episode 152: the major change i made to my diet this summer
In episode 152 of The Diet Diaries I’m sharing something personal that I have not yet spoken about anywhere.
And that is why I went gluten free for 2.5 months this summer.
Did going gluten free impact my body confidence?
I’m so glad I waited to talk about this because I had a lot of insights that came out even as I was recording this for you—it is truly a reflection of my lived experience and how far I’ve come.
In today’s episode I talk about:
How I made the decision to go gluten free
What felt hard and what felt easy
The most important part of my approach to doing gluten free
Whether this impacted my body confidence and body image insecurities
How it affected my weight
How this was different from the diets I had done in the past
How to know whether gluten is a problem for you
The 3 key things you need to look at before you think about cutting gluten
Here’s the episode I did all about my experience working with a functional medicine doctor.
I forgot to talk about it in the episode, but come join us for Nourishing Notes ’23. Six weeks of free, simple emails to help you feel great throughout the holidays instead of planning a January juice cleanse.
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Welcome to the Diet Diaries, a podcast where we have candid, heartfelt conversations that will help you figure out what, why and how to eat so you can feel amazing in your body. Because it's time to break the all or nothing mindset of yoyo dieting, food obsession and feeling ruled by the scale. I'm your host body image and nutrition coach, jordana Edelstein. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2
00:25
Hey everyone. It's episode 152, I think, of the Diet Diaries real talk. I was talking for just about a minute or so, looked up on my screen and saw a flat line on GarageBand and I'm like uh-oh. I look down and I see that my microphone is on mute. So good thing that happened early on and not halfway through. I know what I want to talk about today. I'm looking forward to talking about it. But I also just want to be honest with you.
00:51
When I'm recording these Today, I happen to be coming off of reading a lot of tough news and I knew this is my afternoon. I need to come on and I want to record the podcast. I kind of have a schedule every week, so sometimes things just need to get done. But I just feel like I need to just share with you that I'm very much living in the both end of what is going on in Israel and Gaza what it is like to be Jewish right now, and everyone deserves a place. I don't want to come on here and talk about this stuff and I'm not going to do that because you're getting it in enough places. You don't need to listen to my podcast and hear about it. Plus, I'm sharing about it quite a bit on social media. But all that to say, just letting you know that sometimes it's hard to come on here and pretend like other things aren't happening.
01:42
So I guess I just wanted to share with you that, like, obviously I'm a human and I want to come on here and have energy and enthusiasm to talk about what I'm going to talk about today and everything, and also let you know that that stuff is just coexisting for me. I don't know, I just felt like I wanted to say that and share that today. I think sometimes we get an impression that, like, listen to a podcast or see stuff on social media and someone seems totally unaffected, right, that they just are and have energy and they're up be and they're positive and whatever, and like that's not real and under any circumstances, you know, not just right now. So I just felt like I wanted to say that, and then I will also say thank you for being here and thank you for listening and thank you for letting me have the space to share that. So what I wanted to talk about today is not something that I have talked about at all.
02:29
I mentioned it very briefly at this point. It'll be about a week and a half ago in one Instagram story for the first time, and I've been kind of I kept it very close to the vest because I just wanted to have my own experience without having to talk about it and process it, and I wanted to be able to kind of do that on my own time because it was kind of a big deal for me. And all this to say. What I'm talking about is that I spent several months this summer being gluten free and you might think like, oh, that's what that's, that's your big announcement.
03:02
I get it. Sorry if that was like a want want for you. It was a big deal for me, the reason being that to cut out gluten was something I had to really think about before I went ahead and did that because of my history with Disordered Eating. That in the past was not something I would have been able to have done as I was recovering from that really destructive relationship with food. And what's amazing is I was able to do it now with no issues, with no setbacks, with no repercussions. I felt confident going in that that would be the case. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. But to be able to have gone through it and come out on the other side and be like yeah, that was totally not a big deal is awesome and is evidence to me of how much work I have done and what I am capable of and the skills that I have in place. So here's why I did it.
04:05
I've shared very openly. I did a whole podcast episode about seeing a functional medicine doctor, about some of my struggles. I've talked openly about my PCOS, hypothyroidism and some of my GI issues, and some of my GI issues were better. It was kind of like fluctuating it would seem better and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it would like really act up again. And when I say act up, I mean uncomfortable gas and bloating. I mean I'm like farting, let's just call it. Speed is speed Like, sometimes like smelly farts. So it can be really embarrassing. And I'm saying this and putting this out there isn't embarrassing, it's kind of embarrassing. But it's also part of being a human and there's such like there's so much shame around talking around stuff like this. So if it helps even one person feel less embarrassed or less ashamed, then great, you're not alone. And just a lot of discomfort with like belly stuff and not really knowing Like.
