Eating rice instead of wheat products...

[David1982]

Up until recently I was getting all my carbs from bread and pasta, but after noticing no fat loss, and possibly some fat increase, I switched to rice, after reading lots of your advice on here about eating rice, potatoes and vegetables. My weight has decreased a couple of pounds in 2 weeks, which is good as I'm fat, but I feel lousy and feel I have less energy than when I was eating bread and pasta.

Will this change as my body adapts to my new diet? And why do wheat products give me so much energy, but make me fat?!

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Likely culprits for your weight loss include spontaneous reduction in carbs and calories, additional fiber intake (maybe), etc. Likely culprits for your "lousy" and "lethargic feeling" include reduction in carbs and calories, altered serotonin and/or dopamine signaling in certain brain structures and pathways, etc. Likely culprits for wheat making you fat include (but are not limited to) hyperpalatability of wheat products, increased food reward from wheat products causing increased volume of carbs and calories, certain potential inflammatory cascades from tight junction protein dysregulation via exposure to gluten, etc.

In short, you've probably spontaneously reduced your cals and carbs to a level that no longer jives with your previous level of homeostasis. The odds are you will adapt just fine provided you didn't concomitantly change other eating habits or training habits to such a degree where they cannot be supported properly. So, do you know how many carbs approximately you were taking in before and what you're doing now? Did you change anything else like: eating leaner meats, eating less servings of starch, adding conditioning to workouts or more volume?