I'm a future chef who also has food allergies and I've had friends and family telling me to do this for a while now. Where do I start? That's the big question. A little over a year ago I found out I had gluten issues... Gluten issues, ha, that's code for stomach problems that were undiagnosable by modern medicine. After spending over two years in and out of doctor's offices, hospitals, and diagnostic testing I was done. Perhaps the worst part is that during the myriad of testing that they put me through, they found scar tissue all over my insides, they just didn't know what was causing it. Finally, I had my fill of "modern medicine" and thought that perhaps it was time to try more drastic measures. I had posted yet another status update on Facebook about how miserable I was feeling, and how I was ready to give up, or try something crazy, maybe both. That's when it happened, a friend commented on my status about a chiropractor who specialized in diet who had helped her with her food aversions, Dr. P.
Now, normally, my skepticism would have overruled my curiosity, but I was ready to try anything. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired! I called and made the appointment, and got ready to talk to a chiropractor about my diet. That was the part that killed me. How could a chiropractor know anything about how to fix my stomach? Well, as it turns out, he knew quite a lot. In fact, he only obtained his DC because he felt like traditional medical school didn't focus enough on a whole body approach to medicine. He explained that the human body is a lot like a car, and if you are using poor fuel, than you will get poor performance. After talking about my current diet of soda crackers and Sprite, we talked about how hard it would be, but also how worth it it would be in the end, for me to change my life style. He meant it too! He didn't want me to go out and buy every gluten free substitute food on the market. He wanted me to completely alter what I was eating and drinking, and he wanted me to do it without replacement junk foods.
The first couple of months were the hardest. Under close supervision from Dr. P. my chiropractor, diet guru I went on a total elimination diet. The first week I ate nothing but steamed veggies, veggie broth and drank gallons of water; I was miserable, and hungry. I remember crying to my mom that I couldn't do it, that nothing was worth the pain and hunger I was experiencing right then! It turns out, much of that pain was caused by gluten withdrawal, and it did get better. The next week I started to add lean protein back into my diet, along with a few more fruits and veggies that were restricted the previous week. The process of adding back one or two foods at a time was tedious, but the longer I did it, the more I could tell that it was helping. Once the initial withdrawal symptoms went away I could actually tell which individual foods were bothering me. It was pretty amazing actually!
After a few months of eliminating and slowly adding back foods I felt like a different person. I now understood what Dr. P. meant when he said that the fuel you use makes all the difference in how you feel. I went from waking up every morning expecting to have a rough start to the day, to finally being able to enjoy the mornings again. I could finally go into the office at the start of the day, and not worry about having to take off in the middle of the day because my stomach never managed to calm itself down. Most importantly, I started feeling like a normal human again. I still remember the first morning I woke up not feeling sick. I woke up like any other morning and started to go about getting the dogs fed, and turning the teapot on before ever realizing that I wasn't sick... then when it hit me that I felt fine I actually started crying, I guess my diet didn't change the fact that I can be slightly emotional in the mornings. Now, most mornings I wake up not even feeling the slightest bit sick. I still have a few mornings where I feel like the old days, but the vast majority of days I feel great!
Going gluten free literally changed my life, and now I hope to share that experience with the great blogosphere. If my rants on gluten can help even one person than I've done my part! I'm still not sold that the whole world needs to be gluten free, but I do think that it would help more people than are willing to try it. We as humans can be stubborn, and when we want to do something we will do it, regardless of the consequences sometimes. However, I feel like for many folks out there, they just don't know what the consequences are. For instance, for years I didn't believe that going gluten free would help me. I had even tried it a few times, I jumped on the bandwagon and bought every box labeled gluten free that I could find! I felt even sicker when I tried to eat nothing but processed gluten free, pre-made food. I was convinced that I couldn't possibly have this problem because the boxed food only made me feel worse. If I could talk to myself two years ago I would tell myself that of course boxed foods made me feel worse. I never was much of a boxed food eater before, so it is no wonder that I couldn't handle it now that my digestion was in the terrible shape that it was in.
But the answer, for me at least, was pretty simple when I was willing to see that it had been there all along. EAT REAL FOOD!! I guess it's a little more complicated than that, I avoid flour, and other sources of gluten, dairy, and I try to avoid soy too. "But that's a lot," you say, "That's everything I eat," you say. Well to that I say, I understand. My diet used to be soda crackers and Sprite! However, the eventual point of my new blog is to share ways I have found to avoid those troubling items while not avoiding flavor and function. I hope that you enjoy reading my blog as much as I am enjoying the prospect of writing it!