04:57
I've done a lot of work to try and figure out what is it I have not been able to pinpoint. So I had done, when I had done my blood work with the functional medicine doctor, she had tested me for celiac and all came back negative. And that was a while ago. That was when was that? That was in February, march, right? So this I decided to experiment with gluten free. It was over the summer, it was their very beginning of July, and actually happened while we were on vacation, because I sort of like didn't commit to it. I was sort of like, well, I'm just gonna try this for a few days, and it was pretty easy for me to do so. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna keep going and like really give this a period of time and experiment.
05:37
And I ended up doing it for about two and a half months and I was pretty, I was pretty strict with it because I really wanted to know, I wanted to get to understand, like, is there at, am I, do I have a sensitivity to gluten? Am I gluten intolerant? Right, there are some people who have sensitivities to gluten who don't have. Celiac is an allergy to gluten, which is a protein found in wheat? Right, a gluten sensitivity is not the same thing. People who have celiac disease, their bodies are allergic. They cannot process, they cannot digest it, they get very, very sick and can have very strong and, in some case, life-threatening allergic reactions. Having a gluten sensitivity is not the same thing.
06:15
So I knew that I wasn't allergic, so it wasn't like, oh, if I had some gluten, nothing bad was gonna happen. But I wanted to try and run a quote clean experiment on myself, and so I don't eat a ton of bread to begin with. So that was easy and there's so many gluten-free options out there that for me the biggest challenge was around desserts, right, you guys know I love cake, I love cookies and most gluten-free desserts are not as good as regular, traditional desserts, I will say that. But it was fine. I found enough things to kind of replace that I was. I did not feel like I was sacrificing, I did not feel like I was missing out. It did not trigger any thoughts, any feelings of scarcity, of urgency, of panic, like it would have years ago if I had caught out gluten to lose weight. Right, this was not about losing weight. This is about trying to see if gluten was impacting bloating and digestive issues.
07:08
There's also been some research, mixed results, indicating that gluten can have an impact on hypothyroidism and potentially make it worse. So I was like, okay, well, to me that was kind of a bonus, right, that was like, oh, if it happens to help my thyroid, great bonus. I'm not in a place where I'm ever gonna be off of synthroid, but if it happened to make it so, maybe my dose is a little bit less, okay, cool, for me it was strictly the GI stuff, and so I just kind of started doing it and there were a couple times where I forgot and I was like, oh shit, I ate like a pita chip. I was like oh crap. And like, fine, like nothing bad happened. There were a couple times when that happened and my stomach got Upset afterwards and I was like, is that it? Could that be it. But then there were times where my stomach got upset and it wasn't it. So, long story short, the punchline is that I do not have a sensitivity to gluten.
08:03
Basically, the way I went, I was doing this right two and a half months and Having no issues in terms of actually doing it, it was not a problem for me and I will be clear I was not going to restaurants and saying that I was lurched to gluten or couldn't have gluten. I just ordered things that I knew didn't have gluten in them. I wasn't concerned about cross contamination. I'm not like someone who has celiac disease who has to be on top of all that. I didn't do that, um, and at home I just you know the things I would eat that I've gluten. I just stopped eating them and I had other things instead and I discovered a couple of things I really, really like that I'm going to share with you as a result.
08:38
That was why I talked about it on instagram, because I was showing these chips that I got from Trader Joe's. They're Indian food, they're called poppadums and they're, um, a lentil rice cracker and they are so fucking good. You guys, I'm obsessed with them. I now buy them all the time, and I bought them when I was doing gluten free and now they've become a staple and I enjoy them like more than any other crackers. So I've really like ever had. They're so thin and so crispy and they have the best crunch Highly recommend and they have protein and fiber. So it's like oh, to boot, like awesome. Even better, they're like really filling and satisfying as far as like snacks go, um. So I did this strictly for how I was feeling in my body and trying to figure out what was happening with my stomach. Um, and I went two and a half months and rasha shana rolled around mid september. And you guys, I've talked about this before.
09:30
Our kugel is a, a holiday dish that pretty much gets made only at Rosh Hashanah. Sometimes we'll make it at Yom Kippur, sometimes we'll make it at Hanukkah rarely and there's egg noodles in it. Right, there's noodles and there's Hala all the time, but like Hala at Rosh Hashanah is like a very much like part of the tradition of the meal, and I really wanted to have that stuff and I did and my stomach was totally fine and I had it multiple days in a row because I took home leftovers of the kugel and of the Hala and my stomach was totally fine and I'm like, well, it's definitely not gluten. And so I didn't just like be like, oh great, now I can eat all the gluten. It wasn't like that. It wasn't like, oh, let me go and buy all the things that I quote couldn't have the last two and a half months. I didn't even think anything of that and never even entered my mind. That also is a testament to how much progress I have made. That it wasn't like, oh fuck it. Like now I can just go and buy like all the chocolate chip cookies and cakes and all the things that I haven't had.
