What Do You Eat?

I get asked this question almost every single day and every single time I tell people the same thing. I eat real food. I eat meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, and lately I have been eating a few paleo breads and sweets which technically aren't sweets because they do not contain any sugar except a little honey or maple syrup. I have added a little cheese back into my diet, but have quickly realized it does not make my body very happy so I will only be eating it if I am desperate for pizza. I have been very interested in trying out cashew cheese so maybe I will give that a try and report back to you how that turned out. 

I have posted a few times about what I can not eat and I have also written a little about my Whole 30 I completed in May, but I thought it would be fun to do a real day in the life of someone who has food allergies. I actually did a lot of cooking yesterday, but there are a few more things I want to get thrown together and in the freezer since the girl is finally at the babysitters (HALLELUJAH!!) and I can cook without being asked 20 million times to play a song, or put a movie in, or blow bubbles!!!

Breakfast 
I eat some sort of egg concoction almost every single day. If I am feeling wild I might make some almond flour pancakes, but on a typical day I will have eggs, but I will cook them differently to trick my mind into thinking I am not eating the same thing everyday. I do have some gluten free oats I make Mckinley oatmeal with which I can eat, but I have found that is just too heavy for my stomach that early in the morning. So how many ways are there to cook eggs? I use a variation of scrambled, egg muffins, poached, fried, frittatad, quiched, and hard boiled. I am sure there are many other ways you can cook an egg, but these are my go to styles. The day I learned to poach an egg was life changing! I love a good over medium fried egg, but I hated having to fry an egg. It took too long and I felt like I was wasting my coconut oil doing it too often. Finally I found a recipe that taught me how to poach without any special equipment. All you need is a large deep saucepan filed about an inch with water, some good sized ramekins, some oil to grease the ramekins and help those eggies slide out easily, and some seasoning. Place the saucepan on the stove and place the greased ramekins in the water. I like to break my eggs in a glass pyrex measuring cup then individually pour them in their ramekins so I don't break the yolk. Bring water in saucepan to simmer, cover the pan, and set your timer for 5 minutes. Don't over cook them because your yolk will get hard and you want that yummy runny deliciousness to dip your homemade turkey sausage in.

A typical breakfast of turkey sausage and spinach quiche with coconut milk vanilla coffee. I use my immersion blender to make my coffee all foamy and delicious.

Speaking of turkey sausage that is another breakfast item I eat daily or use in my egg muffins, quiches, and frittitas. I found this recipe and my life has not been the same since. I can not eat any pre made sausages because almost all of them contain pepper and trust me I have contacted many companies to see if I could fin 1 that I could eat that might make my life a little easier, but sadly to make sausage you need pepper. I use an old season jar to keep all of my homemade seasonings in. I write the recipe on each bottle so I don't have to run to Pinterest every time I start running low. Here are 3 of my favorites:
Breakfast Sausage
Season All or Burger and Fry Seasoning
Poultry Seasoning for my Almond Meal Chicken Fingers

Not pictured is my go to Taco Seasoning.

Lunch
Lunch is my least favorite meal of the day. I always feel like I am scrounging for something to eat and I usually end up eating some sort of Boars Head lunch meat wrapped up in lettuce with some sort of fruit. Every now and then if we have leftovers I will try to finish those off.

This is lunch on a very good day when I actually have leftover bacon to make a turkey "club". That brown thing is a homemade chocolate date bar which we will talk about during snack time.

Another of my favorite go to lunches is tuna salad stuffed hard boiled eggs. I use this eggless mayo recipe from The Clothes Make The Girl and make these tiny little handfuls of deliciousness!

Snack
I don't really snack since most snack foods are off limits to me and ever since I began eating Paleo I do not eat the same as I used to. I used to always feel hungry. I used to snack all day long. I don't know if it was kicking my sugar habit or cutting out carbs even gluten free ones changed how my body dealt with feeling hungry. I still get hungry, but it is not an all day everyday thing. I feel like I have broken free of the hold food had over me. I enjoy food and don't let food control me anymore. I will have a handful of nuts every now and then or a homemade date bar, but my go to in between food is a smoothie with spinach, a frozen banana, some frozen fruit, chia seeds, and almond milk if I am having a really long day or need a pick me up.

