Well hello blogisphere! It's been a while! Let me update you on life before I dive into today's topic of choice :) Life...well I've changed my major, moved, and have begun the process of dancing again. My major, as you might or might not know I was a music education major with a double concentration in voice and piano. As non stressful as the major sounds it was quite taxing on me mentally and physically. Believe me I could have done it if I thought that was the direction I was being lead in my life, but where the Lord has told me to go and where this major was taking were not the same direction, unfortunately! I am still going after the same thing I have always planned - being a choir director in a church so no worries there. I decided after a very stressful spring semester that Music Ed was taking more in the direction of teaching choir/music in public schools which has never been laid on my heart nor a desire. I have entertained the thought of teaching in a private school but a BME is not needed to do that, PTL! So, drumroll please...My major is now Biblical Studies with a concentration in Music Ministry. Because of the past two years that I have spent in working on my music ed degree I have earned a music minor to attach to my new major, yay! This new degree will equip me with everything necessary to work and communicate with people within a church while giving me the musical knowledge I will need to hopefully director the children's choirs :) Now for the moving part of this update. If you know me personally you know that I lived in a very cushy, beautiful, roomie, lovely, two storied, wonderful and did I mention cushy? townhome here on campus, however things change as goes with the theme of this blog and I have now moved into the apartments on campus. It's not my townhome but I'm adjusting quite nicely and will definitely be back in the townhomes my senior year (God willing that school doesn't kill me first!) Dancing, my favorite part of this update. If you really know me, like since I was in elementary school know me, you know I was a dancer for 17 years of my life, count 'em 17. That's a lot and now you also know why my feet look the way they do! That was totally uncalled for and had disgusting imagery attached to it and for that I humble apologize, but really, my feet are terrible! Yes I did drillteam in high school but before and during that I was a Ballerina. Pink tights, tutus, pointe shoes, the whole nine yards. Well it all started one foggy night while I was stretching after a good 'ole four mile run. I was on one of the 'engagement bridges' (for you DBU people) and while stretching I randomly grabbed the bridge railing and proceeded to do a short barre. Plies, rond de jambe, frappes and battements, respectably. What, you didn't know I was fluent in French? I probably looked ridiculous to the passing onlooker, but who am I kidding, it was midnight and no one was around because it's summer on campus and DBU is small during the school year. I was alone, just me, the peaceful trail and my makeshift barre. I was reminded of how beautiful ballet is and how much I love it. Not drill team, not modern or contemporary or hip hop (especially not hip hop) or even jazz, I love ballet. It is an art form that takes serious work and dedication, it's a craft that must be honed. Like my ballet teacher said when we were younger "You can't just walk into the studio off the street and expect to do this right, it doesn't work like that. You must work hard at this for years, that is why you can tell a ballerina apart from all other dancers." Even when my bones and joints finally say "enough!" ballet will always hold a very special and respectful place in my heart. It has been so much of my life. I am first and foremost a child of God and second a bunhead, always.
Enough of the emotions, let's get to the heart of this post shall we.
In honor of the bunhead being reborn within me, I am doing a post on my current eating plan!
I have celiac disease and have had it since my freshman year of college, yay college. I know a lot of other people have celiac and some are new to it! I wish I had more people that I knew with this disease that could have shared more information with me on what I could eat when I first learned of my allergy/disease! I'm not a very emotional person, but the no gluten and no diary thing really hit me hard, which showed me a lot about myself. Going to the grocery store was no longer an adventure but rather a means to torture my tummy by gazing upon all the delicious goodies that 'normal' people could eat. Literally the entire middle section of the grocery store that is prepackaged and the entire dairy wall was now off limits. So what did that leave me with, vegetables? Pretty much. I believe I had good reasons to cry at every grocery store trip. I still don't like going to walmart or any non healthfood store, it's depressing. Imagine someone telling you that everything pizza is made of and loved for is basically going to kill you, in a very slow and painful way. Well, that happened to me. Life as I knew it was OVER! Wow, I didn't have a twisted relationship with food at all.
I will openly admit that food was my source of comfort and as far as I was concerned, could cure anything from a bad grade to a broken toe. I was pretty healthy at the time before the gluten troubles, my view of food was just off a bit.
