Health-a-licious

Dining out gluten-free is fairly easy for those of us who are gluten-free for medical issues and health issues. People with Celiac disease really have a difficult time. Every meal comes with chips, bread or on a bun. Even, this week, I asked for no-bun on my tuna burger and the server brought out the tuna with a bun. At a Mexican themed restaurant you get chips. At an Italian themed restaurant you get a baguette and olive oil. At an Asian themed restaurant they bring you a fried vegetable appetizer and a wheat based soy sauce. At American restaurant hamburgers and hot dogs come with a wheat-type bun. No wonder we have wheat issues. Another major problem comes with the fillers in certain foods;,hot dogs, bratwurst, frozen seasoned fries, MSG, added nitrates and just plain..too much salt. Here is what I know: Mexican: Order the fajita meal, but don't eat the tortillas, eat the rice and beans with the fajita and a fork. The enchilada are made of corn. Just stay awa...

It has been 3 months since I started the gluten-free diet. I thought, I am feeling great, let's try some gluten for a few days and see if the gluten really makes a difference in my system or if it is just imagined. Saturday: Hamburger & Seasoned Fries Yes, I ate the bun. Even though fries are potatoes, the seasoning usually has flour added. I did have stomach pain after a few minutes after eating it, but I don't know if it was because I ate too much or because of the gluten.LOL, I only lasted for about 15-20 minutes and it was not excruciating pain. Sunday: Sugar cookies I make the best sugar cookies, I have ever had. My family agrees. It took several cookie recipes to find this one, but they are truly worth eating. So...of course. Sunday, I tried my homemade sugar cookies and ice cream.  Soooo yummy. My tummy didn't hurt while eating or after, but it felt heavy. I ate two cookies a day Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday: Pizza We ordered a new Cheeseburger Pizza. ...

In my search for Health-a-licious foods, (delicious foods that lead to good health). I often have conversations that lead to interesting new ideas and theories. I have recently given up caffeine...again...to see if that makes a difference in my racing heart rate (could just be that my thyroid effects it)...So to get to the point,  I was sitting in a Starbucks drinking my caffeine-free, sugar-free tea and eating my fat filled, gluten-filled, teeny-tiny breakfast sandwich. The conversation lead to health and food. My friend brought up a Ketogenic diet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet It is an amazing theory based on science and things we have heard before with the Atkins diet or the South Beach diet, but with a twist. It is high fat, low protein, low carbohydrate. The theory being that it  helps people who suffer from seizures to not suffer from seizures. I wish I would have know this last week. (My sister's beloved family pet just passed away from health issue...

Empathy: Took a couple weeks off to work on healing me. In my journey of healing and healing discovery, another friend has thyroid issues and headaches. I surely hope sometime soon that all doctors and PA's begin to realize that for many women there is a direct correlation between thyroid issues and migraine headaches. Another friend of mine had Graves disease and headaches. Yet another friend whose Father passed from thyroid cancer, now has thyroid issues and headaches. I am praying someone, a medical student, a medical researcher, decides to research our thyroid/headache correlations. Random Food: Finding tasty gluten free food is much easier now than ever. Also recipes are easier. In fact, I made one of my own on an old favorite. Chocolate Rice Chex Crispy Squares with chocolate icing. So yummy and truly too sweet. You can only eat a little square.   Rice crackers are good. They have alot of flavor without alot of seasoning. Very crispy...

Okay, so today was supposed to be all about finding more foods and has turned into another search for help with vitamins, prescriptions and juice and snacks. Vitamins and prescriptions So, it turns out that the progesterone from last week was not the reason I did not have a headache. I just thought it was. Ahhh....maybe it was a placebo effect. All blood tests from 2 physicians came back normal accept two; low Vitamin D and high thyroid levels. Great news! No "evidence of cancer". That is the new way of physicians saying "cancer free". I did try another new prescription last week. The physicians and pharmacists say chances are the new prescription did not throw me into a headache (only 50% of people who try it get headaches) What? 50%! And you give a prescription that causes headaches to a person with chronic headaches. Really? They were banking on the chance it wouldn't cause a headache, I guess. Very low vitamin D. So apparently my body is not absorbi...