One of my favorite snack foods to make is homemade date bars. So far I have tried the cherry (my favorite), chocolate (delicious when mashed with a piece of cherry), and the gingerbread. Brent does not care for Larabars and has tried a few different flavors, but he LOVES my homemade bars so if he requests them I make them!

This cup of deliciousness contains 1 frozen banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, about 1/4 a cup of mixed frozen fruit, a handful of frozen spinach leaves, a teaspoon of chia seeds, about 1/4 a cup of unsweetened almond milk and some water to make things move more smoothly. One of my best and really only kitchen tips I have is to throw the entire bag of spinach leaves in the freezer as soon as you get home from the store. It freezes perfectly and breaks apart easily to be placed into smoothies and cooking and keeps it from going bad.

Dinner
Dinner is probably my most favorite meal of the day because I am not eating the same things over and over and over and over and over again! Now we do eat a lot of the same things like Turkey Tacos every Tuesday (Taco Tuesday baby!), but that is just one of our favorite things to eat plus it is super easy so it will always stay on our menu. We also eat pasta (zucchini noodles for me) once a week and we have pizza on Fridays when we do not have plans to get together with friends. A typical week of meals in our house goes like this.

Monday- Something in the crock pot since it is the beginning of the week and I will be very tired when I get home. It is typically something I have prepped and frozen in my freezer that I have thawed out the evening before. Usually a roast, a whole chicken, or some sort of pork deliciousness.

Tuesday- Turkey Tacos or if we are feeling adventurous I will pound the crap out of a pork tenderloin, sprinkle my homemade taco/fajita seasonings all over with a squeeze of lime and Brent will grill it for pork tacos.

Wednesday- Either spaghetti/Zucchini Noodles with homemade spaghetti gravy or Brent will make us our favorite crawfish pasta sauce

Thursday- Is usually a toss up day. We wither eat leftovers, everyone fends for themselves, or we eat breakfast for dinner.

Friday- We like to make homemade pizzas if we are not getting together with friends or going out for a date night.

I am a much more adventurous cook these days since I decided to only eat whole foods and to cut out all processed foods and this was my most adventurous undertaking to date. I found a recipe for making a pizza crust out of a Yuca or Cassava Root. I have picked up a yuca a few times at Whole Foods since finding this recpie and promptly place it back down, but I decided to just go for it after I had to run to Whole Foods to get some dates to make my date bars. It sat in my fridge for a few days until last night. Brent's soft ball game got rained out and he called me while I was at the store and said he wanted pizza so I decided to just go for it. I am so happy I decided to give this recipe a try because it was AMAZING! It was pretty easy to put together and made a super crunchy crust. I added some Italian seasoning and garlic salt to my yuca crust and after I flipped my crust with about 10 minutes to go I added all of my toppings (olive oil, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil from my garden) and it was perfect. It had the best texture and flavor and I will probably be a yuca root pizza crust girl from now on.

I will be spending the rest of my day searching for more yuca recipes and coming up with the recipes I want to make over the next few weeks so I can have a stock of freezer meals all prepped before I have to go back to school. 

What's Shakin Bacon (Mmmmmmmm Bacon)

It's been awhile since I have been around these parts. Not much has been going on except the end of the school year (14 days, but whose counting). Our last day of school is Friday May 23 and then we will have a week of Inservice to close everything down. Thankfully I won't have to do too much since my wonderful assistant will be running summer camp in my classroom. I plan on cleaning out and getting rid of a lot of stuff, but besides that I am done. 

