Tuesday, July 3, 2012

no wheat, no gluten?

While waiting for summer weather to arrive, I found myself eating more, exercising less. My brain thinks it’s fall, so it sends my body into comfort food craving mode. In other words, a few extra pounds found its way onto my body, so I need to make a few changes. I’m starting with what I eat.

Due to a fast metabolism, that has allowed me to eat whatever I want without gaining weight, I’ve never dieted (please don’t hate). I’ve heard a lot about gluten-free or wheat-free diets in the last few years. So I decided going wheat-free would be a good place to start.

Four days into it, I’m in the trying-to-figure-out-what-to-eat, or not-eat, stage. I’m still finding the whole no-wheat versus no-gluten thing a bit confusing. Is there a difference between the two? I don’t even know if wheat is the reason I’ve put on a few pounds, but I’d rather start with that instead of say, chocolate! I did find a few blogs on the no-wheat/gluten subject ... glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com, heatherstrang.com/wheat-free (Heather lives in Portland), glutenfreegirl.com

Wish me luck. No doubt I’ll be posting a few of the delicious, no-wheat recipes I try here.

Right now I’m enjoying the fresh fruits and veggies of my small backyard garden. Despite it’s rather uncommon blend of ingredients, this smoothie was really good.

Place one peeled, ripe banana into your blender

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Add frozen blueberries, spinach leaves, yogurt, protein powder and lowfat milk

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Banana, Blueberry, and Spinach Smoothie
Serves 1-2

1 ripe banana
3/4 cup frozen blueberries (you could also use fresh, but I like the icy quality of frozen)
1 cup fresh spinach leaves
1/4 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
3/4 cup lowfat milk
1 scoop whey protein powder (optional)

Blend it all up until smooth and creamy.

Trust me, you won’t even taste the spinach!


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If anyone has knowledge and/or information about eating wheat-free, please share. I hope you have a happy, safe 4th!


6 comments:

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

That looks sooo good! I am going gluten free too... any wheat is gluten. And there are things that have wheat in them that you would never suspect.. .like TWIZZLERS! Not that that's a good food. I feel much better off of it, and I lost 15 lbs. doing so. I also never had to diet until I got into my forties... and then the weight starting packing on. Exercise and eliminating gluten really helped, plus my blood pressure is normal again, go figure.

Nice blog!

ain't for city gals said...

My husband thought he had a fast metabolism also...never gained an ounce and in fact started losing which he could not afford to do. Always had stomach pains especially after eating flour or wheat. After much research we found he was gluten intolerant...what a difference it has made for him going gluten free. And like Karen said almost anything you buy has wheat in it...you have to read read read the labels...and then come to find out "natural flavors" can have wheat. What is scary is that gluton intolerance can lead to celiac disease or cancer of the small intestence. Really interesting to read about...good luck to you but it can be done.

ain't for city gals said...

p.s. the reason my husband never gained weight was because his small intestence (sp??) was not absorbing any nutrients because of the gluten though he was eating so much....basically he was not receiving any nutrients and slowly starving to death. There is so much to learn about this..

Cindy said...

Hi Karen, You're inspiring me! 15 lbs? That's great! I think it's so much harder to change your lifestyle when you've been thin your entire life. I always had a hard time gaining weight until I turned 50.

Cindy said...

Hi Ain't for city gals, thanks for the great info! I'm finding delicious wheat-free meals and trying to eat fewer sweets...chocolate and ice cream are going to be the hardest for sure.

Mariza said...

The GAPS diet recommends drinking and cooking with a lot of bone broth. Apparently fish head broth helps regulate the thyroid, which then helps digest the food faster, which helps lose weight. I don't know, but I lost several lbs already. I drink bone broth every day, three times per day. I do perpetual broth.