Yay, I completed the 30 Day Bread Challenge yesterday by eating a final 460g of seedy multi-grain. So, in 30 days, I ate a total of 13.78 kg of bread, or 1.01 lbs/day. Happily, I can report that nothing strange nor magical happened, and I continued to lose weight at my normal rate. Over the 30 days, I lost about 2 kg, as shown in my progress chart above. (I’ll update the chart in a few weeks, to show the continued progression towards my 70 kg goal.)
What did I learn from this Challenge? Mainly, I learned not to be afraid of bread. We’re all so terrified of it, that while we might consume it in sandwiches and morning toast, anything beyond that is accompanied by a lot of fear and guilt. Everyone, even high-carb vegans, is convinced that processed flour makes you fat, and they worry that even “whole wheat” bread isn’t really made from the whole grain.
And I figured out pretty quickly that white flour breads taste a lot better than whole wheat ones. I figured it wasn’t worth it nor necessary to eat whole grain bread. My weigh-ins confirmed this, so I just went with the approximate 2.5 cal/g density for all of them.
Calorie-wise, a pound of bread (~1200 cal) a day isn’t very much. For me, it didn’t even make up half of my daily calorie needs. Historically, people ate a lot more than a pound of bread a day:
In France, there has been a huge decline in the baguette culture. In the 1970s, French people were consuming an average of one loaf of bread per day. Only a century ago, the French ate approximately 3 loaves of bread per day. Today, French people eat only a half a loaf of bread per day.
— Wikipedia
Yes, I did work out a lot during the Bread Challenge. But, I’ve been riding about 200 km/week for the last 5 months as well, so nothing really changed, including my weightloss rate.
The pound of bread a day I ate was in addition to whatever else I decided to eat. I ate to fuel myself, and didn’t restrict calories, or eating times. I had occasional treats, some fatty foods, some Cokes on my rides, but generally I ate a healthy, traditional diet with lots of vegetables. I probably ate a pound of butter with the 30 pounds of bread.
So, what’s my conclusion? A bread calorie is a calorie. Don’t panic, and have some bread.
Two Pounds of Starch A Day 
Congratulations!
I am glad you made it through the challenge, although this was a particularly tasty challenge. The bakery may miss you now. Do you plan to keep bread in your diet as much, not a pound a day, but to feature it? I have to say, this is a bit scary for me but we do have a neat bakery in town that we succumb to from time to time. Sorry to hear that France is giving up the baguettes. I hope fast food isn’t crowding out good food.
I’m really happy I found out that nothing happens when you use bread for the majority of your daily calorie needs. So now, I buy and enjoy bread guilt & fear free!
You’re probably right about France — I figured they were becoming carbaphobic, but sadly, it’s just that modern convenience foods are displacing bread.
Congrats on your challenge! I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and looking at the mouth-watering bread photos. What I don’t understand is how you’ve lost weight. The butter (and dim sum, etc.) are not McDougall-friendly low-fat-high-starch foods. Neither is the bread low-carb. So you’ve stumped me. When I eat bread, I easily gain weight. What’s your secret? All the exercise?
Yes, I’m riding at least 200 km/week, often at high power output. (I probably average 125W, with >300W efforts up hills, etc.) That’s riding like 5 times a week, and >10 hours/week on the bike.
At that level, you can eat moderate amounts of fat, and still lose weight eating high-fibre, healthy foods, and eating to satiety. But, I was pretty worried about it, and trained extra hard to burn off all the calories.
Finally, I decided this week to essentially return to a low-fat vegan diet. As I’ve posted, I’m relying on the fact that carbs aren’t easily turned into fat (de novo lipogenesis is very slow), so my workouts are now one-way fat burning sessions. I now eating very low fat, and instead fill up on yummy carbs.
I figure this is easier than working out like a total madman to burn off dietary fat. Bread tastes great without butter! Tortillas taste great without any fat! Fresh noodles are great without a bunch of meat and fat.
At least that’s the theory. We’ll see how it goes for the next month.
Thanks for your response. I wish you the best of luck. Personally I have not been successful on the McDougall starch regime, but I know that many others do really well.
What kind of diet (or types of food) have you had the most success with? It’s fine if you say low-carb 🙂
Nothing wrong with bread 🙂 As long as you eat less than caloric needs, you should expect to lose weight. What I find more important is body composition.
Yep, and baking it is fun, and its so easy to make the 24-hour rise no-knead recipe, which is the best bread you’ll ever eat. But I guess cranks like Gary Taubes will tell you that the bread you eat is instantly turned into fat, and stored forever in your fat cells.
Gary who ? 😀
Ah, the quack who made a shit load of money out of bollockery. Well, it is an IQ test: anyone believing his shite fails.