Gluten is the devil!

So, I have spoken to several different people about the difficulties and potential benefits of removing Gluten from my diet. So, here’s the deal: (Feel free to Google any of this)

Gluten binds to the Opiate receptors in the brain. The actual molecule is called glutomorphin.  This is why, when you eat a pizza, you keep eating even though you know you’re full. The brain treats gluten like a drug. If someone is sensitive to gluten (like me), this reaction can cause a host of symptoms. My most prominent symptom was “brain fog”. I decided to go gluten free to test my theory. WARNING!! If you are going to go gluten free, be prepared. The first week or two will suck. You will have withdrawal symptoms much like that of a hardcore drug user (remember the brain receptors). My withdrawals lasted about 10 days. After that, I felt better than I had in almost a year. WARNING!! If you make it thru the withdrawals, and have anything with gluten in it, you get to go thru another week of withdrawal. This happened to me too. I have found that eating carbs throughout the day and taking vitamin C helped. You may ask, “Is it hard to stay away from gluten?” Yes, it is. Gluten is in almost everything. You have to read labels, and do your homework. Anything with Wheat, Rye, or Barley has gluten. I didn’t think I would ever be able to eat bread again but during a trip to Whole Foods, we noticed they carried a large selection of gluten free products, including bread, hamburger buns, pasta and pizza crusts.

So, good luck, and keep grinding.

Anxiety

I am not an anxious person. That being said, I recently stopped eating gluten and successfully made it thru the gluten withdrawals. The worst symptom was anxiety. Since I am not used to it, I don’t know how to deal with it very well. I drank something that contained gluten, a few days ago, and BAM! I get to deal with it again (for a day or two). If you have never had an anxiety attack, then you may be saying “Chris, just relax. You’re over-reacting!” Well, you are probably right but being in the middle of one makes people think and do things that make no sense. How do they start? WebMD. If you are on the verge of one and you go on WebMD, you will be dying before you can close it out. For example: I know what is causing the anxiety. I know that tomorrow it will be fine but for now, according to WebMD, I could have MS. Even though NO ONE in my family has ever had it, based on that, my chances of developing it are about .1%. All of the rationale makes no difference when I am easing my way thru an anxiety attack. It’s f#$%^ng ridiculous and I would never wish it on anyone.