Yes, yes...I made a Seinfeld reference. LOL. Festivus for the rest of us. It is a fictional holiday in which family members get together one time a year, share their grievances with or about each other and then physically wrestle each other. The winner gets the family trophy or "pole" as in the TV program. If you have not seen this episode of the Seinfeld sitcom, it is a must. For the last 7 years at least four times a year I have a Festivus conversation with my health care professionals. All different types of professionals. Homeopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists, herbalists, massage therapists, fertility specialists, surgeons, physicians, nurses assistants, physicians assistants, ex-ray techs, phlebotomists, etc. You name it...they have heard my Festivus conversation about my body. My gazillion complaints about how bad my body treats me.  My  complaints have been many, from gaining weight for no reason to losing weight for no reason, from headaches that are monthly t...

This is my journey of on and off the wagon this week. Weird roller coaster ride. Off the Gluten Free Wagon 1, Uh oh..thought I would try a frozen pizza two Friday's ago. Simple easy. An hour later...headache. No fun. I was hoping it would not be like the ginger ale incident and have a headache for 8 hours. I went to bed hoping that when the food is out of my system, the headache will be gone too. 2. I was on the go-go-go with family.  From family in town for one day to hospital visit and multiple hospice visits. No time to stop and eat a sensible meal. I tried a hamburger and fries on different days. I ate as little of the bun as possible and did not have any "gut" reaction or headache response. I thought...good, but odd. Always keeping in mind I am trying to find the food answer to health. On the Gluten Free Wagon 1. On another day I ate some "Gluten-Free" labeled brown rice seasoned chips. Just because I felt like it. These are labe...

In the county town I live in we have 1 and 1/2 endocrinologists. 1 neurologist office and 1 pain specialist. In fact today, I was told that the doctors my PA (Physicians Assistant) tried to refer me to are not accepting new patients. You can imagine the hard time I have had finding doctors I like and who are knowledgeable. I have been looking for a natropath and the only one is one hour away. There are the general chiropractors and asyria specialists that sell vitamins and pills. I have tried those "healing" remedies from age 19-43 without any positive difference in health. To my delight and surprise, I was blessed to find a PA who believes in treating the whole person. Including recommending, natural vitamins and food. Today she confirmed that many people are now having a sensitivity to wheat. She said many people are going to the "clean" eating and are feeling better. She defined clean as "not processed foods". It seems difficult to cook"clean...

Since the first day I started gluten-free. I have notice my food is digesting immediately. My system is also making much more noise. LOL. I am a little afraid to eat in public. I thought maybe it was just because I was eating so many grapes. I have found it is after every meal for about a half hour. The neat thing about this immediate digestion is that my stomach area is not bloated all day like it used to be. I do notice tummy bloat if I eat just a little bit of gluten on accident. For example, you would think beef jerky would be gluten free. apparently not. I ate a little. It tasted delicious. I didn't realize it had any gluten. The next morning I woke up with a funny taste in my mouth and a bloated tummy all day long. I didn't put two and two together until I read the back of the beef jerky packaging. Warning: Contains wheat and soy. My PA (Physician's Assistant) says my headaches will often get worse with major nausea. I am hoping the gluten free...

Hey Hey...still testing recipes here. To see what we like and what we don't like. In a month and a half what I have found is that when you say gluten-free, the people closest to you feel they have to adjust their diet with you. It is a minor annoyance or hindrance for them to be mindful of your diet. When I started gluten-free I truly believed it would affect only me and my health. I have found that it effects others around you as well. We have been eating healthier due to being gluten-free, but mainly because I am cooking everything. I am a lazy cook. My biggest pet peeve is spending 3 hours in the kitchen and then eating the results in 15 minutes. I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible with the maximum results. Not that I don't like the kitchen. I love my kitchen. White Corian counter tops that I always wanted with matching cutting boards. Maple cabinets. Side bar at the counter for eating. So cute. Here are a couple of the tips and recipes that I have ...

