Gluten and dairy free

carracfox
carracfox Posts: 4 Member
edited December 24 in Health and Weight Loss
At 40, I feel extremely difficult to control what to eat. I have always been a food lover, especially gluten products. Hope I can make some friends would like to achieve the same goal. With my competitive attitude, we can reach it together this year.

Replies

  • moonangel12
    moonangel12 Posts: 971 Member
    MikePfirrman wrote: »

    This cracked me up, not because it's funny, but I can so relate. I went Gluten free for my wife's Fibro around five years ago. I had all the classic signs of possibly being Celiac but ignored them - bad skin rashes, bloody stools, bad food reactions at times. After going without gluten for five years, if we get accidentally glutened, I'm miserable -- headache, feel like I got ran over by a truck, blood comes back and I get the classic "celiac rash" on my bum. Blisters from an autoimmune reaction I'm told.

    It is a HUGE pain in the butt (literally and figuratively). My wife can slightly cheat with stuff like soy sauce and be fine. I had some Margharita mix over the holidays at a local resort and got the rear blisters within an hour! Could barely sit to drive home. TMI, probably, but it's my life now.

    On the bright side, my wife reacts bad to cow dairy (something I'm fine with), so between us, maintenance is pretty easy. No processed foods for us!

    Good for you removing it all for your wife. I'm sure you had little choice, though.
    Truly curious about the TMI info you mentioned because it’s not something I had heard of before BUT my 8 year old daughter has been gluten free due to a diagnosed wheat allergy at a year old will have occasional blistered bottom issues, and it seemed to coincide with accidental wheat consumption even though it didn’t seem possible to have made it through her system in that amount of time. She had genetic testing for celiacs, but it came back negative. I have Gluten Ataxia, but tested negative for Celiacs (I had already cut gluten out so who knows... it wasn’t worth adding back). She also has a BUNCH of other sensitivities (has outgrown most of not all of her anaphylactic allergies).

  • spzjlb
    spzjlb Posts: 602 Member
    I have friends and family members with celiac disease. There are now excellent choices for them thanks to the fad and myth that GF is healthier and lower calorie.

    OP - Before you start your new GF strategy, please check calories and your pocket book. GF alternatives are often higher calorie than non-GF and always very costly. My heart goes out to families that haven’t the choice - it’s expensive!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    lgfrie wrote: »
    Why are you going gluten free? My wife has Celiac's so our house is 100 % gluten free, which is a real pain, because it isn't just bread that has gluten; so does Soy Sauce and a million other things. I can tell you that if tomorrow she suddenly became non-Celiac's, we would fill this entire house with pizza, pasta, and cookies, to make up for the seven years we haven't had gluten in the house, because most things that are good in life do contain gluten. Diets that require huge sacrifices tend not to last; it'd be easier to just eat what you want but to a controlled calorie limit.

    This cracked me up, not because it's funny, but I can so relate. I went Gluten free for my wife's Fibro around five years ago. I had all the classic signs of possibly being Celiac but ignored them - bad skin rashes, bloody stools, bad food reactions at times. After going without gluten for five years, if we get accidentally glutened, I'm miserable -- headache, feel like I got ran over by a truck, blood comes back and I get the classic "celiac rash" on my bum. Blisters from an autoimmune reaction I'm told.

    It is a HUGE pain in the butt (literally and figuratively). My wife can slightly cheat with stuff like soy sauce and be fine. I had some Margharita mix over the holidays at a local resort and got the rear blisters within an hour! Could barely sit to drive home. TMI, probably, but it's my life now.

    On the bright side, my wife reacts bad to cow dairy (something I'm fine with), so between us, maintenance is pretty easy. No processed foods for us!

    Good for you removing it all for your wife. I'm sure you had little choice, though.

    San-J makes certified gluten-free tamari https://san-j.com/our-process/#What Is Tamari?

    Whole Foods carries it, as do health food stores and bigger supermarkets in my area.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    spzjlb wrote: »
    I have friends and family members with celiac disease. There are now excellent choices for them thanks to the fad and myth that GF is healthier and lower calorie.

    OP - Before you start your new GF strategy, please check calories and your pocket book. GF alternatives are often higher calorie than non-GF and always very costly. My heart goes out to families that haven’t the choice - it’s expensive!

    Indeed. We give thanks every day for the Gluten fad so my wife has choices as the supermarket, and live in fear of its inevitable demise. An entire row of the local supermarket is "Gluten Free", something which did not even exist when my wife got Celiac's (in 2013). But everything in that row is heinously expensive. A four-pack of small gluten free rolls for making a sandwich is $9. A very small number of companies have a near-monopoly on the GF packaged foods market, which they've made good use of for pricing power.

    Most gluten-free equivalents to gluten products are higher calorie. For instance, gluten-free flour to make bread is 20-30 % more caloric (90 to 100 calories per ounce vs 70 calories for wheat flour). For non-Celiacs people trying to lose weight, Gluten-free is not a good idea.

