At the Supermarket
Well, I got thrown for a loop. I found out from my doctor I have something called Celiac Disease. It means my intestines are all messed up. Basically, I can’t eat any wheat, rye, barley, or oats, not even a little bit. I can’t digest it right, I guess.
Now, I’m a single guy, and you know what women always say about guys and the supermarket? It’s worse for me. I just pick up whatever is right in front of my nose, usually, so I don’t have to figure out what to get. But I can’t do that anymore. Now, there’s all kinds of things I can’t eat, and I’ve got to read the label on EVERYTHING.
When my doctor first diagnosed me, I thought, well, it’s not a big deal. I’ll just stop eating bread, and I’ll get mostly better, right? Well, that didn’t work out too well. My doctor sat me down and told me all about how my guts can’t heal unless I stop eating gluten, and how I could have all kinds of health problems in the future. Anyway, I got to take this thing seriously is the point.
I guess what my doctor did was talk to me about Consequences, and that’s a big part of clear thinking. It’s not just having someone else tell me Consequences, either. I’ve got to really accept that those possibilities are real! I really could have colon cancer some day, and if it’s a choice between figuring out how to follow this diet and getting colon cancer… maybe that’s over-simplified, but there’s a lot of bad things that could happen, not to mention my stomach always giving me problems.
The first step was really knowing that I had to follow this diet, and like I said, Consequences was real important for that. But then, I had to figure out a way to do it! And what seemed to help most was finding out Information and thinking of Alternatives (like corn tortillas instead of bread). I met with a dietician to help me out. Then, I started a list of things I knew I could eat that were easy to buy. Every time I thought of something or found something, I’d just add it to the list, and I’d try to find something new in the grocery store each week. At first, it was a lot of fruits and baked potatoes and things like that. Then, as I found stuff that was okay (Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia!), by talking to people or companies, I’d add it to the list.
Sometimes I get home and see that I bought the wrong thing. Oh, well. I give stuff away all the time if I can’t eat it, and I just figure, that’s life!
Matt R.
