Is a Gluten Free Diet Healthy? Ep. 122

Have you ever wondered if it's ok to feed your family gluten free food even if they aren't Celiac?
Or perhaps you've been contemplating the gluten free lifestyle or simply want to nourish your body better, prepare to be enlightened on this week's episode.

We're stripping back the layers on gluten free diets, spelling out the good, the bad, and the downright unhealthy pathways you can wander down.

I'll also explore how our skin reacts to a gluten free diet, and why highly processed gluten free foods can do more harm than good. But don't worry, it's not all grim, as we introduce the 80/20 rule to help you strike the perfect balance in your diet. I'm also talking about an easy and delicious meal program to spice up your gluten free cooking and eliminate your reliance on packaged foods.

Join me, as we unfold practical tips and sustainable habits for a healthier and happier you. Ready to embark on this life-changing journey? Let's get started!

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
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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

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Music Credit bensound.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring the Gluten-Free Diet
• 9:39 Nourishing Your Body and Changing Habits
• 20:59 Gluten-Free Meal Program for Easy Cooking

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Alright, welcome back to this week's episode, where we are talking all about the gluten-free diet and whether it is healthy. So this episode is for you, whether you have celiac disease yourself, or whether you're concerned that people in your family are eating gluten-free and perhaps not getting all the nutrients that they need from their diet, or perhaps you're even just curious about the gluten-free diet and whether it's right for you. Now one of the things that I hear time and time again is that people are actually concerned that if they feed their kids gluten-free food, that perhaps they're not getting everything that they need from their food and their diet might not be the healthiest that it can possibly be. And then I also hear from people that say, oh, my doctor told me that my husband shouldn't be eating gluten-free, so now I have to cook a separate meal for him. As to what I cook for myself and you know my kids, and this, that and the other, and it gets very overwhelming and it gets very scary, I guess, to not have the guidance and the knowledge of what is the best thing to do. So I can easily say that, yes, the gluten-free diet is very unhealthy, but I can also say the gluten-free diet is very healthy. So, having said that, there's two sides to the coin, okay. So think of it this way With anything in life, there are usually two ways that it can go. So you can go down the very unhealthy route of eating a gluten-free diet and you can go down the very healthy route of eating a gluten-free diet. There are so many ways of eating gluten-free that, at the end of the day, you might be consuming foods that are terrible for your body, or you might be consuming foods that are nourishing and healthy and making you feel better than you ever felt before you even had to eat gluten-free. So I want to cover that off in today's episode so that you can make some decisions for not only yourself but also your family and what is right for you Now.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Recently I talked about on an episode about skin conditions and I talked about how, when people change over from eating gluten grains to gluten-free grains, that they're missing out on a lot of vitamin A. So with the gluten-free grains, they're not as high in vitamin A and this can affect our skin. So for one, you know, just one tiny little change. A lot of people report that they get dry skin, so that can be one side effect. So when you think about health as a whole, it's not just what's going on inside our body, it's also what goes on the outside. So you consume food and it affects your skin. So that's one tiny little example.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So you need to be looking at your diet as a whole and adding in what makes up you feeling and looking your best. So some people that I observe eat very unhealthy and they get very excited because they find all these gluten-free foods and they focus just on these gluten-free foods and they're not natural gluten free foods. They are highly processed and they're things such as, you know, breads and pastries and cakes and things like that, and that's pretty much all they eat. They are just focused on those types of gluten free foods, whereas I come at it more more as a holistic health coach viewpoint and I look at it as in adding in more of the good stuff, so adding more of the healthy foods into your diet, rather than those packaged and those processed foods. So from that perspective, I think that's probably the easiest way to look at eating a healthy, gluten free diet. So let's talk about that a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 4:28

