Welcome to Good Fun - Gluten Free!
My name is Amanda and I have been gluten-free since the Spring of 2012.
I grew up in the great state of Connecticut - so I'm a New England girl at heart. Currently, I reside in upstate NY. While I'm not a huge fan of the snow, it is a really great area to be in, and close to so many new adventures that are just calling my name!
I have spent most of my life struggling with dietary issues. As a child, I was "diagnosed" with Lactose Intolerance - even though I could tolerate things like yogurt and ice cream just fine. But when I was growing up, gluten-intolerance was not widely accepted or even really well known about. I had no idea what Celiac disease was until I became a camp counselor my freshman year of college. One of our campers had Celiac and had to be on a special diet - crazy! Right? A couple of years ago, I went back to college and the stress started to have a really negative impact on my health. I had always suffered from things like bloating, strange fluctuations in weight despite regular exercise and steady eating patterns, and a slew of other random symptoms including irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headaches, sore and achey muscles, chest pain, tingling fingers and toes, extreme irritability, and bouts of insomnia - to name a few. My mother, who was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia about fifteen years ago, thought I might be suffering the same fate...but I wasn't convinced. I utilized my college Nutrition courses to do some digging. The more I started researching gluten-intolerance, the more I became convinced that this was my lifelong affliction!
After numerous tests, discussions, eliminations diets, and food diaries, the diagnosis finally came. IBS triggered by gluten-sensitivity and fructose intolerance. The truth? I couldn't have been happier. Diet changes would be a challenge, but in the grand scope of things that might have been wrong with me, this was something I could tolerate and accept. I started making diet changes immediately and saw almost immediate results.
I love food and cooking is a HUGE part of my identity! So going gluten-free meant having to give up some of my favorite things, or at the very least, make some creative substitutions. Being sensitive to fructose also means that I cannot eat anything made with high-fructose corn syrup - so this means lots of label reading and no processed foods!
The name for my blog was inspired by a very dear friend. When I started eating gluten-free, he would see the letters "GF" on a lot of labels and boxes. He jokingly said one day that he was going to start referring to my dietary adventure as "Good Fun.". This blog is meant to inspire and educate - I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing and posting. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions or just say hi! I also appreciate any and all feedback you can give on things I can do to make this blog better.
No comments:
Post a Comment