Becoming Gluten-Free
Please know I make ALL my diet changes under the supervision of a doctor and I’m only sharing my experiences. Please make sure to consult your doctor before making any lifestyle changes.
For me, eliminating gluten was hands down the biggest surprise of all the food changes I have made thus far, and it was absolutely responsible for creating my new approach to food. Previously, I was definitely one of those people who thought, unless you had Celiac, there was no reason to cut out gluten aside from just wanting to be trendy. When my practitioner suggested removing gluten out of my diet, I almost told her no, but remembered I was seeing her specifically for this advice. So, as the most skeptical patient, I removed all gluten from my life for a month to see what happened.
This was one of those rare times I will tell anyone who will listen- I was WRONG. Within one week I noticed a difference, after a month I was so blown away by the changes I didn’t even want to add it back. And once I tried, I got massive migraines and joint pain and realized gluten really had been the source of a lot of inflammation in my body. Welcome to a condition called non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
For starters, not eating gluten cut down on the number of migraines I was having from daily to weekly. While this may not seem like much, it actually meant there were some days I wasn’t laying in bed with my head throbbing. My stomach got flatter and I lost a decent amount of weight (mostly bloat and inflammation I had been unknowingly carrying around this whole time). I also noticed these little red bumps on the back of my arms finally disappeared (and learned they can be a potential sign of a gluten intolerance for some people).
The biggest change however, was the elimination of all my joint pain. I had lived with joint pain as long as I could remember. All throughout high school I struggled with it, and in college it was getting so bad I struggled to walk to class some days. At my new post-grad job, I was taping my knees every morning just to make it though and no amount of ice or therapy had helped. What did help? Not eating gluten. Clearly my body has a pretty dramatic inflammation response to gluten that I did not even know was there. When I did this elimination month, I no longer had to tape my knees- in fact I have not taped them once since cutting gluten out of my life 5 years ago.
This was truly the turning point for me in completely shifting my lifestyle. This was the moment I realized how what we eat truly impacts our body. Even if you’re someone whose body doesn’t mind gluten and, like my husband, can eat an entire Italian feast without consequence (and I secretly hate you whoever you are), what you eat matters. After one month I had been able to reverse years of joint pain and migraines and skin issues, and I’ve never underestimated the power of food again.
It turns out I was wrong about gluten, and about the importance of food in general. As I have done more research over the years I see over and over again people with Dysautonomia, autoimmune diseases and digestive issues share stories of how eliminating gluten helped with symptoms of their condition. If you’re one of those people who thinks this might help, make sure to work with your doctor on finding the best plan for diet changes in your life. Regardless of your body’s needs in relation to gluten, I hope you never underestimate the powerful impact food can have on your body.