Katy Harvey: Hey, I am Katy Harvey, a non-diet dietician. If you’ve spent years battling food in your body, I’m here to show you the path to healing here on the Rebuilding Trust With Your Body podcast, I teach you how to find your own freedom with food through tools, strategies, mindset, shifts. And heartfelt discussions around what it means to make peace with food and your body while still existing in diet culture.

I believe that all bodies deserve respect, and that health is so much more than a number on the scale. It’s about connecting with our true selves and learning that our relationship with food is more important than the food itself. So if you are ready to discover the freedom of rebuilding trust with your body.

Grab a seat and maybe a snack, and let’s do this.

Hey there, and welcome back to Rebuilding Trust with Your Body. Today’s episode is such an important one, especially if you have ever struggled to separate out what is actual health and dietary needs and changes that you might need to make from. Diet culture noise. There’s so much out there about what we should eat and shouldn’t eat and what’s good for this and what’s good for that.

And you should cut out this food and that food. And how do you know the difference between when you should actually limit or avoid something for your health versus just disregard because that’s diet culture. And then to take it a step further, what do you do if you get a diagnosis of something like celiac disease where.

It really is imperative that you are not eating gluten even a little bit, that you’re not even having gluten contamination from the cooking utensils in your kitchen or the sunscreen that you’re wearing it. You know that something that is very definitive that you need to be staying away from it, or like a food allergy where you have a severe reaction and anaphylaxis and all of that.

How do you navigate those types of diagnoses? So today I am talking with a guest named Carrie Saunders, who discovered that she had celiac disease after years of feeling unwell and not really knowing why, and she found herself trying to figure out what her body needed and, and how to get healthier. And she had.

You know, gone through pregnancy and childbirth and body image stuff and wanting to lose the baby weight. And through all of that, she ended up accidentally figuring out that she doesn’t tolerate gluten. And she went to her doctor and through testing, figured out that she has. Celiac disease and, and that she basically had it her whole life and never realized it.

And so she talks about her journey of realizing, okay, I need to cut gluten out and finding out that her children have it as well. And so her entire home needs to be gluten-free, and she had to figure out how to navigate that without slipping back into any type of like. Diet and restriction mode, but to figure out how do I provide my body with the nutrients that it needs in a way that’s safe and gluten-free, because that’s legitimately what she needed.

And she talks about what it was like to go from being underweight for most of her life through childhood, to gaining weight after having kids, and. Also finding this middle ground with her body where she’s realizing that her body might be heavier than it was before, but that this is where her body is meant to be and where she is healthy because she’s no longer underweight.

And so there’s so many beautiful layers of complexity to this discussion, and whether you have celiac disease, a medical condition, or just. Are trying to make peace with food in your body. I know that you are gonna get some nuggets of wisdom out of this episode, so don’t skip it. Don’t drive past this one, even if you feel like it doesn’t apply to you, because I promise you it does.

So without further ado, we’re gonna dig right into this conversation with Carrie Saunders. Carrie, thank you so much for being here. I have so many things that I want to dig into that I am excited to talk about because this is actually a topic we’ve not covered yet on this show. So I wanna start with. A little bit of background, a little more context for people to understand like who you are, where you’re coming from, you know, what your experience has been.

So share a bit about your journey with food and body image, and particularly what all led eventually led to you figuring out you have celiac disease. 

Carrie Saunders: Sure. So my children, I had three children at the time and I was trying to, like most moms do lose that, you know, third child body weight, you know, and try to get back to what I felt like was my new normal after having kids.

And I found that controlling your insulin helps you control, you know, your blood sugar and whether you’re storing fat or or losing fat. And so I found the Primal Kitchen and Mark Sisson’s book, the Primal Blueprint, and I decided, well, let me try this. You know, it might work, it might not, and my whole goal was just to see if it worked and try to eat.

More naturally, more Whole Foods and things like that. So when I went on the Primal Blueprint diet, which is basically paleo, I actually found, I love how he did an 80 20 rule so you could, you know, eat along the lines of Whole Foods 80% of the time and, but you don’t wanna miss out on that birthday party or that pizza party or something like that.

So once a week, you know, you can have that cheat meal, for example. And I found out that on those. Fridays, I would have it on Friday. I’d have this deli sandwich and I was eating grains on that day and I was like, I felt so bad the rest of the weekend. And after about three or four weeks of it being consistently, every single time after I ate that food.