I saw food as a source of entertainment, comfort and pleasure. Never once did I think of it as fuel for my body, unless I was at dance in school and needed a pick me up, which was usually in the form of a cliff bar (not to shabby, it could have been a candy bar like everyone else.) Dieting, although I certainly didn't need to in high school, was always looked at from a 'I'm feel fat and want to be thinner' perspective, not a 'I want to feel better and be healthier inside'. Much like our spiritual life, it's what's inside that matters. When the insides are working right the outside will follow in the same way. Exercising in a gym wasn't something I thought of much either since I grew up as a very active kid. Ballet above all I was also a competitive swimmer for quite some time, I played softball (and was pretty darn good might I mention) basketball, soccer (scored the championship game for my team with a header...in the fourth grade) track, and horseback road! So going to the gym was a very foreign thing for me. I was the only kid in elementary school that was pretty ripped, and most of it was due to ballet believe it or not. The point is, is that I didn't ever have a reason to hit in the gym to burn off calories or tone muscle, I was getting that everywhere else. I did learn a lot in high school thanks to a personal trainer who taught me everything from food to cardio and circuit training. So entering college I wasn't badly off with skills I needed to stay in shape. Being forced to eat in the school cafeteria with my allergy is probably something I should save for another post since that was a challenge of it's own.
So how do I eat, what do I eat, can I eat? Yes I can eat and yes, believe it or not, there are a lot of gluten free options now that you can make safe at home! However the restaurant business has not become so friendly to us celiacs yet. Although there are some options if you are brave and can afford a splurge meal in your diet plan. I will make a list at the end of restaurants that have GF options and a list of my favorite GF/CF products!
Here is a sample meal plan for me on a random day
9:00 am - Breakfast
Enough of the emotions, let's get to the heart of this post shall we.
In honor of the bunhead being reborn within me, I am doing a post on my current eating plan!
I have celiac disease and have had it since my freshman year of college, yay college. I know a lot of other people have celiac and some are new to it! I wish I had more people that I knew with this disease that could have shared more information with me on what I could eat when I first learned of my allergy/disease! I'm not a very emotional person, but the no gluten and no diary thing really hit me hard, which showed me a lot about myself. Going to the grocery store was no longer an adventure but rather a means to torture my tummy by gazing upon all the delicious goodies that 'normal' people could eat. Literally the entire middle section of the grocery store that is prepackaged and the entire dairy wall was now off limits. So what did that leave me with, vegetables? Pretty much. I believe I had good reasons to cry at every grocery store trip. I still don't like going to walmart or any non healthfood store, it's depressing. Imagine someone telling you that everything pizza is made of and loved for is basically going to kill you, in a very slow and painful way. Well, that happened to me. Life as I knew it was OVER! Wow, I didn't have a twisted relationship with food at all.
I will openly admit that food was my source of comfort and as far as I was concerned, could cure anything from a bad grade to a broken toe. I was pretty healthy at the time before the gluten troubles, my view of food was just off a bit.
I saw food as a source of entertainment, comfort and pleasure. Never once did I think of it as fuel for my body, unless I was at dance in school and needed a pick me up, which was usually in the form of a cliff bar (not to shabby, it could have been a candy bar like everyone else.) Dieting, although I certainly didn't need to in high school, was always looked at from a 'I'm feel fat and want to be thinner' perspective, not a 'I want to feel better and be healthier inside'. Much like our spiritual life, it's what's inside that matters. When the insides are working right the outside will follow in the same way. Exercising in a gym wasn't something I thought of much either since I grew up as a very active kid. Ballet above all I was also a competitive swimmer for quite some time, I played softball (and was pretty darn good might I mention) basketball, soccer (scored the championship game for my team with a header...in the fourth grade) track, and horseback road! So going to the gym was a very foreign thing for me. I was the only kid in elementary school that was pretty ripped, and most of it was due to ballet believe it or not. The point is, is that I didn't ever have a reason to hit in the gym to burn off calories or tone muscle, I was getting that everywhere else. I did learn a lot in high school thanks to a personal trainer who taught me everything from food to cardio and circuit training. So entering college I wasn't badly off with skills I needed to stay in shape. Being forced to eat in the school cafeteria with my allergy is probably something I should save for another post since that was a challenge of it's own.
So how do I eat, what do I eat, can I eat? Yes I can eat and yes, believe it or not, there are a lot of gluten free options now that you can make safe at home! However the restaurant business has not become so friendly to us celiacs yet. Although there are some options if you are brave and can afford a splurge meal in your diet plan. I will make a list at the end of restaurants that have GF options and a list of my favorite GF/CF products!
Here is a sample meal plan for me on a random day
9:00 am - Breakfast
- Lemon water
- 1/2 grapefruit
- Refrigerator oatmeal
10:30 am
- Green tea
- Vitamins (because those are an entire meal itself it seems like some days)
- Sauerkraut
12:00 pm - Lunch
- Amy's organic black bean vegetable soup 1/2 C to 1C
- Any raw veggie, probably red and yellow peppers
2:00 pm - Snack 1
- Raw Broccoli
- Walden Farms calorie free italian dressing (to dip the broc in because it's just plain gross by itself raw, admit it)
4:00 pm - Snack 2
- 15-30 almonds - depending on the day
- Fruit
6:00 pm - Pre-Dinner
- Green smoothie - I'll list the recipe at the end
7:00 or 7:30 - Dinner
- Baked sweet potato with a little coconut butter and cinnamon.
