The Healthy Celiac Podcast

If I Could Start Over with Celiac Disease… Here’s What I’d Do Ep. 209

• Belinda Whelan • Season 1 • Episode 209

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If you’re newly diagnosed with celiac disease - or it’s been a while and you still don’t feel great—this episode is for you.

I'm sharing the honest truth about what I wish I’d known back in 2009 when I was first diagnosed. From the emotional rollercoaster to the lack of support (hello, useless handouts), there are so many things I would do differently if I had my time again.

Tune in for the steps I should have taken, what I learned the hard way, and how you can avoid those mistakes. We cover:

  • What to focus on first after a diagnosis
  • Why “just go gluten free” isn’t enough
  • The real importance of label reading, cross contact, and gut support
  • And how to get proper help (from someone who actually gets it)

Plus, The Healthy Celiac Collective is officially open! If you’re ready to feel great again and want real-time support from someone who’s lived it—you know where to find me.

🔗 Join the Collective now: belindawhelan.com/collective


Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here  https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system


Previous episode mentioned - My Story With Celiac Disease
Listen here  https://thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/episodes/8491289-my-celiac-disease-story-ep-7


Complete an elimination diet here
https://belindawhelan.teachable.com/p/eliminate


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:

I've been living with celiac disease for quite a long time now. I was diagnosed in 2009 and now that I've been living with it for so long and helping women with celiac disease, you know, in particular, like that is the main area of focus that I work on now with my health coaching. There's things that I would do differently if I had my time again. So if I had my diagnosis today, these are the things that I would focus on. So if you are brand new to celiac disease or you've been living with it for a little while and you're just not feeling, you know, great or amazing, then these insights should inspire you to delve deeper and help you further. So, just, I want to give you a little recap on my story in case you don't know or you know, it's been a while since you've heard, but basically, I was very, very healthy when I was 27. I had been eating really, really well, I was living in the tropics, I was working out a lot, I had an amazing partner still with the same amazing partner, and I had a great job that I loved and everything was amazing. So my husband and I we used to go to the gym heaps together. I'd go for bike rides, I did a lot of walking. It was just a really great time of my life Like I look at probably 27 as being a very peak time of my life.

Speaker 1:

And then I fell pregnant and had my beautiful baby girl and my health and my life completely changed from there. So I started to notice lots of symptoms that kind of you know continued and crept on more and more and they got really, really bad when I returned to work. So previously I was a flight attendant and I didn't want to go back to that job and my employer offered me a position in the office and I was able to look after the flight attendants in an admin role. So it was kind of cool because I was able to keep my foot in the door. But I hated that job, if I'm completely honest. It was so miserable. I worked in an office in the middle of the building. It had no windows and my job was pretty mundane. I didn't really get to talk to many people. I was literally sat at a computer all day. I got to talk to people on the phone if people you know rang up with queries and stuff, but it was quite a boring job.

Speaker 1:

The worst part was putting my daughter in childcare. So I was only working part-time. I really shouldn't complain too much, but this is just my journey. So I was working two days a week and I had to put my beautiful baby in childcare so that I could go to this job. And it was torture. She hated going to childcare. She screamed the house down, she absolutely cracked a hissy fit and every time it was just a nightmare. So the staff there told me just drop her off in her PJs, we'll deal with her. So it was literally grab her, drop her off and walk out the door crying every time I went to work.

Speaker 1:

It was just horrible and as my symptoms kind of went along, I put it down to stress. I honestly thought that I was under so much stress and guilt that my body was just reacting to that stress and that guilt and was telling me you know this is not right for you and you know your poor baby. And there was there was just so many emotions around that. But I guess as time went on, things got worse and worse. I lost so much weight, I went down two dress sizes. I had chronic diarrhea. I had no get up and go Like I was dragging myself out of bed every day just to to be, you know, present for my daughter and to give her what she needed.

Speaker 1:

It was really hard. I spent so much time trying to get answers. I've done a full episode on my complete story. If you want to go back and listen to that, I will pop the link to that below. But I spent so much time trying to figure out what was wrong with me because people started to ask me if I was okay, and when other people start to ask you if you're okay, they can often see more of what's going on for you than what you can see for yourself. So I started to seek answers. Obviously, dr Google, you know, told me that I was having all these issues that are horrendous and they were worse than celiac disease. It was a frightful time. I'd gone from being this amazing, healthy, vibrant, loving, happy person to a shell of my former self, and I hated feeling that way. As you may be aware and you may have that same, you know memory of previously, before you got your diagnosis, but it was horrible.

