Introduction of a Gluten Free Husband

Seeing as Jamie's interest in gluten free cooking/living/blogging all stems from my recently discovered food restrictions, we thought that I should make some contributions to her blog. The idea is to present different perspectives for the readers. The first perspective from Jamie, who although could consume gluten to her heart's content, chooses to not only cook gluten-free for me, but also spends hours upon hours a day researching, learning, and sharing her knowledge and opinions with others. The second perspective of course would be me, who foolishly lived sick for years because I was too dumb to realize that there could have been a connection between the foods that made me feel sick.

I might as well start with an introduction, which will commence in

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I am Colin, the newlywed husband to the Gluten Free Wife. Most of our story of how I discovered my health issue was already covered by Jamie in one of her earlier posts, so I'll briefly recap a lot of what she covered, but elaborate on what she hasn't covered.

For most of my life, there were certain foods I always seemed to have issues with. Some of those foods I loved, but would always have weird stomach issues with after eating, such as pasta, or many desserts like donuts and pie. Other foods I absolutely hated, and often didn't know why, like bread or processed meats. Growing up I never knew what the weird feeling I had was. As an adult, I actually avoided a lot of these foods without realizing it. I would usually buy one loaf of bread a year, and never end up finishing it. Before our wedding I even got to the point where I refused to buy artificial sauces because they felt too heavy for me. I started to get concerned last year when I realized....... ***warning---possible gross out details ahead*** ........... I hadn't been able to digest properly in a long, long time. I got a lot of advice, and changed almost everything about my diet, and nothing changed.

So the wedding came and went, Jamie moved in, and now we shared the cooking duties. After a few weeks Jamie became upset when she realized that whenever she cooked I seemed to feel really sick afterwards. About a month after we came back from our honeymoon, I started developing a bad skin condition. Ever since I was a kid, I always had overly sensitive skin, but this was something different. I had rashes and sores popping up constantly. I tried several things to get rid of it, including a 2-3 week juice fast, followed by a 7 day body cleanse. It was during this time that Jamie talked to someone who described their issue with gluten, and specifically the feeling that came with eating breads and pastas, and it exactly matched what I had always complained about. We discussed trying to go gluten free for a while to see if any of my symptoms improved. When Jamie started telling me what foods to avoid, they were all foods I had been off during my partial juice fast and body cleanse. I had been gluten free for almost a month and didn't even know it. Over the next few days we tried to introduce gluten slowly back in to see how I would respond, and it was not pleasant. The first meal I had was in Valentine's Day, and I don't think I've ever been in that much pain in my life. That's no exaggeration when I say that. In the weeks that followed I stuck mostly to a gluten free diet, with attempts once or twice a week to break it and see how my body responded. Each time I broke from the diet the effects felt horrible.

And that is why stubborn men should get married. God made me a wife that cared more about my discomfort than I did. I probably would have spent decades feeling sick, and never bothered to figure out why, if left on my own. I'm still trying to learn about all of this on my own, but for the most part, Jamie is my teacher. I couldn't be any luckier than to have someone that takes a greater interest in the health restrictions of another person than they take in themselves.

More posts to come.