I honestly think the reason I have not been around much is because all of my extra time has been spent dealing with my little ray of sunshine (we have been in the trows of the terrible two's for the past 2 months) and cooking. Lots and lots of cooking! I have really been trying to get a handle on my allergies and dig myself out of the rut that comes with trying to figure out what I can and can not eat these days. I have cut out all processed foods and I have never felt better. I have gone full Paleo these days and I am currently completing my first Whole 30. I attempted to start one a last month, but Lent kind of threw a wrench in the whole you need to eat a lot of meat thing and I panicked and stopped after about 2 weeks. I am pretty sure God will forgive me for eating meat during Lent since there isn't much else I can eat and no one would want to be around me on those days I only ate fruits and vegetables (It t'wasnt pretty). . After these 30 days are up I will continueto follow an 80%/20% paleo diet which means I will stick to a completely paleo diet during the week and on the weekends If I want a little splurge I will enjoy my homemade gluten free pizza crust, almod ice cream bites,  and almond chocolate chip cookies and I will enjoy every bite!

I posted on my Facebook a few weeks ago about how people react when I tell them about my food allergies and what i eat. They usually ask "If you can't eat bread what do you eat?" and then they say how much that would suck and I must be hungry all of the time. I will say living this way isn't the easiest and the amount of dishes I make would make any mom cringe, but for me this works and I am happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. As you can see for not being able to eat any bread I eat pretty well most days.

Zucchini noodles with homemade ground turkey spaghetti sauce

              This next picture is a typical day of food. Breakfast of poached eggs, sweet potato hash browns, and fruit. Lunch this day was tune fish stuffed hard boiled eggs using egg free/dairy free paleo mayonnaise. All of these snacks lasted me about 3 days at school. Dinner was a bowl of home made turkey tacos with black olives, lettuce, avocado, jalapeno peppers, and cilantro.

Another breakfast of scrambled egg whites, Pederson's bacon, sweet potato hash browns, and some avocado.

Dinner of an all beef burker patty over some fresh lettuce, sweet potato fries, and some apples.

Looks awful huh?

I am on day 9 on this new journey and I have never felt better. Besides 2 allergic reactions to  foods I knew were not safe I am 100% happy and healthy. I typically post all of my meals on Instagram especially during these next few weeks of my Whole 30. I am not an expert on this journey and I am absolutely not perfect, but I am trying my best to do the best for myself and my body. I am going to try posting a weekly update of my meals and how everything is going. Today also marks the first day I will be joining a new workout group at my school and I am hoping this helps out with my goal to run the St. Jude Half Marathon this year. Wish me luck and if you are also working on a Whole 30 I highly suggest you check out Nom Nom Paleo. I get a lot of ideas and recipes here.

9 days down 21 more to go, but whose counting. And if you were really paying attention you will notice the end of my Whole 30 does not coincide with the last day of school so we will see how restrained I am in not enjoying some of the wine I have waiting in my freezer on that very last day.

Mongolian Beef

I you are looking for a new recipe to try out I HIGHLY recommend THIS one. I have had it pinned on Pinterest forever and Brent happened to spy it the other day when we were looking for some Brent friendly gluten free recipes and he was really excited to give it a try. We went with a really lean cut if meat which was really healthy and only ran about $11.00 for 4 servings. 

I will have I say Brent is definitely the better cook between the 2 of us specially when it comes to meat so I let him do the hard work on this meal (darn). I did however prepare an extra large pot of quinoa in vegetable broth to go with it and some steamed frozen broccoli to eat on the rest of the week. We of course couldn't eat an Asian meal without edamame which was Mckinley's favorite part. This kid lives for edamame! She also loved the quonia and broccoli, but since she isn't a huge fan of red meat I got to finish that off for her which was just awful.

I think if all of our new recipes turn out as amazing as this one did Brent might actually enjoy the gluten free lifestyle. I just want to say P.F. Changs I hate to tell you, but our Mongolian beef might be better than yours.

Plans and Changes

I am finally jumping back on my serious meal planning. Last month I kept everything pretty simple with crock pot Mondays, taco Tuesdays, pasta Wednesdays, breakfast for dinner Thursdays, and pizza Fridays, but I am ready for some new recipes. I also have a new motivation. Daddy D is going gluten free because of a few health issues he has going on and he was told to cut out white flour and white rice. This will be a little tricky because a lot of gluten free products are made from rice flour, but I think kicking the flour habit will be such a huge change on his body a little rice flour won't do anymore damage everything else has already done. I also plan on trying my hand at bread machine baking so we shall see how that goes.

