Dietary Compliance – Page 31

A Second Opinion

The local newspaper recently featured an article entitled, “Excluding gluten”.(1) It was a basic exposition about the abundance of choices now available in a gluten-free version. This article, like many I’ve read lately, leaned toward proclaiming the gluten-free diet as necessary for a few, but mostly a fad made popular by Hollywood.

Today, I received a newsletter from Isabel De Los Rios of Beyond Diet.(2) In an article describing how to eliminate inflammation, she states:
“If I had to choose just 1 thing to do right now to help reduce your inflammation it would be to greatly reduce your wheat and gluten intake.”

Eliminating wheat from your diet can have an astounding impact on how you look and feel.

Wheat wasn’t always so harmful like it is today. In the past, we had many different strains of wheat, but in modern times, in order to increase production, agricultural scientists created two hybrid strains. Right now more than 99% of the wheat grown worldwide comes from those two hybrid crops.

Genetically modified foods in any form can have an extremely negative impact on our health and weight. Dr. William Davis, a Wisconsin based cardiologist, points out that the hybrid wheat strain shows only 95% of the same proteins as its parent wheat strains: the other 5% are completely unique. This unique 5% of proteins is responsible for so many people’s wheat sensitivities. It’s becoming a huge epidemic and most everyone is allergic or sensitive to wheat in some form.

Which article is more accurate?

The rapid increase in the incidence of Celiac Disease, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and ADHD over the past 50 years seems to lend weight to the theory that we have a huge epidemic on our hands. Whether that’s because of a change in the amount of wheat we consume or in the wheat itself is not as critical to our health as is the recognition that for many of us, the need for a gluten-free diet is far from a fad.

It is interesting to note that the dietician quoted by our local newspaper predicts that “except for those who must absolutely maintain a GF regimen, the diet will come and go because ‘it’s really a hard diet’.” The different positions taken by this dietitian and Isabel De Los Rios (also a licensed dietitian) are striking, and common, making it difficult for some to discern whether or not sticking to a gluten-free regimen is truly important.

If you have had a physician or dietitian tell you that maintaining a gluten-free diet is hard, I hope you will take a moment to reflect on the fact that this is not a medical opinion. It is a personal belief held by the person who is telling you. Since it’s a personal opinion, there is no need to defer to it as the truth and dismiss the gluten-free diet as too difficult before you even try it. Chances are that if you are having this conversation with a health professional, the medical evidence points to a need for the diet.

Gluten may be the culprit when you have the following symptoms:
Fatigue or malaise – feeling tired and exhausted much of the time
Vague abdominal discomfort or significant abdominal pain
Upset stomach
Bloating
Flatulence
Recurring diarrhea or constipation, or one followed by the other
Steatorrhea – presence of excess fat in feces that may cause stools to have an oily appearance and float
Bacterial overgrowth of the small intestine
Gastric reflux – heartburn
Growth delay or failure to thrive
Unhappy with your weight
Eating problems – anorexia
Run-down
Weakness or lack of energy
Chronic fatigue
Joint pain
Poor coordination – unexplained falling
Peripheral neuropathy – tingling or burning in arms & legs, loss of sensation, or inability to control muscles
Coughing after every meal
Runny nose and sinus problems
Anemia – chronic iron deficiency
Osteoporosis or growing pains
Dermatitis, eczema, itchy or bad skin
Chronic dry eye
Nose bleeds or easy bruising
Alopecia – baldness or diffuse hair loss
Runny nose and sinus problems
Headaches or migraine
Depression, moodiness, behavioral changes
Can’t think clearly
Poor sleep
Hyperactive or cranky
Down syndrome
Short stature
Failure to thrive
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Autism
Mental health problems
Seizures
Hypoglycemia

If you can eliminate these symptoms simply by avoiding wheat, rye, barley, malt, and oats (other than certified GF oats), isn’t it worth a try even if it were hard? If you can eliminate these symptoms, feel better than you’ve ever felt, and enjoy a more full and joyous life with your loved ones, isn’t it worth the small investment of time and energy it takes to change old habits?

With the myriad gluten-free choices now available from restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores, and online, living the lifestyle becomes easier every day whether or not you choose to cook. All it takes is a bit of education, support and commitment. When you need additional encouragement and support, Cooking2Thrive® is here to help.

Conflicting opinions may abound regarding the difficulty of complying with a gluten-free diet, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that this lifestyle is not a fad, but an increasing medical necessity. With this in mind, we hope you’ll trust your body’s signals, seek a second opinion, and be willing to invest in your own healing.

Feeling fantastic and loving every minute of it!
Cheri

(1) Wolfe, Ron. “Excluding gluten.” Arkansas Democrat Gazette [Little Rock] 12 June 2012, Daily ed., Style sec.: 1E+.

(2) http://www.beyonddiet.com/BD

Will the chef hate me for being gluten-free?

Hi everyone!

If you ever hesitate before saying yes to a lunch date, dinner date, or wine dinner at a fine dining restaurant because it feels like you’ll be imposing on the chef, you’ll want to watch this interview with Chef Matt McClure. In the video Chef Matt gives us some tips to make the experience better for both you and the chef. Before you give up your social life, say no to your colleagues, or limit yourself in any way, please spend a few minutes learning more about gluten-free dining from the chef’s perspective.

