Tag Archives: embarrassing

Celiac, the great leg workout.

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Oh. Hi squatty potty.
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I’d forgotten about you. You see, I have a bad experience in past with a squatty potty. When I was 15 I took a train from Hong Kong to Beijing. The toilet on the train was a squatty potty – with a direct exit route to the train tracks below. I wore flip flops in – you wouldn’t dare go in barefoot (imagine people on a bumpy train SQUATTING over a hole? If you thought men’s bathrooms were gross on stable land, try checking out a bumpy train hole. Gross.) Anyway – upon exiting the restroom, as I lifted my left foot over the hole in the floor, my flip flop fell off. 1 – how does that happen? 2 – OMG now I had to hop out of the bathroom on one foot because otherwise my other foot might have fallen off from disease had it touched the ground and 3 – well, I just really hope some child in China was looking for a left shoe. Maybe they were missing their left shoe, or perhaps there was a child with only one left foot. I don’t know. I can only hope my $1.99 Old Navy flip flop didn’t go to waste.

Anyway. As much as I love to travel, I’ll admit that these days it freaks me out a little. Not enough to NOT travel, of course. But not only is finding food is hard – dealing with the aftermath of getting sick downright sucks in a foreign country. Because I’m just freaking convinced that the founder of the squatty potty NEVER had diarrhea. Or maybe he never even pooped. Dude (I’m convinced it was a dude – no woman would create something so ridiculous and uncomfortable) must have had regular bowel movements every day of his life and never thought about the people that spend a little extra time on the toilet. I mean seriously.

One night we went to dinner and it was pretty good. Until I realized that they gave me the wrong dish – the dish that was meant for my gluten eating friend. Oops. All I have to say is all hail the pepto bismol. I walked my fastest walk back to the hotel and was thankful that at least the hotel had real toilets for us that prefer to sit while spending time in the restroom. (While playing Draw Something or Words With Friends on our iPhone. And now all of my friends are going to have the awesome vision of me on the toilet every time a notification pops up that they have a new drawing. Muahaha.)

The good news is about those squatty potties? They’re great for your thighs and butt. It’s like a mini workout every time you go to the bathroom. Because you can’t use a squatty potty without squatting… my personal trainer Linda would be so proud! ;)

I wish I had Celiac disease so I could lose weight.

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I can’t tell you how many times some stupid well meaning person has made a comment about how nice it must be to eat gluten free – because that means it must be so easy to lose weight/stay thin while eating gluten free. I’m sure you’re a nice person who’s just trying to look at the bright side – but NO – it’s not exactly like that. I’ve even had someone say “I wish I had Celiac disease. That would force me to eat healthier!” Ok, I want this to be a fairly clean blog, so just use your imagination and put your favorite expletive right about here.

I’ll admit, I’ve been known to say something wholly inappropriate when getting glutened such as “Well, I might as well have something tasty with lots of calories right now since it’s not going to stay around”. (For those that aren’t Celiac – let’s just say that my toilet and I share a very intimate relationship after I am glutened. And I might as well own stock in Pepto Bismol.) But that’s not a healthy mindset. I know that. It’s called sarcasm.

But seriously – what is WITH the trend of going gluten free these days? Yes – a good portion is that people that are suffering from things like Celiac disease and gluten intolerance are *finally* getting the answers they need to help them feel better. For them I say ROCK ON! But how many others are out there that are doing it because Gwenyth Paltrow told them it would help them lose weight or have clear skin? I’ve gone back and forth on how I feel about this. At first I wanted to punch them all because they annoyed me – I mean seriously why eat a gluten free diet if you really don’t need to? Just eat clean & healthy folks, it’s easier for everyone! Then I figured, well heck at least their demand for gluten free products helps me get better options, too. Win-win, right? But now my pendulum has swung back the other direction.

There’s a girl at my work who is really quite nice and I like her well enough, but recently she’s jumped on the gluten free diet bandwagon. I asked her why and she said “Oh, my mom suggested it so I figured it couldn’t hurt.” Ooook then. I mean, whatever floats your boat… but then at our next catered lunch she was eating and asked me why I wasn’t. I kind of looked at her dumbfounded for a second and said “Because I don’t know what’s in it. Or how it’s cooked. I can’t risk getting sick.” And that was the moment that made me swing back to the “don’t eat “gluten free” if you don’t really need to” mindset.

People that don’t need to eat gluten free actually make my plight more difficult. Sure, some more options may become available because of their helping with demand. But I actually get sick when I ingest even a little bit of gluten. And bandwagon jumpers don’t. So they don’t care if something is cross contaminated. And most people will hear “gluten free” and assume that she and I are the same – they won’t realize that one freaking crumb can make me sick… Let’s use this example. Let’s pretend she and I go out to a restaurant separately. We both specify to the waiter that we’re eating gluten free (after of course doing my homework and checking the place out beforehand). And she orders a meal and it arrives with bread on the plate, touching the rest of her food. She would just not eat the bread and continue like everything is fine. I, however, would not eat the food. I’d ask for the food to be remade and I’d mention why cross contamination matters to me. But – the girl before me didn’t have that problem, so why do I? Now it’s an uphill battle for me to fight against bandwagon jumpers because many people won’t believe the seriousness of my disease. And that sucks.