10:31
I just basically kind of kept doing what I was doing because the things I had swapped in I really was enjoying there were. For me, there weren't really any sacrifices, and I say that with privilege, because I know that people with celiac disease and true gluten sensitivities don't have that freedom or maybe do have to make sacrifices and have to be a lot more probably rigid about it. Right, I didn't have to like ask about in restaurants and things, but I did read labels. I checked stuff for sure. So, yeah, so it's not a gluten sensitivity. And so now there are certain things I kind of got used like.
11:07
I got used to not eating pretzels. I haven't really had any pretzels. I've been continuing to buy the same crackers. I was already eating those chips, those Puppetums chips. I had already been eating mochi for a long time. One of my former clients has celiac disease and introduced me to a couple of her favorite gluten-free foods and I got hooked on those mochi. I love them. So I kept buying those.
11:28
And yeah, like, during the summer I was, I remember I was in the city with my mom in August and we were eating dinner before a show and I didn't have bread and had pasta, which for me wasn't a big deal. I had fish and I had potatoes and I happened to have a flourless almond chocolate cake on the menu for dessert. It was awesome and I had that and it was great. So it really like was not problematic for me and so I just kind of wanted to talk about that. I wanted to talk about it and the reason I didn't talk about it while I was doing it was because I just wanted to kind of go through the experience and the experiment on my own and kind of process it and, honestly, like part of I'm processing even more now that I'm talking about it and, to be honest, I hadn't really thought as much or been as aware of the ways in which I navigated that and the reason. I was very clear on the reason why, but that how basically didn't have any impact on me in terms of like triggering any old thoughts. And when I and that's amazing that is amazing because let me tell you, years ago I never gluten free was never something I actually did to try to lose weight.
12:39
I did. I cut out bread, I cut out carbs, I cut out sugar, I cut out desserts, I tried to reduce fruit, all kinds of things. Gluten free wasn't one of those things but in a sense, like it's all like an elimination, it's all forms of like elimination diet and cutting out large food groups as a way which basically just reduces your overall calorie intake. That's how that works. News flash, if you don't know when you cut out a food group, it's not because you're cutting out the food itself, it's because you're reducing your overall calorie intake by eliminating those foods. So all the times I had eliminated food groups before was always to lose weight in. It always always had the rebound effect. Right, it wasn't sustainable. And because it was done with such a restrictive and such a punitive place, it wasn't sustainable.
13:22
It wasn't in alignment with my values. This was a thousand percent in alignment with my values. I was trying to take care of my body. I was trying to understand why I was having this stomach discomfort and trying to take better care of myself. That is a thousand percent alignment with my values. That is why I was able to do it without having any disordered thinking pop up.
13:46
And when I realized that it wasn't, that the gluten wasn't an issue, that it didn't, then trigger me to have a rebound and be like, oh my God, I'm just going to have like bread every day, all day, and like desserts and cookies and brownies and all that stuff. It was okay, whatever, like now I can have this when I want it, and like I did and didn't really think anything of it and I hadn't really fully processed that until I started to talk about it today and I think it's really really significant just sample size of one of what we are capable of in terms of change, because for me to even that to have happened is it's amazing. It is such a testament to the power of showing up for yourself, of learning skills, of learning how to respond to your thoughts, of learning what types of foods you need to eat to feel good, to feel full, to feel nourished, to enjoy. It is the power of skills, like it just is. I know you guys are probably sick of hearing me say that, but I'm never going to stop talking about it. I'm just because I'm my own success story right, and this is just another example of it. I've been in such a good place with eating for such a long time now that I don't often get these really overt examples to remind me how far I've come, but this is definitely one of them, and so, yeah, I'm glad that I didn't really talk about it until now, because it's really kind of given me the space I didn't even fully know I needed to really process it and think about it.
15:24
And yeah, and also I just you know, I think there's such like gluten is like really demonized out there as being like a problem, and I don't know, actually, what the statistics are. I think they're actually pretty small. The actual percentage of people who truly are sensitive to gluten, I think, is pretty low. And here's the thing. It's all about dosage too, right? If you are eating a ton of gluten at every meal, you might have some sensitivity to that amount, right? Maybe it's not the gluten itself, it's the volume that you're eating that could be causing you an issue, right?