So I definitely eat treats. Don't don't think of me that all I ever do is eat healthy, because I certainly don't. And when I studied through ION to become a health coach, one of the big things that I learned and took away from it is the 80 20 rule, and I live my life by the 80 20 rule. I teach my clients by the 80 20 rule and what that is is 80% of the time you, you know, you eat as much amazing, healthy, nourishing food as possible, and then 20% of the time you eat, what you want has to be gluten free, obviously, but you eat. You eat those treats and you eat those things that aren't so healthy, and that is what helps you stay balanced. It doesn't become obsessive, it doesn't become restrictive and it's a much friendlier way to live your life. That you know. If you go out with friends and family or you, you know it's someone's birthday and they've made gluten free cakes, you can enjoy that treat. You're not just obsessed with eating gluten free healthy foods, because that goes down this other whole half of being an unhealthy in the mindset kind of way. So I hope that it makes sense with the 80 20 rule.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Now, when we look at packaged foods, I still eat packaged foods, so there's things like, you know pastas and breads and things like that that we can add into our meals. But when we're focusing on adding in lots of healthy fruits and vegetables and meats and legumes, things like that, that's where we can have a healthy gluten free diet. But it's when we look at some of these packaged processed foods they're full of the nasty oils. They're usually full of a lot of sugar to make up for the lack of flavor. They're usually high in salt and not many nutrients. So if you start to look at your gluten free packaged food as far as like your snacks and you know you already made meals, things like that you'll start to notice that they aren't that healthy for you.

Speaker 1: 6:39

And what I like to get my clients to do is not just go whole hog. Right, it's not just a matter of okay, now I'm going to eat all healthy food and I'm not eating any of that. It's just. It's just hard to do that for many people. So what I like to do is teach my clients to add in a little bit at a time and it's building upon these habits, because when we create healthy habits, we can add upon those and we can create more healthy habits and in time we eat better, we feel better, we look better, we live our lives better and it can be more sustainable.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Whereas if you think of people that go on a diet, so for us I don't look, as I don't look at the gluten free diet as a diet as such. For us, it is our treatment. Okay, it's our prescription to our health. We have to eat this way. So I don't look at eating gluten free as a diet for us. That you know, you do it for a period of time and then you go off. This is, this is us, for life. This is what we have been dealt. So it's not like a, you know, a weight loss diet as such, where you go on it, you do it for a little bit, you get sick of it and then you go off and then you put all the weight back on. No, no, no, we have to eat gluten free diet for life. But it's that two sides of the coin. So which way are you going? Are you going down the unhealthy route or are you going down the healthy route?

Speaker 1: 8:07

So if you want to go down that healthy route of eating gluten-free, then that's where it is important to add in those nourishing foods. So, for example, one of the very first sessions that I do with my clients, when I work with people one-on-one, is I get them to add in greens to their diet and some people swear black and blue that they're never gonna eat greens. It's like the be on, like no, no, no, they won't do it. And then people that are coachable and want to make changes, they will start to add them in and you can do this quite easily. So, for example, you might make a green smoothie and if you've never tried a green smoothie, they aren't delicious and they're nourishing, their filling, but you can put things like baby spinach leaves in there and you've just added a serve of greens into your diet, for example. So you could add a green smoothie once a day to your diet and not only are you getting those greens out of you, and you're gonna add things like a banana, some nuts or some seeds into that smoothie, some healthy fats, different things that are going to nourish your body, and that's just one tiny change in your diet that becomes a new habit. So, for example, you could do that for a week for breakfast. You might get sick of it, you might not, you might just go. This is what I'm doing every morning because I feel amazing, or it could be an afternoon Pick me up, for example. So there's ways that you can add in these healthy foods and they just become part of your life.

Speaker 1: 9:39

My youngest daughter, she's four at the moment and she's always sworn black and blue. She doesn't like broccoli and she used to eat broccoli when she was about one too, and then she started observing that her brother wouldn't eat broccoli and she copies her brother. So she made it up that she doesn't like broccoli anymore. Well, I picked her up from kindergarten a couple of weeks ago and I'm like what are you eating? And she was munching on a piece of broccoli and they'd given the kids broccoli and cauliflower at Kinder to try. And now she loves broccoli and she just needed to see that other kids her age were eating broccoli and that it was healthy.

Speaker 1: 10:18

So sometimes we have it in our heads that we don't like something, but then you can try it and you might love it. Another example is I used to hate Brussels sprouts. I used to think they were disgusting. My mom used to boil them when we were kids and they were soggy and gross and I hated them and I didn't touch them again until I was an adult and now I love them and I cook them all the time and I've just cooked them in a different way to what my mom did. Sorry, mom, if you're listening I know you're gonna hear this if you listen to the show but yeah, my mom turned me off Brussels sprouts for a very long time and, yeah, now I love them and they are amazing and super healthy for you.

