[Storm]

Been diagnosed a couple of months now.

I was diagnosed the day before I flew out to the USA and my g/friend was SO helpful while I was there, trying to find the right places to eat. While I was there, we ate really well, but now I am back in the UK, my diet has become very poor.

I am trying to stop myself being sick, so I am resorting to eating potato chips / crisps and certain chocolate products.

I cook a lot of omelettes and gluten-free burgers / chips, but thats it.

I am still losing weight like its going out of fashion, but can't seem to pull myself out of this very poor diet. I know it does me no favours at all, but just need help as to what I can do to maintain a healthy diet.

Struggling with a few personal issues at the moment which is not helping, but I am desperate to stop abusing my already damaged internal system by eating half decent food.

Can anyone advise or help.... pretty please ...

[tarnalberry]

None of us can come over there and provide you with better food. you have to really and truly fully own that ONLY YOU can change your diet, with each and every decision you make on what food you buy and what food you put in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, that might sound dumb, but I don't know "you should know this" on an intellectual level - we all do. I mean you need to really deeply understand it at an emotional/instinctual level. Being aware, every time you put a bag of chips in the shopping cart, you are choosing to buy something that you'll later eat when you shouldn't and will be unhappy about it, but you have complete control of changing it. Being aware, every time you bring a chip to your mouth, that you aren't happy about it, and you want to eat healthier, and you can. (And then putting down said chip and going and getting something healthier.) It's really easy to not be aware of what we're doing while we're doing it, because we have been told that multi-tasking is good. But I think that's often bubkis.

I presume you know what healthy food is out there. Fruits, vegetables, beans, rice, meats, dairy (if you can tolerate it), are all healthy (the vast majority of the time ), and do not have to burden you with any significant calls on your time. Heat up a can of beans, a couple slices of bacon chopped in, a can of tomatoes, and some molassas and cumin - boom! baked beans if you let it simmer for 20 min. Fruit doesn't even need to be cooked, and a lot of vegetables don't either. And if you want your veggies cooked, stick 'em in a pot with a little bit of water and steam 'em, then eat. (Add spices/butter to taste, of course.) But I find that when I'm in those situations - I've started not eating as well as I'd like because I'm not aware and not making the right choices - I really simplify what I consider "cooking", so it's not a burden. You don't have to please anyone with your cooking. Sometimes, you don't *have* to please yourself, you just have to feed yourself. (Of course, it's lovely to cook a scrumptous meal when you have the time/energy, but let's face it, that's not all the time.)

[maile]

I echo what tarnalberry says, stick as much as you can to basic foods and go from there.

make it easier on yourself, if you can spare the change and can do rice, get a rice cooker, throw in the rice, water, salt if you wish, turn it on and in 15 min you'll have a good base (better than crisps anyway) for other foods.

make a tonne of rice and then stir fry it with eggs, onions and bean sprouts, add gluten-free soy sauce and you have fried rice.

take a cup of cooked rice and simmer it with 2-3 cups of gluten-free chicken broth until it gets the texture of oatmeal and you have congee....eat it with a sliced boiled egg and a few sliced green onions, makes a great breakfast or snack.

boil some eggs and keep them in the fridge.

buy nuts (if you can tolerate), they're good snacks, especially if you are losing weight

make a curry with coconut milk and curry paste from an Indian or Thai store (just double check there's no gluten sources), throw in a batch of chick peas or fry some meat to add to it.

make casseroles 1ce or 2ce a week you can do chili, ragout or a pilaf and eat it for a few days, or if you are really ambitious parcel them up into servings and freeze them that way you can just grab and nuke/heat.

explore ethnic restaurants that don't have a culture of wheat and where the possibilities of CC are very low: Vietnamese, Thai, Indian etc (just double check the food hasn't been westernized) and then get take away.

do you have a microwave? if you do the major plastic container companies all make food steaming bags. Just pop the veggie or fish in the bag and nuke for the number of minutes indicated. Season with salt, pepper, gluten-free spices etc.

if you aren't used to cooking then the best thing you can do is make it as easy as possible, use shortcut methods such as pre cut veggies etc and hopefully after a while you'll have a system that will work.

[Juliebove]

I am not in the UK so not really familiar with the foods you can get there.

Do you have a crockpot? If not, can you get one? You can put the food in there in the morning and it will be ready by the time you get home from work.

You can easily make stew with some cubed beef or ground beef (I think you call it mince), cubes of lamb or chicken cut up in bite sized pieces. Add whatever vegetables you like. Carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onion, peas, beans, zuchinni, etc. Season with salt, pepper and parsley. Add some gluten free broth or tomato juice.

We eat a lot of pasta here. Rice, corn or quinoa pasta boiled in salted water. Then served with tomato sauce that has been seasoned with Italian seasoning and has cooked ground beef added.