Eating Healthy Costs Money

And time, and planning, and and and.

I get it; I have to. I'm gluten-free. I didn't go to the doctors and have them rip open my stomach and test my guts, so I may be a self inflicted gluten-free person. I don't care. The difference was night and day. Before: puffy, bloated, stomach pain, odd rashes, tired, no energy, spacey. After: trim, no unnatural bloating, no pain, no rash, more energy, spacey only if I choose to be. Normally, I don't write about food as this is a blog about writing, but being gluten-free has become a HUGE part of my life and takes a lot of time to do well. Kinda like writing and publishing a book. :)

Here's what happened: a colleague in the office decided to try being gluten-free as she has been sluggish and tired. She went one day and reverted back--telling me that it was way too hard to be gluten-free with a family, way too expensive to buy the right products, and way too much hassle.

She's right, and I wish I had that option. And I guess I do--be in pain and eat what I want or don't eat wheat and feel like a human. For humanity's sake, I chose the latter.

But it is hard. Right now, I need to go shopping because we don't have anything in the house that I can whip up anymore. And by whip up I mean plan a meal that includes a protein, carb, and veggie. I just finished making lentil soup with broccoli and potatoes as we ran out of meat last week.

The difficulty isn't in dinner really, but in lunch, or going out to a restaurant, or more specifically, in trying to eat quickly. Frozen GF foods are for the most part, pretty lame. So how does this relate to writing?

Time
It takes time to plan and cook your meals so as not to waste that expensive food you just bought. The same goes for writing. If I don't take the time to write, it doesn't write itself any more than if I just buy the food and leave it on my counter. You have to do something with it. Those words flying around in your head--get them down and then worry about planning the book/story/poem out of them.

Effort
Time's BFF is effort. If you don't put in the effort to make time, to plan, to revise, nothing will become of it. Getting the words out is one thing, now you have to mold them into something more. When I put the effort into my cooking and planning, I usually have enough food for lunches and dinners with a bit of variety. But if I don't, then it is--what is in my kitchen that I can throw together to resemble food? It never turns out as pretty.

Money
Being GF does cost more. The pasta, cereal, breads, flours, or items that are just listed as GF are often a bit more than their cheap counterpart. Once you have molded something good, your writing has to go somewhere and that may mean investing in paper, ink, envelopes, stamps, etc. to get your manuscript out. Some places do take them online, so that may help. Also, don't forget to buy some reference books that helps you narrow down where/who you send your manuscript out to. These are pretty expensive, but like the GF symbol on the bottle, you get what you pay for here.

How to Make it Easier?
Mostly, I find that following others on Twitter that are GF or writers often have helpful recipes or tips that make it a little less stressful. Plus, you feel there is a community of people out there suffering just like you, and that will make you smile that someone knows your pain.

Take a look on my twitter account if you'd like some place to start. But if you'd read this far, you must at least share my pain.