Looking forward to a new year!

I'm looking forward to a fresh start. A new year that will hopefully be filled with gluten free success and full of health and life!

Frustration with Baking

So, if any of you, who are new to going without gluten have tried baking ... you probably know what I'm talking about. Maybe not though, because I'm one of those people who loves cooking and hates following a recipe. So, while I'm used to throwing this or that into a recipe containing gluten and having it come out alright, I have yet to bake a recipe (following it or not) that is gluten free that hasn't left me in frustrated fits over it.

I just want to be able to throw it together and make something yummy and gluten free. Well, the learning curve for me is still in the twisty turny section of that curve. Someday I'll be able to do just this, but for now I guess I'll fall back on prepackaged goodies and Betty Crocker's Gluten free baking mixes in between my total flops and failures at baking gluten free from scratch.

On the upside, I've had great success with cooking gluten free. It's much easier than baking, for me anyway.

Denial

When I don't eat gluten I feel great! When I eat gluten I feel exhausted, moody, like I'm coming down with the flu and any other number of annoying symptoms. Yet there's still this part of me, call it lazy or craving normalicy (is that a word?) or normality (I think that's the real word there) anyway, there's this part of me that decides in my brain that I'd rather eat what I know and love then what my body loves.
Crazy huh?

I end up in this vicious cycle of eating gluten free & feeling great and then deciding I'm tired of working at eating gluten free and or I just really want a cheeseburger or quesadilla or _______ fill in the blank.
I think to myself, I'll just eat this one meal with gluten and then go back to being gluten free. Yeah right. I then slide down the slippery slope and find myself a week or a month later thinking, yuck! I feel horrible and I'm too tired to do the things I want to do.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!

I am still in my cyclical state of denial at the moment, eating gluten and feeling mediocre because it's the holidays and I don't have the inner strength right now to keep myself eating what I should be while traveling and spending the holidays with family. I like to deny that I should obviously be eating food that makes my body feel well. Thinking instead that I'm eating what I've always eaten. And unfortunately, I feel the way I've always felt. Tired, achy, moody and like I'm coming down with something.

I've searched the internet, books & articles, looking for someone like me. Someone who has been tested and does NOT have celiac ... someone though who can tell an incredible life changing difference when they don't eat gluten. Someone who could help inspire me to live a gluten free lifestyle even though I don't technically have to. I haven't found anyone.

So, I started this blog in hopes that if there's someone else out there who is a non-celiac gluten sensitive individual, they might find this blog and relate to my struggles and be encouraged to start or to continue their effort towards being gluten free and finding a happier, healthier version of themselves. I am also hoping that blogging about this aspect of my life will encourage me to get it together and find that happier, healthier version of myself!

All about me ...

This blog is about me, a non-celiac gluten sensitive individual, who is trying to give up gluten without a celiac disease diagnosis to spur her on. I have had celiac disease/gluten intolerance symptoms for as long as I can recall. I've tried going gluten free and felt amazingly better but without the diagnosis telling me that I HAD to give up gluten I eventually revert back to old eating habits.

** I had the biopsy test done to detect celiac and it came back negative. My doctor told me that since my body responds favorably to not having gluten that I should go ahead and just eat that way. Easier said than done, for me anyway.

This blog will record my effort to go low to no gluten to see what happens if I give my body enough time to really function without gluten. My goal is one year ... we will see.

I will try to post daily with recipes, gluten free products that I find or other things I find noteworthy.

***If you have celiac disease please check recipes carefully as I am trying to go low to no gluten but am not cutting out every speck entirely as a celiac diagnosed person must do.