We just got back from our latest shopping trip and Brent had asked if our grocery bills would go up now that he will also be eating gluten free and after seeing our $230 bill got a little scared until I reminded him this was basically a months worth of meals. I plan on us eating leftovers and a lot of these meals can be divided in 2 and frozen for later use which means next months planning will be even easier. I am also psyched about my new to us freezer that will be moving into our shed to house all of these delicious meals.

Now let's take a look at how all this madness come together. There isn't really a science to and now that I think about it almost exactly how I put together my lesson plans for school. I make a plan, make a list, and get to work. I start by searching Pinterest and the internet for interesting recipes (gluten free of course), then I make a big list, figure out what ingredients I already have and what I will need, and then I decide when we want to eat them. I wasn't going  to plan out an entire month, but I just got so caught up in the excitement that I went ahead and did it anyways which just makes my life easier. There are still a few things we will still need to purchase like the salmon because we like that to be fresh and I will need a few more lbs. of ground turkey, but my freezer is full so we will pick that up fresh as needed. 

The first picture doesn't do my kamikaze meal planning justice. Usually there are scratch pieces of paper everywhere, it is missing my computer, and there is almost always a small child in the mix of everything. The snack cup is evidence of her presence.

I typically do not plan anything for the weekends since we usually have leftovers and we spend a lot of time with friends and family so this gives us a little meal leeway.  Now these recipes on these days are not set in stone. If we want or need to switch them around we do it. I am just such a visual and hands on person that I need it to be down in writing so I can process all of the information. We have already switched a few things around (all of the salmon recipes have switched to Friday since Brent takes care of that and I have cross country meets on Thursday evenings) and I have already eliminated a recipe because of a conflict (we do this prior to grocery shopping so we don't waste any $ on something we don't need).

You might wonder how we decide what days we eat what and that is simple. Monday is always a crock pot meal because I am usually exhausted on Mondays after a long weekend and a long day of getting everyone back into a routine at school. I also almost always have a ton of pork stashed in my freezer hence the main ingredient in all of those dishes being just that. We love pork in this house and crock pork is the best! Tuesday is always Turkey Taco Tuesday. Tacos are simple, easy, and healthy. Plus they are easy prep and and clean and I just like the alliteration in the name. Wednesday and Thursday are my days to try out new recipes. Usually they are chicken recipes that I can prepare ahead of time and or freeze for a later time. Fridays as I said earlier will be grill nights typically salmon and veggies. Now don't think we don't ever have any fun because at least one Friday a month we will be throwing in a Mellow Mushroom night since there is one opening walking distance from our house and they have AMAZING gluten free options. 

These next few weeks are pretty crucial for the success of Brent's new healthier lifestyle. I have been through the unglutenizing and it can be rough and you are really hungry at first, but preparation and planning is the key to success so whatever I can do to make this transition as easy as possible for him is exactly what I will do. 

I'M BACK!

To meal planning that is. I haven't changed any of my usual recipes except for a a few ingredient substitutions  like Gluten Free Soy Sauce, Homemade Lipton Onion Soup Mix, Homemade Taco Seasoning, and Homemade Fajita Seasoning. Sadly I have to go buy a new bottle because the one I bought last week fell out of the car as we were unloading groceries and smashed in the driveway.

I am glad I started with the last two weeks of June because I am planning on planning bi weekly instead of monthly this time around. i felt like we had too many leftovers and things stuffed in the freezer so this will give me a little more leeway to use everything up. I already have most of the ingredients I will need for the next two weeks except for the salmon, gf soy sauce, squash, red potatoes, green beans, fajita veggies which I may go ahead and buy put together and freeze, and the beef if I decide to do beef stir fry. 

So here it is in all it's menu planning glory. 

Nothing fancy and all easy to throw together or pre make. 

Happy Meal Planning. 

