The Healthy Celiac Podcast

Winning the Battle against Celiac Disease: A Road to Wellness Ep. 127

• Belinda Whelan • Season 1 • Episode 127

Share episode

Send a one-way text message. Ask a Question or message me your feedback. Be sure to leave your name too if you'd like a shoutout on the Podcast.

You're about to unlock the secrets to thriving with celiac disease while enjoying a fulfilling life. Together, we'll break down the intimidating barriers around maintaining a gluten-free diet and give you practical strategies and tips that can be seamlessly integrated into your daily routine. We'll discuss the importance of nourishing your body with whole foods, the power of positive thinking, and the potential benefits of different dietary theories.

Managing celiac disease shouldn't be about deprivation but about finding balance and joy in the food you eat.

In this episode I'll guide you on how to make small changes today that lead to a healthier tomorrow.

And because every journey is unique, we want to hear from you. Your feedback will be instrumental in shaping our growing community and in helping others navigate their path towards a more balanced lifestyle with celiac disease. It's not just about surviving, but thriving, and together, we can make that happen. So, tune in and let's start this journey together.

Previous Episodes Mentioned
Ep. 80 Is it Gluten or Stress Belly?

Want to know how I've nailed living with Celiac Disease? Ultimate Celiac System has all my exclusive tips, secrets and insights.
Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

 Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
HEALTH TRACKER | The Healthy Celiac (belindawhelan.com)

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

Please help share this podcast and head to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!



Music Credit bensound.com 

Speaker 1:

Something that I'm hearing more and more from people with celiac disease is they're struggling to eat a gluten-free diet and To nourish their body and to feel better sooner. So on this episode I wanted to address that and talk about some strategies, because if this is something you're struggling with, I want to help you see that it is Perfectly normal to feel this way but, moving forward, you don't have to continue down this route now. If you're new here, hello and welcome. My name is Belinda Whelan. I am a certified holistic health coach and I specialise in Supporting women in their follow-up care after a celiac disease diagnosis. And if you've been around for a while, welcome back. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode.

Speaker 1:

Now, the thing that I'm seeing so often is people saying that they are either Not eating enough food, so they're skipping meals, so they're they're deciding that it's just easier not to eat than to actually put something together and eat something gluten-free, or that they can't find anything when they eat out, so they just choose not to eat anything. This is really sad. This is really not a healthy way to live. This is this is a very. I guess it's a. It's a negative way to live. It's a very. It's a very upsetting thing to see that people are choosing to do this, and when I say choosing, it's because you are choosing to do that rather than learning how to look after your body and how to nourish your body, and I don't say that to be nasty or mean in any way whatsoever, but it's just to do with a lack of knowledge. That's as simple as it is, because when we don't know any better, we can't do better. It's as simple as that. So Once you've got the answers, then you can actually improve your health and improve your life.

Speaker 1:

I just went down the beach today for a walk. I was feeling incredibly tired after a really rough night Sleep with my four-year-old. She was just up and down all night screaming and carrying on being an absolute pork chop. So I woke up feeling like trash today and I was trying to get some work done and my husband just said to me Look, why don't you go for a walk? So I went for a walk and while I was down the beach, I did some filming and thought I can use that to make some reels, and I made a reel for my Instagram, and on that reel I talked about focusing on the positive and focusing on, you know, nourishing our body and nourishing our mind with positive thoughts and helping us to drive that down into a much more positive future for living with celiac disease.

Speaker 1:

So the best way that we can start to look at this is you do truly need to learn what nourishes your body, because you can't. You can't just live on gluten-free packaged foods. It's as simple as that. If you are doing that, you are just living on Essentially at like a junk food diet, because processed packaged food is not going to nourish you and Make your body thrive in a way that real whole foods do. So if you're not eating Food that you are making from scratch or that someone else is preparing from scratch, you are living a very junk food lifestyle. So, for example, if you go to the supermarket and a lot of people are Declaring that this is what they do, they only buy gluten-free packaged food, and that is not any way to Thrive. That is not a way to nourish your body, and there are so many foods that aren't labeled gluten-free, that are naturally Gluten-free. So when I say processed and packaged, I'm talking about things that have got at least five ingredients in them. If they've Got more than five ingredients in them that they're highly processed, they're highly packaged and that's not the way to nourish your body. So you want to be looking at more whole foods, more naturally. You know real foods that you know our ancestors would have eaten, not all this process junk with all this fancy labeling and Bright, flashy colors to try and get our attention. It's more about eating those real foods.