Bio

Chef Matt McClure was trained at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont. He worked in the Boston area at fine dining restaurants: No. 9 Park, Troquet, and Harvest before becoming the Sous Chef for Ashley’s at the Capital in Little Rock, Arkansas. Chef Matt has been named Executive Chef for 21C Museum Hotel opening in 2013 near Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Congratulations, Chef Matt!

Are You Well-Heeled or Well-Healed?

I bought the cutest rock’n’roll flavor shoes! They’re hip, they fit my foot snugly, they have a 3 1/2 inch heel and I can walk in them easily! Score! Finally! With a 5.5 inch W shoe size it’s next to impossible to find this combination. I LOVE these shoes when I have them on.

How can something that feels this perfect be BAD?

These shoes hurt me. At first I didn’t know it was these shoes. I just knew that when I got up in the morning and stepped out of bed, my heels hurt. The right one hurt pretty badly. As time went by, even my hips seemed to hurt when I’d get out of my office chair during the day.

It’s summer so I decided I’d buy some cute flip-flops with a wedge heel and wear those for awhile until I figured out whether I was doing something, other than just getting older, that was causing me to hurt.

I spent an hour trying on flip-flops. I wore each possible selection around the store for 15 minutes. I chose a $50 pair. I wore them for 3 days and the problem got worse. REALLY?

I was careful. I made sure these flip-flops were wide enough, supportive but not hard, felt good walking around, and that they were cute! This time it was obvious pretty quickly that they exacerbated the problem.

I tried again. Three days after I bought the flip flops, I bought a pair of flip-flop sandal hybrids. The hybrids had several bands of rhinestone embellished elastic straps. Again, I took my time. I walked around in them. I bounced up and down shifting my weight to see if I could feel any pressure points. I still felt the point of primary pain at the top of my right heel, but I thought it was just residual and decided these would work. They were regularly $30 and I purchased them on sale for $14.99. I figure I’m $65 in, but that’s not a bad investment if it fixes the problem.

This time I feel even more determined to give the solution a chance, so I wear the new hybrids for a week at which point I can hardly walk when I get up in the morning. I have to go down the stairs sideways planting the ball of my foot and slowly letting down the heel, shuffling as if I’m on the way to the nursing home. Now I feel angry and stupid.

I listened as hard as I could to what my body was telling me. I took my time. I felt like I made the best choices and yet I’m back in the same predicament.

I feel confused. I thought I did everything right, but my problem hasn’t gotten better, it’s gotten worse. I start to feel guilty and ashamed that I could try so hard and be so wrong. I begin to question myself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the rock’n’roll shoes aren’t the problem at all. After all, my feet feel good when I wear them.

I pull out my comfort clogs and wear them around the house. I even wear them around the office. I can’t bear to wear them in public, so I limit my outings. My feet start to feel better. I schedule some lunch meetings and switch to cute sandals for the meetings. This is tolerable and if I stretch a bit before I get out of bed, I don’t feel crippled every morning.

Now I have to know. Was it my fabulously cute shoes that hurt me? I wear them to one of my lunches and to run errands afterward. The next morning I can hardly walk. Am I an idiot? These shoes feel great when they’re on and destroy my feet at the same time.

Then I remember something I already know from going gluten-free. Until my injury completely heals, I cannot solely rely on what my senses tell me in any given moment. But I know from my GF experience that even if I cannot draw a direct correlation from what I do this minute to how I will feel the next minute, I always fare better in the long run when I choose to stay the course and stick with my healing plan. Now I feel calmer. I know how to take the knowledge I’ve accumulated over time and let deductive reasoning play a part in a healing plan. My feet will be okay. All I have to do is be patient with the healing process.

Wow! I just realized what a good analogy my shoe scenario is for what many of us experience when we go gluten-free. We may have so much existing damage that it is difficult to immediately interpret the signals from our bodies. On those days when we think we feel worse, we may be tempted to decide that gluten wasn’t really the problem. This is the time that it’s important to use some resolve, medical statistics, and the information we can gather from the struggles and successes of others to deductively reason that until we have given the body sufficient time to heal, we cannot rely on its momentary feedback alone.

If you already have a healing plan in place, all you have to do in these moments is relax and follow the plan. If you don’t really have a plan and have viewed this gluten-free thing as an experiment you may want to check out the Cooking2Thrive healing plan guidelines.

In the meantime, be patient with yourself. If you made a bad food choice at lunch, you can make good choices at dinner and breakfast and lunch and dinner and lunch and breakfast and dinner and lunch. Treat yourself well. Don’t just choose something for dinner that’s gluten-free. Pick something that smells fabulous, tastes delicious and has a wonderful texture – something you can sink your teeth into, savor, and enjoy! Then keep enjoying and choosing well, choosing well and enjoying. As you heal, a gluten-free choice will become easier and easier.

Pretty soon, I’m sure I will find some new rock’n’roll, hip, snug fitting, 5.5 W shoes that don’t hurt me, and you will find a gluten-free life isn’t one of deprivation. Or at least I’ll discover that I’m much happier without pain than I am with rock’n’roll shoes and you’ll discover that a gluten-free biscuit can, in fact, hit the spot.