Feeling lost, overwhelmed, or frustrated on your gluten-free journey? You’re not alone—and you’ve come to the right place.
Hi, I’m Carrie Saunders, host of The Gluten Free Engineer. As someone with celiac disease (or coeliac, depending on where you’re from!), I understand the confusion and overwhelm that come with it. With a husband and three kids also navigating this lifestyle, I’ve learned the hard way how to make gluten-free living easier, safer, and more enjoyable.
Whether you’re new to gluten-free living or a seasoned foodie looking for fresh ideas, this podcast is for you. Each week, we’ll dive into topics like:
Avoiding cross-contamination and staying safe
Mouthwatering recipes and recipe conversion tips
Honest gluten-free product reviews
Travel hacks and dining-out strategies
Insights from expert guest speakers
Join me every week as we tackle the challenges of celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and gluten-free living head-on—making it simpler, more delicious, and even fun! Don’t miss an episode—subscribe now and start thriving on your gluten-free journey.
Yes, we talk about gluten-free baking, hidden ingredients, meal planning, and restaurant tips—but what about the emotional rollercoaster of going gluten-free?
The grief of letting go of your favorite foods. The anger of being dismissed by doctors. The overwhelm of feeling like a burden in social situations.
In today’s episode, I’m getting personal and honest about the emotional side of going gluten-free—from the initial grief and frustration, to the moments of joy and healing on the other side.
This episode is brought to you by Find Me Gluten Free—your go-to app for discovering safe, gluten-free dining options wherever you go! Get your exclusive discount for our listeners at theglutenfreeengineer.com/findmeglutenfree Because dinning out gluten-free shouldn’t be a guessing game!
Quick reminder before we get started on this episode this podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. No one talks about this part. Yes, we talk about gluten-free baking, hidden ingredients, meal planning and restaurant tips, but what about the emotional rollercoaster of going gluten-free? The grief of letting go of your favorite foods, the anger of being dismissed by doctors, the overwhelm of feeling like a burden on social situations? In today's episode, I'm getting personal and honest about the emotional side of going gluten-free, from the initial grief and frustration to the moments of joy and healing on the other side. Let's get started. Welcome to the Gluten-Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, keri Saunders.
Speaker 1:
In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything, but I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1:
We are talking about grief and going gluten-free. And seriously, grief is real and you're not overreacting. If you felt grief when you learned you need to be gluten-free. Going gluten-free really simply is a loss. It's not just a loss of food, but it's a loss of spontaneity. It's a loss of eating with ease. It's a loss of spontaneity. It's a loss of eating with ease. It's a loss of normalcy. It's a loss of going into a social situation and not having to worry about what you eat. The grief stages of going gluten-free especially when you're celiac or gluten intolerant and you must go gluten-free are real. You have potentially first diet real. You have potentially first diet. You have potentially first denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance.
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I've seen many of my friends and people I know who are also celiac or severely gluten intolerant, as well as myself and my children, go through different stages of grief when they learned they needed to be gluten-free. You might be grieving your favorite meals and your favorite restaurants. You might be grieving the ease of eating with others. This one was really big for me and I feel like with my kids too. You know the ease of just being able to go over to somebody's house and eat whatever's there. You don't have that anymore.
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You may grieve cultural traditions that you no longer can take part in. For me, I'm a Christian and you know, communion was a problem at first until my church realized, hey, we need to provide some gluten-free and allergy-friendly, safe options. So even cultural traditions like that you may have grief in. I felt left out. I felt, you know, like the sinner or the bad person. You know it doesn't matter really what your faith is, but I'm sure you can probably relate to some cultural traditions that you may not be able to, you know, deal with anymore.
