A Good Thing

As I was reading the comments on my "G-Free" post yesterday it occurred to me that I may have come off as being a *little* whiny about the reality of having to give up gluten.  Okay, maybe a lot whiny.

The truth is, however, that I really am grateful to have finally found something that is making me feel better.   In addition to the shrinking finger and shoe size phenomenon, I've dropped 6 pounds in the less than three weeks since I gave up gluten; am getting considerably more work done in a day (as I'm not running to the bathroom every hour); am no longer wasting all those fancy greens I buy and - oh yeah - I feel so much freaking better!  This is a good thing. 

My friend Jen also pointed out that this is a good time to be gluten-free because it doesn't actually have to mean giving up things like bagels, bread, pizza and beer.  There are TONS of gluten-free products on the market now - and some of them are actually pretty good. I will say, however, that on my first g-free attempt I filled our cupboards with things like Glutino's Berry Sensible Beginnings Cereal, Udi's Soft & Chewy Snickerdoodles and Mary's Gone Crackers Pretzels only to find that what worked best for me (and what truly makes the most sense from a health standpoint) was filling myself up with whole, unprocessed foods.  Eggs, beans, fruits, vegetables and good 'ol H2O are my new best friends (which I realize they should have been all along or part of my inner circle at the very least).

Another bonus of being g-free now is that there's this gigantic support system out there that I never knew existed.  Within 24 hours of publishing my G-Free post I had messages of support from friends I hadn't heard from in years, recipes from people I hadn't seen in months and even several great blog and cookbook links from a high school best friend's mom (thanks, Nancy!).  Google "gluten-free blogs" and you're given 26,400,000 possible results in just .18 seconds.  Gleaning through just the first three pages worth gave me at least 2497 Pinterest-worthy recipes alone!

And then there's the fact that it's just a gluten intolerance. While it did make me feel crappy and occasionally mess up my life, there's actually something I can do about it that in reality isn't all that hard.  Sure, there will be times when I am really, really craving pizza (and, let's face it, there will probably be times when I give in to that craving and just deal with the consequences), but I have a choice in all of this.  It's now up to me. And that is a good thing.