Is It Worth It?

You go into a restaurant, scan the menu for tell-tale vocabulary words like "corn tortilla, grilled, served with toast OR FRUIT" and it can be maddening. If you go to a restaurant and ask if they have a gluten-free menu, you feel like you're labeled instantly as one of "those people" and everyone thinks you're insane.

Are they right?

What if this is really in your head, and you're just wanting an excuse to change something, to feel more in control?

I remember the first few weeks I realized I really needed to do gluten-free. It was hard. A year into it, it's totally second-nature. I know what to look for, what to avoid, and what substitutions I can ask for, without making myself sound crazy to the waiter. Now, realizing that I really, really, really need to do dairy free. Sometimes, it feels worse. I find myself forgetting, then remembering, and then forgetting to make changes. Some are easier than others, and you would think that knowing this is in my son's best interest would make it easy as pie to change!

But it's not.

Partly, because I wasn't fully convinced that's what the problem was. Babies cry. Babies are gassy little creatures by nature. So, there would be some days (regardless of my diet) that he would be suuuuper fussy - and days where he wasn't. And partly just out of habit. I had consumed large amounts of cheese and dairy while pregnant because it was high in calcium, and it was cheap protein. Now, I was faced with changing a whole new habit.

It's worth it. It's worth it to try. Little One is a different Little One when he's not being fed things his body can't tolerate. The least I can do is not eat something that doesn't hurt me so that it doesn't hurt him.

Dave Ramsey repeats the phrase, "Live like no one else, so that later, you can live like no one else." and it totally rings true. If you can get through the hard part, the life detox, and build new patterns, then the possibilities are endless.