Oh, I know. I was diagnosed with IBS in college, always had digestion issues, always blew them off. Then the migraines and skin rashes started. Looking back, I can also see how gluten made me feel fuzzy-headed, tired, irritable.
Start by reading
THIS. I don't recommend starting by using her recipes as they are incredibly complicated, but her attitude about the way she eats changed my outlook completely. It's not about being deprived, it's about being healthy. There is a whole world of naturally gluten free foods out there- meat! veggies! fruit! dairy products! Nuts! Eggs!- that are naturally gluten free, so look there first. Find the joys in beautiful whole foods, then make a few substitutions here and there and it's really not that hard. The hard part is staying GF while eating a diet of processed foods, so if you can do without those you have a much easier time. From Shauna's website there are literally hundreds of links, all about living gluten free.
Our house isn't gluten free, but Ellie and I are. Dinners are gluten free just because it's the one we all eat together. That was actually not that hard- we found a GF pasta that is fine for the entire family (
Tinkyada), focus on rice and potatoes for carbs with dinner, use buy corn tortillas for mex night (dh and dd still eat flour, we just make 2 small pans if it's enchiladas). Tamari sauce is easy to fine and is interchangeable with soy sauce.
We've found baked goods that are, IMO, better than traditional. Pamela's cake mixes are fabulous, as are the brownies. Bob's Red Mill has tons of GF options including oatmeal and an all purpose flour that we sub directly for wheat flour in recipes calling for small amounts. Both brands have pancake mix, when we do pancakes or waffles I just mix up two batches and cook the GF ones first. I am scared of GF baking from scratch, but others have had fun exploring the options. It's not easy but the resources are out there, I would just stay away from that until you feel confident in regular cooking.
Some great brands for premade foods-
Ener-G for hot dog/hamburger buns. I don't love their bread, but toasted they are the best subs I've found.
Udi's for bread, muffins, etc.
Rudy's is also amazing (and Costco carries it in our area!). Lara bars. Speaking of Costco, they seem to have a ton of gluten free snacks and foods available lately.
If you have a food co-op store or natural food store in your area they should have a dedicated GF section because, as your dad said, it's trendy. It's trial and error on what's good, we've thrown away more foods than I'd care to think of, but there are lots of packaged foods out there. It's expensive, so we stay with the whole foods as much as possible, but it's nice for a treat, for travelling, etc. With any conventional foods, if you google "item name, gluten", you should be able to find the answer really quickly. When in doubt, I use the safe/unsafe food list
here . For quick reference, packaged foods are required to list common allergens on the back but they just cover wheat, so you need to look for other gluten grains (rye, barley, oats are generally contaminated with gluten when used in packaged food).
I know it's overwhelming. Feel free to email/text/FB/call if you have a question about something specific, I'm happy to help. I've answered questions from friends who are calling from a grocery store asking "what can I use for this?".