The Healthy Celiac Podcast

Navigating Celiac Disease for 16 Years - 16 Pearls of Wisdom Ep. 191

• Belinda Whelan • Season 1 • Episode 191

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.

In this episode of the Healthy Celiac Podcast, I’m celebrating 16 years since my diagnosis with celiac disease by sharing 16 invaluable pearls of wisdom that have shaped my journey. Whether you’re newly diagnosed or have been living gluten free for years, you’ll find practical tips and heartfelt advice to make your life easier, healthier, and more fulfilling. From mastering the art of self-advocacy and understanding the critical importance of reading labels, to navigating social situations like eating out and embracing gratitude for the foods you can enjoy, this episode covers it all.

Discover how planning ahead can be a game-changer, why setting boundaries is essential for your health, and how community support can uplift and empower you. These lessons go beyond the day-to-day challenges of celiac disease, offering insights to help you build confidence and truly thrive in your gluten free life. Don’t miss this episode packed with inspiration, encouragement, and actionable advice for living your best gluten free life. 


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 https://www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
https://www.belindawhelan.com/dailyhealthtracker


 And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac
 
If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!
 
 
Music Credit bensound.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to this week's episode of the Healthy Celiac Podcast. I was due to be back last week with a new episode for you, but we went away camping over New Year's and I had a bit of an accident and injured my ribs. So I thought I'm just going to give myself some grace and take a little bit more of a break at a holiday, because it pretty much hurt to do anything, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to bend over. So I was like I don't think I'm in any state to be recording a new podcast, but anyway. So I hope you had a really great Christmas and New Year's. It's been a really beautiful period of time here in Australia. Obviously, in Australia we have summer, so for Christmas, so we had a really hot Christmas this year and had a beautiful lunch and time with family. So, yeah, back into it this week and it's great to be back doing what I love and sharing on the podcast.

Speaker 1:

So on today's episode, I want to share with you 16 pearls of wisdom, or 16 nuggets that I've learned along the way living with celiac disease, because January is always a very special month for me, because it is the month that I was diagnosed with celiac disease and I was diagnosed 16 years ago and I thought it would be a good time to share some of the things that I've learned over the past 16 years of this life-changing diagnosis. So yeah, let's jump on into it Now. The first one is your health is worth every effort. No food is worth feeling sick over, no matter what it is. So the way I always look at it with celiac disease is eating gluten-free is about your health. So you know you might be missing out on other stuff, but your health is so much more important than those other foods that you know you might be thinking you could eat or whatever. So always, always, focus on the health side of it. That is a huge one.

Speaker 1:

The next one is advocacy starts with you. If you cannot advocate for yourself, then you will struggle on this journey, and in the very early days I would make my husband stand up for me. He was the one that did my ordering. He was the one that did a lot of the grocery shopping and reading labels. He was the one that would speak up for me and inform family members that would come and visit us about making sure they were keeping me safe. I made him do it all, but the problem is my husband works away in the mines and I couldn't keep relying on him forever. I had to learn how to advocate for myself and once I did, I truly felt so much more confident with my diagnosis and with making sure that I was keeping healthy and making sure that the food that I was eating was safe and obviously gluten-free and not going to make me feel sick. So if you haven't got to that point yet, know that once you do, you will feel so much better about your journey and about your diagnosis. So if you need support with that, please reach out and I can point you in the right direction for how to become a better advocate for yourself.

Speaker 1:

Now the next one is it's not just a little bit. Never, ever, feel like you know being guilty for reminding others that you cannot have gluten. It is non-negotiable. Never feel guilty that someone is making you feel bad because you can't eat the food that they've provided, or they feel like they've got their nose out of joint because they've provided something that you can't eat. It is never about having a risk or a little bit of gluten. It is about making it a non-negotiable and letting people in your life know that, because you know, if you can make people understand that it is a non-negotiable for you, then they will stop pushing it. They will realize that you mean business and you will always be this way, because at this point of recording, there is no other way of living with celiac disease. You have to eat gluten-free. So it is a non-negotiable.

