Gluten and caffeine free update.

A lot of people have asked me how my gluten free/caffeine free journey is going.  So, I thought, instead of responding to every person, I'd just blog about it.

Life without caffeine: 

Basically.

I love my caffeine.  I feel so drained when I don't have my Dr. Pepper in the morning.  I don't know if it really was the caffeine making me energized, or if it was all in my head.  Either way, I'm dragging.  If you add no caffeine, with no carbs from the gluten free diet (no carbs=no energy), and I'm struggling to make it through the day.  Good news though, I haven't had really bad headaches.  I've been off caffeine for two weeks now, and I've only had one unbearable caffeine withdraw headache.  The rest of the time, my head was sore, but nothing like what I was expecting.  What I WASN'T expecting was how badly I would crave Dr. Pepper.  Right now, I haven't had a drink of a Dr. Pepper in two weeks, and I'd still love one.  I thought it wouldn't take long at all before I stopped missing my morning fizzy drink.  Not true.  I've had very intense cravings for a Coke.  It's starting to subside....a little.  My problem is, I don't feel any better after cutting off the caffeine---because I substituted my Dr. Peppers with Sprites.  Goal for this week?  Get rid of ALL sodas.

Gluten-free living. 

Get ready for a rant, friends, because I'm just going to say it:  being gluten free SUCKS.  I hate it so much.  Do I feel better?  Yes.  Absolutely.  I'm not having any pain whatsoever, which proves to me that my problem was, without a doubt, gluten.  I'm intolerant.  That part is great.

Here's all the parts I severely dislike about being gluten free.

1.  I have NO energy.  No caffeine to wake me up and no carbs in my diet equal a very, very, VERY tired me.  I'm taking a multivitamin and a B-12 complex vitamin to try to give me more energy, but it's not working very well.  As soon as I get home, I want to sleep immediately.   I barely have energy to make it through the day without wanting to fall asleep at lunchtime.  I've got to figure out a fix to this.  Someone mentioned eating more complex carbs.  I'll say this:  eating gluten free is not something you do willy-nilly.  It takes a LOT of planning.  Which brings me to...

2.  Gluten free living is not something you just decide to do.  It's HARD.  If I'm running errands on my lunch break, I cannot just swing through McDonalds and grab myself something to eat.  In fact, I can count on one hand all the fast food places in my town that have gluten free options for an entire meal (meaning, they have more items to choose from than just salad dressings and fries that are GF).  Same thing goes for being at home.  I can't just look in my freezer and pop in a frozen pizza or throw together a sandwich if I'm hungry and want something quick.  Eating gluten free requires a lot of preparation and thought.  And I'm not that kind of person when it comes to eating every single night.

3.  Going out to eat with me is a pain in the butt. It's a lot of "Where can you eat?" questions. I am a fundamental people pleaser to my very core. The idea of picking a restaurant for 7 people to eat at, and possibly dislike, just because I picked it, sends me into panic mode. Once a restaurant is picked, I'm always the last to decide what I want because I'm busy googling every item on the menu to see what the ingredients are in the dish and if I can have it. I'm a pain. Even I don't like eating with me.

4.  I'm fat.  Please, don't start jumping all over me.  Let me explain.  My stomach is feeling better.  I'm not in pain, I'm not running to the bathroom, I'm not miserable.  But I am 10+ pounds heavier and way more bloated than I was before I started a gluten free lifestyle.  I don't know what's causing it.  I'm eating stuff like plain rice and grilled chicken and I have spare tire.  What the heck??  I wasn't this heavy when I was eating McDonald's breakfast and Burger King for lunch.  Maybe there is something in certain GF foods that causes bloating and weight gain.  Whatever it is, I have to find it and ditch it fast.  I'm running out of clothing that fits me and my self esteem (which was pretty low to begin with) is at rock bottom.

5.  People flat don't understand what it means to be gluten free.  I'm not doing this as a diet plan.  I'm not doing this because I want to be "cool" or do the latest fad diet (because well, see #4).  I'm doing it because gluten quite literally makes me sick.  I have a co-worker that just cannot understand this.  Every day, he comes in and tells me that I'll be fine if I have a sausage biscuit that one of our reps just brought in.  Or, if I avoid bread the rest of my life, I'll waste away to nothing.  The second day of being gluten free, he asked if I was going to be a vegetarian too.  Listen, I get it.  People don't understand what gluten is and when you can't have it, it seems like a stupid lifestyle plan to be on.  If I didn't have to do this, I wouldn't be.  But my body rejects gluten and lets me know loud and clear.  Therefore, I don't eat it.  Plain and simple.  I don't like talking about being gluten free. I don't like pointing it out every time someone asks me if I want a bite of their food or offers me something to eat. I don't like drawing attention to myself. I would MUCH rather be happily sitting with a hamburger, bun on, not causing a problem. But, that can't be, so I deal with it.

