Hi! I’m a mother of 3 children and a wife. I started my journey to gluten free eating about 8 years ago. It all started when I was never really feeling well. I always felt bloated, couldn’t seem to lose weight and just felt very sluggish and disgusting. I was at a point where I would get yeast infections quite often and no matter what I did I could never keep them at bay. I would get headaches/migraines more than what I liked and would get nauseous.
One day I got a heart jolt or sharp pain and that’s when I decided to see the doctor. I went in and explained my yeast infection problems and just my overall feelings. The doctor had decided I had an overgrowth of yeast that was causing all of this so I was prescribed an oral antifungal medication. I asked how I could prevent this from coming back, I told the doctor I was taking a probiotic and if maybe I needed to be doing something else. The doctor said no, and that taking probiotics for long term doesn’t really do much. There was a refill added to my prescription because I guess I was going to need it again according to the doctor along the line. Well, guess what, I didn’t want that to be the case and I really wasn’t getting any answers as to how I could help my problem from staying my problem.
After that visit I took my antifungal tablet, had not so great “die off” symptoms. I did extensive research on everything I was going through and feeling and yes, “die off” symptoms are a thing! I had brain fog, sinuses her very stuffy, tired, and headache. Let me tell you though, once those symptoms got better and stopped I started losing weight and the bloat was not there and I felt better! I made it my mission to research and figure out how to better my life and make sure this didn’t happen again.
So, here’s what I did. Completely cut off gluten! Completely cut off sugar! Completely cut off artificial sweeteners! Completely cut off dairy! Now, did I need to do all of those things? No. But, I was not a big dairy person and have some lactose intolerance anyway, so I switched to almond milk, which I love! Cutting out the sugar was somewhat necessary because guess what, yeast or also known as candida, feed off of sugar big time! Ironically yeast feeds off of gluten and refined carbohydrates. Artificial sweeteners aren’t good for anyone to begin with and actually can change the composition of gut flora. Once I did these things, my life completely changed! I had energy again, I felt amazing and my headaches went away! Do I still get one here and there, sure! But NOTHING like I did! I found I had a gluten intolerance, sensitivity, whatever you would like to call it, I wouldn’t necessarily call it an allergy.
So, I finally decided to share my journey, give my story, tell you what I’ve learned, what I eat and help others or connect with others who have gone through or are going through the same things. So please, take a look around and dive in!