I am a hands-on learner.

There it sat on the plate. Steaming and taunting me with it's warm crunchy yet chewy goodness, with melted butter flowing gracefully over the side. "Eat me" it whispered in a seductive tone that only I could hear. "NO!" I answered, "you aren't good for me...I broke up with you last week, it's over!" "But you love me, and I love you. How can you leave me like this?" was the whiny, drool inducing answer. It went on like this for five minutes. I argued with it. I berated myself for not realizing it would show up here. But it wore me down. "OH FINE!" I huffed, as I bit into it. It was toasty, and delightful, and heavenly. Toast. White sourdough toast. Oh. My. Gawd. It has never tasted so good. I didn't even used to like white bread. Endorphins relished in the pleasure, and coursed through my veins.

Five hours later. It's so over. Again. My stomach has not hurt this bad since I can't remember. All from one lousy piece of bread that came with a fruit salad. Who the F puts bread with fruit salad? Oh, yeah. My favorite coffee shop in town. That's who.

Will someone remind me of this next time I wonder whether cutting out gluten is REALLY that necessary?

With this whole new adventure into integrative nutrition, I get to meet with a health counselor, so there is loads more intentionality being poured into how I treat myself. I consider myself a healthy person, and pretty knowledgeable when it comes to food issues, and I think that because of this, I take for granted that I feel good. Or, really, that at one point, treating myself or feeding myself a certain way, made me feel good. And once I start taking it for granted, I quit paying as much attention to what my body is telling me. Now that I have this permission that the universe and I have granted myself to pay attention to ME ME ME, I am noticing things I was not aware of before. My goal for the last two weeks, set by my health counselor and I, was to focus on breakfast. Make time to make it, to eat it, and to feel it. While, it has been hard getting up a little earlier in order to make this happen, it has been a wonderful experience. First off, the cliche sayings about breakfast being the most important meal of the day are so true! Who knew that eating something before setting myself in go-mode would make me so much less grouchy and impatient? Secondly, with an exercise called the breakfast experience, I have finally been forced to recognize that I have a gluten intolerance.

Now, as a short background, and a child and teen, I battled a number of health issues, a lot of them dealing with my digestive capabilities, or lack there of. In treating myself for these issues (such as Candida) I had to cut out a gigantic portion of everyday foods. I was horribly bitter about this deprivation, and was positive that it was ridiculously unfair. I was so jaded by my resentment that I had no room to appreciate how being so much healthier felt. I celebrated the day I could again eat pizza. So, over the last year, as I have quietly noticed my low energy levels, the sore throat I get when eating white bread, or any number of things, I would shove the thought out of my head and refuse to entertain the possibility of cutting out gluten because what a pain in the ass, right?

So, this breakfast experience, I was forced to look straight at the fact when I ingest high gluten content foods, I am miserable. I may not notice the smaller symptoms at first, but the more I eat, the worse I feel. Here all along I was afraid at how much work being gluten free would be. But I bit the bullet and did it. I have been gluten free for about a week now and oh my goodness, what a difference. I have more energy, no more waking up with sore throats, I am not constantly and slightly congested. The energy boost alone is enough to make up for the effort it requires. And, I am even enjoying the effort that this is all taking.

So, yay for listening to myself, and honoring my needs.