Saturday, April 16, 2011

April Accountability #4

My diet.

About 6 months before getting pregnant I went gluten-free.  I was tired, I had gained about 60 lbs effortlessly and extremely uninterested in anything but laying on the couch.  It was suggested that I could have Celiac Sprue disease by my Gastroenterologist so I did a gluten elimination challenge.  I felt amazing about two weeks later and decided to have the blood work to check for the antibodies of Celiac.  My test came back negative, however, I tainted the results by eliminating gluten for over two weeks.  Since I felt amazing, and the only cure to Celiac is to be gluten-free, I decided to forgo repeat testing while eating gluten or a small bowel biopsy.

Then I got pregnant and remained gluten-free until about the 2nd trimester.  At this point my stomach was not a happy camper.  I sailed through the 1st trimester with no morning sickness or food aversion.  Then Thanksgiving hit.  While I was nausea free, ever single food made my stomach do somersaults.  The only thing my body really seemed to respond to was, yep you guessed it, gluten-filled foods.  Bread, pasta, and crackers were staples in my diet.  I didn't seem to have a very negative response to it so I kept a gluten diet.

Then Bear was born and there was the stress of the NICU.  I ate the free nursing-mother meals, which were gluten filled comfort foods.  I lost 15lbs of the baby weight easily (then again Bear weighed 9lb at birth) and the rest have been stuck. 

I've lost and regained the same 5lbs for 6 months now. I just figured it was the stress of special needs, and the hospitalizations, the fast food, the comfort eating.  However, once things started to calm down I decided to clean up Hubs and my diet.  I made homemade wheat bread and we ate salads and sandwiches.  And I didn't lose a pound.

In the past two months I've been becoming increasingly more exhausted no matter how much sleep I have.  And **TMI WARNING** my monthly period has been coming less and less.  Last time was 90 days and I'm already up to 45 days this cycle.  I'm guessing as my immune system is regulating it's becoming more and more sensitive to gluten.

Wednesday I had enough.  I said farewell to some of my favorite friends and embraced my gluten-free lifestyle.
(all images from google search)

I know there are many gluten-free alternatives but the specialty flours are extremely expensive and most recipes are highly disappointing.  Although, I do recommend the Betty Crocker Baking Mixes. I really liked the Chocolate Chip Cookies, however with a stick of butter they are probably pretty unhealthy.

I do think I will invest in some gluten free oats to try to convert a few recipes I have.

So on top of budgeting, driving less, cooking at home and working on my marriage.  I have to frugally cook gluten-free.

I do this by
1) Buying very few gluten-free alternatives.  My one allowance is pasta.  I buy corn past from The Christmas Tree Shoppes for $1.29/bag.  I haven't bought it in a while so the price may have changed.

2) I cook like a meat and potatoes kind of girl.  I usually make some sort of protein, and a vegetable and starch. 

3) I replace pasta with brown rice.  Except for tomato sauce (yuck).  We have turkey and gravy over rice, chicken and wild rice soup, you get the picture.

4) I do not buy seasonings or instant anything.  There is LOTS of hidden gluten so the easiest way to avoid this is to cook at home.

In the past 2 days, I have more energy and am feeling "lighter".  We'll see if this lasts.

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