Speaker 1:

Now number four is ignorance is common, but your response is what matters, and you can either let people know and educate them about celiac disease and gluten-free or sometimes you might just have to let that slide. So you know, we have families, stay with us and sometimes we've had people that have been quite ignorant to my needs and I've had to speak up for myself and teach them why I have to eat gluten-free and why we have separate butters in our fridge that one's labeled gluten-free and one's not, even though butter is already gluten-free. It comes down to hey, if you grab my butter and you use that and you put your bread crumbs in there, you could very well make me sick. So that's where you do need to educate people. If they're coming into your home or if there's a risk of them making you sick, definitely stick up for yourself and definitely, you know, make sure that that ignorance is not happening within your own home for sure.

Speaker 1:

Number five is planning can be your best friend. And when I say planning, this can be whether you're eating out and you want to look ahead and figure out you know where you might be eating or checking out the menu. Or whether you're eating out and you want to look ahead and figure out where you might be eating or checking out the menu. Or if you're traveling, making sure that you've planned snacks to take with you. Or if you're going on a road trip, making sure you've got food in the car with you. Planning can make life so much easier.

Speaker 1:

You have probably heard me talk about how I don't really leave the house without gluten-free snacks. I usually have something in my handbag with me. Talk about how I don't really leave the house without gluten-free snacks. I usually have something in my handbag with me just in case I get stuck and just in case I don't have something to eat. Last year, we had to take my daughter to the hospital in an emergency situation and I had an emergency snacks bag ready to go. I just grabbed it and we were out the door as quick as we could be, and thankfully we were able to, you know, delve into that little bag of goodies when you know the hunger strikes. So you know, having these things as backup plans and being organized and making sure that you plan ahead can really make living with celiac disease and having to have gluten-free so much easier.

Speaker 1:

Number six is community makes a difference, and when we talk about community, it doesn't have to be other people with celiac disease. I feel like I have a much bigger community of fellow celiacs now that I do this podcast and now that I've niched down with my business just focusing on helping women with celiac disease. But prior to that, I would have said my community was absolutely my family and my friends, and it was, at a time, only my mom and my brother with celiac disease, but my friends were there to surround me and make me feel loved and look after me and make sure that they provided gluten-free food for me and looked out for me. So my community really helped me on my journey with celiac disease and, depending on what your community looks like, it may be very different for you and you might want to start looking at those people in your life whether they support you or whether they pull you down. Because you probably heard me talk about this that I feel like those people are not good friends. They're not good people in your life, and it's about choosing the people that you spend time with, so making sure that that community that is part of your life and part of your journey are supportive and are doing right by you living with celiac disease.

Speaker 1:

Number seven is labels are everything. I feel like I bang on about this all the time Because I see so many people saying that, oh, I accidentally got gluten from this or, oh, I didn't read the label because I didn't realize this had gluten in it. Never, ever, ever, assume that something's gluten-free. It doesn't matter what it is, it could still have gluten in it. And this is where it becomes so important to be able to read labels and you probably know this already, but it just is one of those things that so many people still ignore and think that they can just assume that something is gluten free. So label reading so so important. Our labels here in Australia have changed recently. That complete overhaul of our labeling regulations isn't going to be in place for another year yet, so it is causing a lot of confusion in the community and, yeah, it's interesting watching how people are getting messed up with some of the labels because of these changes. So making sure you truly know how to read labels is so, so empowering and so, so important in helping you with not getting sick and not getting gluten.

Speaker 1:

Number eight is eating out doesn't have to be scary. With clear communication, it can be enjoyable, and this is a big one. When people say that they'll never eat out, they'll never go to a restaurant, never go to a cafe, because they're going to get sick, they're going to get gluten, I'm here to tell you that, with clear communication, with knowing how to order food, with knowing how to speak up for yourself and going back to that advocacy, it can be enjoyable. It can be something that you can have as part of your regular lifestyle. It's about getting to that point. I know it can be scary in the early days, but it's one of those things that, once you do it more and more, you can learn how to you know how to order, how to read those red flags from the servers, how to look out for things that are going to make you sick, because I think life's too short to not enjoy going out and being sociable with friends and family and enjoying those moments. So, again, that is something that I learned very early on to still keep eating out and to still keep enjoying going places with my friends and my family.

Speaker 1:

All right, number nine this one's a big one. It's okay to grieve the old way of life and it's okay to grieve that loss and know that it doesn't have to hold you back. But it is okay to grieve. It is okay to feel like this sucks and that you feel depressed or down or that life's not fair. It's okay to feel that way. But it's about moving through that and knowing that you will get to the other side and I have spoken about this where it does get easier.