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I also grieved feeling safe around food, especially at potlucks or, you know, gatherings with lots of food around, especially at potlucks or gatherings with lots of food around. I also grieved feeling included and feeling carefree. I didn't feel that way anymore. I felt like everybody had to adjust to help me out, which I appreciated once family and friends figured out what I needed and how to adjust for me. But I still feel like a bit of a burden and it's still. Even, you know, 12 or so years later. I still feel the grief of this and the burden of this. I mean, I can remember still, you know, being so upset over certain things I couldn't eat or you know, just going over to somebody's house and us ordering pizza or something easy like that and just having a good time having to plan it. You know now I have to plan everything I eat and wherever I go and if there's going to be food and you might feel angry I know I felt angry at first. People may not warn you that you're going to feel angry when you give up something like this, give up a food, whether you have a food allergy or a celiac or gluten intolerance, you may have anger. I had anger at how long it took to get diagnosed. I went through several doctors before I got diagnosed. Actually, I went my whole life without getting diagnosed until I was in my 30s.
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I had symptoms, clear symptoms, when I was little, when I was, you know, just a few years old, even into my elementary years, like I had symptoms on it. I was severely underweight. I was severely constipated, which is typical in children versus that diarrhea. I was so scrawny and many things hurt my stomach and nobody knew why. I eventually started losing my curls. If you ever see a picture of me, I have naturally curly hair. There were many years there when I was eating heavily processed foods because of my family situation that I was in at the time and my curls disappeared. You can see it across all my pictures. Once I started eating heavily processed foods, my curls started slowly disappearing and then, as soon as I got and started living with my grandmother who didn't eat very much processed foods hence I didn't eat much gluten my curls started coming back.
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You may get angry at friends or family who just don't get it. I know I've been there before. I know we've been super frustrated with friends and family that just didn't get it, didn't understand that this isn't a choice. This is for our health. You might get frustrated about being dismissed or doubted or told it's just a fad. We definitely had this a lot when I first found out I had to be gluten-free because it wasn't as well known in our area what it was and why it was so important, and you might have resentment at having to think so hard about something that used to be so simple.
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I know as a marching band, former marching band mom, you know I had three kids go through marching band and if you're not a marching band parent, we're talking every Friday night in the fall and multiple weekends usually five weekends, saturdays in the fall where you're out somewhere else, you're at a competition, you're at a football game and you're gone most of the time for like 12 hours and you have to be able to eat in those 12 hours and you have to. For us, we had to be able to feed our kids too, being celiac and then me being celiac, so we had to. I had to be preparing food. Many times I would be up at 11, 12 o'clock at night on a Friday night to prepare, you know, pre-made pizza for my children for the band competition the next day. So you may have resentment having to think so hard about something that should be so simple and you might get super angry.
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That moment when somebody tells you a little gluten won't hurt. Have you ever been there before? I know I have, early on, and it was so disheartening and so frustrating that a loved one didn't understand, didn't quite get it. And anger is a valid step in healing. It's how we protect ourselves when we feel unsafe or unheard. So don't feel upset that you may have anger feelings on it. You know. Obviously we need to work through them and figure out great solutions for getting past that roadblock. But don't feel bad for having the anger, it's very natural you also might feel loneliness and guilt. Those might sneak in into your emotions. You may feel very awkward at parties, at restaurants and family dinners. That's why one of the reasons I created this podcast was to help empower those that need to be gluten free to be able to speak up for themselves, to be able to feel confident, to feel like they aren't the outsider, because more people have celiac and gluten intolerance than you might realize and that most people realize honestly.
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And many times you feel guilty because you might say no to invitations because it's easier than explaining again how you can't just eat food without special preparations. And you might also feel guilt and guilty when you're the complicated one. I know I felt this for so many years. I still feel it today. You know, over 10 years later, I still feel guilty for being the complicated one, but there's nothing I can do about it. You might also worry about being seen as dramatic or high maintenance. I'm sure people have thought of that as me and I just didn't know it. But there's nothing you can do about it.
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When you have celiac or gluten intolerance or you need to be gluten-free for other reasons and you might struggle with self-trust. You might wonder if you messed up, if you're being too cautious. I know there's been times I'm like, oh, I might be being too cautious here, but then when I let my guard down and get some chips out of that already open bag of chips, that is gluten free but there's gluten in, like a potluck or like some sort of party setting, and then I start feeling bad later because somebody had gluten on their hands when they got chips out and so now I've got a little bit of gluten because it's been cross-contaminated inside the bag. There's been so many times I thought am I being overreactive here by not wanting to eat out of an already open bag of chips? But we need to listen to ourselves. We need to listen to literally our gut, and you might also feel like food is no longer fun.
