Cheryl and Valerie cooked up a plan for a Self Care Retreat for the month of July and asked me to share my thoughts on self care and food. I was tempted to politely decline, but Cheryl is such a sweetheart, so I’ve been thinking about this post for weeks. Why would I decline? I did so well working with Cheryl last July on my 30 Days to 50 series. I lost weight, had a regular and enjoyable fitness regime, became more mindful in my eating—and then it all fell apart.
My self care for July has been to explore the ways that my plan fell apart and how I ended up not only regaining the weight I lost while working with Cheryl, but adding 10 more pounds. How did I go from that size 10, energetic, confident 50 year-old who stepped out of her comfort zone and into the food blogging world and traveled all over the United States to conferences, to a tired, overweight, size 14, and (I’m told) grumpy almost 51-year-old? What role did my food choices play?
The first thing that comes to mind is that every time I traveled, despite following all the rules of gluten-free dining out and travel, I was glutened. With my travel schedule, that meant that every two months, I had a major gluten hit. For me that means, chronic pain, brain fog, flu-like symptoms and depression for 2-3 weeks. During those weeks, I would eat for comfort and go back to looking for carbs and dairy that would have that sedative, comfort effect that gluten used to have for me. Of course during that time I didn’t exercise either. So it was a year of falling down and starting over. Very high highs of career growth and exciting opportunities mixed with days hobbling around with all my joints inflamed.
So for July, I have been slowly observing, experimenting and finding out how and when I use food to moderate my mood and looking for times when food is used for nourishing my body. As a food blogger there is pressure to review books, create recipes and be an expert on food and that has contributed to my disordered eating. It has also shown me that certain foods are now off the menu. About the time I started to realize that starches, gums, and grains-even gluten-free-were not sitting well with me or my kids, I did a negative review of a lovely cookbook by a gracious and forgiving mom. My frustration with the realization that all the hype and ‘can do’ attitude in the gluten-free community was not going to work with us anymore was evident in my review. I have come to the realization that we can’t use all those flours and gums and that eating out is a gamble I can’t take anymore. When Shirley did a post on grief over at Gluten Free Easily, I realized I was going through all the stages that I had skipped when we got the first celiac diagnosis and relief and joy at finding an answer was all we felt.
So here is what I’ve been doing for self care in relation to food this July.
- Cutting back on caffeine-a biggie. From half a pot of coffee a day trying to rev up to meet the day’s tasks-to one cup savored each morning and finding myself actually skipping my morning’s ration.
- Eating by color. Eating things in their natural form. That’s what all the fresh fruit shots are for in this post. Instead of blasting fruits and veggies to bits in smoothies and adding flax or chia or protein powder and making a nasty medicinal brew, I’m eating them slowly and using my senses. It’s much more satisfying than holding my nose and tossing back a brown smoothie. Summer is the perfect time for this with all the in season produce.
- No more eating out. About the time I made this decision, I heard from a few friends who had just been glutened at a celiac/gluten-intolerant conference and knew I made the right choice. If it can’t even be done by the experts in gluten-free eating, how can I gamble with teenaged dishwashers, uneducated servers, and the chaos that reigns in most commercial kitchens. A brief stint as a line cook in a local restaurant run by a gluten-free friendly chef convinced me I was right in giving up dining out. Watching the fruit for the buffet fruit platter being sliced on a cutting board that was used for slicing bagels and with only a cursory brush off of the crumbs taught me that even naturally gluten-free fruits and salads were easily and efficiently contaminated in restaurant kitchens.
- I’m following the lead of my ‘almost paleo’ daughter. She listens to her body and follows it much better than her mom. She has been in the kitchen stir-frying lean meat and veggies all summer and avoiding dairy and grains and she is a picture of health and vitality. I’ve started trying to eat like her and my energy is already improving.
- Playing with raw food eating part time and enjoying the tastes and textures of food in their natural state. I especially love my new spiral slicer and making long thin ‘noodles’ from carrots and squash. I need texture and I’m finding that it’s more the noodle-like shape than it is the pasta for me.
- Breaking my addiction to dairy. It has the same effects as gluten for me: a sedative effect, skin breakouts, body aches. It is easier to fool myself sometimes since I don’t get all the GI effects from gluten or dairy that many, many celiacs suffer. It’s all about inflammation for me and I am slowing ridding my diet of all the known inflammatory foods and exploring the idea of cross-reactive foods.
I’m not sure where this is leading or what the effects will be on the future of Celiacs in the House. The kids are both leaving home for dorm life at different colleges and that has me stressing in light of my own discoveries this year. I think the self care lesson in all of this is that we need to slow down, be mindful, listen to what our bodies are telling us and to not let the outside pressures to conform to a certain kind of eating distort our own truths.
