Two Diets at Once

Since it's the new year, I'm currently joining the millions of people who have resolved to lose weight. According to my WiiFit (with which I have a love/hate relationship), I need to drop about 40 pounds to be at a healthy weight. I've been at this point once before in my life, and I did it. The difference now? I'm already on a diet.
An article I read recently said that a full third of celiac patients were overweight or obese within the first two years of going gluten free. The article pointed to added sweeteners and salt in gluten free food, used to make it taste more like the real thing, but I would point to another culprit. Despite having been on a gluten free diet for three years, I still feel deprived on a regular basis. Throw in a further attempt to watch what I eat, and I start equating myself with those little starving children in Ethiopia. My "diets" tend to not work out so well.
So, while I am watching my food intake this go-around, I'm going to focus on physical activity instead. That way, I won't end up cracking over gluten-free crackers this time.

It isn't all in your guts

So, after a conversation with a gastroenterological intern in which I'm pretty sure I taught him more than my doctor does, I decided to dedicate today's post to discussing the possible symptoms of celiac. It is estimated that one in every hundred people in the US has celiac, but that nearly 97% of those are undiagnosed. A big reason for this is that most US doctors are trained to see it as a purely digestive disease, when it is an autoimmune disease that affects the whole body.

When my celiac was discovered, I was displaying the classic symptoms: nausea, diarrhea, constipation, gas, stomach pain, and pronounced weight loss. However, as I look back, I can spot other symptoms that I can recognize going back ten years or more. These are symptoms I see return when I slip up, and now I have a reason for them. Some of them, for your edification:

• stunted growth. Ok, so I'm done growing now and can't grow anymore, but when I was a toddler, my pediatrician estimated that I would grow to nearly 6' tall. I'm 5'3" on a good day.



• migraine headaches. I mean the kind that make you wish you were dead. After one week of bad choices, I had one that literally made me pass out on my cousin's couch.



• anemia. I take enough iron supplement to make me magnetic, but I still get anemic "that time of the month". When I was a teen, I passed out on stage from it.



• joint pain and easily broken bones. I've broken toes, fingers, my nose, and most impressively, my ocular orbit, from rather minor accidents. I now get microfractures in my feet, shins, and wrists that are the result of my poor absorbtion of calcium.



• ADHD. There is a reason why they now suggest a gluten free diet for children and adults with ADHD. When I fall off the wagon, I struggle to focus and to gain impulse control, which affects my work, my studies, and my relations with others.



• A whole host of other mental issues. When I've been cheating, I'm more prone to depression, to anxiety attacks, and, according to my little brother, being a total jerk.



• Skin problems. The textbook celiac-related skin disease is herpetitis dermaformis, but I've also noticed that gluten aggravates my usually mild exzema.



• Reproductive issues. While I'm not here yet, it's one of my big fears. Many women are not diagnosed with celiac until they try and try to conceive and can't. Have you seen the episode of House about the woman with celiac and her baby? Scary stuff.

So hopefully you've stuck with me, and maybe learned a little more about how celiac can present itself. What kind of symptoms do you have, or do your family or friends have?

Why Cracked Over Crackers?

About this time four years ago, I started getting sick almost every time I ate. I felt nauseous and my stomach would feel like someone was stabbing me. Obviously, this served as the most effective crash diet of my life; I dropped 20 pounds in around a month. With my mother's Crohn's Disease in mind, I was rushed off to the doctor, where I was poked, prodded, stuck and tubed within an inch of my sanity. Finally, around September, I was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue, an autoimmune disease that causes me to have highly unpleasant side effects any time I eat anything containing gluten, a compound found in wheat, barley, rye, and all sorts of other sneaky things. If I wanted to be able to eat without excruciating pain again, I was going to have to change my entire diet.
At that point, had it not been for a good friend, whose daughter had been living gluten-free for several years, I would have starved. I viewed every bite of food that went into my mouth with fear, and hadn't a clue what foods at the supermarket were safe and at the same time didn't taste like dirt. My friend was my providing angel. She gave me a big bag full of gluten-free food, complete with homemade goodies, and a book that detailed what I needed to know about going gluten-free.
I've now been gluten-free (conditionally) for three years and some change. I decided that I'd like to share what I've learned over the past couple years with others. So if you're interested, stick around!

A little side note: the reason why this blog is called "Cracked Over Crackers" is because of a breakdown I had early on in my gluten-free experience:
Me (out of nowhere, breaking into hysterical tears)
My mom: What's wrong sweetie?
Me (still crying hysterically): I'm so hungry! And all I want is a cracker that doesn't taste like a friggin ricecake!
My boyfriend (when hearing about this later): So you're telling me you cracked over crackers?