It’s April! The winter weather seems to be dragging on and many of us are ready for a warm breeze to blow in. So lets get a jump-start on spring cleaning and start taking care of the junk that may have accumulated in us over the winter.
What I often hear from people is that they want to have more energy, de-bloat their bellies and have better skin. The truth is that this is all possible when we balance out the diet. In fact there is one major food that might be making it difficult for you to achieve these goals, and that is gluten. Ahh yes, there it is, the big G word.
Gluten is primarily a protein-carbohydrate mixture that is mainly found in wheat but other grains as well. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune issue that has to do with the malabsorption of gluten. For these people, strict avoidance is necessary. So what about everybody else? Well, there are many people that have undiagnosed gluten intolerance’s and may not even recognize that gluten is causing certain reactions. Gluten is one of the more irritating foods that we eat, and even people that are not allergic may still have trouble digesting it, causing some of the symptoms listed below. Gluten is also an addictive food. When we eat glutinous foods, messages get sent to our brain that produce reactions similar to those produced by sugar and we therefore get hooked on the stimulation and crave more.
Some common symptoms of gluten sensitivity include:
- Upper respiratory tract problems like sinusitis
- Malabsorption problems causing fatigue, anemia, osteoporosis
- Diarrhea, constipation, bloating, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis
- Depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention deficit disorder
- Skin inflammations, acne, eczema
Now I’m not here to say that ALL gluten is bad and that ALL people need to avoid it. We must remember to look at our bodies and the foods we put in them holistically. The digestive system is an incredibly important part of our health. If something is going on there, we may feel the side effects somewhere else. Our bodies require fuel to run properly, so if we our feeding ourselves the wrong type of fuel or have a problem with the system itself, we aren’t going to be preforming properly. When we reduce the heavily processed, glutinous foods, we give our systems a chance to heal and repair – we can improve the cramping and bloating, the inflammation inside our bodies and outside (bye-bye breakouts) and the fatigue and drowsiness.
So maybe before we start tackling the clutter in the cupboards, we do some prep work with our inner cleaning first. Our bodies may just thank us for it.