Speaker 1: 11:04

So you might have it in your head that you don't like something. So try it again, cook it a different way, enjoy it a different way and add it into your lifestyle so that you do have extra nourishment. And the thing is, when you do add more nutrients into your diet and you start to feel better, you will have this amazing flow and effect throughout your life. It's incredible, when you start to feel better, what that does. So you might think you don't have the energy to exercise or you feel that you don't wanna go to bed because you're feeling sluggish and it just I don't know, it makes you sleep better, it makes you feel better, it makes you wanna exercise. There's just do you know what I mean? Like it just has this beautiful flow and effect throughout your life. It affects your mood, it affects the way that you treat people, it just expands and just has this incredible effect on every area of your life when you start to nourish your body and start to look after yourself, and then what I also teach is crowding out. So if you haven't heard me talk about crowding out, I'll quickly explain that as well. So when you crowd something out, what you do is, instead of going right, I'm not, I'm not eating chocolate every day anymore, I'm going to crowd, I'm going to crowd it out instead. Okay. So I'll give you another example One of my clients recently she was eating almost a block of chocolate every single night.

Speaker 1: 12:33

She would sit down, she would watch TV and then she would eat a block of chocolate. So we figured out that that was, and that was a habit she had created. So she fixated on okay, so I'm watching TV, and now it's time to grab a block of chocolate and I'm going to sit down and watch TV. So that had become a habit for her. So instead of me saying to her right, you need to stop doing that, like that's too much sugar, that's not good for you, I said to her what could you do instead? What would be a better option for you than eating this entire block of chocolate, what would be a good fix? And so what she did was she swapped it over for dark chocolate.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So we did this in the beginning. She swapped it over for dark chocolate, and if you know much about eating dark chocolate, it's hard to smash through an entire block of dark chocolate, because you can usually have a couple of little pieces of dark chocolate and you feel comfortable. You feel like you've had enough. So she started doing that, and then she was only having a couple of little pieces of dark chocolate a night, which, by the way, is healthy. It's a good option. If you're eating a dark chocolate that doesn't have added sugar, it's actually good for you. So she was able to keep that thing that she enjoyed and that was eating chocolate, but she was able to swap it out for a healthier version.

Speaker 1: 13:57

And then, even if you wanted to go one step further, often what our body needs is not the chocolate and you can replace it with something completely different, like a handful of arms. So, yeah, there's different ways of nourishing your body, but that's just one example of crowding something out. So it's pushing something aside and replacing it with a new habit. So this is what I teach, this is what I help my clients with, and this is something that you can start to do for yourself by simply looking at that, not your bad habits I don't like labelling them bad habits as such but the things that you know aren't nourishing you, aren't doing you good as such, they're not making you feel amazing. You know you might feel guilty afterwards, or you might. You might notice that if you eat a bowl of ice cream or even a tub of ice cream, and you feel terrible afterwards. So it might be looking at what would be a better option for you instead of eating ice cream or, you know, could you cut back on the serving size, things like that.

Speaker 1: 15:00

So really looking at the things that you are doing as far as your eating habits and figuring out what is a better option for you, because it is always these tiny habits that just they do change your life. It seems so simple, but it really is that simple that when you analyze what you're doing and what you're eating and what you're focusing on, that, you can change those habits and you can go down a different path. So I hope that helps you see how you can make some changes in your own life and how you can focus on healthy gluten-free foods, and I hope that I've covered that all for you, a trust that I have. If you have any questions on this, you can always reach out to me via DM, or if you want to work with me personally, then that's an option as well. I am back coaching again. So, yeah, if that's something that you've been thinking of, send me through a DM on Instagram at the healthyceliac, and we can chat further about that. But yeah, it is one of those areas where gluten-free food can be amazing and it can also be terrible.

