Category: Blog

Salads, Little or No Lettuce

I am a huge fan of really big salads — the kind of salads made famous by Elaine Benes on Seinfeld — but they are often boring. Really boring. Pretty much every menu of every restaurant has the same suite of salads, with some minor variations: Cobb Salad, Caesar Salad, Boring Green Salad, Chinese Chicken Salad, Taco Salad.

Sure, sometimes you get something wild like a Kale Caesar Salad, but when it comes to the world of restaurants, salads are predictable and generally not that exciting. And by not that exciting, I mean not all that flavorful — usually these salads rely upon the salad dressing to carry all the flavor work. This, as we all know, is how a salad goes from reasonably healthy to a calorie bomb in under thirty seconds. Continue reading “Salads, Little or No Lettuce”

What Is Gluten Free?

Even though the gluten-free diet is constantly in the news, there’s a lot of confusion about what it means. Particularly when it comes to determining what foods are and are not gluten free. Actually, it’s pretty simple: foods that contain wheat, barley, or rye (including triticale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye) are not gluten free.

All other foods are. Continue reading “What Is Gluten Free?”

Gluten Free and Eating Grains

I read one of those articles. You know the type: yeah, yeah, it’s okay to be gluten free but, wait!, what about all those great nutrients you’re missing because you aren’t eating enough grains. Think twice, oh gluten-free one, think twice!

We know we cannot eat anything with wheat, barley, or rye. We’re all cool with that (or, if not cool, understanding). But, it turns out, wheat, barley, and rye are not the only grains in the world. Who knew? Just because you’re gluten free, it doesn’t mean you’re missing out on the benefits of whole grains.

Well, now that we’ve settled that…. Continue reading “Gluten Free and Eating Grains”

Gluten Free and Paleo Diets

Much to my surprise, the Paleo diet has maintained serious traction in our fad diet-inclined world. I will admit I once made fun of this particular way of eating, but have changed my mind. That’s not to say I buy into everything Paleo proponents believe, but as I’ve changed the way I eat, I see strong parallels.

(That being said, I remain extremely amused by the lengths some in the Paleo community go to when it comes to to potatoes. It’s like they twist and bend the rules to eliminate this one food item — a food that, based on my understanding of Paleo, is a slam dunk for the diet. I digress….) Continue reading “Gluten Free and Paleo Diets”

How I Lost Weight on a Gluten-Free Diet

When I wrote about Losing Weight While Living Gluten Free, I talked about the things I’ve learned on my journey. This post will get into specifics about how I actually achieved my goal. As of this writing, I have achieved my goal of losing 50 pounds (actually, I’m a bit over my goal, closer to 55 pounds), and am enjoying being in maintenance mode.

I will state for the record that most of the specific tips below have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am gluten free. However, living a gluten-free lifestyle absolutely helped me achieve my goal as I was never tempted by certain high-calorie foods or fast foods. It’s a lot easier to avoid certain things when you know they’ll make you sick. Continue reading “How I Lost Weight on a Gluten-Free Diet”

Losing Weight While Living Gluten Free

Sometimes I read articles that, on the surface, seem logical, but don’t hold up upon close reading. One such article was posted on Glutenfreeworks and entitled “How to Lose Weight on the Gluten-Free Diet“. I’m guessing this was a linkbait headline.

The core premise of the article is that celiac disease creates different levels of malnourishment. For some people, this means unexplained weight loss; for others, weight gain. I fell into the latter group. I remember my doctor murmuring something about “getting enough nutrition”, though in retrospect, it was the wrong nutrition. Continue reading “Losing Weight While Living Gluten Free”