Hey everyone!

A little about me. I am 22 years old, recently graduated from college. I always ate a LOT in high school, and not necessarily food that was good for you, and I tended to weigh between 115-120 naturally. When I got to college, my Celiac was triggered, and I put on 30-35lbs in about a month and a half without changing my diet or exercise levels at all. Naturally, no one likes gaining that much weight, and especially not in that quick of a period of time! I had an idea that gluten had something to do with it, since many people in my family have Celiac, so I "cut out" gluten (I didn't do a great job, didn't know about cross contamination, etc.) but then this past Fall I started having really bad GI symptoms. I was officially diagnosed this winter, and have been on a very strict GF diet, and have only been glutened twice via cross contamination since January.

My problem now is that I can't get the weight to go ANYWHERE. I've only been able to lose a pound here and there over the past three years, and it's driving me CRAZY! I was hoping that by going GF that my body would start working normally again, and at least some weight would come off. I'm not eating a lot of GF replacements, and I eat healthy besides the occasional treat. I'm currently training for a triathlon as well, so I've been very active, and that hasn't made any difference either (and no, it's not fat being replaced with muscle weight! I wish!).

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm really frustrated. I'm moving to NYC for grad school in the Fall, and I would like to lose some of the weight. I'm sure that I probably won't be 115lbs again since I'm older and my body has changed, but I would love to be closer to that then the weight I am now. I know that in the general scheme of things, I'm really not big, but it's completely wrecking my self-esteem because I'm uncomfortable in this body (I don't even feel like it's my own body, or at least not the one I was in before gluten did its thing), and I feel like it hates me. Please help?

Thanks in advance!

How are you monitoring your food intake now? Are you watching calories? What does a sample food day look like?

Lots of exercise (triathlon training!) is great for your health and aerobic capacity, eating "healthy" is good for your health and digestion, and going GF is obviously good for those with Celiac. With that said, if you're not burning more calories than you eat, you're not going to lose weight.

So what does a sample day of food look like - both what you're eating and how much? When you have a treat, what is the treat, and how often are you treating yourself?

By the way, it's entirely possible that it was your celiac keeping your weight down while you were in high school. The vast majority of people with undiagnosed celiac have such digestive symptoms that they lose a lot of weight or are unable to gain (Elizabeth Hasselbeck, for example, has celiac, which she figured out when she went on Survivor and not only felt better, but actually GAINED weight, since all they had was corn and rice).

I'm not watching calories at the moment, more just portion sizes. Breakfast is usually a piece or two of fruit (eating anything more than that in the morning upsets my stomach), lunch and dinner usually consists of about 1/2-1 cup brown rice, some protein, and a lot of cooked green vegetables (kale, swiss chard, spinach), probably a potato once a week. I have a serving size of GF pasta about once every other week. For snacks, I'd say a small handful of almonds a day, and maybe a nut bar once a week or so. My treat is usually 1-2 times per week (depends on the week), and is usually a small bowl of ice cream, or little bit of dark chocolate (~1/4 of a chocolate bar). I also throw in salad (lettuce) with dinner sometimes, but it usually will just have some baby carrots on it, and I don't like salad dressing.

I have a heart rate monitor/gps watch thing, and on my training days (which are 4-5 days a week) it estimates that I'm burning between 800 and 1500 calories, but my workouts are getting longer and harder, so that number is going to go up.

So you can see my frustration. I'm trying to do the right things, and I'm seeing literally no progress. It makes me tempted to just start eating junk and stop working out, because it doesn't make me gain weight, and I'm not losing weight doing this.

I don't think it was celiac that was keeping the weight down in high school, because I literally had no symptoms then. And then all of a sudden my weight jumped up, and my blood levels got weird, and I started getting digestive symptoms and really bad canker sores. I had never had any health problems until then. The doctor was pretty certain that the jump in weight was caused by the celiac, and that stress probably triggered it. Thanks college haha.

I just don't know how to make it go away...

Well, again, without calories, it's very hard to tell whether you're creating a deficit.

First off, you're very near your goal weight. Since you're at a perfectly "normal" weight for your height, your body isn't going to drop pounds easily. So you have to be very diligent about creating a big enough, but not too big, calorie deficit, or you won't lose. That's why it usually takes people a much longer time to drop the last 10 lbs than it does to drop even a bigger quantity of weight at first. These are not pounds that your body sees as harming your health...they're vanity pounds. And there's nothing WRONG with that, but it does mean that they're going to be more difficult to lose.

You're also at a point where even small treats can keep you from achieving weight loss. When I hit "the last 10 lbs" of my weight loss, I had to go absolutely zero treats if I wanted to lose even a fraction of a pound. Again, your body fights you on vanity pounds in a way that it doesn't on a higher degree of overweight.

You might want to check out our "Featherweights" forum, for folks so close to goal, since you face unique challenges (like slowness and a requirement to be pretty spot on, treat free, and kickbutt in your workouts in order to get anywhere) in weight loss. It's an unfortunate fact of being close to goal that losses are small and hard to come by. Jillian Michaels also wrote a book about losing vanity pounds called "Making the Cut" - it's useful if you're working through this issue.

I am not celiac but I have a sensitivity to gluten so I have done a lot of research on this subject. It turns out that other grains have gluten-like proteins and that many people who are sensitive to one are also sensitive to others, though there are no tests for them.

I maintain just fine on a gluten-free and low-carbohydrate diet, but I find I cannot lose weight unless I eliminate all grains and most fruit. I seem to do OK with low-glycemic fruit like berries, but only on an occasional basis. Everyone is different but you have to test your own tolerance to each food.

If I may suggest try doing an elimination diet of any grains. Make sure you eat plenty of vegetables for fiber and folic acid. Look to Paleo diet websites for grain-free recipes. Many will use coconut or almond flour instead of grain flours and they are very tasty.

A book I highly recommend is "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes

Just a thought--I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis several months ago and was told by the doctor that autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto's and Celiac disease will often pair up. He told me that cutting out gluten may help even though I didn't test positive for celiac at the time. I have been gluten free since April and flour free/added sugar free for a month and dropped 10 pounds. I also take thyroid medication.
Have you ever been tested for other autoimmune diseases? Wheat Free, Worry Free is a great book to look at.
Just my 2 cents...good luck!