I have been alive for 39 years and 6 months. For 14 of those years I have had suspicions that I could be gluten intolerant and allergic to dairy. In 1999, a book called Eat Right For Your Blood Type came into my life, while working at a yoga studio in Arlington, Virginia. As soon as I read it I knew there was truth to what it revealed about eating wheat and processed foods. I gave up wheat for a little while, but not long.
By 2005 I was having constant hip and low back pain, as well as muscle spasms in my upper back. I was also exposed to the raw food movement and began experimenting with that lifestyle. I gave up meat, dairy and cooked food, but I never fully let go of wheat. I would regularly cheat by munching some breakfast cereal in the morning and yeast free breads wit my salads.
In 2007, I met my husband to be and we enjoyed eating healthy together. I began to eat some fish and he tried more raw foods. I felt like I needed the meat and it helped bring some regularity to my cycles. I began experiencing terrible allergies starting in 2006 involving my respiratory system. I couldn't trace them to any one cause, but mold and dust were definite factors. I saw a few different therapists and one mentioned I was allergic to gluten. I moved towards a gluten free diet in 2008, similar to Atkins. I incorporated more super foods as well. In 2009, the hard work paid off and I got pregnant. I was still having allergies though. I miscarried at 13 weeks and spent a month recuperating and recommitting to a clean diet. I got pregnant again in January. By June I had such terrible neck and back pain I started to see another IMT therapist who told me yet again to cut out the wheat, as well as dairy and peanuts. I did for two months and my pain subsided. Stubborn as usual and stuck in old habits though, I went back to eating wheat and dairy for the last two months of the pregnancy and into the third month of Trinity's life.
It was then that my body decided to send me a loud wake up call with serious gallbladder attacks. I cut out wheat and dairy again and the attacks subsided. This see-sawing continued for the next couple of years, with varrying degrees of symptoms such as fatigue, allergies, mood swings, and muscle pain. I would get terribly depressed, but never saw the very clear connection to eating dairy and grains directly preceding the episodes.
It is now 2014 and I am five months pregnant. I began eating gluten again almost as soon as I knew I had conceived. Why? Because the brain of a food addict and codependent does not place personal health first. The brain thinks of a million ways to rationalize the self destructive impulse. My family happily allows the first slip and even encourages the loss of perspective and control. Grandma is relieved to have company in her kitchen and hubby sighs relief when hamburger buns and burritos show up on the dinner table. Daughter begs relentlessly for more refined sugar, cheese and grains. For a little while I feel like I've finally lost the monkey on my back and can be "normal" again. That's about the time my body clears its throat and reminds me...I am not normal. The horrendous allergies that include full days of sneezing and going through boxes of tissue return. The immobilizing fatigue from a child size dose of benedryl leave me with the guilt of knowing that I am endangering the growing baby inside simply because I refuse to accept that I have food allergies.
Today is a new day though. Today I am putting my body ahead of peer pressure and addiction. I am going to let go of wheat and gluten forever and embrace a raw food, living food lifestyle wholeheartedly. I am not going to cave to the pressure of family and mainstream medicine, who would like to believe that a diet without dairy is harmful. I am going to give my babies the best start in life I know.
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