Speaker 1:

So when I got my celiac disease diagnosis, it was 2009. It was just after New Year's. My doctor had told me he wasn't going to give me my results until the new year, because he wanted me to get through Christmas and New Year without having to completely transform my lifestyle. So very grateful for that. There's photos of me laying on the couch on Christmas day just looking like absolute rubbish, and yeah. So I got my diagnosis and, in fine form, told to just eat gluten-free and thought that that was it. So I thought all I had to do was eat gluten-free. So, lo and behold, we went and changed all of our pantry items. When I'd go out, I'd just ask for gluten-free food. There was no more to it, there was no buying a new toaster, there was no worrying about cross-contact.

Speaker 1:

I did things very basically. I just did things that way because there was no information provided. I honestly thought it was that simple and that I got it. I just honestly thought it was that simple. I went to a dietician. The dietician handed me a printed handout that he Googled while I was sitting in the office with him. So I paid an exorbitant amount of money for him to do what I could have done at home, and it was honestly a printout of items or products from the supermarket that were garbage. They were literally processed, packaged food. There was nothing useful in that handout whatsoever. It was so like I still have so much negative thoughts towards what I was given on that particular day. But anyway, that's, that's a whole nother story. So, yeah, that was the guidance that I was given on that particular day. But anyway, that's a whole nother story. So, yeah, that was the guidance that I was given. That was the insight. I literally thought it was that easy to just change my diet and that was it. So as time went on, I discovered that no, it wasn't that simple and there was much more to it. And because I wasn't starting to improve dramatically, yeah, I felt better. I felt a lot better not eating gluten, but there was so much more to it.

Speaker 1:

So I was already in the health space at that time as well. I had a little side business doing MLM, as most mamas do in their early days, and I was learning a lot about health. I was learning lots about nutrition. I was learning lots about how we can improve our health, and I stumbled across health coaching. And when I learned about health coaching, I was like this is my calling, this is what I'm meant to be doing. So I started to become a certified holistic health coach and completely transformed everything about my health and my life, from what I learned to become a health coach and from there I started coaching and I was helping other women. So I worked with any woman back then. So when I first started my coaching, I was working with anyone and everyone that wanted my help and I had a wait list. I was booked out. I was constantly working with client after client. It was quite incredible, really, how well my business took off.

Speaker 1:

But what I started to notice was people with celiac disease or gluten intolerance started to flock towards me because they could see, you know, the recipes that I was sharing back on my website back then, which was Healthy, loving Life. That was my old business, which I loved, and people would flock to me because they knew that I was celiac, so they knew that I could help them with that in particular. So, yeah, so that's kind of how my business started and how things started to evolve. So how I would look at celiac disease now, if it was me brand new to living with celiac disease, would 100% be focusing on my diet, so not just cutting out gluten, because that's what I did. I just focused on cutting out gluten.

Speaker 1:

Having said that I've always been pretty healthy, I've always eaten really well, but I didn't have the insights of what to add into my diet to make sure that I was, you know, thriving and healing and doing all of the things to make my body nourished and, you know, gut repair and all of those types of things. So that would be my first recommendation, would be to focus on your nutrition. So add in lots of fresh produce, lots of whole foods, so things that are, you know, very natural and not been processed and messed with by men or industrialized, because those are the foods that will help you the most. So that's definitely the first one is focus on your nutrition. So do that straight away. So focus on whole foods, focus on getting in, you know, all the nutrients that your body needs. And then, when we talk about nutrients, the other thing that I would do is straight away ask your doctor to test your blood for any deficiencies whatsoever, anything that you might be facing. So you might have an iron deficiency, so you might need to up your iron intake for a period of time. You might be low in certain vitamins, so if you can get those levels and find out what you need to increase, that will certainly help you feel better a lot quicker as well.

Speaker 1:

The third thing would be to learn how to read labels properly. So it's not just looking for gluten-free, it's not just, you know, reading the label and going hang on a minute. That says it's gluten-free, but it's got wheat in it. So how, like what's going on? This is so confusing because there's so many insights in reading labels and knowing how to do it correctly.

Speaker 1:

So back when I first got diagnosed with celiac disease, I thought that I couldn't eat glucose syrup from wheat because it's got wheat in it, right. So my brain was like no, can't eat that. So I missed out on so many of the little treat foods back then that I loved, because I just believed that they had gluten in them. But because glucose syrup from wheat is so highly processed, it removes the gluten from it. So I was actually able to eat them and didn't realize that at the time. So definitely learn how to read labels properly. Know what's right for your region. This is a big one as well.

