Tag Archives: food

Gluten Be Gone

I promise this isn’t going to turn into a blog where all I talk about is going gluten-free and celiac. This blog will always be about staying healthy when you have a busy life—but for me, that will probably mean staying away from gluten.

Last night, I laid in bed and thought about the foods I wanted to eat before I gave up gluten for good. Chicken nuggets from McDonald’s (yup.), some more pasta, mozzarella sticks (can’t have anything breaded), and a bagel all topped my list.

This morning, I woke up, got on the bike and realized that I’ve been not feeling well for a while. I can change how I feel just by changing how I eat. It’s not worth it to me to feel awful again to be able to enjoy some foods for a few minutes. So today, I truly start my gluten-free journey—which will include some bumps in the road as I find out what makes me feel good and what doesn’t.

Last night, still tired from my procedure, I ordered sushi:

Technically, the tempura on the sweet potato roll and the crunchy spicy salmon roll are off-limits. (As is traditional soy sauce, apparently—I need to use tamari instead.) But I’m learning.

This morning, running late, I decided to get an omelette, since I can’t zip into Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts any more for a quick breakfast.

I’m trying to remember that I will feel better soon, and that it’s worth it, and there are plenty of tasty foods out there without gluten—many of which I haven’t tried yet! My new favorite food could be out there!

Also, a gluten-free/low-gluten lifestyle is how I started this journey. And my stomach issues totally went away then. It’s when I reached my goal weight and started trying to reintroduce bread/grains/gluten in moderation that I started feeling crappy again.

Au revoir au pain.

If you read that in (my intermediate-level) French, it means “Goodbye to bread.”

If you read that in Franglais (French/English), it means goodbye to pain. 

Either way is accurate—I hope.

I had an appointment with a gastro yesterday, and he said that my blood test indicated it was pretty likely I had celiac, and he wanted an endoscopy to know for sure. I maintained my composure, and asked how soon I could get the endoscopy—I just wanted answers, I said. I spoke with his receptionist and she said I could either go in late September or this morning—he’d had some cancelations. I agreed that I’d go right away, that I wanted to get it over with. I stayed strong until she handed me the pamphlet detailing the procedure, but then I started crying. 

I know there are things that are way worse than celiac, but it’s still a scary thing to me. Even if I don’t often eat bread and pasta right now, at least I have the freedom to. The freedom to eat chicken fingers if I want to. To drink beer. (My dad’s already looked up gluten-free beer for me. Also, there’s no gluten in hard cider. FYI.) 

So last night, knowing I had this test on the horizon, I had a wonderful beer with Lacey and then we ate lots of pasta with my mom, who accompanied me to my procedure this morning.

Orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe

Penne with vodka. (This is seriously one of my favorite pasta dishes, but it’s usually too rich for me to enjoy. I threw a little caution to the wind last night.)

While I haven’t found out for sure that I have celiac, I’m definitely going to start transitioning to a gluten-free diet to see if I feel better. If you have any tips OR questions, I’d love to hear from you.