Speaker 1:

So if it's, it's can be as simple as going very back to basic. So very, very basic meals, and you can start with just something as simple as a salad with some meat and Some grains. It can be very easy to put together a meal with just those elements and it be naturally gluten-free, without the stress, without the fuss, without even having to really Worry that your meal is safe, because essentially most of those ingredients are going to be safe for you. Yes, you still need to read labels. Absolutely, there's still. You know vegetables and things like that, as sometimes they will have added. You know sources or flavorings. If you've bought, like, a packaged frozen, you know packet of frozen vegetables, something along those lines, you still do need to read labels. But if you're eating fresh vegetables, then obviously you don't need to worry about that. And when it comes to meat, if you're buying just plain meat with no seasoning, no flavoring sources, nothing like that, then again it's the same thing. You're not having to worry that there's gluten in your food.

Speaker 1:

So getting back to basics, getting back to very simple eating, can be an excellent start. If you're scared of food and you're scared of eating, that can be a way to introduce these meals and nourish your body. So back when I was studying to become a health coach, we had to learn over a hundred different dietary theories and some of them back them I didn't even know, I'd never even heard of, and since becoming a health coach, there's been more and more that have been introduced and quite prevalent. You know things like the keto diet. You hear about that more and more, but that was one that we didn't even learn about back then when I was studying. But the thing is, we have so many approaches that we can tackle. You know we can go down so many different paths.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we have to eat gluten free 100% of the time, but you might not like me, you might prefer to live on a vegetarian diet. So you can focus on a vegetarian diet and you can add in all this beautiful healthy food into your diet without having to resort to the gluten-free packaged food. And when I say without resorting to, I mean majority of the time I still eat packaged food. Don't get me wrong, I still eat packaged, processed food. It's just the majority of the time I eat real food, you know, real food that hasn't been messed with by men. It's natural and it's Nourishing and it's healing our body. So if you can do that the majority of the time, then you don't have to stress about eating processed packaged foods a little bit at the time. So you might have heard me talk about this in the past. And that's the 80-20 rule. If 80% of the time you can eat really healthy, nourishing food and 20% of the time you're just eating, you know, those treats or having those indulging periods of time where you have a treat and you're not too stressed about what you're eating obviously still has to be gluten free.

Speaker 1:

Don't get me wrong there when I say that. But it's not. You know, oh, you know this has got too much sugar or this has got too much that. No, that's when people get obsessive. Okay, and when I did my health coaching certification, I did start to see this in some of my classmates, that people became obsessive and it was like a be-all and end-all. And people do this. People become so obsessed with the way that they eat that it becomes unhealthy, and that's where. That's where I don't ever want anyone to get to. I support my clients so that they never get to that point where it almost becomes like an eating disorder, where you are too focused on healthy food and you too obsessed that you think about food constantly.

Speaker 1:

Now, don't get me wrong. I love food. I absolutely love food. I love eating. I love what it does to my body, how I can kind of manipulate the way that it makes me feel by nourishing my body, but I don't ever want to be obsessed with it. I don't want to ever feel that I have to count calories or that there's too much protein in a meal or too much fat in a meal or anything like that. It's about focusing on balance and about having those you know, those good fats in your life and having carbohydrates, because without carbs, we pretty much have no energy. So it's not about cutting things out and being completely gung-ho with I'm not eating, that, I'm not doing that, I'm not having this, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

Today I'm choosing to eat really, really well and focusing on eating a nourishing diet. And then I'm going out with friends on Friday night, and if I want to have a glass of wine with my dinner and I want to have a creamy gluten-free pasta or something like that, so be it. You need to do it so that you enjoy life, and this is the point that I help my clients get to. Now I have had people reach out to me recently about one-on-one coaching, and that is my high-end service, so that is something that I don't take many clients on with these days, so those positions do fill up very, very quickly. So the best next option is my group coaching. So if that's something you want to jump on in with, then you need to jump on the waitlist for that.

Speaker 1:

So just head to my website, which is BelindaWheelandcom I'll pop a link below as well that you can head to, and all you need to do is jump on my newsletter and you'll find out about the next round that is available of my group coaching. And that way you get my guidance, you get my support, you can ask questions, you get meal plans, you get all the support that you need for you to eat well, for you to nourish your body and to move forward with living a healthy lifestyle with celiac disease. Because if you still feel that you have low energy or that you don't feel like your body is absorbing the nutrients that it needs to be absorbing from its diet, then this is where my help comes in, and I would absolutely love to support you on that journey. So, like I said, just head to my website, belindawheelandcom, and find out about the next round of group coaching. So, within that program, you're going to get my guidance, you're going to get my support, you will get what you need to come out the other side and know how to nourish and heal your body in a way that's so positive, not just now, but for well into the future so that it gives you basically a blueprint for how to live your life with celiac disease when it comes to the way you should be eating and nourishing your body. So, if that sounds like something of interest to you, just head to my website. Like I said, belindawheelandcom, sign up for the next group and get started that way, because I'd love to support you. It's truly one of the best ways that you can improve your health and your lifestyle with celiac disease in a very quick manner. So, yeah, go check that out.