I felt like I had the flu all weekend, body aches, headaches, stomach issues, you know, all the things. I was like, what’s going on here? So I started digging and doing some research and found out about celiac disease. I had never heard of it before. I didn’t know what really gluten was at the time, and I just, I was a little blown away of, well, maybe this is what’s wrong with me.

And that led me down the route of going to doctors and saying, Hey, maybe this is what’s going on. ’cause I’d already been to a gastroenterologist. Gosh, probably six or seven years before that. And he only labeled me with IBS and didn’t actually do testing for celiac disease. So that led me down the route of me actually being educated myself and going to a new doctor and saying, Hey, I think this is what’s going on.

And, and then they, you know, later confirmed that with me. So it was. Kind of along those lines. And I use my engineering brain to really pull apart the pieces and to really kind of solve that puzzle and advocate my, for myself and for my body, and for how I was feeling. 

Katy Harvey: For sure. And I think that so often happens, especially for women in our healthcare system, where we very much have to be our own advocates and to trust our instincts when there’s something going on with your body.

And that’s wild that it’s not like you set out to like, I’m gonna be gluten-free, or I think I have Celiac that you didn’t even know what celiac was until you’re like, well, something’s going on here. ’cause it’s a night and day difference of the weekdays versus those weekends with how you were feeling. I mean, it just sounds like it was awful.

Carrie Saunders: Yeah, I would have, I mean, I was like non-functional. I mean, I can just literally say I was non-functional and, and the strange thing is, and for anybody out there too that might be listening, I had no idea. There’s no way to relate that gluten was the problem until I took it out of my diet, which was something like weird to realize as somebody who would think, oh, well you would think you would like associate it.

You ate this on this day, and so then you feel bad on that day. But everybody, all the research I’ve done over the last, over 10 years, everybody’s different. And you might react within hours or it may take two or three days. So then it’s hard to correlate. What food may be irritating your system and causing problems like that.

Katy Harvey: It can be so tricky and any type of GI stuff can be so hard to nail down ’cause it’s a little bit of a guessing game there. There oftentimes there’s not definitive tests. Now granted with Celiac, they can do like the biopsy and all of that, but they have to know to go. And even look for it. 

Carrie Saunders: Right? 

Katy Harvey: Yeah. I’m curious, when you look back, have you always had, like when you were eating gluten for most of your life, have you always just had symptoms that you weren’t recognizing were symptoms? 

Carrie Saunders: Yes. Actually, as I look back on it and as I learned more about what Celiac does and how it can manifest in people’s bodies, I was a very, very, very underweight child.

I weighed 39 pounds in fourth grade. I remember that marker. ’cause there was like the car seat, restrain wall that came out when I, in fourth grade, you had to be 40 pounds. I’m thinking I’m a big girl. I, I’m not being car restrained. Then you’re like, I’m in fourth grade. I don’t need to be in a car seat.

Right? Yeah. Right. And then when I went to college, everybody was used to be. Me being tiny, all my friends, all the people around me were used to being me, being really skinny. And when I went to college, I remember the girls on my dorm, ’cause it was an all girl dorm. They were like, how much do you weigh?

What’s your waist size? What size clothes you wear? I never got these questions before because like I said, all my friends and family were used to me being this tiny person. I weighed 91 pounds when I started college. At almost 18. Wow. Like so I was super duper underweight, which is, yeah. 

Katy Harvey: Not super normal unless you’re like, no, you know, four feet something tall.

Carrie Saunders: Yes, and we can even go into that LA you know, later in the episode too. It’s really affected my body image as a mom now that I’m more normal weight, my normal was underweight. So then I have to really mentally work to realizing that the normal I should be is not the normal I was too. So like I have that stress or strain or however you wanna put it on your, you know.

Yeah. Talk about imposition of complicated. Yeah, so it made things even more complicated when I started gaining this baby weight. And many times when you’re celiac and don’t know it, sometimes your body will go the other way and you actually start gaining weight too, as I’m sure you know, as a dietician.

So, yeah, and I also had, like in children, it’s more common to have constipation than diarrhea. I had those issues as a child. The interesting thing is if you see me in person, I have very naturally curly hair. Well, when I was young, I had naturally curly hair. But then once I lived with my parents who ate very processed foods, my natural curls went away.