This virtual self-care retreat is to inspire you all to make July a month of reflecting on self-care and the many ways to nourish ourselves. We encourage everyone to participate in this event in a way that feels appropriate to them, whether through personal reflection, journal or other self-care. If you would like to share your experience with self-care, we would love to include you in the experience, whether you join us for one week or every week. You can write generally about self-care, or focus on one of the themes (movement, food, family/friends/pets, creativity and meditation and mindfulness), or write every week about each of the themes. We ask that you link back to this post so that more people can learn about this retreat, and leave a comment for the weekly theme host, too!. If you would like to be included in our roundup, please email a link to your post, along with your name and blog name, to us at selfcareretreat at gmail dot com by July 30, 2011. Feel free to use the badge in your posts. Non-bloggers who would like to contribute,please email the full text to the same address and it will be included in the roundup.
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Wendy, what a great post! First, I have to say that I’m personally glad you decided to join us, and I really appreciate your honesty. I found out pretty quickly that gluten free didn’t mean my body can tolerate it, and so I’ve moved to the almost entirely unprocessed foods camp and I regret it whenever I do make (small) exceptions. More and more I’ve heard from people who are eating out LESS often, too.
I am honestly delighted that there are gluten free menus and recipes for gluten free twinkies, and I think they serve a purpose. And yet it’s also vital to acknowledge that inflammation happens (along the same lines as $hit happens) and at the end of the day, it’s learning what you may need for your body beyond gluten free.
Thanks so much, Cheryl. I knew you’d not only understand, but appreciate the process and that it will eventually all come together for me.
What a wonderful post, I’m dairy and gluten free and nothing that walks on land. After getting myself down to a size 10 I started to eat muffins and chocolate (g free etc) the last time I ate out it was a disaster. There’s nothing greater then feeling healthy, it’s worth giving the other things up
So true, Frosty. Thanks for stopping by.
Wendy – I am so glad you wrote this post. I went through a lot of the same things as you – especially with regards to getting glutened when I ate out. I took a strict hiatus from it for several months, and it made a huge difference. I continue to keep it to the strictest minimum (ie, if I have to go to a client lunch, or the every few month feeling of “i am going to have a nervous breakdown if I don’t take a day off from my kitchen and my husband will also have a nervous breakdown if he doesnt take a day off from cooking for me because I am at saturation point” or, of course, travel, though even then I bring a ton of food with me and/or rely on a grocery store and eat out at a minimum ). I actually broke up with dairy before gluten, and I am glad I did them separately. I saw immediate improvement in my headaches and joint pain from quitting dairy, and when a couple of months later i cut out gluten, that helped eradicate the pain, you know?
I love that you are eating food as close to their natural states as possible – I love smoothies, but the key for me is that they taste good and/or look appetizing – I avoid many of the traditional smoothie fillers (ie flax seeds and most protein powders) in favor of a couple I like, or none at all, but I still need to eat more fruit and veggies in their natural state to appreciate them more.
Thank you again for taking part in our retreat. It is inspiration like yours – ie describing setbacks and how you return from then – that I think resonates more with people, as opposed to people who just seem to find self-care through food easy.
Thank you for your supportive comment, Valerie. I really struggled with this post because I don’t want to be a downer, but I felt compelled to be honest about the journey and the struggle. It was an honor to be asked by you and Cheryl to be a part of your Retreat.
PS – I have kept this mostly off my blog, but I really think all the white gluten free flours and starches (ie white rich, corn starch, potato starch) are nothing anyone shoudl eat on a frequent basis. I use them when doing recipe testing, or if I go to an expo and have samples I will eat some, but otherwise I really try to keep them to a minimum. I can go weeks without eating any, and feel best then.
It is hard to be in the GF cookbook/product world and avoid the starches, gum, and white flours without offending or alienating a lot of folks. A lot of us are tippy-toeing around the issue. I just finally felt I had to come clean about our struggles and apologize to some who got caught in my frustration.
What a wonderful – and inspiring – post. Thank you. I just recently discovered your blog and love it. I recently discovered that I am gluten/wheat/dairy intolerant and it has turned my world upside down. I’m also putting a lot of thought into self-care this month and your experience has given me more motivation and information. Good luck on your healthy journey!
Welcome, Joanna and thank you for stopping by and leaving such a lovely comment. It was also a pleasure to find you blog. I’ve got some new titles on my to read list.
I love this post ! You described the symptoms well, hitting it right on the mark and then offered some great solutions ! Thanks for sharing and inspiring us !
Thanks so much for stopping by, Betty Ann and for your retweets on Twitter. I appreciate your supportive comments.
