I'm new to this forum, and have not yet formally introduced myself, but am losing weight gluten-free, so wanted to share my experience.
My son has celiac, so our household eats gluten free. The truth is, when you have a health condition that requires a special diet, you may have to travel to health food stores to find the foods that you need (Whole foods is 45 minutes away from us- we go about once a month to stock up). In the past, I have belonged to a United foods buyers coop, and it enables you to buy natural food in bulk quantities to save $. United's headquarters are in Keene, so I imagine there is a group in your area). In our family, I save $ by cooking from scratch, but it is still more expensive than traditional eating.
I have been losing weight by eating smaller portions of the healthy foods that our family already eats. Breakfast might be a very small bowl of ceral, a scrambled egg and a stalk of celery. We also do "rice and eggs", which is leftover rice cooked up with eggs and veggis. I eat a very small bowl with some additonal veggi sticks on the side. I do bake muffins and such using natural sweeteners and a higher fiber gf flour blend, but I just eat one at a time (with veggis on the side). Lunch is dinner leftovers or a slice of gf toast with sunflower butter (and veggis!). At dinner, we usually do veggis (there they are again
) or a salad, meat or beans and a starch (brown rice, brown rice pasta, or potatoes w/skins). I eat a very small portion of starch (about 1/4 cup), but will often skip it if I feel like I've had too many carbs that day (like on the day I eat a muffin for breakfast).
A few tips that have helped me along the way:
-Tinkyada brown rice pasta in amazing! We make it for company and no one can tell it isn't regular pasta. The great thing is, that it is often available in standard grocery stores (we've lived all over the country, and have only lived one place where it is not available locally). It is expensive, but that's good, since we oughtn't eat too much of it anyway!
-I don't own any gluten-free cookbooks (though I love to cook and own a lot of cookbooks). If you cook from scratch, almost any recipe can be easily converted to gluten free. For baked goods like muffins and quick-breads that call for white flour, I substitute my own gf flour mix of 2 parts brown rice flour to 1 part sorghum flour to 1 part tapioca flour (ie, for 2 cups of flour, you would use 1c brown rice, 1/2c sorghum and 1/2c tapioca). Brown rice and Sorghum are whole grains, but they are lighter than whole wheat. These baked goods come out wonderful and moist, but they are a bit crumbly compared to traditional baked goods (adding an extra egg helps).
-We eat a lot of soups. Throw in meat or beans, tons of veggis and a little brown rice or pasta- delicious! (I eat a small bowl, and add a small salad).
-As you can probably see from above, I don't do low fat or low cal foods. Everyone has to decide for themselves what works for them, but for me, eating healthy fats (ie-no margarine or trans fats) and whole grains in small portions keeps me fuller longer. I find this especially helpful when eating gf.
I hope this info is helpful to you (and sorry that what I wrote is so long).
-Sarah
ps- This must be the New England thread. I grew up in NH (Merrimack), lived in Vermont for 6 years and used to love to go to Plum island with friends when I lived on the North Shore
.