Speaker 1:

But as far as some action steps that you could take today to help live healthier with this celiac disease and this gluten-free lifestyle is, I would start to go to the supermarket or grocery store whatever you like to call it and start to walk down some different aisles that you maybe avoid, maybe ones that you don't normally go down. Maybe you head straight to the gluten-free aisle, if you have that luxury of a gluten-free aisle in your supermarket. But start looking in some other sections of your supermarket and seeing what you find, particularly the produce area. Look in the produce area and start to look at some different fruits and vegetables that you might be able to start incorporating into your diet. There might be a fruit that you haven't eaten for years and you used to love it as a child. Maybe you could bring that back into your life. Maybe you could start looking at some different vegetables that you perhaps haven't eaten before and cook those up or have them fresh and see how you like them when you eat out. Take note of what vegetables are included in your meal that you enjoy and maybe mix it up when you get home and try cooking in a similar manner to what that meal is that you've enjoyed out.

Speaker 1:

My husband and I went to Port Douglas on a amazing holiday a couple of years ago and we stayed in this incredible resort and I had this meal and it was like a green nourishing bowl. I had like avocado and seeds and baby spinach leaves and all of these amazing elements to this meal. I think I had chicken in it as well I'm trying to remember now but it was delicious and I remember coming back and I was like I am going to make that meal and I made it and it was almost bang on with what I had eaten while I was away in this incredible resort and it was delicious, it was nourishing, it was beautiful and it kind of took me back to when I was on that holiday. So you can recreate these moments and you can enjoy eating gluten-free food in a way that does serve you.

Speaker 1:

Now, when it comes to the way that we eat, this is another thing that's huge. Sit down and be grateful for the food that you're about to enjoy. If you can be grateful before you eat, your whole entire body is going to experience that meal in a different way. If you sit down and you're like, oh my god, it's not fair. I've got to eat this crappy food or hate gluten-free food, or I hate this, or I miss this, or I miss that. You're in such a negative frame of mind and your body is not going to work the way it needs to.

Speaker 1:

You need to be relaxed when you eat. If you're stressed when you're eating, your digestive system isn't not going to do its optimal work to absorb the nutrients from your food. So if you haven't listened to the episode that I did on Stress Belly, go back and listen to that. I'll link that in the show notes as well and below. Because when you are in that fight-or-flight mode, when you're stressed, your digestive system shuts down. So when you eat, it takes so much longer for your body to digest that food, which makes you feel sluggish. It makes you feel bloated. You don't get the energy absorption and the goodness that you need from your food quicker. So quick enough, rather. And yeah, it's just so beneficial to be relaxed and calm when you eat.

Speaker 1:

So you know you can do things like not sit at your desk when you're eating, not work while you're eating, get off your phone while you're eating, look at your food that you're about to eat. You know, really enjoying the food. So we basically eat our food through more senses than you probably realised. So when we smell food, what happens is our body starts to get those digestive juices going. When we look at the food, it sends a signal to our brain that we're about to enjoy food and it's it makes it easier for our body to digest food. So if you're shoveling food in and you're scrolling on your phone, you don't realise how much you're eating either. Your brain is not registering that you're full, that you've eaten enough, and this is where our body doesn't do its job optimally.

Speaker 1:

So I always recommend to my clients that you sit somewhere, preferably at a table. I know that's not always best, but to sit at a table with your possibly can to eat your meal is the best thing, and to be doing this action when you eat and lean over is so much better for your digestion than doing one of these ones and sitting back and scoffing your food and playing on your phone or staring at a screen. It's not good for us, okay. So just for those that are listening, at home I just demonstrated laying back on the couch eating my food. So you don't want to be laying backwards, you want to be leaning over, you want to be chewing your food and really enjoying the sensation of the flavours and all the different elements in your meal. And when you start to put these little strategies into place, you will start to enjoy your food more and you will start to thrive, because you will make better decisions, more conscious decisions of what you're feeding your body. So I hope this helps. I truly do.

Speaker 1:

If you have any feedback or any advice of subjects or topics that you want to hear about in future episodes, you can always send me a DM over at the healthy Celiac on Instagram or you can send me an email info at ballindawheelandcom.

Speaker 1:

And I'd love to hear from you because, yeah, it helps me grow the show and give you guys what you want to listen to, what you want to learn about. And if you haven't rated the show as of yet, let me know if I'm doing a good job. If you haven't taken a couple of minutes to head to upper podcast and scroll down to the very bottom of the episodes, please do so and just give me some feedback. Let me know what you like, what you've learnt, what your takeaways are from today's lesson. And, yeah, I'd really appreciate hearing from you because, like I said, it lets me know if I'm doing a good job for you, and hearing from you makes me aware that these episodes are making a difference. So thank you so much for tuning in and I truly look forward to talking with you again very, very soon. And yet, as always, any questions, please always feel free to reach out to me via Instagram or my email, as mentioned. All right, have a great week, thank you, take care. Bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Belinda Whelan

Host