Speaker 1:

So many people say it doesn't get easier. It's always hard. It's always something that you know you're always going to have to be focused on. You always have to be worried about it. It's true, you do always have to worry about getting gluten-free food. You do always have to think about it. Not a day goes by where I don't think about gluten-free food and my safety. I'm completely honest with that. It does consume you, but it's about focusing on what you can do so that it does get easier and it does just become part of life. It's like anything. It's like driving. You learn how to drive a car. It's really hard to start with and there's so many things to remember. But once you are driving a car for years, it's like yeah, you go through the motions, don't you? You still go through those motions every time you get in a car. It's the same with ordering out. It's the same with reading labels. You're just going through the motions. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

Speaker 1:

Number 10 is healing takes time and it's important to be patient with your body and know that you will start to get better. This is a huge question that I get asked quite regularly. People message me and they ask how long till I feel better? Belinda, how long I've just been diagnosed with celiac disease? It's been two months. Why am I feeling better? Or it's been a year and I'm still feeling such and such. It totally depends on you. It depends on your body, it depends on your lifestyle, it depends on how long you were dealing with symptoms before your diagnosis. So it completely depends. But there are ways that you can heal faster than if you were to just, you know, eat rubbish and not exercise and not heal your gut. So there are ways to speed up that process. So know that it's different for everybody, but it does happen, and when you do heal your body and your gut and you feel better, then life is very, very different and much clearer and much more enjoyable. So please know that it does. It does happen. It took me quite a number of years to get to that point, but I have not looked back. I just cannot believe how much better I feel now compared to pre-diagnosis and I'm forever grateful for my doctor for diagnosing me. So please know that it is a journey and you will get there. If you're still at that point of struggling after your diagnosis, all right.

Speaker 1:

Number 11, food is not the enemy, ignorance is. The benefits of eating gluten-free far outweigh how you could feel if you were eating gluten. So think of it like if you start to eat gluten-free, it makes you look at food in another way. It makes you learn what can be beneficial for you. Another thing that I get my clients to do is to be reading the labels, not just looking for gluten, but also looking for things like preservatives, the sugar content, any artificial flavorings or colorings. When we start to look at these things, we start to realize what we are consuming and we can make better choices. So think of that in a positive way, that when we do start to read those labels again, going back to the label, reading how we can benefit and how we can look after our body better by eating wholesome, real foods, cutting out as much processed junk as possible, and again that goes back to healing our body much, much faster as well. So it's like one of those things that works in synergy with everything else. When you can eat better, you'll feel better, you'll have more energy, you'll you know, you'll heal better. It just it's got that beautiful flow on effect all right.

Speaker 1:

The next one is boundaries are necessary, and I would go as far as saying boundaries are essential. So don't compromise your health to make others comfortable. It's not about making others comfortable. It's about keeping you safe and making sure that when you are, you know, in your own home or eating out or going to friends or whatever it is that's around food, having those boundaries in place. Now, in our home we have gluten and we have obviously gluten-free, so we have boundaries in place. With our kids that do eat gluten and my husband that eats gluten, my son and I, we have to eat gluten-free. So we have strict boundaries with who can consume what condiments with what knives and that type of thing. We have a dedicated chopping board. We have areas where people can prep their food with gluten. We have separate snack containers for food that contains gluten. We have boundaries in place and sometimes things happen and things go wrong.

Speaker 1:

So over Christmas we had my mother-in-law staying with us and normally she eats gluten-free, which is fine because every time she gets something, a condiment, whatever, it doesn't matter because I know she's not going to contaminate my food. But for whatever reason she was eating gluten while she was here this time and I witnessed her gluten one of my condiments she put her knife into the relish, she put it on her bread, she made a sandwich and I thought that was it, that's fine. But she actually put the knife back into the relish and put more on a sandwich and I was like, oh my God, it was too late. It was too late and I think I had got complacent with her because I'm so used to her eating gluten-free. And thankfully I witnessed this happen, because I hate to imagine what would have happened otherwise. I could have very well been glutened.

