Celiac's disease help.

I found a lot of help in Jules Dowler Shepard's Book, "Celiac Disease and Living Gluten Free" It is a guide for the first year after diagnosis. She has recipes, how to make your own flour blend for baking, and how to handle special things, like Thanksgiving. It was a lifesaver when my son was diagnosed in high school. A good rule of thumb is to eat very little processed food. You can eat meat, seafood, poultry along with fruits and vegetables (including potatoes and rice). My son has discovered he likes zucchini "noodles" better than gluten free pasta. Jules also has a website that has tons of recipes and I order her flour and mixes for convenience. You can find her at gfjules.com

I think the advice to eat as little processed food as possible is sound. It's not always possible but you should try to make it the rule rather than the exception. Many of the "gluten free" items for sale out there are unnecessarily expensive and not any nutritionally better for you and may, in fact, be worse.

The good news is, there's a "fad" right now to go gluten free so there's a lot more awareness and resources available now than there were even a few years ago. Stores like Costco are carrying things like coconut flour and flax seed that you may find very helpful. I've found almond flour at Trader Joe's. Restaurants are labeling menu items and food packaging has a label for the allergens it contains, including wheat. There are smart phone apps that let you scan a food package and it'll point out whether or not there are ingredients you can't eat.

You may find it easier to deal with if you simply stick to a lower carb nutrition plan like Atkins. Most of those plans cut out wheat and other glutens entirely because they're very high in carbs, especially at first. It would be an easy way to get into the swing of eating without gluten that you could customize as you get more familiar with the things you can and can't eat.

We still haven't heard from the OP @mslyndalou what she is having a hard time with. Is it reading labels to find hidden gluten? Finding alternative food choices for her favourite foods? Reworking her diet?

I find that over all, my diet really hasn't changed, except that I can't eat some of the desserts I used to eat. No more pie or brownies. But that's okay because I've found other alternatives, and most of those aren't great for the waist line anyway.

My typical day looks like:

Breakfast:
Either Cinnamon Chex (1.5 servings weighed on scale) or strawberries (200g) with milk and sugar(10g), or blueberries (200g) with milk and sugar (10g).

Lunch:
One of: leftovers from previous night's supper (preferred), sandwich made with Dempsters No Gluten bread, GF lunch meats, a slice of cheese and 1T miracle whip, a salad topped with rotisserie chicken from Costco and Bolthouse yogurt ranch dressing (2T is 50 cal), or something simple like cottage cheese and rolled GF lunch meats.

Dinner:
A starch like a small serving of rice, small serving of GF barilla rotini, small serving of mashed potatoes
1-2 veggies large serving (including carrots, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, peas)
protein (chicken, beef, fish, shrimp, pork)

Snacks:
berries, cottage cheese, small tins of flavoured tuna, shrimp with cocktail sauce, packaged fruit snacks, snickers, m&m's, GF tortilla chips (Watch out for the multi-grain, that means wheat!) with salsa or hummus, etc etc.

No need to do any special diet, you can just eat normal, and feel normal.