i need help with my diet!! I dont know where to start.

[LionessMom]

i have no idea where to start. i need to eat wheat/gluten free, dairy free, and sugar free. so i quit drinking mik and eating cheese. i cut down on bread etc. but i have no idea what i can eat except huge chunks of meat and fresh veggies fried in olive oil. and tea of all kinds. sigh. it seems like everything else has gluten or dairy in it. like cream of mushroom. which i used for my casseroles. and cheese. i miss cheese. nobody else in my family wants to eat this way. they all want their bread and milk. but i can not afford to feed them all that stuff and then buy seperate stuff for myself. i think 3yo dd needs to be on the diet as well.

to top it all off. i have no clue when it comes to making other stuff. all those things in the health section scare me. i have never cooked anything else other than "mainstream" food. breading, cream of soups, biscuits, gravy, sauces etc. i am so sick of reading labels, and it cost way more than what we usually eat. at this point all i am eating is meat and potatoes. and taking a prenatal vitamin, B12 and folic supps at night. i drink nothing but tea or water with lemon in it.

the only good so far has been that i am feeling healthier and no longer need to take nexxium. and i lost almost 15 lbs. ok that is al ot of good and good reason to keep trudgingon, but i am seriously about ready to cry. i am waiting to hear back about my celiac test and to see if we need more tests and how to test DD1, but the doc said i should do it regardless. sigh.

i grew up on mac-n-cheese and convenience foods. my mom didnt know how to cook real food, my grandma didnt know how to cook real food. we are a long line of poor people living off of government food. no wonder we are all sick. it costs money to eat right.

[la mamita]

beyond recommending you peruse the forums here especially the paleo threads, i would suggest these easy things you can use as staples: eggs, rice, corn tortillas, beans, fruit smoothies (just a mix of fruits and water is good). mexican food and american-chinese food is where i would start (think stir fries, beans and rice and tortillas, bean burritos, beef tacos, guacamole), because it's familiar food to most americans and it doesn't rely on gluten/dairy. meat is good, try to vary it as much as possible--meat, chicken, fresh fish, canned fish (sardines, salmon, tuna), pork. you definitely don't need to start buying all kinds of weird health foods--stick to foods you and your family would like and then you can incorporate new stuff in later once you get the hang of the diet.

[Llyra]

What about a good cookbook, for ideas? There are cookbooks out there for almost any dietary regimen, these days. They can be expensive, but you can also usually find cookbooks at the library.

What I would do is go to amazon, and look up gluten-free cookbooks, or cookbooks for primal diets, for the specific carbohydrate diet, or for the Maker's diet. Those are all regimens that have similar restrictions to what you're saying you need to eat. Maybe getting hold of a few good cookbooks can jump-start you with some ideas!

[puffingirl]

When we went gluten-free we were also trialing dairy-free at the start. We added dairy back in but the majority of our meals don't use it at all so we mostly eat gluten and dairy-free. I second the idea of more tex-mex and asian food, as well as middle eastern. I keep some of my meal idea lists and some of our GF/DF meals were:
Fried rice with veggies and chicken
Chicken and veggies with white wine sauce in crockpot
Burritos/tacos/fajitas with corn tortillas
Soups and stews served with GF/DF rolls

Jump over to the Allergies forum too--lots of good ideas there. Best of luck!

[LionessMom]

thanks! i think i just needed to calm down. i got a little crazy there for a minute. i started telling my family how i cant eat this stuff and they started whining. sigh. i cant eat bananas either the hardest part is that my family was getting all mad bc i was talking about not eating bread and butter anymore and they thought that meant that they couldnt either. and i just spazzed. lol.


thanks for all the great ideas. i knew you guys on here would have something calming to say!

[CoBabyMaker]

We are dairy free and currently gluten-free while I figure out some allergy stuff.
Here is out menu for this week if that helps:
Crockpot pork (I'll just eat the pork with no bun) with oven fries and salad
Risotto with meatballs, broccoli (spaghetti with rice noodles might be eaiser)
Curry chicken and veg with brown coconut rice
Burgers and sweet potato fries (i'll go bunless)
Green salad with chicken, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, apples
Arroz con Pollo
Rice pasts with pumpkin sauce, mushrooms and sausage
Burrito bowls (They could just have burritos if that's more familiar for them, you can build yours in a bowl)

[Ruthla]

You need to focus on what you CAN eat, not on what you can't. You don't need to use those commercial gluten-free foods, plenty of foods are naturally gluten-free. I do suggest you get some white rice flour for thickening sauces, although you could also use cornstarch or potato starch for that. Rice pasta is nice to have for familiar pasta dishes, but it's easy and cheap enough to cook brown (or even white) rice as the starch most nights.

Maybe take some cookbooks out of the library for ideas, especially if you're not used to cooking from scratch.

There's no reason to put your whole family on the diet. You can pack them their familiar lunches for meals you eat apart. Nor is it a problem if they eat cereal and milk while you have scrambled eggs. Dinners need to be something you can safely eat, but it's fine if the meal includes side dishes you can't partake of: a shaker of parmesean cheese that you won't use on the shared meal of rice spaghetti; standard burger buns while you eat yours with a knife and fork,etc.

[LionessMom]

i am pretty sure my 3yo needs to be on the diet too. but i will tackle that when the test comes back. until then they said to start weaning her off of dairy. it just seems as though everything we eat is dairy and wheat. it is carazy! i am so sick of reading labels. lol. condiments even have stuff i dont want to eat. i am eliminating dairy, wheat, HFCS, artificial flavors, and artificial colors.

so until i feel like reading labels again, i am going to stick with fresh meat, fresh veggies, fresh fruit, rice, tea, rice milk, and the already determined safe condiments.

i just got real frustrated. sigh. unfortunately i never really paid much attention to what was in my food. once i started it seemed like i couldnt eat anything anymore. but that was because my diet wasnt the best to begin with.