What I accomplished this week

Gluten free
The other day I tried a Lindt Lindor truffle just to see if I would be able to feel the effect of the gluten- yep I could. You wouldn't think there'd be that much barley malt in one little truffle, but there's enough to make my throat swell up (my reaction when I eat gluten). Definitely lends credence to those who say that cross-contamination is an issue- small crumbs do have an effect.

We ate at Chili's for my SIL's birthday last night. Before leaving the house I got online and checked their website for allergen information. They have a specific list of foods that are gluten free, so I printed that off and took it with me. I ordered the honey-bbq ribs, steamed broccoli, and black beans. Yum!

I think I've said it before, but the longer I stay away from gluten, the more my body is able to react to other things it doesn't like. In the past, everything was masked by the gluten. Now that that's out of the picture, other things are now recognizable as a problem. Like M&M's. I'm still trying to pinpoint what it is exactly, but I think it's one of the blue food colors they use in the blue and green M&M's. If I leave those ones alone, I seem to be ok. I checked the M&M's website to see if I could just order brown peanut butter M&M's (my fav), but you can only special order regular M&M's. Meh. Not worth the money.

Little Miss Sunshine
I called her my sweetie yesterday, and she responded by saying 'I not tweetie, I punkin!' Her daddy calls her 'punkin', and apparently she's decided she really likes it.

Projects
I finally sorted and restacked our 30 plus boxes of books. The boxes have started to bend, causing the stacks to tip precariously towards the door. Almost two years of being opened and shifted and stacked has not been good for them. So I went through each box, pulled out books that I didn't want to keep, and made sure each box was as full as possible in an effort to minimize box bending. I then restacked the boxes and put away the various items that had been tossed wherever convenient over the last few months. It's so much neater now, and we're no longer in danger of being squished by an avalanche of boxes of books.

I ended up with two boxes of books to sell/get rid of. I listed them on half.com today, and it went quite fast. You type in the ISBN, the condition, and any remarks about the condition, hit enter, and it brings up all the pertinent info, including a picture if they have one available. You decide a price, hit enter, and it's listed. So quick! Some of the books were old textbooks that I should have sold back to the bookstore after I was done with them, but for whatever reason, didn't. Really should have- I would have got a lot more money for some of them. Oh well.

While I was at it, I also prepped some items for listing on ebay- fall type things like a Halloween costume, boots, etc.

I also gathered up stuff for the yard sale my SIL and I are going to do (next weekend hopefully). I'll take the books that are listed for the least amount on half.com ($.75 is the lowest you can go) and see if I can get rid of them at the yard sale. I also have quite a few I couldn't list on half.com because they're too old and don't have an ISBN. It's nice to de-clutter a bit.

Yesterday I finally got my hair cut- the last time was last October. I've been letting it grow out since then, but the ends were just getting yucky, and it needed some shaping. It looks much better now.

Job Hunt
Mr M met with the investigator, so things are finally moving forward on his clearance. In the meantime, we're updating his resume and making plans for him to attend a job fair that should have a lot of companies that we would be interested in. He really needs to talk to representatives in person- it's too easy for resumes to get lost when submitted online.

More Larabars to try

I recently found a couple new flavors of Larabars at our local health food store: tropical fruit tart and peanut butter and jelly. The tropical fruit tart has a strong flavor of coconut, due to all the bits of coconut, but it also has small chunks of pineapple. Yum! The peanut butter and jelly has peanuts and chunks of cherries. The cherries and pineapple in these two flavors really make it worth going back for another one.

I just got back from checking out the Larabar website (where I got the pictures), and it says they now have mini Larabars. I'm going to have to keep my eyes out for those- LMS likes Larabars, but usually only eats about half of one.

Books and links for learning about gluten intolerance

I've shared this info with a few siblings, and I've posted some of it before, but I thought I'd bring it all together for anyone who's interested in learning more about being gluten free.

Here's the 3 most helpful books I've read so far, in order of most helpful.Healthier Without Wheat: A New Understanding of Wheat Allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
by Stephen Wangen
****This is the one written by a doctor with celiac disease, so he really understands the issues.
The Gluten Connection: How Gluten Sensitivity May Be Sabotaging Your Health - And What You Can Do to Take Control NOW
by Shari Lieberman & Linda Segall
****This one talked about the myriad of symptoms that can be associated with gluten intolerance.
The First Year: Celiac Disease and Living Gluten-Free: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed
by Jules E. Dowler Shepard
****This one has good recipes and good basic info.