What's For Dinner The Gluten Free Edition

I started meal planning again this week and hopefully tomorrow I can sit down and plan out the rest of the month of June. Just add this to my list of summer to do's along with my cabinet redo and shed cleaning. 

We started Tuesday since I was out of town all weekend and wasn't prepared to  really cook on Monday plus we had leftover pasta (quinoa noodles) to finish off. The best part about Tuesday is it just so happens to  be Taco Tuesday and everyone lives Taco Tuesday.  I have some Udi's gf tortillas which were pretty yummy. We like our tacos made with ground turkey instead of ground beef. Taco Tuesday is a family favorite that not only includes tacos, but delicious home made fajitas. We also like to make our own Taco Seasoning because if I make it I know it is GF and it doesn't hurt that it tastes so much better and is cleaner then the stuff you can buy in a package. Once you start eating clean you never want to go back to processed foods. Real food just tastes so much better. 

We continued our week with a new recipe I got from, where else Pinterest! I have been wanting to try a 1 dish meal for a while now and I am not sure what took me so long to give it a try. I had to hit up Whole Foods for some frozen bread products and since I already had some chicken at home I decided to use some fresh green beans and red potatoes. I found This recipe and decided it sounded yummy and fresh for such a hot spring day. Yes people I said spring!!!! Summer doesn't start until June 21 and it has already gotten up to 99! God help us all down south. 

I went ahead and cleaned my green beans, cut up my potatoes, visited school, and went to search for part of Brent's Fathers Day gift, and picked up the Little Lady while my chicken was thawing. Once we got home I went ahead and started putting everything together so I could get it in the oven since  it took almost an hour to cook. It all smelled and looked delicious when I was putting it together and I couldn't wait to eat since I had barely eaten anything all day hence the massive headache I am still rocking right now. 

I think this might have been the prettiest meal I have out together in quite a while. The yellow lemons, green beans, and red potatoes were pure dinner perfection. 

Looks delicious doesn't it? 

It could have been if I had completely skipped the lemons entirely and just gone with the olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. I have decided unless I am eating  fish, lemon drops, sorbet or anything not chicken I don't care for lemon flavor. It was just too intense and lemony. It was fun watching Mckinley make a face and shudder each time she tried to eat a green bean. 

Don't worry my family is used to this by now. Meals either turn out perfect or they are revised and retried unless they are just plain awful. 

So we will try this one again another day. Tomorrow we will bump up our pizza night from Friday to Thursday perBrent's  request. I think he fears another lemon massacre.  Brent and Mckinley will enjoy a cheese pizza from Kroger's deli section and I will be enjoying an Amy's spinach and feta pizza. Lets get real. We all know the  girl will be helping me eat my pizza. I better get 2. 

Here's to not scrambling to throw together dinners anymore and a well stocked, healthy, and gluten free stocked freezer.

Living The Gluten Free Life

No I can not blame my falling off of the meal planning wagon on my food allergies. I fell off way before this new discovery, but I am planning on jumping back on this week. 

Monday we all ate leftover spaghetti (I had quonia pasta of course) since I had been out of town all weekend and the little family was fending for themselves all weekend. Yesterday we started back on our regularly planned schedule of Taco Tuesdays with our Turkey Taco secret family recipe. I gave the Rudi's Gluten Free Tortillas a try last night because I have gotten a little tired of only eating corn tortillas. They weren't the exact consistency of a good ole flour tortilla, but they were definitely yummy.

I have also tried Rudi's bread, but it is definitely not my favorite gluten free product. The consistency is ok, but it falls apart and has huge holes in the top. 

I am now going to give my awards for best GF products I have tried so far.

Bread

So far I have tried 3 brands of bread. I rushed out the next day after finding out I had a wheat allergy and grabbed the first GF bread I could find on the shelf. I can't remember the particular brand, but it was 

B-A-D! It was think and dry and just plain awful! After my first shopping disaster I did a little research and found This list of the 2012 Best of Gluten Free Awards and Udi's topped the charts. I cautiously ventured back out and did a little more research. I didn't want to spend a fortune on food so I went to the 3 major stores in our area to see who had the best prices. Kroger did not carry Udi's bread so that was a bust so it weas off to Fresh Market and Whole Foods. After a little comparing I found that Whole Foods actually has the best prices for most GF foods. So I bought my little frozen loaf of bread and I never looked back. 