Speaker 1: 16:11

So what is it that you're eating? What is it that you're focusing on? What is it that you want out of life? Do you want to live a long, healthy life of feeling good and making sure that you don't get further implications down the track? Because when we do look after our body, we can stop dead in its tracks all these other health issues because that's where it all starts. So nutrition is everything. What we feed our body is everything, and it's one of the most important things that you can do for your body and for your health, and I am a true massive advocate of balance, but I'm also a big advocate of eating as much healthy, nutritious food as you possibly can. So you know the thing is as well.

Speaker 1: 16:56

It's not about I hate calorie counting. I think calorie counting is one of the worst ways of living your life. It's so restrictive, it's so boring, it's not good, it's just it's not the best way to live your life. Whereas when you are adding in more nutrients, you don't have to worry about calories because you're adding in healthy food, and healthy food feels you are quicker than anything else. So you know you can eat more, you can enjoy, enjoy life more and you don't have to be stressing about calorie counting and doing all those mundane things that a lot of diet asked for. So, yeah, I hope that helps and I hope that helps you see that you can create change and you can create new, lasting habits to make your life better, and that the gluten-free diet is okay if you are going down this healthy route.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Now this is also where it ties in for your partner. So let's just say you know you're stressing about cooking your partner a separate gluten-free meal because one doctor that's uneducated said yeah, your husband or your wife or whatever shouldn't be eating gluten-free food. It's not healthy. Not entirely true, not entirely true at all. So my husband he still eats gluten, so he's not 100% gluten-free. He will eat gluten as far as you know the normal bread, the normal, you know, baked goods. He will have those types of things.

Speaker 1: 18:25

But when it comes to cooking, we cook really well and there's no reason why anything that we cook needs to be made in a gluten version. For him or my eldest daughter, who's also able to eat gluten, and my youngest daughter. There's no reason for me to cook two separate meals. It just it wouldn't make sense logistically, it wouldn't make sense for health-wise, and I just, yeah, I don't see why that's being pushed so much. If you are adding in all these healthy foods, there is absolutely no reason why. You know people in your family can't eat gluten-free as well. So I don't think that that's something that you need to be stressed about. I personally find it easier to cook gluten-free meals for my entire family because it lowers my stress levels. I don't have to be stressing that I've used the correct ingredients in the right pot and that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 19:20

My mom recently we were at the shops and she was having a lazy dinner that night she wanted to grab some pre-made schnitzels. Our local butcher has started making chicken schnitzels. She was gonna buy herself a gluten-free piece of schnitzel and she was gonna buy my stepdad just the standard schnitzel. And I said, oh, why are you doing that? And she's like oh, it's just a bit cheaper. I said, mom, no, just don't put that extra stress on yourself. What if you get home, you mix up which one's which or you're worrying about in the pans and they get like, nah, just don't, just get both gluten-free. And she's like, oh, yeah, you're right, it's not worth it. So in that respect, my stepdad would not have any clue whether he had a gluten-free schnitzel or a gluten schnitzel. It makes no difference to him, he doesn't care, he's being fed, he's happy.

Speaker 1: 20:10

So make it easy on yourself. Make it so that you can cook in a way that you're confident and you're comfortable and you know that there's no gluten in your food and your family is gonna be nourished if you're eating healthy, nutritious foods. So if you need my help in that area, please reach out. And there's always meal plans made easy available on my website. That's over 500 gluten-free recipes and 52 weeks of meal plans and shopping list. So if you're stuck for ideas and you just need some guidance that is available for you to purchase at any time. It's an incredible program, and I'm not even joking. If you're struggling with coming up with breakfast ideas or lunch ideas or even just adding some variety at dinnertime, meal plans made easy is a game changer.

Speaker 1: 21:00

I came up with this program many years ago because I was personally struggling with not cooking the same things over and over again, so I wanted to put something in place for not only myself, but also my clients, so that they could easily cook gluten-free meals and get them fast on the table for their family without stressing about boring foods or packaged foods. So, yeah, check that out via my website, wwwbillingerwheelercom. All right, that's all I've got for you today, and I hope that this episode has helped. And yeah, like I said, if you've got any questions or you wanna work with me, please reach out to me via the DMs or over on Instagram at the healthy Celiac, and I'll talk with you again soon. Take care bye.