I’m not usually a New Year’s Resolution kind of girl, but I do love the end of Hectic December (“Why December Is My Least Favorite Month” is an essay for another day) and the fresh, clean start that comes with January. Who doesn’t like to have a do-over? Sometimes I make New Year’s Resolutions - which I, as everyone else does, promptly break within a month – and sometimes I don’t. This year, rather than think of them as resolutions, I’ve come up with several goals for the upcoming year. Somehow that doesn’t seem quite as threatening. Or humiliating. Or unattainable.
So guess what, my lucky readers (I know you totally don’t see where this is going)? Tonight’s selection is my first installment:
Adopt a gluten-free diet for at least a month
I have had digestive issues for years that seem to be growing worse as time goes on. I went through quite a bit of testing over the past year to try to determine the cause. My dad has Crohn’s disease/colitis, and I wanted to check and see if that was what I had going on, too. And despite the thrills of multiple blood tests and even a colonoscopy, it kind of stinks (ha! Pun intended!), that no real conclusion for any cause was ever found. In fact, I was given the catchall, “can’t-diagnosis-it-as-anything-else-so-we’ll-call-it-IBS” diagnosis from my GP. Who, generally, I LOVE, but when she starts telling me about how her sister was diagnosed with IBS as a teenager and that I should just "accept my diagnosis", I felt like throwing a roll of toilet paper at her and screaming,
“WHEN YOU HAVE FUN RUNNING TO A TOILET
SO YOU DON’T SHART IN YOUR PANTS ON A REGULAR BASIS,
THEN I WILL ACCEPT THIS DIAGNOSIS!”
Please pardon my oversharing.
So, when my sis-in-law (hi Terri!) told me that her daughter (also with digestive issues) had recently gone gluten-free and it changed her life dramatically, I thought that it was worth trying, too. I did have a blood test for celiac (negative), but it turns out that you can still have gluten sensitivity and test negative for celiac.
I don’t know that I am gluten sensitive (as in, have reactions to the wheat, oats, and barley in food), and there doesn’t seem to be a good test out there to assess that. What I read says that the best way to see if you are gluten sensitive is to just eliminate it from your diet for a period of time and see if your symptoms subside. So, as of today, January 7, 2012, I am five days into this new way of eating.
What? Obviously I couldn’t start this when I was living it up over New Year’s Weekend!
And I say “new way of eating”, but it’s not really that new. I’m not super hard-core about reading every label for EVERYTHING I eat. I am typically just changing some habits and eating Greek yogurt and fruit for breakfast, lots of salads and fruits and veggies, lots of beans, and no obvious grains like breads, cereals, grain desserts, pastas, etc. Last night we made spaghetti, and I used spaghetti squash for mine instead of pasta noodles.
Never made spaghetti squash before. Kind of interesting.
There are all kinds of substitutes out there, but I don’t really miss any of that right now and don’t mind making vegetable substitutions or going without instead. I am a total rookie right now and know that I have lots that I can learn. And yes, I realize that this is the trendy diet du jour right now, but for pete's sake, people. If I lose weight (needed! it's really bad when you can't fit in your "fat" pants anymore. Sigh.), that's a side benefit. I'd just like to stop the over-pooping.
[Sidenote: my mother would like you to know that she did not, indeed, raise her daughter in a barn and also that she is unwrapping a fresh bar of soap as we speak.]
Verdict: no changes whatsoever yet, but I’m still early into this. If no dramatic changes happen, I’ll let it go, but what if they do? You can bet I will be letting my GP know!
And you, of course, dear readers, too. Hang in there. This may be my 2012 Magnesium Miracle story!
This really cracked me up! I hope Gluten Freedom will help you - it has changed my intestines, but it really took a while for me to know how much it had helped. There is wheat in so many places, just know that I will gladly help you with any questions you might have. For the first few weeks, I just ate only fresh simply homemade foods that I knew were GF, then tried to figure out how to replace the wheat. Wal-Mart now carries GF canned soups, which are a real help in some of the casserole dishes, and the rice pasta they have is good. With the pasta, never overcook it, just double (triple) salt the water and add oil to it. Then when you drop the pasta in make sure that you don't drop clumps of it into the water together or you will end up with clumps of pasta in your bowl!
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion is to take the whole family GF for all shared meals (breakfast & dinner) as it makes meal time less stressful (at least it does for me!).
Oh - I do not know how often you eat out, but there is a "wash" for lettuce that is used in many chain restaurants that will send me running for the nearest potty! MSG is the culprit; however, NONE of the restaurants where I have had these issues will disclose that they do it. I rarely eat a salad out unless I know (by personal experience) that the salad is okay!
Well - back to my cup of coffee and Y&R online.......just call, text, e-mail or drop by if you ever want to chat about it all!
Anderson
My husband's family (mainly his mother and sister and he) all have 'bad guts.' I'm talking clear the room sort of stuff. Usually I find it humorous but there are occasions when it is gross (in bed for one) or inappropriate (when I was in hospital and they came to visit, for another). Toby has inherited his father's guts, and we took him to the paediatrician (can't believe I spelled it right first go). He was tested for all sorts and showed slightly high rates of celiac levels in his blood. The GP was worried but the Paed' was not as he said that a true celiac /wheat intolerance would have shown much higher levels. So Dan started taking 'inner health plus' probiotic vitamins every morning and giving them to T as well. He also switched to Lactose free milk, which is sweeter than usual milk but is otherwise the same, after the doctor revealed to us that Payton may have lactose intolerance and thus be fussy after a breastfeed. (She wanted me to go soy. Huh. As if. I used the lactose free milk for a while but it didn't seem to help my fussy baby. Turns out, he is just fussy. Go figure.) Anyway, he says it took about two months to 'feel better'(sic: not bellow from below like a hot air balloon all day long and not do 4 rounds of poo a day and not have to sleep on the sofa because his bottom bits extrude a stench no human could sleep through except the one doing the emitting). Obviously, everyone is different so I won't be offended if you take a different path.
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