Wendy, this post is just outstanding–thank you so much for it! I must admit that I’ve read it at least four times now. It really resonates with me. In fact, you’re echoing much of what I’ve shared with friends in emails, chats, etc. The decision to not eat out is the saddest part to me, but I completely get it having found a crouton half way through my salad last week. I didn’t get majorly glutened, but I still got glutened. So if one eats out even occasionally, there is low-level glutening going on and we are in trouble as a result. After taking gluten out of one’s diet and seeing how good we can feel, it just is not worth it to be less than at our optimums. BUT the social aspect is a killer. I guess we’ll have to reframe and reinvent our social opportunities more than ever. Hosting a gathering at one’s own home (something I often do anyway), having a picnic lunch with girlfriends at the local park vs going to the iffy restaurant (and they’re all iffy based on your experience seeing the fruit on that contaminated cutting board), enjoying a drink and a safe snack that we brought while hubby enjoys a meal on a stop home (I’ve taken my own treats into a tea house before, so why not?), etc. Others with severe anaphylactic-type food allergies take these types of measures all the time, so why can’t we? Many (and maybe even some reading) actually think that because our gluten reactions are not anaphylactic, that they are not severe, but they absolutely are. The stat that Dr. Tom O’Bryan’s shares in his presentation about eating gluten once a month resulting in the person being 6 times more likely to die early haunts me.
You know me … I could say much more (LOL), but let me try to “wrap up.”
Who wants to listen to self care advice from someone who has done it perfectly? First, perfection is a misnomer (there’s often so much hidden under what/who appears to be “perfect”) and second, I’m far more likely to relate to and learn from someone who shares my same struggles. (And if you recall, you were one who reminded me of this same point about a year ago!) Love your bulleted points. Dairy is also a demon to me, a very seductive demon. It’s almost never an issue at home (I’m in control, right?), but is when eating out as so many offerings that are “gluten free” contain dairy. “Almost paleo” … your daughter is so smart in listening to her body. You are, too, Wendy. You’re listening now. It’s easy to stop hearing our inner wisdom when we’re battling the tons of different issues that can be, well, “life.” I’ve been reading more about paleo and primal lifestyles and seeing friends thrive on them, plus I’ve experienced great success myself with them before. But the blogging pressure has been there and still is. Must mitigate the risks and figure out what’s best for us though, right? Not sure where it will lead us either, but I think one thing is for sure … we’ll be healthier and happier when we get there. Thank you, Wendy, for being willing to be so honest and share your lessons and what you are striving for with all of us!
Shirley
You are the sweetest, Shirley. I always appreciate your love and support. This was a tough one to share and your positive feedback helps more than you know.
I so appreciate your honesty, Wendy! You really said it perfectly in this post. Like you, I find that I do best on a grain-free, starch-free, whole foods diet. Once in a while I’ll make a muffin or baked good with arrowroot or something (like those in my cookbook), and enjoy it as a treat. I do just fine when it’s in moderation…we’re talking once or twice a month. But eating whole, natural, colorful foods in their natural state really sets best with me, too. (And with most people, I’m learning.)
I think you said it perfectly that self-care is about listening to your body, doing what’s right for you as an individual, and not molding to the onslaught of diets and media opinions that bombard us these days. Being a gluten-free food blogger AND a recipe tester AND a mother in transition mode with her children and family is certainly a recipe for a bit of food-related stress! To see you pressing on toward optimal wellness and making changes to better yourself through it all is truly admirable and inspiring.
Thank you for sharing. It couldn’t have been easy, but I think this post will ring true with and encourage so many people. Big hugs!
- Hallie
Big hugs right back at you, Hallie.
Dear Wendy,
Thank you for this post. I have been on a journey to whittle out the foods that are still troublesome for me, and in addition to tapioca, have now realized that potato starch is also a problem. It is difficult to be a food blogger and be unable to review products or cookbooks! But I think you’re right that these foods are not really good for us, anyway.
I also completely relate to your decision not to eat out anymore. There is only one restaurant I can go do that I haven’t been glutened at (so far) but we haven’t been there for over two months. The last time I found a strand of regular spaghetti in the midst of my gluten-free pasta I was sick for over a week with digestive, joint, and even neurological issues (I actually fell while walking down the street). For me, it’s just not worth it. My sister’s wedding is coming up in September, and I don’t know yet how I’m going to handle it.
Thank you for your honesty! It’s always reassuring to know that you aren’t alone in your feelings. Good luck on going dairy-free!
Tina.
Yes, Tina, it is a tough one to be a GF food blogger and find that most of the products and the restaurants are not safe for me. I guess I have to get better at recipe development or move on. It is an interesting twist to the journey.
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Hi Wendy,
My self care through food post is up. Thanks again for hosting! http://www.gfgoodness.com/?p=4033
Wendy I hope this doesn’t sound too crazy, but I am really excited for you. A door is opening and you’re going through it. I really admire that! I really admire you as a woman and a mother and a gluten-free blogger.
I could tell as soon as I met you that you were a lovely soul! I get the same dairy effects and have cut it out for the same reason. I too am noticing what grains do to me – and I am simply wheat intolerant! I feel better than I ever have! Taking control of your health is something we’ll never regret. xo
What an inspiring way of looking at it. Thanks, Maggie for all the sweet comments.