8:30 - Pre workout
- Luna Bar
It looks like a lot! And I'm not telling you how many calories that is, you can figure it out for yourself if you're that curious :)
Now for modifications and recipes for some of these things.
You're probably going to be needing more calories than this meal plan right now, especially if you are burning major calories throughout the day or in the gym and trying to maintain your weight.
Before I go into the oatmeal shpeel, "why is there lemon water listed as part of her breakfast?" is probably resounding in your skull right now and here is my simple explanation.
When you sleep all of the toxins that you have accumulated throughout the past day kind of level out within your body while you sleep and the first thing you should do in the morning is drink a cup of lemon water. The lemon helps detox you from the day past and starts your body fresh for the day ahead of you, making you and your body more able to absorb nutrients from the foods you will potentially eat, assuming you are the eating type of being!
The breakfast up above is pretty hefty in my opinion and extremely filling. If you don't have a dairy allergy you can add some calories here by using greek yogurt made from cows milk instead, but I won't lecture you on the evils of cows milk right now. You could also add some gluten free toast, eggs or sausage (veggie sausage for others). The refrigerator oatmeal base recipe is...this..
- 1/4 C oats - either use bobs red mill gluten free old fashioned oats or quaker old fashioned oats
- to my recent finding and understand, quaker oats are safe for celiacs and people shying away from gluten. However I like to stay on the safe side where I feel full of life and energy where I'm not sick and stick with Bob, he's great.
- 1/3 C coconut milk
- You can use any type of milk here, but if you are trying to be safe and healthy stay away from cows milk and soymilk. I'll make that my next post to explain why. Coconut milk tastes great and if you get the kind made by silk it's awesome! Almond milk is also another option, but the color scares me, so ya.
- 1/4 C coconut yogurt
- You can either use normal coconut yogurt or greek coconut yogurt for only 1,000 extra dollars. If you do use greek coconut yogurt add an extra splash of milk to keep it from being too thick. Again you can use any type of yogurt from any milk giving animal here, I just list my preferences :)
- 1 Tbsp chia seeds
- Again this is another wonderful ancient secret that I should make into a separate blog post. Chia seeds are great! I'm completely and irrevocably obsessed with chia seeds. I put them in everything now it seems like. They keep you full for-ever and give you the energy of a million red bulls without all the nasty chemicals that will, yes, eventually kill you ;)
- Sweetener of choice
- I use stevia. You can use the little stevia in the raw packages, 1-2 of them or use a drop of liquid stevia. Or you could use, agave, honey, any natural sweetener really.
There you have it, that's the base for my refrigerator oatmeal. Now here are the flavor-full variations!
I use them all, but I use chocolate banana the most!
To the base add:
- For chocolate banana oatmeal
- 1/2 to 1 whole Banana - just depending on how much banana you want in there.
- 1 Tbsp Coco powder.
- For cinnamon apple oatmeal
- 1 Apples sauce cup
- 1 Tsp of cinnamon
- For mango almond oatmeal
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- 1/2 to 1 whole diced mango
- For blueberry maple oatmeal
- 2 tsp of maple syrup - or to taste
- 1/4 to 1/2 C blueberries
- For banana peanut butter oatmeal
- 1 Tbsp peanut butter
- 1/2 to 1 whole banana
- For raspberry vanilla oatmeal
- 1 Tbsp Raspberry Jam
- 1/4 to 1/3 C raspberries
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Once you have which one you want to make, put all the ingredients into a jar or whatever container you choose, shake and store in the fridge till the next morning when you are going to have it as breakfast!
I can tell you that the chocolate banana variation with stevia as the sweetener is around 230ish calories for the entire thing.
I drink green tea normally before I take my vitamins because it's another detoxing agent and it gets your metabolism going and gives you great natural energy. Once I take my vitamins if I feel like it I eat something that has a lot of probiotics in it. Usually sauerkraut, but I will say it is an acquired taste, one I acquire while in Germany and was happy to learn it's also healthy for you and your tummy. For those that don't like sauerkraut you could eat another serving of yogurt, now or later in the day, kefir, kombucha, or even dark chocolate! All of these things have a good helping of probiotics.