But then when my grandmother basically took me in in fourth grade and adopted me, I started eating more whole foods again because she was born in 1912 and that’s what she was used to. She was kind of older for grandma, and my hair started curly up again. So it is just like even these little subtle nutritional indicators can show me as I look backwards like that. I actually have had it all these years and I had no idea. 

Katy Harvey: Mm-hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I’m curious also with the body image thing. You know, we think a lot about body image with weight gain and wanting to lose weight, but a lot of people who are.

Very thin and more on that, that lower weight side. They also talk about body image struggles. Like was that hard for you from a body image standpoint when you were younger? Or did you just feel like, well, this is how my body is and you didn’t think that much of it? 

Carrie Saunders: Um, honestly, I was like so underweight but still felt like I was too overweight.

Like it is kind of the typical teenage girl thing. You know, when I’m sitting at, you know, at the pool, I still remember as a teenager sitting at the pool trying to make sure I wasn’t. Sitting up and creating those normal belly wrinkles. Like at the time I thought, oh my goodness, I’m gonna look fat if I have these normal, these belly wrinkles.

But looking back, I’m like, that was just normal. That’s what your belly does when you’re sitting, right? Yeah. You know, sitting up in a position that you might be sitting on a beach towel and yeah. So I think that a lot of people looked at me probably and felt jealous or, you know, had that. Other side of the body image that was then imposed on me.

So then as an adult I kept thinking, oh, I have to be the super skinness. That is not really the normal either. So I feel like it affected me as a teenager and then backfired a different way as an adult and have to remind myself that I’m normal now. I’m a normal weight, now I’m not actually overweight, just ’cause I’m so used to being like 10, 20, 30 pounds underweight.

Katy Harvey: Yeah, it’s a lot of that like kind of self-talk to be able to say like, this is my body is normal. This is where my body needs to be. Yeah. Yes, exactly. I’m also really curious about, I don’t know if this speaks to you at all, but a, a lot of women that I work with will talk about feeling as though their body has somehow betrayed them and that.

Either you know that there’s something wrong or that their body was kind of malfunctioning or that it is this almost like their body’s working against them. I’m curious if that was ever your experience, and then also what was it like  for you to find out that there was a very clear medical reason behind why you felt unwell for so long?

Carrie Saunders: Yeah, I think you do get that, you know, your body has portrayed you and is not acting what you would maybe call normal, even though about one in 10 have celiac. And I really felt kind of like that odd person out, especially when I figured out I had celiac disease. I felt like, oh, I don’t wanna be, I.

Special or need to have a special treatment or things like that. So I, and I felt honestly, sometimes some family members were like, well, you’ve always eaten gluten. Why can’t you eat it now? And I would get like comments like that or, oh, just a little bit won’t hurt. Or, oh, you’re being too like hypersensitive and protective.

Even though as I, with more and more gluten-free, I was finding, I was more and more sensitive to even the tiniest amounts of gluten. But then even as a teenager, I kind of felt. Somewhat alone. ’cause I was so skinny. I was, I mean, I was just skin and bones. But then I was also, I mean as, as a female’s listening, you might relate to this, I was also large chested for my size.

So then I also got made fun of by the boys because I was super skinny. And then I was also like more busty than what my size normally would be. So I also had those body image issues of you know, too much boy attention. And then the girls would get upset at me because I had too much boy attention when I didn’t ask for the boy attention.

Katy Harvey: you can’t win, you know? I know. Yeah. Goodness. Now, when people hear gluten-free. They do often think of it being a restrictive diet. In fact, some people try going gluten-free basically as just like a weight loss diet that’s been kind of a trendy thing.

I’m curious how you have approached this for yourself and within your household. Like how do you do gluten-free from a place of self-care instead of it being just purely about restriction and self-control? 

Carrie Saunders: Yeah, that’s one of the things that I really wanted to. Embrace and make sure that it wasn’t a restrictive thing, especially when we shortly thereafter found out, because I went to my children’s pediatrician and said, Hey, look, here’s how sensitive I am with Celiac.

And I did enough research to know that this runs in families. And then we found out that the oldest had it, and then eventually found out the second and third child had it as well. So it wasn’t really until. A child had it of mine that I was like, okay, wait. I cannot make this be a hindrance to my life. I can’t make this be a hindrance to my joy in life because I don’t want it to be a hindrance to my children.