There's lots of good websites out there, too.
For celiac/gluten intolerance info:www.celiac.org

For recipes and coping strategies:glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com recipes, and she wrote a book about her experience with celiac diseaseglutenfreemommy.com this one has lots of good recipes, as well as links to other good sites.glutenfreeda.blogspot.com this one also has good recipes
I just recently came across a few more websites that seem really good, though I've only looked through them a little bit.
glutenfreecookingschool.com I found this when I was looking for a gluten free flat bread recipe. Since I can't eat yeast products, I need a good substitute for regular bread.
glutenfreemom.com I found this one when I was looking for a gluten free mac and cheese recipe. There are boxed gluten free mac and cheese options, but the sauce always tastes off. And homemade mac and cheese is sooo good...

Here's some others I recently came across and haven't looked at much, they seem to have recipes, news, etc.
elanaspantry.com
holdthegluten.net
holdthericecakes.com
glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
celiacchicks.com
glutenfreeforgood.com
I've been experimenting with different gluten free foods that you can find in the grocery store, some are worth the money, some not. My favorites:

For breakfast
*Vans gluten free blueberry frozen waffles (kind of expensive, but worth it)
*Yoplait yogurt
*Eggs
*Corn or Rice chex (They're even labeled gluten free now! They recently switched from barley malt syrup to rice syrup as the sweetener)
*Gluten free rice crispies (I've tried various 'alternative' gluten free cereals, and have to say they were all disgusting. It's nice to be able to find 'normal' cereals that are gluten free.)
*Cottage cheese
*Gluten free pancakes with unsweetened applesauce (there's several brands of mix, so far, they're all pretty good)

For lunch
*Leftovers from dinner the night before
*Tuna on Glutino cheese or vegetable gluten free crackers (the original and multi grain are disgusting)
*Egg salad on crackers
*Plain yogurt with frozen berries, sliced almonds, and agave nectar
*Fruits and veggies

For dinner
Most recipes can be fairly easily adapted: take out obvious sources of gluten such as pasta, bread, flour tortillas, etc. Less obvious ones to be careful of are soy sauce and canned soups. A lot of canned soups have wheat flour as a thickener, and a main ingredient of soy sauce is wheat. Luckily, there are pretty good gluten free versions of most food items. Tinkyada rice pasta is quite good, and there is some decent gluten free bread, hamburger buns, etc out there as well. I haven't found a really good flour tortilla yet, though I just found one in the freezer section that was a lot better than the only other variety I've been able to find locally. The only other one I've found locally is a plastic-y rice tortilla. I found a recipe to make my own, so I plan on making my own tortillas soon.

Snacks/desserts
Here's where you run into a lot of things that aren't worth the money. The ones I will buy are:
*Sweet Potato tortilla chips from Food That Should Taste Good (so yummy!)
*Rice Works tortilla chips
*Lara bars (apple pie are the best!)
*Most of the crackers I've tried aren't great; the Glutino cheese crackers and vegetable crackers are the best, but they're not absolutely delicious. Some of the cookies are ok, but again, not great. This isn't actually a bad thing- I'm trying to lose weight, so not having crackers and cookies to eat is just fine with me.
I can still eat chocolate (is that a good thing or a bad thing?). Ghirardelli chocolate is ok, but Lindt chocolate is not- it's sweetened with barley malt syrup, which gets snuck into a lot of foods. So I can't eat the Lindt Lindor truffles (except the white ones), but I can eat the Ghirardelli milk chocolate peanut butter squares (sooo yummy).

Fast food options
There are some options for eating at fast food restaurants, but not a lot. Cross contamination is definitely an issue to watch out for. I've checked out websites for menu items that are ok, and the best fast food options I've found so far are Wendy's and Chipotle, and for sit-down restaurants, Outback and P.F. Changs are the best so far. I've made up a list of gluten free items available at the mainstream restaurants- if anyone wants a copy, let me know.

Gluten free on vacation

I had fairly good success eating gluten free while traveling for 2 1/2 weeks. I prepared ahead of time and checked out websites of restaurants, and made a list of edible items-it's limited, but there is fast food I can still eat.

Some examples of fast food that I ate:Taco Bell: taco salad (minus the tortilla)- kinda gross, but I'm not a fan of taco salads to begin with (give me a chalupa any day!).

Wendy's: mandarin chicken salad, no noodles or sesame dressing (I used a little ranch)- quite good- I'm a sucker for mandarin oranges.

Wendy's: baked potato and chili- also pretty good. It was way too hot to be eating chili, but it tasted pretty good. The baked potato with sour cream and chives and broccoli (if you can find broccoli, it's not available in all markets) is good, but the bacon and cheese potato (also not available in all markets) is kinda gross- the bacon and cheese sauce both tasted kinda funny. I had a sour cream and chives potato and chili while everyone else ate Pizza Hut pizza, and didn't feel deprived.