To answer your questions:  I'm still caffeine and gluten free.  I'm doing really well by resisting all the temptations.  Yesterday, I wanted a cheeseburger so bad that I didn't think I'd be able to keep my car from driving into McDonalds.  Instead, I drove home for lunch and ate chicken salad. Was it better than the cheeseburger would have tasted?  Probably not. But I wasn't sick last night either. It's a daily trade off. I don't get to eat the foods I once loved, but I also am not a slave to my heating pad. One day, I hope I won't even miss those sausage biscuits or that Dr Pepper. It's just not today.

Gluten AND Caffeine Free? Pray for me.

I know I'm a little late to the "giving up something for Lent" game, but better a late start than never starting at all, right?

Today, I'm going to be giving up all Cokes (for me, this technically means Dr. Pepper.  In the South, all sodas are Cokes.  Yes, this makes complete sense).  I'm the type of person that gets terrible caffeine related headaches if I haven't had a Coke (again, Dr. Pepper) by 10 am.  This is going to be reallllly sucky for me.  But for a solid week, I have woken up every single morning with a massive headache.  How do you wake, from a restful night of sleep, with a headache already?  I have been having some dizzy spells and feeling all around sluggish and yucky lately.  Combine that with my constant headaches, and I've decided I need to give up the caffeine as step one in figuring out what I can do to make myself feel better.

On top of that, starting today, I'm on a STRICT gluten free diet.  I feel like crap 90% of the time.  100% of the time after I eat, I'm miserable.  I'll spare you the details, but it leaves me feeling like food is my enemy.  I don't like feeling this way.  I like to cook, I like to find good recipes, and I like to leave a meal feeling satisfied and in a good mood.  Lately, that's not been the case with me.  I've left a meal, dreading what was coming next...will I need a heating pad?  Will I be in intense pain?  And the answer is simple.  A few years ago, I was having the same kind of pains and after multiple evaluations, scans, consultations, tests, the specialist still couldn't give me any kind of diagnosis.  But he did suggest going on a gluten free diet.  Keep in mind, this was before Celiac's or gluten intolerance was really well known.  I fully believe, without being diagnosed, that I am gluten intolerant.  For a short time, I was strictly gluten free.  And it was HARD.  No bread, no breading, no flour, no oats, no wheat....do you see where I'm going with this?  Going out to eat with a gluten intolerance is very near an impossibility.  "What about salads?" you say.  Well, my stomach obviously hates me, because I also have IBS.  Which makes eating lettuce and some green veggies pretty miserable too.  So I'm looking at options like grilled, plain chicken (because some sauces can contain gluten ingredients as thickeners) or grilled, plain fish.  Blah.  And don't even get me started on eating at home.  If you look up "gluten free recipes" on Pinterest, the majority of them call for ingredients I can't even pronounce.  Xanthan gum, millet, guar gum....what in the world?  Something tells me these ingredients aren't readily available on the shelves of my local Walmart.  So what's a gluten intolerant, mom of a 2 year old, semi-pathetic cook to do?  Don't be surprised if you see this blog introducing more mom-on-the-go gluten free recipes.  Because I cannot look at another recipe that wants me to add amaranth flour.  I just can't.

As hard as it is, and as flavorless as it can be, I cannot be miserable anymore.  I hate feeling bad, I hate dreading meals and I hate hating food.  So, gluten free, I go.  If you have any fantastic gluten free recipes that are EASY, send them my way.  A lot of foods are naturally gluten free, so I see a lot of fruits and veggies and meats in my future.  Not to mention a whole lot of processed foods leaving my routine.  They won't be missed. 

And while you're sending me gluten free recipes, send some prayers my way.  Because I have a feeling I'm NOT going to be a very nice person while I'm going through my caffeine withdraws.  Please know, in the next week, if I snap at you or say hateful things, I don't mean it.  I love you.  That's just the lack of caffeine in my body talking. 

Wish me luck!