Going Gluten Free

It's spring time. Ignore the empty coke bottle planters
and dead grass. My yard is a hot mess. 

I’m going through a dietary transition. A permanent transition, which makes it all the more harder.

After extensive research and an elimination diet, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a gluten sensitivity, and my doctor agrees that giving it up seems to be a good idea.

I don’t want to sound like I’m jumping on the fad wagon. Going gluten free is all the rage right now, but I’d really rather have no part of it. I like wheat bread, pasta, cookies, etc. Bye-bye deliciously glutenous items of goodness.

Now, I eat rice bread, bean sprout noodle things, and cookies by brands like Glutino. None of which are too horrible. The bread has been an interesting change (gluten-free bread neither bends the same nor seems to have a reasonable expiration date—the first kind I got was supposed to last 3 months or something). The noodles aren’t bad; I used to eat Chinese takeout all the time, so that wasn’t anything new, but I do miss the taste of regular angel hair pasta. There’s no real complaint in the sweets aisle, except I’ll miss the things that can’t be realistically replicated—I’m looking at you Oreos and Pringles.

And I didn’t even make the transition right. I’d been suspecting gluten was the cause for some of my aliments for months now, but I never had the determination to actually commit to the change. It’s a lot to take in. You have to learn your labels, learn what sauces and dressings are no longer available to you, what seasoning packs aren’t available to you. But, after a rather glutenous week followed by days of feeling like complete and utter crap, I went cold turkey. Friday night was the last time gluten passed these lips.

And it’s been kind of amazing. In the past week, I haven’t been bloated, felt nauseous, needed to take any gas relief medication, and my body hasn’t ached. It’s like the first day after a really bad cold when you can finally breathe through your nose again.

I feel like I can exist in my body again.

Anxiety has all but disappeared. In the midst of feeling like crap the week before last, I had to run out of a Barnes and Noble because I thought I was going to pass out. This past weekend, after the change, the hubs and I went to an artisan fair and numerous shops where I never felt the need to bolt.

The change that just a week has brought on gives me so much hope for the things that can’t immediately change. Like maybe one day, I’ll be able to retire the hormones and live medicine free again. Maybe I can finally start losing weight. Maybe I can stop worrying about being sick or feeling out of it or spending whole days at my house in pajamas because my anxiety is on red alert.

It seems like a big deal, all the things I can’t have, but it’s really not. I’ll never have my family’s pie on holidays again, but I’ve spent an entire week without nausea, and that isn’t something I’ve been able to say for years.

I’ll just have to dust off my baking skills and try to replicate all the stuff I think I’m missing.

Anyone else give up gluten? What have been your results? Any tips for cheaper grocery bills?