My Gluten Free Story

On March 28th 2012, I got the results of a food tolerance test, called the ALCAT, that I had taken a few weeks prior. The results of that test shocked me. In total, there were 85 items on the list.
The ALCAT identifies 3 different levels of "food intolerance". The majority of the items on my list were on the "Mild" intolerance list, but one thing was clear. I had a gluten intolerance. This was pretty much my worst fear. I grew up in a family that ordered pizza or pasta from the family restaurant virtually every night. Gluten was something that my body couldn't live without.. or so I thought.
I am not going to get into what gluten is or any of the technical jargon. There are literally 100s of thousands of articles online about the subject. I'm writing this is to talk about the effects that this has had on me personally.



November Last Year

I never considered myself overweight and neither did any of my doctors. However, in February, I was told that I had "slightly elevated" blood sugar and high cholesterol. I had maxed out my weight to 204lbs. High for me, but nothing outrageous (I am 6 feet tall). I had been working out since November and hadn't lost any weight. Friends and supporters would say "Muscle weighs more than fat" and "Once it starts coming off, it'll happen quickly" and other similar things. But the truth was, nothing was happening. So when I got the ALCAT results, I thought, "maybe it is the gluten", but that's was not going to be enough for me to change.
Then my mother told me about Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her book "The G-Free Diet". Now we were talking! Politics aside, she's beautiful and (as any of my friends will tell you) that was good enough for me! So I googled her. The introduction to her book is downloadable online, I read it and her symptoms were almost identical to mine and I became even more intrigued. I also knew that I had been feeling tired and listless a lot, so, gym membership and all, I decided to give this all a try.
For the first 2 weeks, I ate virtually nothing. Kroger had some good stuff and the gluten free food selection was limited in Publix or Walmart so I wasn't too sure. Honestly, I don't know how I did it for those first few weeks. I was not feeling better, I was not losing weight and I was hungry... ALL THE TIME. Actually, I was not only not feeling better. I was always hungry, always sleeping, always aloof and, honestly, pretty mean.
One day, about 2 weeks in, as I was blowing off my texts and phone calls, I realized that I was acting odd and started to wonder about it. So, back to google. This time the search was for "Gluten withdrawals". Turns out, that is a VERY real thing. Not experienced by everyone, but for those of us that do experience it, it has been compared to opiate withdrawals. Really! Look it up.

That was the night I realized that there was something to this. I mean, seriously, if there is a withdrawal associated with it, something isn't right about the stuff. It's like an addiction. That was too crazy to me.

Three weeks in, I had the amazingly good fortune of meeting a woman named Julia at Whole Foods in Roswell GA. Julia, in her 60s, has been gluten free (G-Free) for 5 years and was giving out ridiculously delicious, cupcake samples. We started talking and she walked around the store with me showing me the best brands and the best tasting individual items and she told me that it would be a long climb but that it would be worth it. She would turn out to be so right. I never could have dreamt how right she was, at the time.
So, I began to research local restaurants and national chains to find out where I could eat and what I could eat when I got there. To my surprise, almost every restaurant has a G-Free menu. Actually, I just found out today that Boston Market's chicken gravy is now G-Free (That's rare). I pretty much live on G-Free pizzas. There's a place called Brooklyn Joe's here in Atlanta that makes an AMAZING one. It has been a daily educational process, but a fun one. Plus, many people start conversations with me about the topic and that is a pretty cool thing too. Kroger associates, in particular, love to show off their products. In truth, some of those conversations are what led to me writing this entry.



Taken In Orlando 3 Weeks ago.

As it stands today, I weigh 179lbs. That's exactly 25lbs in just less than 4 months. But the point is more that I do NOT eat any less. I just don't eat the things my body can not process. I still eat "junk" food and I still eat as often as I want to and until I'm full. I even went through a phase where I stopped working out entirely for a full month and weighed 9lbs less at the end of the month than at the beginning of it.
I think the whole point that I want to make here is that the whole "G-Free Lifestyle" thing seems daunting to most people. However, if you ask ANYONE who knows me, they'll tell you that if I can do it.. truly... anyone can!
Now I am telling you that it's worth it!!

I feel better. I look better. Most importantly, I AM better. Literally, I went to my doctor about 2 weeks ago and she asked what I had done to lose so much weight. I told her that I was G-Free. She smiled and said "Wow! Good job. Ok, we don't need to worry about the blood sugar and cholesterol anymore." She didn't even test me! THAT is Stunning! It also backs up Elisabeth Hasselbeck's claim in her book that the medical community isn't interested in promoting this type of testing because there's no "pill" for it. When she diagnosed me back in February, there was no mention of going G-Free.

Lastly, when I first started this endeavor at the end of March, and had no idea what I was doing, I read dozens of blogs and they motivated me. I hope that today I am paying it forward a little.

Thanks for reading.