Snacks

Once again before finding out about my wheat allergy I found these crackers called Nut-Thins (Kroger). I wanted something that was "cleaner" then a regular cracker , but still tasted and felt the same. I like  Nut-Thins, but only as a dipping cracker. I use them when I want to enjoy some hummus. If you are going to venture into the Nut crackers I highly recommend the cheddar or ranch flavors. 

I have to give the GF Award to Glutino Crackers. Basically anything made by this company is delicious! Another snack I love from Glutino is their GF Pretzels (Kroger). They are so crunchy and delicious and it is all I can do to keep my child from eating all of them.

Cereal

My go to cereal is Chex especially Cinnamon Chex or Mom's Best Crispy Cocoa Rice. You can't go wrong with any of these and you can find them all at Kroger. 

Bagel

Once again Udi's tops the chart for bread products. So far I have tried the plain and cinnamon raisin bagels and both are absolutely delicious.

Pizza

If you are looking for a delicious GF frozen pizza please make yourself happy by picking up an Amy's spinach and feta pizza. The cheese is also delicious, but nothing beats the spinach pizza! 

Pizza Crust

I only buy Amy's pizzas one Fridays for pizza nights, but my usual go to is Kinniknnick Frozen Pizza Crusts. I just buy GF pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese and this is what the Little Lady and I eat at least once a week.

Baking Mix

What can I say about Pamela's Baking Mix! My life was changed the day I found this GF product. I haven't tried any of the other Pamela's baking mixes, but the Baking and Pancake Mix is amazing. I can use it to make absolutely anything. We have made lots of pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, banana chocolate chip bread to name a few. 

 Pasta

We eat pasta 2-3 times a month so I wanted to find something that I could eat with my family. I have so far tried rice noodles and quonia noodles and The Ancient Harvest Noodles are by far my favorite. I usually don't get to eat alot of my pasta because my child eats it all, but I get a bite or 2 sometimes.

If you have just found out you have a Gluten Intolerance or a Wheat Allergy I hope this little list helps you a little and you don't waste your time or money on searching for good GF foods. This isn't what I eat in a typical day they are just the products I have found that taste the best for when I need them. 

The last thing I will add is if you are craving something sweet and need a cupcake please go to Whole Foods and get either a chocolate or vanilla Whole Foods brand cupcake. They are usually in a freezer end cap right after the frozen foods. You can thank me later. And if you are really really craving something sweet lime I was on National Doughnut Day , but you can't go to your amazingly delicious Doughnut shop down the street try Kinnikinnick's brand doughnuts. I have tried every flavor and they are all amazing, but the cinnamon sugar is the best. 

My Milkshake Brings All The Boys To The Yard

I just had to share my progress so far on my Post baby body makeover. Ever since discovering my wheat allergy I have been trying to be very vigilant about what I eat which has been quite the learning experience. At home when I am preparing my own food I am able to completely control what I ingest. It is the rare times that we do eat out that I have to be careful about. Then you have nights like this one where you have too much fun and have no clue what could or could not be affecting you later. All I know is Chick-Fil-A saved my life the next day. I did research the Polynesian sauce and am still not sure if it is GF or not. There seemed to be mixed reviews on this one, but I believe it was a key piece to my recovery. 

I have been trying to combat any wheat flares (That's what I am naming my accidental ingestion and subsequent flare ups) with Benadryl, but I have a 2 year old and I can not afford to be drowsy all day. I spoke with my Dr. today and she suggested taking a daily Allegra and seeing if that helps keep the symptoms at bay in case of accidental wheat flares.

Enough about all that bologna. What I really wanted to share was how my body is changing from all of the healthy changes I have made. I posted this little collage in March, but I wanted to add my newest picture to the pile.