If this lunch is too light for you, I would recommend eating a gluten free veggie burger on gluten free bread with a tiny bit of veganaise and mustard sided by some raw veggies and nuts. I do this when I have some type of activity later in the afternoon like ballet, church, or whatever. I would do it later in the day, say around on or two and replace the noon lunch with one of my afternoon snacks. You could even drink the green smoothie now instead and save the light lunch for around dinner. This is a good option for people looking to lose some weight. Unless you workout at night of course.
Most of my snacks are raw nuts or raw veggies and fruits. They are great low calorie snacks that are also healthy and energizing. I consider myself blessed to like raw fruits and vegetables, vegetables at all really.
I drink a green smoothie every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. It's the bulk of my raw veggies for the day that my body loves and so do I. I'm used to drinking it as my dinner, but I'm going to try it out before ballet this week and see if it gives me enough energy to keep going. Here's the recipe.
- 1/2 C to 1C raw kale
- 1 to 1 1/2 C raw collard greens
- 4 to 6 handfulls of raw spinach
- 1/2 green apple
- 1/2 frozen banana
- Either 1 Tbsp of ground flaxmeal or 1 Tbsp of flax oil
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil
- 2 Stevia packets
- 2 Tbsp of lemon juice
- 4-6 frozen strawberries
- 1/2 C frozen peaches
Blend the three leafy greens together well until liquid
add the apple and blend, then the banana
then blend in the flax, coconut oil and stevia
add fruit and blend till smooth consistency.
This green smoothie is not for the faint of heart. It really does not taste bad at all, between the stevia and all the fruit you hardly notice the greens except for the color. I have many green smoothie variations that I will be posting as well. You can always email for more recipes in the mean time!
I eat the sweet potato when I need more carbs and starch to keep me going and usually eat it later because I like to workout at night.
The luna bar really is just for extra protein and a craving satisfier, it doesn't happen every day or at that exact time everyday. This entire food schedule is very tentative. This is what a day would look like if I were at home with nothing to do but go to the gym later that night. It will obviously be modified once school starts in the fall.
Now last but not least my favorite gluten free products!
Breakfast
Bobs red mill gluten free old fashioned oats
Udi's blueberry muffins - favorite flavor
Udi's mini cinnamon rolls
So delicious coconut milk yogurt - vanilla and chocolate
Rudi's cinnamon bread
Udi's ancient grains millet and chia seed bread - favorite toast bread
My gluten free granola- best friend told me I should market it, but I'll share the recipe on here!
Bisquick gluten free pancake mix - great stuff
Glutino Breakfast Bars
Captain crunch
Chex
Gluten free rice krispee
Lucky Charms
Fruity Pebbles
Breads
Udi's whole grain gluten free bread
Udi's ancient grains millet and chia seed bread
Schar gluten free classic rolls
Schar gluten free bread crumbs
kinnikinnik gluten free pizza crusts - best pizza crust ever
schar gluten free pizza crust - second favorite
ancient harvest quinoa pasta - best gluten free pasta
schar gluten free pasta- close second
Snacks
Snyder gluten free pretzels- best around
udi's gluten free pretzels
schar gluten free oreos - first choice
glutino gluten free oreos - second choice
glutino lemon and chocolate wafers - my first ever gluten free find :') it's a sentimental thing
Pamela's Gluten free chocolate chip cookies
Enjoy Life soft baked chocolate chip cookies
Blue Diamond nut things - great crackers!
Crunchmaster olive oil and rosemary crackers
Most kettle chips are gluten free!
Sweets
Namaste foods gluten free brownie mix - best brownie mix, my recipe is better though ;)
schar gluten free lady fingers
So delicious day free ice creams
Kinnikinnik Gluten free donuts - best things ever I swear
Any Namaste mix is probably going to be great :)
Pre-made Foods
Amy's gluten free veggie burgers
Ian's gluten free chicken fingers - also organic cage free and no gmo something. Their a healthy alt.
Any amy's gluten free soup
Glutino frozen pizza
Diary free drinks
Silk Coconut Milk
Silk Soy Milk
Silk Almond Milk
So Delicious Coconut Milk - not my favorite
Silk chocolate soy milk
Silk soy-nog - for Christmas nostalgia :)
So delicious soy-nog
This is a list of things I could think of at 2:30 am of gluten free premade things I will admit to have ingested since my freshman year of college. I'm NOT condoning the consumption of all of these things :) But for the person who has just become gluten free it can be a comfort to know that some normalcy does exist. I do enjoy these things on the occasion, but as you can tell I like healthy natural things for the most part! All of the list is also casein free (dairy free) except for the obvious pizza. I will post another list of meal idea's and recipes of course in the future! I hope to make a tab where I will keep a running list of gluten free products I have tried and approve of or like.
I hope this helps any of you fellow celiacs and casein free as well!
Feel free to email me with any questions!
It's bed time,
Hayden ~
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