A week of being gluten-free

So, I've now been having a gluten-free diet for a week. How is it going? It has had its ups and downs this week so far. I seem to be OK eating gluten-free toast with sunflower spread and marmite on. I have millet porridge with rice milk. One time I had it this week I was OK the other I had slight stomach pains after it. Yesterday, I went out for lunch, having gone to a writing talk. I had a home-made burger and fries with onions. It could have been the burger or probably the onions, as I can react to onions sometimes, but afterwards whilst I was talking to another author I got stomach pains. I rubbed my stomach and tried to find mints I knew I had in my bag. I found them in the end and had one. My pains seemed to ease after that. This morning I had gluten-free cocoa rice like rice crispies with rice milk. Because I had stomach pains when I had them before I didn't have so many this time. I still got slight stomach pains but haven't had to go to the small room like I did last week. There is one thing that I have found I can't seem to eat now - fruit and nut bars called Nked bars. I had a mint flavoured one and an orange one on different days, and both times I got stomach pains after eating it. So, I now can't eat too much fruit and nuts in one go.

I have one more week to go on this diet. I am out for the day tomorrow so will take my own lunch with me and maybe buy a bag of crisps there. My next thing to try is to have cornflakes again but with rice milk. I will try that next weekend when I am not going out the same day and the day after.

I have found that I rather like the gluten-free bread rolls by Warburton. They are much better made than the ones I had before by Sainsbury's.

Going gluten free

I have decided that for the next two weeks I am going to be gluten free. Why? Things have been happening to my diet that I don't like and I need to find out what I can and can't eat. It all started a few years ago on a last day of being at a conference. I had toast for breakfast, a roll with my lunch and toast again when I got home early evening. All that wheat didn't agree with my stomach and I had to visit a certain room a few times. Then early this year, I went out for a social meeting and had a dinner of pasta. The same thing happened. I realised that I could no longer eat proper wheat. The last month or so other grains have been having an effect on me. First it was corn. Then it was rye (I usually have ryvitas for lunch) and then it was crackers made from wheat, and lastly it was oats. So, I decided to cut out the corn first for this month, then cut out the rye and now the wheat and oats. There are alternatives. We have gluten-free bread anyway because my mum has coeliac, and I bought some gluten-free rolls by Warburton as well. For breakfast, instead of the oat milk I have, I have started to have Mum's rice milk. I have found a major difference. One day I had porridge made with rice milk and I had no stomach ache, but two days later I had it with oat milk and did have a stomach ache. The rolls are really nice so will buy more of those. For supper in the evenings, when I usually have oat cakes or wheat crackers, I have gluten-free breadsticks (which are yummy with dairy free choc spread), or gluten-free oatcakes or rice cakes, which are nice with jam or choc spread on. So I have choices. So far so good.

I shall report back in a week's time to tell you how I've got on.