A little bit of history...

It's time for an introduction!  My name is Emily and my husband Tommy and I live in our wonderful newlyed world, enjoying every minute of it.  I am a Registered Dietitian and my husband is a teacher, coach, mentor, and many other things.  I have a passion for food and I can't even describe how interested I am in learning about how it affects our bodies.  I guess that's why I am a Registered Dietitian? I am FINALY finishing my graduate degree in nutrition and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to complete a research thesis.  Full-time job, wedding planning, and living an hour and a half away from school= settling for independent study and countless hours of researching gluten and it's effects on behavior and gastrointestinal manifestations wasted.  Big fat fail, but oh well.  1 year later and I have decided to start my own experiment.  I don't have to get this approved through IRB (Whew) and I get to make all of the rules (sweet!).  Cue entrance of wonderful husband who has cheerfully agreed to partake in this experiment with me.  Did I mention how much I love him?

Here we are pre-gluten-free on our honeymoon :)

So why gluten? What's so interesting about a protein that appears in wheat, barley, and rye?  Seems harmless actually and quite yummy.  Yes, yes it is.  I guess I better start with a little background information. About 2 years ago, after spending most of my adult life running for fun I started getting itchy.  That sounds weird, so I better clarify.  About 15 minutes into my runs, my legs would start to itch.  An itch here, a scratch there, and in minutes I was breaking out into a lovely batch of hives on the backs of my legs.  Allergic to running? No way.  So being the avid runner I am, I continued to run, itch and scratch my way through my workouts.  I did a little research online but couldn't really find anything meaningful.  Then about a year later, during a particularly long run and after about 3 miles of itching I noticed it was getting hard to swallow.  My throat was closing up.  Now I am not a doctor, but I knew this wasn't good so I stopped running and made an appointment with my physician. The diagnosis...exercise-induced anaphylaxis.  What? So I am allergic to running?? Not possible because I had been running for, well, forever. So I did what I do best and that's playing detective.  I researched exercise-induced anaphylaxis and found a connection with a wheat allergy.  I'm not much of a bread-eater but I soon realized I was thoroughly enjoying many bags of honey wheat pretzels before almost every run.  Big fat fail again.  Consequence...I was being told to run with an epi-pen and inject it in my thigh if I start having a reaction.  Seriously? I can barely manage my keys and my iPod and now you want me to carry this shot around every time I run? The more I researched wheat allergies the more acclimated I became with gluten.  I became very interested in learning how food, specifically wheat and gluten, affect the body of an otherwise (I would like to think of myself as) fairly healthy individual.  I realized all of the symptoms gluten-sensitive people have, I have to! It became clear to me that following a gluten-free or even wheat free diet would help me out in more ways than just for the sake of running. Fast-forwad to present day and my thoughts are now becoming a reality.  My husband and I are going gluten-free and I am using this blog to play out our journey. So bottoms up, leave the bread behind, and say hello to a gluten-free lifestyle.