
Thank you
We wish you all the best
while I’ve just reached my first 24 hours sugar and flour free, im thinking this may not be as bad as i thought. and i assure you i’m a full blown sugar addict. i cleaned my pantry, refrigerator, car, purse, and entire house of anything that resembles sugar, no matter how small a piece it was. let the games begin! my doctor educated me about this diet as a way to lose weight after menopause. though i’ve not read the book but hope to soon, doc advised me to eat NO sugar, NO flour (not even wheat), NO milk, NO fruit juices of any kind, NO grapes, NO watermelon and one other fruit i fail to recall. i can add back in grave moderation some of these after i have resurrected my long lost metabolism. oh yeah, i am to bike 25 mi per week to start. this should be a sight to behold. i will keep posting if im not hospitalized before the year is out. i look forward to the challenge. later…..
Would you care to share your recipes? Thanks,Debbie
the importance of no flour,no sugar is great but how to cnyrol is the problem.send the tips
try Alpen cereal… I believe Weetabix produces them – whole grain, preservative free and sugar free. Or make your own muesli!
Oh please.. French Women do get fat! They smoke like chimney’s and it should be ”Parisians never get fat!” Because they walk every where. I lived in Paris as a Scottish American for 5 years and trust me they smoke, drink and hardly eat at all..
The culture in Paris is fashion obsessed and this airy fairy ,refined society you think it is only exist superficially.
Yes, it is lovely and yes French people are charming and thoughtful but many,many of them are very introspective and surly. They live marginally longer than the average American (even with socialized medicine) and their ”ideal” lifestyle.
What you have to understand as well, is that if you are a Caucasian and live in the US,you usually will either have Gaelic/Anglo-Saxon or Germanic Genes.
Which means by default you will be larger framed with more muscle mass. Is it an excuse to be obese.. No!
This is all just a thought and an observation. Once again, Americans do not delude yourself that Euros are much , thinner or happier than you because they are not!
Well, you may be right about all the unnecessary food lists and such, but to publish and sell a book, it has to have the whomp factor. (I’m a publisher.) Otherwise you could just put it in an email and Tweet it. “Don’t eat sugar and wheat.” Easy. Done.
And it’s very true … that small change works. But it’s hard to do in our culture, isn’t it? When meat between two pieces of bread is a standard meal and sugar is added to all processed foods … well it pretty much means you have to cook all your meals from scratch.
I disagree that he says potatoes and rice are fine in any quantity … they are quickly metabolized to sugar. When I majored in nutrition 40 years ago, the serving size for a starchy grain or veggie was 1/2 cup, and that’s about all you should ever eat of a “fast carb” … and choose carbs with lots of fiber if you really want to make a difference in your weight.
Finally, we are all individual metabolic pictures … some handle carbs really well (the skinny one who eats anything and even forgets to eat) and those who don’t (pretty much anyone who is over weight because they ate either a fast food diet, junk food diet, or the USDA food pyramid from the last 20 years). Metabolic Typing is the only science-based system that determines what your personal physiology needs.
He does tell you, actually (about grits). For any food in question, all you have to do is read the label. If the word flour appears (wheat flour, rice flour, corn flour, etc., it isn’t allowed. Same goes for any added sugar (in any of its various forms. I eat cornmeal often as polenta, in NFNS cornbread, etc.
Re: breakfast, I have egg whites with a bit of cheese added, a toasted Ezekiel (no flour) english muffin with Simply Fruit spread and a bit of butter just about every day. I alternate sometimes with oatmeal and fruit. Point is you can eat plenty of grains on this diet– just not anything with flour. That’s what’s made it so doable.
I started this a coulpe days ago but what’s appealing to me about this is I can easily remove stuff and replace it with quality food. I thought I ate good but when you eliminate the sugar and flour it adds up (it wasn’t so great). Its easy to replace and I don’t cook a lot like I did when my kids were growing up anyway. Sprouted Essene bread is tasty..fish, salad and that. Really, there are so many things you can eat. Tuna on a lettuce leaves in addition to celery (with any kind of spread w/out the junk ingredients. I don’t worry about sugar in fruit because I don’t seem to get enough fruit like I should anyway..I don’t miss rice, potatoes or pasta. Thanks for posting this btw-
Hi! I started the diet 2 weeks ago, and have lost 4 pounds so far. I still need to work on my portion control, which is a problem for me. I have read other comments about people still being able to eat as much as they want and still end up losing weight, but I don’t think that is the case for me. I would love to swap ideas and recipes, it would be great motivation! Thanks!
I had read earlier from someone that they weren’t sure if maltodextrin was allowed on the NFNS plan. Well, I just looked it up at the foodfacts.com wesite and this is what they said: “Maltodextrin is a flavorless, easily digested carbohydrate made from cornstarch. A natural, complex carbohydrate, it is not a simple sugar (dextrose, fructose, sucrose etc.) It can be derived from potato or corn starch; used in food industry such as sweets, drink, beer, ice cream, preserved fruit, milk powder, malted mild, cake, biscuit and bread, as well as in medicine, textile, printing and dyeing, paper making, casting and petroleum drilling; generally recognized as safe”. I guess it means it’s safe to have. I hope this helps.
Yogurt is good. As long as there are no added sugars. I’ve used Chobani’s Plain. And like he says in the book, sugars can be disguised so do your research if you see an ingredient you’re not familiar with.
I’ve been on this diet for a year now. Started as a gluten-free diet, then evolved into the no sugar no wheat diet. I’m 35, my cholesterol is 121, and by body fat is at 8%.
Great job Mark!! How are you doing now?
I had a “bad” week. I had to return to Chicago for a funeral and you know there was Italian one night.
Who can turn down homemade lasagna and breadsticks? Not I. But I only had one small square and one breadstick and was fine. The problem was the 2am White Castle run the next morning! But what I love about the plan is that I didn’t get hung up on my deviations. I planned for the trip (13 hours!) with sandwiches and healthy snacks. And even though I “cheated” while I was away, as soon as I came back home, I returned to my normal eating habits. And I didn’t gain any weight!
Continued good luck!
What did you eat?
The sugar in milk is natural, just like in fruit and fruit juice which is allowed in this diet.
I am having this same experience. Did you ever lose any weight?