15:56
Again, it's not always all or nothing, so I just if you are someone who has a limited gluten, or who wants to, or who is, why are you doing it right? Are you clear? Do you know that your body racks poorly? If so, when you're doing it and it works for you, awesome, great. Are you doing it just to lose weight? If so, is that in alignment with your values? How is that working for you, right? I'm legitimately asking you these questions, not telling you what's right or wrong. I'm putting these questions out there so you can introspect a little bit and reflect and get radically honest with yourself about why you're doing these things. Are you doing it to try and cut out a bunch of foods that you're afraid of eating like bread and pasta and desserts, because those foods are. You're afraid of what's going to happen if you eat them, so this puts them off limits. The reality is is there's so many gluten-free options out there that will have just as many calories as those other original foods. So from a I'm going to cut out gluten to lose weight standpoint, not always going to work, that you think it's going to work, because cutting out food for this with the goal of losing weight, often doesn't work because it's often not in alignment with our values and we're not learning any skills alongside that. We're just following a rule. So I'm just putting that out there and if you are someone who has been dealing with chronic inflammation or GI stuff, maybe it's something worth experimenting with.
17:28
But I will say when I saw the functional medicine doctor, I had shared with her very openly my history with this order of eating and the first thing she had talked about and mentioned was dairy and she wasn't suggesting it. She wasn't recommending it. We were having a conversation and right away I was like I said to her I'm not cutting out dairy or gluten. It's not going to happen because I was. I was like that has the potential to bring up too much stuff for me. So I will work on all I can work on all these other things, but I'm not going to cut out either of those food groups. She was like I totally understand and respect that. That's fine. So if you ever go to anyone who tells you that the only way to feel better is to cut out dairy and gluten, say bye-bye, I'm going to go find someone else who actually sees me as a whole person, because that is not the only way to deal with things.
18:18
And again, it's not necessarily about the food itself. It could be about the volume and quantity of that food. Right that it's so nuanced, like it's not just as black and white as sake. Like, oh, gluten is the root cause of all how you feel in your body. For many people it's not. Are you looking at alcohol? Are you looking at the nutritional quality of your meals? Are you looking at movement, sleep, stress? Like, come on people. Like let's stop blaming gluten when we're not even willing to address so many other aspects of our life? Maybe that sounds harsh. I'm not saying that I've done that and I've got it all figured out. I don't. I just think that we're so quick to place blame.
18:52
I'm like oh, gluten and dairy are inflammatory. They're making me gain weight and the reason why I can't gain weight and my hormones are out of whack. No Like, are you eating vegetables? Are you eating protein? Are you exercising? How much sleep are you getting? Like, let's look at the rocks here, address those and then, if there's still stuff going on, we can start to get a little bit more nuanced with some of these different aspects of diet. And when I say diet, I mean the way that you eat.
19:19
So when I decided to do this in July, I had been thinking about it for some time, right. So I saw her in February, so this was five months later. I had been thinking about it for a couple of months and I'm like should I do it, should I not do it? And I was kind of going back and forth and I wasn't sure. And then I just decided. I kind of honestly just decided one day I was like I'm just gonna experiment with it and I went in with that mindset and I said that to friends. We went out to dinner. I went out to dinner with my closest friends a couple of weeks later and they were ordering pizza for the table and I said I was doing this and I was like I'm experimenting with it. I wasn't saying I'm doing this for X period of time. That gave me some space, that made me feel like there's no rules, there's not rigidity, or any of those past behaviors I'd had around food weren't there. I'm doing this, I'm seeing what happens, to see how it feels for my body and for my stomach. And then it was going well and I was like this isn't a problem, I'm not having a hard time doing this. I'm gonna keep going and give myself a chunk of time.
20:16
If it had started to trigger disordered thoughts or stress or anxiety around food, I would have stopped immediately and it didn't. So I think the language I used around it with myself and how I framed it to myself was also a really important part of it. Yeah, so now it's what's today, october 30th, so basically since mid September. So the past six weeks I've been, I would say, pretty regularly having gluten in my diet, maybe not every day, but definitely multiple times a week, and I've had no issues. My stomach has generally actually been a little bit better.
20:46
Still, on the hunt for figuring this out, I do think the supplements I've done been using have helped, so we'll see. It kind of is ongoing, something I'm always paying attention to, but I just wanted to share my experience with you and, if you have experimented with, or want to, or are thinking about it, just kind of give you a framework and some ways to think about it and some questions to ask yourself, to know why you're doing it and how do you want to approach it. So thanks for being here. I will, of course, be back next week and talk to everyone soon. I'll see you guys next week.
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