I started this blog to find a connection between headaches, health issues and food. My physicians know my headache issues come from a combination of hormone issues and nausea as a major symptom. I was hoping to find a connection between how my stomach digests gluten to see if it affects headache. So far no such luck. For the first month of gluten-free eating I had more energy, was up early going to bed late. 2nd month of gluten-free, I have had a headache for now 11 days in a row. Sporadic sleeping. Up late. Up early. Daily napping. I am noticing my face is very swollen. Last month I thought maybe the swollen face symptom was from gluten and that the gluten digestion symptom created headaches. This month I don't believe it is the problem. So this morning, I thought, 11 days into this headache. I know it is not gluten. These Angry Birds graham cracker cookies look so cute, I will eat a couple. 3 cookies in my stomach started feeling a small shooting pain. Man-o-man...

Oh..how I love chips. Not plain potato chips. Doritos. Combos, pretzels, Tostitos, Sunchips. Not the greatest thing to eat on a normal lifestyle diet. Definitely not on the gluten-free diet. Almost every chip has some kind of wheat flour. Cheetos has no wheat flour. Potato chips have no wheat flour. Blue corn chips have no wheat flour. But, those aren't my favs. So instead, I have decided to make my own. Just use real potatoes, a food processor, olive oil and salt. Sooooo yummy. Use a stainless frying pan. Cook to taste. Simple. Have a Happy Healthy Day. Christine Summers

My search for healthy delicious foods had to include juicing, right? I don't do smoothies from juice bars because I am allergic to mango. So, I thought I would try juices from the grocery before I tried juicing at home. I tried Odwalla years ago and a couple other brands. They seemed very sugary and not filling. I saw some newer brands and the ingredients are healthy and filled with foods I love. Spinach and broccoli and green, green green veggies. Thought I would try a couple. Yuck, yuck and yuck. Healthy? Maybe. Definitely not delicious. Evolution: I felt like my dogs in the back yard eating grass on a hot summer day. And not sweet grass. Old dry grass. My husband described it as grass that had been stuck underneath the lawn mower, scraped off and then juiced. Synergy: If I were to put a description to it: Like sipping slimey sand that has no flavor through a straw. I would rather sprinkle the chia seeds on salad or bake with them. Bolthous...

I love to snack. Ha ha ha ha. It's an uphill climb. I love to snack. It makes me a merrier me. (Sing to the tune of "I love to laugh" from the movie Merry Poppins) I also love pretzels. My fav is pretzels dipped in salsa. Yummy. I could almost eat an entire bag at a time. I found these amazing pretzels from Glutino. Gluten-free, egg-free, milk-free, casein-free. Completely delicious. Salty, crunchy. I ate an entire half bag today. I have eaten 3 bags in 3 weeks. One for each week I have been gluten-free. My husband has decided he loves them too and so do my folks. So much so we had to have 3 bags at the house just in case we feel like snacking. There is a new yogurt out that is a dip. My fav is cucumber and dill. So yummy on those amazing Glutino Pretzels. I am also digging grapes. My new fav fruit snack. Here's the kicker. I went to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Ft. Wayne is known to be a product and advertising test market because of it's Americana demographic...

It has been 3 1/2 weeks since I have gone gluten-free. I had not missed bread up until this week There is nothing like cornbread and beans with some homegrown tomatoes and onions on top. This week I searched for a great recipe. I believe, I found one. Sent my hubby to the store to get ingredients and found that you really must read the label of each cornmeal product. There is white cornmeal mix, yellow cornmeal mix, yellow cornmeal, white cornmeal. All the cornmeal at our local store, except the yellow cornmeal, contains flour. The mixes contain white flour along with solids that I would not choose not to put in my body. My hubby grabbed a cornmeal mix and since he was getting some brown rice flour he thought brown rice Triscuits would be something great I could eat. Brown rice Triscuits also contain white flour. Yikes. They went back to the grocery store. So I made the cornmeal mix with flour he purchased for hubby. Then we went to the store ...

