I’m not going to sugarcoat it…the most challenging part of the elimination diet was eliminating sugar. I was literally addicted to sugar…I always had jelly beans, or some kind of sugar-filled treat with me. I literally thought that was the only way to get through the day. Friends and family members always gave me jelly beans or other sugar-filled treats as gifts…I had bowls of candy all around my house…and I even had a jelly bean dispensing machine. As I write this, I realize that I definitely had a sugar problem that way too many people encouraged.
I started the elimination diet on November 1, 2014….of course, I strategically planned this for after Halloween so I could have one last indulgence…and I would be done just in time for Thanksgiving, which fell on the 27th that year. I’m not going to lie…the first few days were very challenging. Instead of my usual breakfast of eggs with spinach and avocado, I was having chicken and vegetables. I’m not a huge meat-eater, so that part was a major adjustment. It was even more challenging when I made dinner for my family because I couldn’t eat most of the things I was preparing. I finally told myself, “It’s 4 weeks…you can do this.” That change in mindset, along with focusing on healing (not the food I couldn’t have), helped me get through it so I could heal.
And…the most amazing thing is that I did heal. The back pain slowly went away, and I began to feel “normal” again. Truthfully, I forgot what a normal gut felt like because I hadn’t been normal for so long…it was an amazing, liberating feeling. At this point, the doctor told me that I could start to reintroduce different foods to see how they affected me. I was excited for this experiment, but there was one thing I knew for sure…I was never going to reintroduce white, processed sugar again. I craved it so much at the beginning of the 4 weeks…I had awful headaches from the withdrawal…there’s was no way I was going back to what I now call “poison”. I started to reintroduce different foods…some experiments went well and some didn’t. Straight dairy, like plain Greek yogurt or a glass of milk, wasn’t (and still isn’t) something I could tolerate. Interestingly enough, I can tolerate yogurt and milk as an added ingredient….along with organic ghee and butter. I also tried to reintroduce soy, but my reaction to that was so severe that I now include that in the category known as “poison”. I was able to successfully introduce brown rice as well, and that meant I could use brown rice flour in baked goods…SO exciting. Since I wasn’t going to use sugar anymore, I had to find a different sweetener that agreed with me. I once again turned to the internet for some ideas, and came across organic, raw honey. I never realized the honey I was buying wasn’t the healthy kind of honey I should have been eating…it was overly processed and void of any health benefits. The more I read about organic, raw honey, the more I wanted to try it as a sugar substitute in baked goods.
I learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t an even exchange since honey is much sweeter than sugar.
After many mistakes…lots of trials and errors…I started to bake cookies, cakes and cupcakes that were delicious and refined sugar-free. It didn’t even take me too long to figure it out…by Christmas of that same, life-changing year, I had developed enough recipes to host a successful, delicious Christmas dinner. The best comment I heard was, “Is this all really gluten free? It tastes so real!” YES!!! Gluten-free food is real food…it’s delicious food…and it’s healthy, healing food.