McDonalds: fruit and yogurt parfait (no granola), apple dippers, and side salad- were ok, but I would have preferred some protein. Those 3 items are pretty much the only gluten free items, other than ice cream, at McDonalds. Very sad.

Burger King: had a tender grill chicken sandwich minus the bun- it was ok, but it was just the chicken, some lettuce, and a tomato, no condiments. It came with a bun, so I had to go back and tell them I couldn't eat it because of the wheat. One of the girls working there said it was cornmeal dusted, there was no wheat. Umm, I'm pretty sure it's made of wheat. Maybe she was thinking of sesame seeds? They fixed it without any further problems, though.

Carl's Jr.: low carb burger and fries- pretty good. I ordered the criss cut fries because I thought they were ok, but when they arrived, I realized there was some coating on them. I ate them anyway, but I shouldn't have. The natural cut fries are ok, though. The low carb burger is very messy.

Food while camping:
I brought gluten free pancake mix and mixed up a few pancakes for myself every morning and cooked them in my own pan (avoiding contamination). I also brought gluten free noodles for spaghetti night and gluten free crackers to eat with meat and cheese or tuna for lunch.

I've noticed I have a lot fewer blood sugar problems since going gluten free. I can eat less protein without feeling crappy, which I haven't been able to do for years. This is a good thing, since I didn't eat as well as I should have on the trip, but I still felt pretty decent.

Despite not eating as well as I should (too many Ghiradelli chocolate peanut butter squares (yum!) while traveling and too many gluten free s'mores (carefully tear a marshmallow in half, place a square of chocolate in the marshmallow, close, carefully skewer, and verrry carefully toast- yummy!), I still managed to lose another 3 pounds. Now that vacation time is over, I need to buckle down and eat more fruits and veggies and exercise more regularly so I can lose more weight more quickly.

A big lump in my throat

The longer I avoid gluten, the easier it is to recognize reactions to stuff I shouldn't be eating. My body is finally able to react to smaller amounts of gluten, now that large amounts (toast, flour tortillas, etc) aren't overwhelming my system. Now when I eat small amounts of gluten, my throat swells up a bit. Not enough to cut off my air supply or anything, but enough to make things uncomfortable and make me feel like I have a massive lump in my throat.

While this reaction is uncomfortable, it does help me pinpoint when I eat something I shouldn't. When I started reading about gluten intolerance, the people all mentioned that when they ate gluten they'd have to spend several hours in the bathroom. I figured since I never had intestinal symptoms, I wouldn't have a way of telling when I ate something containing gluten. Good to know that's not the case...

There's still something that's tripping me up, but I'm not sure what it is. I can't pinpoint it to one or two foods. I keep going back to those elusive 'natural flavors' or cross-contamination. Hard to tell which it is. Definitely a steep learning curve here.

Book review and pieces coming together

I just finished reading the book 'Healthier without Wheat' by Dr. Stephen Wangen. It was informative and got me thinking about the symptoms and experiences I've had throughout my life. He does talk about celiac disease, but makes the point that not everyone with a gluten intolerance has celiac disease. On the other hand, celiac disease is a type of gluten intolerance.

Some of the symptoms he mentions:
*Short stature due to malabsorption of nutrients (maybe that's why I'm so much shorter than all my siblings)
*Mental fogginess (have had this for years)
*Infertility (check)
*Miscarriage (double check)
*Gas, bloating, etc (check)
*Fatigue (for a period of time it was so bad I couldn't do much of anything)
*Weight gain/inability to lose weight (check)
*Abdominal pain and nausea (had this off and on for years, currently being treated with Nexium, but we're just treating the symptoms, not the cause)

There's others as well, a lot of which I've experienced in one way or another, these are just the major ones that caught my attention.

With gluten intolerance, the body doesn't absorb nutrients properly and/or causes immune reactions (inflammations of the various body systems), both of which end up causing systemic problems. One thing gets damaged, which stresses other parts of the body, which causes more problems, and it just keeps going and going, getting worse and worse.

It's all about balance
Because the gut is out of whack, bacteria, parasites and yeast can all proliferate and get out of balance. When I saw that he mentioned yeast, I was so happy! So many doctors just don't believe that yeast can cause systemic problems, so anytime I find one who does it's almost a cause for celebration. A lot of the symptoms of yeast overgrowth parallel those of gluten intolerance, which causes further confusion. I've known for years that I have yeast problems, but have been unsuccessful in treating it on a long term basis. I can do it for short periods, but not for very long.

I need to read the other book by this author- it sounded like he talked more about bacteria, yeast and parasite overgrowths in his other book.

My symptoms
In any case, I feel validated about my yeast problems. I've been thinking about it all, and I think I may have come up with a timeline for it all.