For 11 years I having knowing struggled with migraine headaches. Today is no different. It goes in waves and cycles with my hormones which are for the most part unpredictable. For me and many people chronic migraines are a progressive problem. For six years, the migraines progressively got stonger and more frequent for me. For 2 years now the migraines have been progressively been less frequent. I have consulted many physicians, natropaths and the like for care over the 11 years. I started this blog purely to find an answer to my health issues and hope that it helps others along the way. What I am hoping I am finding is a food related answer to my daily headache problem. The severe migraines now come only twice a month. Women will understand what times a month. LOL. The headaches are almost daily. Some years the migraines were daily, especially during what I endearingly call "the cancer years". I say endearing because those yea...

Oh my goodness. For years I  sleep exactly 9 hours each night. It is a burden. I have to schedule my life around it and it leaves less hours in the day. For 8 years prior to 2011, I took a two hour nap in the afternoon on top of the 9 hours of sleep each night to be able to make it through the day. In December 2011, my nurse practitioner found the right mix of thyroid medicine that my endocrinologist refused to adjust to for the two years before that. God bless her. Since that time I don't feel the need to take naps in the afternoon, but I do get a tired from the day's activities and need to rest. Up until now, I always blamed it on my thyroid issues that weren't discovered till 2009 and that my body just needed to rest and rejuvenate. I rest at 3 or 4p and usually eat a sandwich or pretzels or Doritos. Like any woman, I like to multi-task and I felt hungry by then anyway. After sitting, it was difficult for me to get off the couch and go on w...

For those of you keeping score...I no longer drink ginger ale. I have not drank ginger ale in a long time. Yesterday I openned a bottle I brought home from the grocery two weeks ago. I poured the refreshing looking ginger ale over ice and drank a cup. An hour later I poured another cup. I swallowed wrong ( or so I thought) and started coughing. I coughed for 5 minutes. My throat hurt and my face got all red. So 3 hours later I was slammed with a headache.  Could  it be that I coughed myself into a headache or because ginger has been an ingredient I have been sensitive too and did not know it? I have always had an aversion to raw ginger smell. Maybe that was my body's way of telling me, "Don't eat it." I had weird throat and chest pain. As the night progressed and my system process the ginger ale, the burning went from my chest to my stomach to my intestines. I don't know if it is because I have gone gluten-free and the ginger ale ...

After a night of my favorite food indulgence: 3 pieces of pizza.  I usually wake up with what I have termed over the years, a "food-hangover". I would wake up tired, headachey, grumpy, my eyes would be puffy and my body could not wake up. Last night was the ultimate test. I ate 3 pieces of gluten-free pizza at 7p and then like I enjoy doing(beacause pizza always tastes sooooo good), I ate three small squares at 10:30 pm before bed. I woke up at 6:40 am still full from the night before, but not groggy or bloated. My eyes aren't swollen and my head isn't throbbing. I am overly excited about this revelation. I know it is not good to eat right before bed, but I am testing my body to see how it reacts. I really had to find out. Because of my food-hangovers, I had a policy for about 4 years that I didn't eat after 8p. Then I lost 30 lbs of weight fast and I did not know why, so trying to gain weight, I changed my "no late night eat...

I have been in a life long search to find healthy delicious foods that work for my health and my body. Always seeking to find the latest and greatest in foods and flavors that work best for me and my health. I am working to keep my body energetic and fit while overcoming health obstacles that I never imagined would be on my journey in this lifetime. I am writing this blog in the hopes to help others who are on the same journey. Busy women who are on a health quest for themselves and their families. Women who need to keep their energy high and their emotions on track daily so they can be a Proverbs 31 woman. (More to come about that later.) I am by no means an expert. Just a layperson who has taken advice from others (professionals, friends and others) and found that I have discovered more along the way than I ever could have imagined and I am sure to learn so much more. My new discovery; A gluten-free diet is amaz-mo. Food tastes better! You have more energy! Y...