Speaker 1:

So I teach this in Ultimate Celiac System, because so many people get on the internet and they type things in to find out about brands or products or reading labels and then they're like okay, hang on a minute, I thought I couldn't eat oats, but this brand says it's gluten-free and I thought I couldn't eat oats. Okay, so if you're in Australia, we don't class oats here as gluten-free, whereas in the USA they do. So you can get oats that are gluten-free. Not all of them are classed as gluten-free, but you can get them. So this is where that confusion comes in when you get on the internet or you might get in a Facebook group and someone's sharing something about one product and you're confused. So here's an example I saw recently Someone in Australia was in an Australian chat group asking about why McDonald's fries are not gluten-free and then someone went hang on a minute, you're actually looking at the ingredients list from the USA, which are completely different.

Speaker 1:

So there's all of these little things that you need to be aware of when you're reading labels and when you're looking at products. We have different regulations throughout the world and I teach this in my program. So that is certainly something to be very, very aware of, and knowing how to read labels. So I wish back then I knew how to read labels. I wish the dietitian that I went to had sat me down and gone through it, but I honestly don't think he knew what he was talking about. So it's finding that person who can support you and guide you on this journey to being able to read the labels properly.

Speaker 1:

And the next one is understanding what is truly gluten-free and has no cross-contact. So, like I said, back then, I had no idea. I had no idea about cross-contact. It never came up, it was never discussed, it was never mentioned. And we use the same toaster. I used to put my toast in the same toaster as the whole family. We used to use the same chopping board. We did all of these silly things that I just go. Oh, my God, no wonder it took my body so long to get better, because I wasn't doing the things from day one that I should have been, that I should have been taught back then. So it took this silly learning curve to find all these things out. So that is a big one.

Speaker 1:

Find out about cross contact. Make sure that you are, you know, replacing the certain items in your home that are needing to be replaced. I, thankfully, was very careful with condiments back then, so I made sure that I had, you know, one butter container for me that was labeled gluten-free, and one butter container for me that was labeled gluten-free, and one butter container for the rest of the family so that there was no cross-contact if someone put their knife into it and then onto their bread. So luckily I was. I was aware of that, but the other parts I certainly wasn't. So I do recommend, if you are not all over your cross-contact and that can make a big difference, because one crumb is enough to cause damage to your small intestine, and the next one would be to support your gut healing. So you can improve your gut healing through certain things like probiotics, bone broth, sauerkraut, different things like that. If you do that sooner, your body will heal quicker and you'll be able to absorb the nutrients from your food. Not only that, it helps with so many other things like your brain health, and there's just so many benefits of supporting your gut health. So that is one to definitely definitely focus on, if you are not already.

Speaker 1:

The next one is to ask for help. Okay, look for people who actually know what they're talking about. They're experts. Please work with someone that actually has got Celiac disease, because I see so many other people who help people. They don't get it. They don't get it. If they've got you know, they've got a degree in something or they're a dietitian, that's wonderful, don't get me wrong. But if they don't also have celiac disease, they don't understand the emotional side of it. So please look for someone that has celiac disease and that has got the guidance and support that they can give you through certifications. So make sure someone you know is able to help you professionally as far as you know, having the guidance but also having the personal insights that is very, very important.

Speaker 1:

The next one is to trust your symptoms. Okay, trust your symptoms because when you do that, you are tapping into your own body. Your doctor might go yeah, yeah, yeah, you're fine. Because often celiac disease is one of those things that people face that doesn't look like anything from the outside. From the outside, you might look at me and go she's perfectly healthy, but if I've been exposed to the smallest amount of gluten, I feel like rubbish. I might look okay, but I feel like rubbish. So how do you tell someone that and make someone see that they don't actually get it? So if you are facing other symptoms that you know are not from gluten, they could be from something else. There could be something else going on for you. So if you can write things down, pinpoint what's going on, so you might have lactose intolerance that's something that I've also had to face so you might have like primary or secondary lactose intolerance, so that could be something that's impeding you from feeling better. So if you can get on top of these other intolerances a lot of people also have intolerances to things like soy, eggs, things like that. So you know, getting to the bottom of what else is going on for you you may even have a parasite infection. So many people that I talk to that aren't feeling better on a gluten-free diet have parasites and they mimic so many of the symptoms of celiac disease and they basically steal the nutrients that your body needs. So that is something to look into as well, if you're not feeling better on a gluten-free diet and finding out whether you actually have parasites Because, like I said, they are stealing your nutrients and your glow. So definitely delve into that if you think that might be something that's causing problems for you, because those little critters are nasty.

Speaker 1:

The next one is to avoid information overload. Me personally, I'm really grateful that I didn't have information overload. I would have liked the right information, but what I'm seeing in Facebook groups is there is so much information and so much of it is wrong and there's so much fighting and confusion and back and forth that it's it's so overwhelming and it's so overstimulating and it can make people second guess things and make people feel worse about their situation. So I do think I've talked about this previously, but if you are in Facebook groups that are not supportive, that are full of trolls, that are full of people that like to talk nasty to other fellow celiacs, I would say leave those groups. Yes, there's wonderful groups out there, but leave those groups. You don't need to be exposed to that nonsense because once you've got a hold of how to read labels and you've got the right supportive people in your life, you don't need to be in all of those groups. So just something to focus on and be very, very aware of, because I talk about mindset a lot and those groups can really drag you down if you get caught up in the nonsense that is available in a lot of them.

