One Year of Gluten Free Living

June 18th marks one year of being gluten free. (You can read this post from last year about going GF). I will never forget that day because it was Father’s Day and I was the sickest I had ever been from my endometriosis. After everything that I had read, I needed an anti-inflammatory diet and I felt like giving up gluten would be so much easier than giving up dairy (which, joke’s on me because poor Banks has to eat dairy free, so lots of things at our house are DF).

I could tell a difference in my skin within a couple of days. Since junior high, I had dealt with little read bumps on my cheeks/jawline area. Those cleared up without me changing any type of skincare–just eliminating gluten from my diet. Then I remember my brain just feeling clear and lighter (very weird to describe but it did!) and also I had LOTS of extra energy! No longer did I feel sluggish during the day, but I felt like I had plenty of energy–which was great! Now, those changes only lasted about 5-6 weeks because if you read the post I linked earlier, I very surprisingly got pregnant LOL

I stayed GF my entire first trimester (because I pretty much missed that entire trimester ha!) and my second trimester. I ate gluten for the first time on Christmas morning and aside from the red bumps coming back to my face (and my stomach hurting a little), I didn’t notice much of a change since I was already super tired all the time. After that, I would eat gluten every once in a while because at that point, I figured I was already in my third trimester and everything with Merritt was looking great, and I had really deprived myself of pizza or cookies and sometimes I just wanted what I was craving! (I attribute a GF diet to helping me not gain a ton of weight since I couldn’t just eat cake and cookies haha!)

Now that I’m 10 weeks postpartum and I’m feeling a little more normal, I feel like I can really attest to what eliminating gluten from my diet feels like. Like before, I have lost of energy–which really surprises me the most since I’m never resting and always up and doing something. I still only drink one cup of coffee a day, and I really only do that because it’s a comfortable habit that I love and look forward to–not that I need the caffeine. My skin looks better some days than others because I’ve accidentally eaten gluten (like some frozen French fries I baked that I didn’t realize had gluten in them since none that I had ever eaten before had….and I didn’t realize it until I ate them).

Sunday, we went out to eat at a restaurant after church for the first time as a family of five. We went to a restaurant that Dustin, Harrison, and Banks love and that I used to love when I could eat gluten. I really wanted to eat chicken fingers, so I decided that I would eat gluten for lunch and that was it. As soon as we got home from lunch, I felt sluggish and gross. I took a two hour nap–which I hadn’t done since going back to work at 6 weeks postpartum. Even though I only ate gluten at lunch, I could still tell that I felt more tired than I had all summer yesterday, too. So it just goes to show me that I have to be really choosy if I want to eat gluten or not because I will definitely be paying for it later.

Now, for anyone who is curious about eliminating gluten from their diet, I just want to say that it’s not as hard as you would think it would be! There are certain things that have gluten in them that would surprise you (like cream of mushroom/chicken soup, soy sauce, and those fries I mentioned earlier), but there are plenty of things that don’t have gluten!

I love to make easy dishes like this–corn tortilla chips, pulled pork, black beans, cheese (Banks ate this without cheese), white sauce and red sauce. Or a simple meat and vegetable meal. There are certain brands that I’ve also learned taste better than other GF brands I’ve tasted–King Arthur anything, Sweet Loren’s cookies, Banza ziti pasta. There are other things that I just don’t eat now because I can’t find a substitute that tastes good….like bread. There’s a GF bakery about 30-40 minutes from my house that makes amazing GF cakes, so my birthday and baby shower cake both came from there!

I do want to encourage anyone who is just thinking about giving up gluten to try it! Is it fun? Not all the time. But is it hard? Not really. I love following people in the functional medicine world, and I’ve listened to lots of podcasts about gluten. The reason why so many people cannot tolerate gluten now vs 40 years ago is because the food industry started spraying glyphosate (Round Up) on crops and our bodies cannot tolerate that. And it’s wreaking havoc inside our bodies. Giving up gluten most likely reduced inflammation in my reproductive area which resulted in my getting pregnant after YEARS of unsuccessful trying and medical intervention. One of my friends has debilitating migraines and she eliminated gluten from her diet and hasn’t had a migraine since. You never know what it could do for you or how much better you could feel just by giving up gluten.

I’d love to talk to anyone curious about it or who needs food ideas. Or you can always search Pinterest 🙂