Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Mission

Welcome! My name is Heather and I am a Registered Dietitian. So basically I get to talk and think about food all day long- and get paid for it! My job is to help people with various medical conditions alter their diets to meet their individual needs. A great challenge of the job is helping people turn their new restrictions into a practical, and joyful, way of life. This is easier said than done. Knowing the ins and outs of a diet is vastly different than living it. I often leave work wishing I had known the answer to every question, or that I had better ideas to offer. One day recently I realized that I won't ever be able to relate to my patients until I walk in their shoes. What better way to help them than to experience their struggles for myself, and learn strategies to overcome them? And the idea was born! I decided I would follow each of the various diets that I educate my patients about. The blog is a place for me to document my struggles and successes, offer recipes, links, tips, or whatever else can help people in the day-to-day when they leave my office.

And so we begin. I decided to start with what I consider to be the hardest diet to follow in today's world: a gluten free diet. It has been quite the hype as the latest fad diet; but it is medically necessary for people with a condition called Celiac disease. More to come on the details of the diet, but I'm starting with this one because I have a roommate (my resident expert) who is gluten free and I figured, if all else fails then I can just copy her and eat what she eats! :)

My official "launch" of going gluten free is September 1st. I'll be spending the rest of the month eating through my gluten-filled pantry. I welcome ideas, recipes, questions and thoughts! Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

  1. How do you know if you have a sensitivity to gluten?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Mom! It is generally diagnosed with a blood test, and sometimes a small bowel biopsy. If both are positive, then it's confirmed. However, you have to be eating a gluten-rich diet at the time of testing in order for it to be accurate. The risk of having CD is significantly greater if you have other autoimmune diseases (like type 1 diabetes) or if you have a first degree relative with Celiac.

    ReplyDelete