Speaker 1:

And the next one is to ditch food fear. So I was fearful going out. I must admit I would make my husband do the food ordering for me. I would make him order and for many people I hear that they are so fearful of eating out and I had no reason to be. I just needed to know how to order out and what to look for. So my husband always took care of that for me and kept me safe. But the quicker you can do that for yourself, the better.

Speaker 1:

And it is about being aware without being obsessed, and I am so, so grateful that when I became certified to become a health coach, I learned about food obsession, because I learned about over a hundred different dietary theories and you can start to see how people can become really, really obsessed with food and what it does to you. And this is why I focus on 80-20 rule. So 80% of the time focusing on really beautiful, nourishing whole foods, 20% of the time letting your hair down, having treats, having food that is, you know, not really full of nutrition or anything, but it's still good to have those things because it, you know, it makes you feel good, it hits the dopamine, whatever. It's okay to do that, as long as it's gluten-free, of course, but it's okay to have balance and I'm so grateful that that is what I learned during my certification to become a health coach, like I said, because you can become obsessed if you allow yourself to be so. I'm glad that that's something I learned quite early on in my journey and I hope that that's something that you learn for yourself as well. And the next one is to start tracking everything just for a little bit, not forever, just for a couple of months.

Speaker 1:

So I didn't do this initially and I found it quite tricky to see okay, all right, I've had lactose and it's making me feel blah, or I've eaten this and it's making me feel blah. I wasn't aware, I couldn't think back to what I'd eaten. I found it very difficult to backtrack and work out what was affecting me, and when I did my course to become a health coach, we were given a book that we were encouraged to track what we were doing, so what we were eating, how our sleep was going, certain patterns, things that we were focusing on and that was a game changer for me. I found that by doing that, I was able to see what was affecting me and to go one step further. I did detox programs, and when I was doing those detox programs and running them for other people, not only was I helping them see changes in their health and what was affecting them.

Speaker 1:

I was seeing it in myself as well and, if I'm completely honest, I knew way back then that I had lactose intolerance. I knew back then that I had lactose intolerance and I ignored it. Guilty, we do these silly things, but I did. I ignored that I had lactose intolerance and I continued to have certain foods that weren't really great for me. But I just was at a point where I was like I'm not having gluten, I'm going to have my lactose, I'm going to have my chocolate. Like, ah, I can't deal with all of this. So I was a little bit silly.

Speaker 1:

But having said that, having that tracker, having that tracker to be able to write things down and see, okay, I went out for lunch here the next day. I felt great, okay, I didn't get gluten, that's wonderful. I had toast for breakfast and then I felt rubbish. Huh, maybe it was the toaster. So you start to see these little things when you track your symptoms, what you're eating, your emotions, how much sleep you're getting, all of these different things. So you might have heard me talk about my daily health tracker. You can grab daily health trackers from me at any point. They are available on my website, belindawhelancom and you can track things for a couple of months and just see how you're progressing, and they can be a big game changer. But otherwise, these are my top things that I would focus on if I was brand new to celiac disease. Now, if you are under control with all of this and you're like, yeah, yeah, tick, tick, tick, I've got all of this under control, but you're in a place where you want to go deeper and you want to improve your health even more, so doors are open for the Healthy Celiac Collective.

Speaker 1:

If you are listening to this in real time, you can go to BelindaWhelancom forward slash collective, try and nab a spot. I don't know how quickly they are going to get filled up. If you're not on the wait list. It may have already been filled up before you even listened to this episode. I'm not sure. But otherwise, grab a spot, join me.

Speaker 1:

It's going to be an amazing eight weeks together. There's live coaching from me. It's going to be an amazing eight weeks together. There's live coaching from me. It's not recordings, it is all live, and you will be able to get the guidance and the support that you need from me, belinda Whelan, certified Holistic Health Coach, hypnotherapist, and I would love, love, love to support you with your health goals, because this program is about you and helping you to achieve your personal goals. It's not what I want for you, it's what you want for yourself. So go to belindawheelandcom forward slash collective find out more, and if it's later and you've missed a spot, pop your details in for the waitlist, because then I'll let you know when the next round becomes available. So otherwise, thank you so so much for listening. I appreciate you. It is always wonderful to share my insights with you and I look forward to talking with you again on next week's show. So have a great week. Talk to you then, take care Bye.

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