3 Steps on What to Eliminate When Healing with Celiac Disease

You've been diagnosed with Celiac Disease. You've tried to go gluten free. But you're still not feeling well.

What can you do to figure out what else is going on?

Admit You Need to be 100% Gluten Free:

Let's start with the core issue...

If you have Celiac Disease, that means you C A N N O T eat gluten, ever again. Period.

There's no debate. There's no wiggle room. There's no pill that will fix it.

It doesn't matter if the cause is genetic, chemical poisoning, modern agriculture, or something else.

Now that your body cannot deal with the specific gluten protein that caused Celiac, nothing will make that go away. You simply cannot revert now to old heritage non hybridized non chemicalized versions of the affecting grains.

At this point, you simply can't eat gluten. Ever.

If you do, you will be sick.

Tracking Down All the Gluten:

Now that that's been said, and exposed, and stated bluntly... Now what?

Let's get on with how to fully remove gluten from your diet. All of it.

Read labels on everything you put in your mouth, on your skin, or in your body. Gluten hides in the strangest places, such as medications, creams, dental items, etc. Some things are harder to find out, but you can get help from your pharmacist, in the case of pills, or a dentist in the case of dental items. It might be a cleaning product, or air freshener or other household chemical. You'll likely need to learn about a lot of man made chemicals, but tracking down the offending items will allow you to feel better eventually.

Removing Products that Cause Digestive Problems:

You can also look into removing other things that are known to cause digestive problems.

You may have friends who can eat junk and it doesn't affect them. But that is not you. You have a damaged stomach and digestive system. You are likely malnourished. You likely have other damaged parts of your body.

That means you are not in a position to be able to tolerate things that have been shown to cause digestive problems, or have the potential to make things worse, such as food additives.

I was unwell to varying degrees my whole life, and very sick for several years. I spent years trying everything I could think of to try and feel better. I didn't have anyone else around who was able to help me, so I did it myself, and did a ton of experimenting.

I did figure it out though. The bottom line is that I figured out I cannot eat gluten. Since you have Celiac Disease, you also cannot eat gluten.

I cannot eat food additives. I cannot eat chemicalized food. I cannot eat so called health food that really isn't anything we're built to be able to properly digest. The evidence shows that all of of these things are bad for everyone, and will cause damage over time.

The bottom line is, these additives are not food, and are not added to make food healthier. Most are documented to cause digestive problems. But since they don't cause quick death or maiming damage, they're allowed to be used. But, just because something is allowed, does not mean they're healthy or good for us.

You have the benefit of now being able to cut to the chase, and eliminate huge amounts of experimentation. In a matter of days or weeks, you can get yourself to the point it took me about 8 years to figure out.

There may be some additional things thay you'll need to deal with, such as some potential other foods you're allergic to, either temporarily due to a leaky gut, or permanently such as a traditional allergy. Getting rid of all the other junk will make finding those other things much, much easier.

Analyzing Emotional Attachments to Food:

Many people have a strong emotional attachment to their food. And their favorite junk foods. Food is attached to fond memories, of family gatherings, and family fun, and parties. We become attached to those memories through food.

Some people are emotionally attached to their food because it was something a well loved parent, grandparent or other important person made for them. If we entertain the idea that a food is bad for us, then we mistakenly attach a feeling that that special person was doing us harm.

We need to make a concerted effort to stop the attachment. To be aware that it's not a direct link to a memory or a person. We can keep the memories, and the loving bonds. We can keep the knowledge that our relatives fed us treats out of love. Cookies do not equal grandma. They stand as separate, independent things. We can keep the loving memories of grandma, and give up the cookies. If we give up cookies, we do not reduce our love of grandma.

It may take some time to process this, and for some they'll need more help than just their own thinking and personal work. If that's something you need to do, then do it. The first step is acknowledging that there might be some emotional connections that you need to resolve.

We can also make an effort to not do the same thing for our kids. It takes some thinking and planning to adjust, but if we know how it can affect them in the future, the effort is worth it.

Some things to try would be not making food a reward. Try to plan parties around group activities beyond just food. Such as a group game, or story telling, or jokes, or anything that takes the focus off of the food.

Avoid making the same thing all the time for parties. We may think it's our best treat, but that's how emotional connections get solidified. Rather than being known for the best chocolate fudge cake, get known for always trying new things. If there's ever going to be an emotional connection, let it be to you, rather than a specific food or type of food.

In Conclusion:

We've covered a few overarching things you can do to work towards feeling better:

• Remove all gluten
• Remove products that cause digestive upset
• Analyze any emotional attachments to food

We've focused a lot in this article on what to remove, rather than what to add. This is a very important step to deal with, and one that can be uncomfortable and painful. However, full recovery cannot happen if we don't deal with it. Your recovery relies on both adding in healing tools as well as removing harmful things.

The effort in doing this will return very large rewards. I can speak from experience. When I found the few major things that were affecting me, and removed them, I went from having brutal migraines and extreme gut problems to no longer having them at all. I got my life back. In fact, I got a life that I never actually had before, since I was affected since childhood. I want the same for you.

If you want to try some gluten free food that's not made with food additives, then check out our Recipes section. You'll be able to combine removing junk and adding in whole food, all at the same time.

Eat, heal and enjoy!

Thora Toft