Speaker 1:

I could have been very sick for that period of time that she was here. And you know, she she said afterwards she's like oh, I feel so terrified now. And I just said to her well, how do you think I feel? How do you think I feel? Because I'm the one that's going to get sick if I eat that. So we haven't had a close call like this in our own home for quite some time and I must say it really rattled me. It really rattled my nerves and stressed me out. I was shaking afterwards and I had to remove myself from the kitchen and just compose myself because my brain was just like what, if you know? What if she's done this in other food or what? What if she's accidentally got complacent? And I haven't seen it, I haven't witnessed it, so don't know, that could have happened while she was here.

Speaker 1:

Hopefully it was a one-off, but it did really freak me out and I think, because I am so used to her eating gluten-free when she is here, that my guard was already down and I hadn't really thought of it, whereas in future I'm going to be much more on guard when she's in our house and have to remind her. You know, we did have to keep reminding her don't use that chopping board. Don't use that chopping board. That's the gluten-free one. Like, if you're going to use normal bread, use a plate, do it over there, like it's not what I'm used to when she's here. I've been with my husband for 20 years, so this is the first time this has ever happened. So you know complacency can happen when you do feel comfortable. But we did have those boundaries in place. So you know, when people aren't around that all the time, you know we need to keep reminding them. So this was an excellent reminder for me about, you know, not letting my guard down as easily when other people are in my house. So you know lesson learned. But yeah, boundaries are huge, especially in your own home, and this one's really important. You are stronger than you think.

Speaker 1:

Living with celiac disease is proof of your resilience. And we do have to be resilient, don't we? And I see so many people getting upset when their children have celiac disease and them blaming themselves. And oh, my child's going to miss out on this. And oh, my kid got invited to a party and they couldn't eat the food. I get it. I see it all the time. My son's the same. He misses out. He has to say I can't eat, that we have backup plans in those situations. But I guess it is making him a stronger person, it is making him more resilient and it is making him plan ahead for these situations. So now when we go to a birthday party mum did you get me some cake to take. Mum did you get me a gluten free cupcake? And he's forward planning. So if he's already doing that at his age, you can only imagine how well he's going to be doing as a teenager, as an adult. So if kids can advocate for themselves and they can become resilient, you certainly can as well. You might be at a point now where you're like Belinda this sounds terrible, but you will become resilient. You will learn to live with celiac disease and you will find that it is part of you and part of what you know surrounds your life every single day. And, like I said, it certainly gets easier.

Speaker 1:

And this one's really, really important. It is not just a diet, it is your life. It is not a choice. This is huge. I feel like the gluten-free trend of you know dieting. With a gluten-free diet it's different. That's a choice. That's people thinking it's a, you know, health kick or getting on a bandwagon that is completely different For you. This is life. It is your prescription to your health. So remember that. That is the most important thing. It's your prescription to your health. We don't have to have needles. We don't have to have medication. We don't have to have infusions. We don't have to have infusions. We don't have to do anything like that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it's hard to change your diet. Yes, I understand that. I totally get that, but it could be worse and I I know sometimes that ruffles feathers. But I do think that it can always be worse and there's always someone worse than us. But that doesn't take away from us. It's still important to feel the fuels and, like I was saying earlier, with the grief and and feeling like you know you've you've lost something in the past from the past and have to give that away. But it it's not just a diet. It is so, so important to to remember that it's not just about dieting. It is about your health. Is it about healing? It's about all of those things that we've spoken about today.

Speaker 1:

And that leads me into gratitude is everything. When you can be grateful for what you do get to eat rather than what you don't get to eat, it is so, so empowering. I always have jokes that I miss chocolate donuts. That's my thing that I miss. But I'm so grateful for all the other amazing foods that I get to eat. And we do have an amazing donut place here that does cinnamon donuts. Shout out to OMG Donuts. They're incredible and I feel grateful when they do pop up stores nearby and we can have a little indulgent on them. But you know, feeling grateful can take you very, very far on this journey.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, remember you are not alone on this journey. There are millions of people throughout the world with celiac disease and you are not alone. It may feel like it sometimes, but reach out to others, find your community, find others with celiac disease. You know. You might even want to start up a group in your local area. You might want to organize meetups where you can go out for meals together and learn from each other and support each other. But you are certainly not alone on this journey and I'm here to support you. I love sharing what I know with you on the show, so please make sure you reach out to me at any time. You can either leave a comment on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube, or you can send me a DM over at the Healthy Celiac on Instagram and I can chat with you there, but otherwise, thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode and I look forward to talking with you again next week. Take care, bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Belinda Whelan

Host