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This is one of the other main reasons I created this podcast and why I'm sharing the recipes on our website and the YouTube videos because I want food to feel fun again. I want you to feel like it's not a burden and that you're still living a full life. So even with people who love me, I sometimes still feel like a burden just for needing to eat differently, and that's normal and I just want to make sure that you recognize that that's normal and that's okay. And you know we need to work through that and work past that, because our loved ones want us to be safe and healthy and you can find joy again. And this is yeah. Like I said, one of the reasons I created this podcast episode is I want to help to bring joy again to you. I have found so much joy in discovering new favorite foods and safe go-to meals and a lot of those I share on our website and I also love you know figuring out how to make that you know complicated thing gluten-free, like our best ever gluten-free chocolate cake that I don't think anybody who tries it realizes it's gluten-free. It's so wonderful and empowering to overcome that obstacle. It's just wonderful. So I encourage you to find the joy again. I encourage you to embrace the fact that you feel clear-headed now. You feel healthy, you feel pain-free, you don't have whatever symptoms that celiac disease or gluten intolerance has brought to you. You feel great again.
Speaker 1:
I like to describe what it was like those first few weeks of going gluten-free, when I realized I needed to be gluten-free. I like to describe it as looking at a high-definition television versus an old tube TV. It felt like the world was in high definition again. The world didn't seem blurry, it didn't seem like clouded or confused or I'm not sure quite how blurry. I think I already said blurry, but I can't quite describe it. I can see it in my head, but it just. My eyes were so open and I could see the world so much better again.
Speaker 1:
And then find a great gluten-free community. We have a great free Facebook group and there's other great free Facebook groups and other groups around that you can find your people, share a great meal with them, you know, find podcasts like this one and others and find some gluten-free friends. You'll feel like you belong again. And what I've found over the past several years as I rediscovered cooking as a form of self-care on the weekends, many times you're going to find me baking something up just because I feel like it, because it's comforting to me. It's comforting for me to make that focaccia bread gluten-free, for example, or that complicated rough puff pastry that's got twists in it that my family absolutely loves. I love those challenges. I love using cooking as a form of self-care. Sometimes my waistline is affected by that because sometimes I go a bit more for the carby things that you know we typically can't have as a gluten-free person, but it's wonderful mentally for me.
Speaker 1:
And start rewriting your traditions in your own way. We have changed sometimes some of our traditions and made them more gluten-free friendly. We will many times have a friend's giving and all of our friends know they come over to our house and enjoy a great gluten-free smorgasbord that they don't even you know. They don't care, it doesn't taste gluten-free to them. So rewrite your own traditions. Small moments do matter. That perfect loaf of gluten-free bread that you baked, a safe restaurant experience there's some here locally and places we travel that I frequent because I just absolutely love them. And your child saying this tastes just like the real thing. Or, even better, your child saying this tastes better than the gluten version. That's actually what I got from my children whenever I made chicken casserole one of their favorite dishes, gluten-free. They thought it tasted better than the original.
Speaker 1:
So joy can come not from avoiding gluten, but from reclaiming your life after feeling limited by it. So work through this grief and you will find that joy. If you're somewhere in the middle of this journey, know that there is an end on it. And if you're at the end of the journey where you do feel joyful, but we do sometimes still have that grief and the loneliness. Embrace the joy and look for that again. Come back to that joy, because glowing gluten-free is not just a physical thing. It is deeply, deeply emotional. Grief, anger, guilt and isolation are perfectly normal. So give yourself grace. You are allowed to feel all of it. There is healing on the other side physically and mentally and emotionally and you're not alone. This journey is not about perfection. It's about progress, empowerment and peace and finding your joy again. So if you're not finding your joy right now, I challenge you pick one thing that we talk about on this podcast and find some joy in it. Find a way to be joyful in it.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten-Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreeengineercom. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten-free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns or advice specific to your health.