So sure, if you really have health issues and it’s recommended by your doctor to eat gluten free, or you feel human only when eating gluten free, rock on with your gluten free self. If you are doing it just because you want to lose weight – I’d suggest you try eating clean. But trying fad diets rarely works and that weight loss usually doesn’t stick, anyway. (Not to mention, just because something is gluten free doesn’t mean it’s low calorie or healthy!) Just leave the official “gluten free diet” eating for the people that actually need it to be healthy and feel good – k?

Celiac disease for you would be like no mashed potatoes for me.

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When I was first diagnosed, I went through a period of mourning. Like full scale – I had just lost a limb – ugly cry – kind of mourning. I tried to keep myself together, but one day at my day job they announced that we’d be having an all hands meeting at a local restaurant complete with catered lunch. I went in to ask one of my bosses if it’d be ok if I brought my own food (still feeling very insecure about being “different” in front of my coworkers) and out of nowhere I burst in to tears. Here I am, a young woman in the professional world, breaking down in the ugly cry in front of a male VP. About food. I felt like I set all of the women in my office back 50 years at that moment – for that I apologize. But it was something I just didn’t see coming. And something that many people around me didn’t really understand, either.

I went home that night and called my mom and cried some more. Partly because I was mourning over my loss of ability to eat gluten – and how that had changed my life – and partly because I was so embarrassed that I had just cried in front of my boss in the way I had. She was embarrassed for me, too, and not in a “oh poor thing, let me give you a hug” kind of way. In a “OMG Melissa I can’t believe you embarrassed yourself like that. Get your crap together” kind of way. I ended up going crazy on my mom. “You don’t UNDERSTAND! It’s not just that I can’t eat gluten anymore. This changed my entire life! I have anxiety when I go out to eat now (at the two places I am comfortable eating) because I’m scared I’ll get sick!” You know how she responded? “Well Melissa, I know you love bread. It’d be like if I had to cut out mashed potatoes because I love them so much.” W.T.F? I love my mom, but that comment made me so angry. Anyone who has been diagnosed with Celiac, gluten intolerance, or some other life altering food allergy knows it’s not *just like* cutting out one favorite item from your diet. But to the rest of the world, even my own mother, they just can’t understand why it’s such a big deal. So you change your diet a little, no big deal, right? Wrong.

Celiac disease or any major diet change is a big deal. It means you change the way you eat. The way you think. It means not only do you have to cut out bread or crackers, but you have to start reading labels for meats, sauces, salad dressings, chips, snacks, CHOCOLATE. (That one just pisses me off. Did you know there is barley in a Milky Way candy bar? Who puts barley in chocolate?) It was things like that that I never saw coming. And that’s just what you have to worry about at home. Going out to eat is worse. Not only are there very limited restaurants that even offer a GF menu, but within that you have to worry about cross contamination. It can be overwhelming and crippling at times. I can’t even tell you how many bottles of pepto bismol pills I have floating around in my car because I am terrified that I will have an urgent need of pepto one day and won’t be able to find any. So instead, I carry 14 bottles around. Because 14 is better than 0. Just in case. (Ok, that’s an exaggeration on how many bottles of pepto I have in my car. But not by much.)

It wasn’t until one day we went to a local restaurant with a gluten free menu that my mom “got it”. We sat down. I had printed out the gluten free items from their website. We spoke to a manager about the items and he even brought out the ingredients so I could read the labels. Everything was fine, right? I mean, we went through every last option and it all looked ok. Except that before we even got home that night, I was crying from how much pain I was in from having been “glutened” by something in that restaurant. I don’t blame anyone there – they did the best they can. It’s just that you can’t ever fully prevent cross contamination in a shared kitchen like that. It wasn’t until that night that my mom finally said “I get it now.” She finally understood it wasn’t about me just cutting out my love of bread. And I wasn’t just being snooty about not wanting to go to their favorite restaurants. She finally understood that having Celiac disease was more than just a diet. It was a lifestyle change. And more than just that – it was a difficult change to make.

Celiac disease changes more than just what you eat. It changes the way you think. The way you live. It changes your social life. And like me, it may even give you anxiety. But you know what? It gets easier. It really does. One day you will be less self conscious about it. One day you won’t be sad that you can’t eat at your favorite restaurant anymore. One day a new restaurant will open with a gluten free menu and you’ll be so thrilled you can barely stand it. And one day, we can hope that others will understand, too. I believe that one day, they will. And we’ll have the best freaking gluten free cake to celebrate. And maybe we’ll have a great gluten free beer option by then, too. I’m happy to volunteer to be a tester. But in the meantime, you aren’t alone. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re crazy. You’re not. (Well, I can’t say that about everything in your life. But about Celiac? I’ve got your back!) It’s ok to mourn. To be frustrated at times. Just know that there’s a bunch of people here for you that know how you feel. And know that it gets better.