Now don't get me wrong, not being able to eat wheat has helped a little, but I have definitely been working hard to get where I am today. I can proudly say I am well below my pre Mckinley weight! I NEVER thought I would ever be able to say that. I got so down on myself about it taking so long to lose the baby weight that I wasn't really doing anything about it, but eating healthy. I forgot how much I loved running and working out and now that I am past my Mommy guilt about leaving the kitten to hit the gym I am back to sweating.  I am no longer concerned about losing weight , but more concerned about toning and strengthening. 

I can't wait to get tortured in Cardio Mix class tomorrow by Julie. Wish me luck and pray I don't pass out!

Cut It Out

I wrote a few months ago about wanting to make some changes and get healthy again, but I wasn't sure where to start. It took me about a year and a half to lose all of the baby weight, but I still didn't feel as good as I knew I could. I had counted points and tried starting new diets over and over again and I just couldn't seem to stick to anything. I wanted to try something new and the Paleo diet sounded interesting, but after about a month I discovered that this particular diet was not for me. I did some more research and decided that Clean Eating was a much healthier alternative for myself and my family. This meant cutting out all processed foods, eating whole foods, and natural sweeteners. Basically if it has 3-6 ingredients or is made by my own two hands I eat it. I can honestly say I feel better then I have ever felt in my life. I am well below my pre pregnancy weight, I have more energy, I am sleeping better, and food just tastes better.

I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything because I was still able to eat basically anything I wanted as long as it was "Clean". This meant making everything or finding products that were made from whole healthy ingredients. The only thing I hadn't added back into my diet was carbohydrates like bread and pasta. I hadn't had the time to try making my own and hadn't found any products that were Clean enough.

Then all hell broke loose in my life and I kind of went off the deep end. People were bringing me food and I was just trying to keep my head above water. And my body started reacting. I think it was a combination of things, but I just didn't feel right and I knew something had to change. I finally broke down after my husband urged me to see my Dr. who wanted to treat my symptoms (swollen lymph nodes, head pain like my skin was going to crack open, swollen itchy eyes, neck pain) as an infection and gave me antibiotics which I begrudgingly took for the allotted time.  Along with my new pills I started getting back to my clean ways and a few days after finishing my medicine I finally started feeling better. And then it hit that maybe something I had recently changed like my diet was what was affecting my body. I have always had allergy like issues, but after being tested and testing negative for all  indoor or outdoor allergies I just went about my merry way and never thought about it again. I never thought my issues could be from something I was eating and that something seemed to be gluten or wheat.

So for the next week I cute everything out and only ate gluten free foods and I started to feel normal again. Then all hell broke loose on Race Day at my school. Each year we have a big fundraiser and a big school wide race and cookout. I knew we would have an option of a hamburger/hot dog, chips, and oranges. After researching my options I thought if I ate the burger patty and Ruffles chips (gluten free), and the oranges I would be ok and all seemed to be fine until I got home that evening. All of a sudden my head felt like it was going to crack open again and I knew something I had eaten must have had some sort of wheat product in it.
It only took a little digging to discover that almost all pre made frozen burger patties are held together with some sort of wheat product and I knew then and there I would have to start researching the foods I ate.

I finally had my follow up with my doctor and after talking everything through she believes that this is more than likely the cause for my discomfort. I still have to watch and make sure that my lymph nodes do not become swollen for no apparent reason (This could be a bad thing), but with my perfect blood work it would be highly unlikely anything else could be the cause of my issues.

So long story short I have a wheat allergy that causes some discomfort, but isn't anything serious. I have already tested a few gluten free foods and have found things that are actually delicious. I will basically go without most of the time, but if I get a craving for a grilled cheese or some spaghetti I know what brands to buy. I will say It has taken a little taste testing and not all GF products are created equal! I can tell you Pamela's baking mix is AWESOME! I have eaten a lot of pumpkin pancakes and muffins. Ener G rice bread is not good as sandwich bread, but if made into a grilled cheese or french toast is ok. I am not going to lie I am pretty excited to try my Udi's bread tomorrow. I am thinking about having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Pure excitement I know!