    But in the end, the problem with the Gluten free fad, aside from the obvious, that you're taking out of your diet many of the things that taste fantastic and are filling and satisfying, is that there is no health benefit to going gluten free. It's just more expensive and caloric, that's it. You either have the allergy/intolerance or you don't. Much like a peanut allergy - if you don't have it, there's no reason not to eat peanuts. However, here's to hoping people don't figure out en masse all of a sudden that Gluten Free makes no sense, so that my wife can continue getting her food. You can only eat so many grilled chicken breasts with a side of vegetables.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,941 Member
    carracfox wrote: »
    At 40, I feel extremely difficult to control what to eat. I have always been a food lover, especially gluten products. Hope I can make some friends would like to achieve the same goal. With my competitive attitude, we can reach it together this year.

    Back to the OP!

    Do you have medically diagnosed reasons to avoid either gluten or dairy?

    If the answer to that question is ‘No’ then there is zero reason to avoid either. Neither gluten nor dairy are bad for you. Cutting them out or replacing them with ‘free from’ type products will not automatically cause you to lose weight or become ‘healthier’.

    You simply need to create a calorie deficit (eating fewer calories than you expend over time). There are no magic foods. No demon foods, either.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    I agree with others saying there's no need to completely eliminate gluten and dairy, if the only reason is weight loss, rather than a physical sensitivity, allergy, or similar medical condition.

    That said, many of us do have some particular food(s) that are trigger foods for us, that are hard to moderate. For some, that's things like bread (that we may think of as gluten) or things like cookies (that have gluten, and people think of as being carbs/sugar but actually are just tasty and easy to overeat, but with most of their calories coming from fats rather than carbs).

    If you have trigger foods, it's fine to completely stop eating them for a while (or forever, if necessary), until you feel like you are able to eat them in moderation, or to adopt strategies that inherently make you moderate them. (For example, some people make a rule that if they want potato chips/crisps, they can only have a single-serve bag, and make a special trip to the store to get it - sometimes on foot. ;) ).

    Personally, I was not wanting to do anything for weight loss that I wasn't willing to continue permanently (other than a sensibly moderate calorie deficit), because I looked at the weight loss process as a period when I could learn strategies that would help me stay at a healthy weight permanently.

    I'll be honest, there are still a few foods that I have trouble moderating if they're in the house (and this is heading into year 5 of maintaining a healthy weight, for me! :lol: ).

    If you have a medical need to exclude whole categories of food, then that's what you should do. If it's not a medical need, but more that specific things are trigger foods for you, then sweeping out whole broad(er) categories of foods may just make your life more difficult, and the reduced calories harder to stick with long term.

    Only you know the answer, though.

    Best wishes!
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    moonangel12 wrote: »
    MikePfirrman wrote: »

    This cracked me up, not because it's funny, but I can so relate. I went Gluten free for my wife's Fibro around five years ago. I had all the classic signs of possibly being Celiac but ignored them - bad skin rashes, bloody stools, bad food reactions at times. After going without gluten for five years, if we get accidentally glutened, I'm miserable -- headache, feel like I got ran over by a truck, blood comes back and I get the classic "celiac rash" on my bum. Blisters from an autoimmune reaction I'm told.

    It is a HUGE pain in the butt (literally and figuratively). My wife can slightly cheat with stuff like soy sauce and be fine. I had some Margharita mix over the holidays at a local resort and got the rear blisters within an hour! Could barely sit to drive home. TMI, probably, but it's my life now.

    On the bright side, my wife reacts bad to cow dairy (something I'm fine with), so between us, maintenance is pretty easy. No processed foods for us!

    Good for you removing it all for your wife. I'm sure you had little choice, though.
    Truly curious about the TMI info you mentioned because it’s not something I had heard of before BUT my 8 year old daughter has been gluten free due to a diagnosed wheat allergy at a year old will have occasional blistered bottom issues, and it seemed to coincide with accidental wheat consumption even though it didn’t seem possible to have made it through her system in that amount of time. She had genetic testing for celiacs, but it came back negative. I have Gluten Ataxia, but tested negative for Celiacs (I had already cut gluten out so who knows... it wasn’t worth adding back). She also has a BUNCH of other sensitivities (has outgrown most of not all of her anaphylactic allergies).

    My daughter is Celiac and as a baby had blister butt, too.
  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
    OP - there’s a test called www.checkmybodyhealth.com that can identify your food sensitivities. Take that and cut of the foods that are high intolerance. Fair warning, it could be anything. But you’ll likely have better results than wholesale cutting out something that isn’t even a problem.
  • CherylHitchen
    CherylHitchen Posts: 2 Member
    I'm gluten and cow dairy free now thanks to fighting SIBO and leaky gut. It was a challenge and first but now adjusting. As some have mentioned, gluten free can equal higher sugar and calories which isn't fun when you also want to lose weight. My digestive system is so much happier now that I've switched but some days are tough since I love bread and cheese!
  • rcervetto
    rcervetto Posts: 60 Member
    If you are into meal-prep, I have a cookbook called Cook Once, Eat All Week by Cassy Joy Garcia, all the recipes are gluten free and she includes easy subs for dairy free and other modifications, like Paleo/Keto.
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