In 2014, I got really sick. I was so burnt out I literally couldn’t get off the floor. I followed all the recommended guidelines for physical activity and the healthy food pyramid. But ultimately, I was doing too much. Stress, it seemed, trumped all. But some foods weren’t helping. Here’s what I eliminated.

I remember the moment so clearly. I’d just finished running up the hill for the third time, squatted down on my haunches and couldn’t get up. That was the beginning of my break-down and the catalyst for changing my diet forever.

Listen to me go deeper on this topic on the podcast. Click here.

Ultimately, I was doing too much. Way too much! My adrenal glands were fried and my body broke down. I went to see a naturoph, and amongst other things like rest, meditation and long walks on the beach, he suggested I give up gluten.

At that point in time, I didn’t even know what gluten was. So I went home, googled it and discovered it was practically in everything that I ate.

I was getting this pressure in my gut, like I’d swallowed a baseball. I couldn’t shake it so I gave up everything except veggies and meat for a week. I still remember the taste of that first apple the following Monday morning. Far out… it was like the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. As I continued reintegrating food into my diet, I paid attention to three things:

Eructation

Flatulence

Defecation

I paid attention to how I felt after eating foods from minutes through to days after eating them. I discovered that when I consumed gluten from wheat, I would get bloated and it would give me heart palpitations.

In addition, I started hearing people say things like, “You’ve lost weight, what have you done?” And “Wow, you look good, what are you doing?” All I’d done was to give up bread and pasta.

But I did look good. I did look like I’d lost weight. In reality, I’d lost 2-3kgs, but more interestingly, I was able to maintain my weight more easily. Previously, when I stopped exercising, I’d put on a couple of kilos. However, now I could stop exercising and not put on anything. It was weird.

I started to look into nutrition more and pay more attention to what I was eating; and discovered that I was filling up on bread and pasta, which is high in the macronutrient carbohydrate, but low in micronutrients. When I eliminated bread, pasta and reducing my intake of other similar foods like rice, I was eating much more vegetables and meat.

By increasing my vegetable intake I was consuming many more micronutrients. These are the vitamins and minerals our bodies need for orchestrating a range of physiological processes.

In addition, gluten provides no essential nutrients and can trigger an inflammatory response in many people. For me, there’s just no sense in consuming it when the risk is so high and return is non-existent.

Plus, in my experience, clients lose weight, feel better, have more energy and look better when they eliminate it from their diet.

What’s your experience with eliminating gluten from your diet?

Click here to listen to me talk about this topic in more detail on the podcast.