Hi friends! So, I’ve been living a gluten-free lifestyle for a while now, and I gotta say, it’s been a painful journey.
There are so many struggles and mental burdens that come with it, especially if you’re eating gluten-free because of celiac disease. I’ve written posts on the mental burdens of celiac disease and also the importance of finding a therapist.
Read about “Finding a Therapist for Celiac Disease” by clicking here.
But I don’t want to always focus on all the negatives of being forced to live gluten-free. I have found a few positives in my life since going gluten-free that I wanted to share with you all to hopefully help provide some hope and optimism to living gluten-free (especially if you have celiac disease!).
So here are four positives I’ve discovered since living a gluten-free lifestyle!
Positives of Living Gluten-Free: Improved Health
This is the most obvious benefit of going gluten-free. My physical health has improved in many ways!
Within a week of starting a 100% gluten-free diet, my stomach pain completely subsided. I used to be in pain almost every single day. However, after switching to a gluten-free diet my digestive health improved almost immediately.
But, that wasn’t the only benefit to my physical health. This I couldn’t believe – going gluten-free IMMENSELY improved my chronic migraines.
I have suffered from chronic migraines since I was about 3 years old (according to my mom). My migraines can be brutal. I usually throw up, I can barely function, and at one point my husband had to help carry me to the bathroom because I couldn’t walk by myself.
However, since going gluten-free, the number of migraines I have per year dropped significantly. I used to have at least 5-10 migraines per month. Now I only get 1 or 2 migraines per month and they’re usually caused by an obvious trigger – change in weather, lack of caffeine, too much caffeine, having sugar.
In addition, I now pay much better attention to my health because I know how important my health is. I make sure to go to all my annual doctors’ appointments, I regularly get blood work, and I don’t put off going to the doctor when I feel like something’s wrong.
I no longer take my health for granted.
From Takeout Everyday to Cooking Every Meal Gluten-Free
This positive may take you some time to discover and that’s okay!! Transitioning to living a 100% gluten-free lifestyle is incredibly challenging. Do not worry about eating perfectly healthy every single meal at first. As long as you are eating 100% gluten-free, enjoy that easy, gluten-free microwavable meal!
Let me tell you about my diet before my (possible) celiac disease diagnosis (Long story short, I have a few markers for celiac disease but we did not do an endoscopy to confirm until AFTER I went gluten-free so the endoscopy came back negative). I regularly ate Burger King’s Chicken Fries, I could easily kill a Chipotle Burrito in one sitting, and the only cooking I did was pasta. I ate out or got fast food for at least 5-7 meals a week.
I was skinny from working out a lot, but I was NOT healthy.
Fast forward almost three years later, I cook 95% of the meals I eat. I eat a good amount of fruits and vegetables per day, and I don’t eat many processed foods. This did NOT happen overnight! It was a slow and gradual process of learning how to cook and I slowly even learned to enjoy cooking.
I weigh almost the same as I did back then, but I feel SO much better.
Learning to cook and learning how to eat a well-balanced diet was a life-changing positive of going gluten-free.
Being Forced to Develop Better Spending Habits
Another aspect of being gluten-free that truly sucks is how expensive it is! If you are struggling with future insecurity because of celiac disease – especially if you’re a parent of a celiac child – please reach out to me. I’ll help in any way I can. Everyone with celiac disease deserves to have access to gluten-free food!
Before going gluten-free I did not track my spending – at all! It was a miracle I even had any savings. I just went day by day buying and not paying attention to how much I was spending!
But after realizing how expensive gluten-free food is I knew I needed to change my spending habits and track my spending. Now I check my accounts regularly and track almost every dollar I spend daily.
It’s not fun being forced to worry about spending and eating gluten-free and I truly empathize with anyone struggling to afford a gluten-free lifestyle.
But for me, this did turn out to be a positive because it held me accountable to learn better money habits.
Becoming a Gluten-Free Advocate
I’m a teacher and interact with over 100 students every year. All of my students know that I can’t eat gluten and most of them have an understanding of what gluten is.
I have such great kids that they’ll even buy me gluten-free snacks at Trader Joe’s in return for all the gluten snacks I keep in my classroom for them.
By talking regularly about gluten and celiac disease I have helped my students become more aware of their own eating habits and digestive health. In fact, since talking to my students about my celiac disease I’ve had 2 students be diagnosed with gluten sensitivities. Those students came to me and talked to me about their stomach problems and when I realized they were similar to mine I reached out to their parents.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher, a nurse, a post office worker, an accountant, or a student – you can be a gluten-free advocate!
By following gluten-free content creators on social media and sharing their informational posts to your pages you can make a life-changing difference in the lives of people you know!
The Privilege in Finding Positives to Living a Gluten-Free Lifestyle
My intentions for this post are to provide hope and some positivity for those forced to live gluten-free especially because of celiac disease.
However, this post is loaded with privilege.
I’m privileged that I have access to health insurance and great doctors. I’m privileged that I can afford to see my doctors once a year. I’m privileged as a white woman that my doctors (mostly) take my issues seriously. I’m especially privileged that I can afford gluten-free food.
I know many people struggle with some or even all of the aspects of living gluten-free that I just mentioned. If you struggle with food insecurity, lack of access to affordable healthcare, or any other aspect of living gluten-free do not hesitate to reach out to me.
I will work to help you find resources to help you overcome your struggles to the best that I can. I do not want anyone to feel like they are suffering alone.
I also promise to use my platform to help advocate on behalf of food insecurity in the gluten-free community and use proceeds made from this blog to benefit charities that focus on food insecurity.