*As a child, I didn't have intestinal problems or anything, though I did have ear problems and sinus problems and I am a good 4 or 5 inches shorter than my next shortest sibling. Not sure if I got the short end of the genetic stick, or if it's due to nutrition issues caused by gluten intolerance.

* 10 years ago, on my mission, I had two bouts of food poisoning fairly close together, and I think that's what compromised my system. The gluten intolerance became more active and started causing debilitating symptoms (horrible fatigue, muscle aches, gas and bloating, mental fogginess, etc).

*After my mission my body was able to rest, and, I think, gradually was able to cope with everything better. The fatigue became bearable, the muscle aches went away, the gas lessened, etc. The mental fogginess has always followed me, unfortunately (it's why I barely passed my intro to organic chem class my last semester of college- I had a really hard time understanding an already difficult subject because my brain was so fuzzy).

The pieces come together
I got used to dealing with the symptoms and got on with life. I had problems getting pregnant, and had my first miscarriage 5 years ago. A year later, I was on the Atkins diet to lose weight (finally managed to lose 10 pounds), and managed to get pregnant with our daughter. Two years ago I had another miscarriage. In thinking about it, I think the reason I was able to stay pregnant with our daughter was because I'd been doing Atkins, which means I wasn't eating any grains, gluten-containing or otherwise.

Another thing I read that stuck out was that gluten itself is addicting. When I thought about it, this too made sense. I've always considered myself a 'carb addict', but it was usually cookies, crackers, and bread that I wanted to eat (and chocolate, but we won't get into that...), not potato chips or corn chips. Except Doritos- I love Doritos. I was eating some this weekend, and after the 3rd handful stopped to read the ingredients list. There's wheat in Doritos. Now I know why I have such a hard time eating just a couple of them.

Lessening of cravings
As I've made an effort to stay away from gluten, my cravings for carbs have lessened, and so have my cravings for chocolate. In the past, I could eat a bag of Ghiradelli peanut butter chocolate squares (super yummy!) in one afternoon. Now, if I eat 2 Hershey's Kisses (inferior chocolate, I know), I'm good. I don't have that urge to keep eating more and more. My brother's birthday was Sunday, so I had a piece of German chocolate cake. It was good in the moment, but not in the long run. I felt blah on Monday, and noticed more cravings to eat food (even though I wasn't really hungry).

Now that we're home from Disneyland (where I did eat some gluten-containing food), I've gone back to eating gluten free, and have also eliminated yeast, so no bread. It's so much easier this time- in the past when I tried to eliminate yeast and sugar it was very hard. I still need to lower my sugar intake, but it's going so much better. LMS's annual check up is in a week and a half and I'm going to have them do a full panel to test for food allergies. I'd like to know for sure if she has any problems we need to be aware of. If not, I don't need to worry so much about what she is/isn't eating. If she does, then we'll have to adjust our diet accordingly. She's had problems with milk in the past. Hopefully she doesn't actually have an allergy to it. It will be difficult to eliminate dairy- we do love our cheese and yogurt.

I didn't take the time and effort to plan GF meals for our Disney trip, but I will have to plan out our meals for our family reunion in July. We'll probably be gone for at least a week and a half: traveling, staying with family, and camping. When it comes to eating bread or jeopardizing a possible pregnancy, I'll skip the bread. Put in that context, it's a lot easier to resist the foods I shouldn't be eating. And it's nice not to have the cravings that have plagued me for years.

Gluten-free progress report

I've been eating gluten-free for about two and a half weeks now, with some purposeful slip ups on the weekends. I don't notice a huge difference during the week, but I have noticed that on Mondays I'm feeling more blah and tired than the rest of the week. Since I don't have celiac disease, I don't have a definite reaction telling me I ate something I shouldn't have.

I'm definitely eating wheat-free, and I think for the most part I'm managing gluten-free as well. There have been a couple things I haven't been completely sure about, but I'm learning more about which ingredients are gluten-free and which aren't. It's a process. So far I've been pretty happy with the gluten-free products I've used. The pastas taste basically the same to me, and I found some really good rice bread made by a local bakery. I wasn't too impressed with the rice tortillas we tried, but I've found quite a few gf snacks that taste pretty good. So I don't feel deprived, except on Thursdays, when hubby wants to go to Pizza Hut with his family. We did find a good gf pizza crust mix, but it's not the same as Pizza Hut. Oh well.

I'm considering going yeast free when we get back from our trip. It would mean no bread or pizza dough and no aged cheeses. This wouldn't be too bad. I think I could still eat the really yummy gf frozen waffles I found (I need to make a list of the brands I like), but I need to check on that. Technically I think I'm not supposed to eat very much sugar either. I need to check on that as well. I think I'm closer to a yeast-free diet than I have in the past, so hopefully it'll be a lot more doable this time around. And I'm really hoping it will help me finally lose weight.