So as typical moms out there, we tend to take care of our children more than we take care of ourselves. So that’s when it really kicked in, like the, I like to say that’s when the gluten-free engineered me, kicked in. So I have two engineering degrees, as I mentioned, and I really wanted to take them apart. What is this thing called gluten?

How can I replace it and make sure we still have the birthday cakes, that we wanna have the pizzas, we wanna have the occasional donuts that we wanna have. You know, how do I bring back those comfort foods that are typically lost when you have to be restrictive on a diet, like a gluten-free diet? And so I really work to pull apart those recipes and research and find ways to replace those things.

I feel like, you know, and you might probably agree that we nurture ourselves with nutrients, but we also nurture ourselves with sometimes those comfort foods emotionally, immensely. And we need to have the right balance so that we’re healthy in both a physical and a mental way. So I worked to make sure that we had that balance for my kids.

I didn’t want them to feel left out of birthday parties. Or it’s family of 

Katy Harvey: Absolutely. Yeah, and I, I think you’re right. You know, when we see it for our, when it’s for our kids that Mama Bear energy comes out, do you do a lot of cooking or do you just have gluten-free products that you really like or Probably some of both, I would imagine.

Carrie Saunders: Yeah, it’s mostly some of both. I always enjoyed cooking and then being gluten free and having to figure out the chemistry behind it. Kind of really, you know, brought the engineer out in me in the baking. Yes. I can see where you 

Katy Harvey: leveraged the engineering part of your brain. Yeah. Like, okay, we’ve got this, we’re gonna figure this out.

Carrie Saunders: Right. Well, and I found out that, you know, many times those gluten-free products that are off the shelf are very nutrient, anti nutrient. Maybe it would be the best way to, they’re nutrient hollow maybe I would say. You know, they don’t have the nutrients, they have the extra sugar in it. They have the extra preservatives in it to make them last and make it to grocery store. Yeah. Turn that 

Katy Harvey: Gluten is actually a very important component and ingredient of food, especially when it comes to baking. And so when you take that out, you lose sometimes quality, flavor, texture. Right. And it’s hard. Yeah, 

Carrie Saunders: Right. So I worked to come up with recipes and convert recipes and, and make sure that it’s still tasted and texture wise was the same as the gluten component. And when I make it myself, I know it goes into it so I can then make sure the nutrients in it are also good too. 

Katy Harvey: Yeah. And also just knowing for sure when you make it yourself that you’re not getting any of that, you know, contamination and everything, which, right, for people who don’t know this, who are listening, like when you have celiac, like it’s not just, oh, I eat mostly gluten-free.

Like, it’s very important that you’re avoiding crumbs, you can’t share the toaster with somebody who eats gluten. And I think sometimes people don’t fully appreciate what it actually means to eat gluten-free versus just like I eat gluten light as like a dietary lifestyle thing. So 

Carrie Saunders: Wwe basically treat it in our house kind of like an allergy, even though it’s not a true allergy. You gotta, from Crosspoint, you kind of have to think of it that way.

Katy Harvey: Absolutely. And you said something to me in one of our interactions, and I love this, so I want you to expand upon it. You said trust your gut literally and figuratively.

And I would love to know more about what does that mean for you in practice, especially on days where maybe it feels hard to trust your body or hard to like your body or love your body? 

Carrie Saunders: Yes. So I alluded to this a little bit earlier in that I. The more we were gluten-free, the more really what’s happening is the more your gut heals, and so the more sensitive you are into the tinier and tinier pieces of gluten you might accidentally get.

So there’s been times where, you know, we were at a place that had, we were at a family gathering or a friend gathering and you know, there was gluten around and maybe bags of chips that were gluten free. Well, sometimes I didn’t trust my gut and say, no, I don’t want to. Get the chips outta this bag that’s already been open.

People have already put their hands in it. I shouldn’t do that. Well, sometimes I didn’t trust my logical gut, and I had those chips, well, I then got gluten slightly and you know, felt bad the next day. So sometimes you gotta really pay attention to what you’ve eaten, especially when you’ve healed. And so you gotta pay attention to your little gut.

And then you’ve also gotta, there’s been times I’ve been at a restaurant and I was eating and I was like, Hmm, I feel like this is not right. And I stopped eating and then I later found out that yes, it accidentally did have gluten in it. So you gotta trust your internal heart, gut. Whenever you’re in a situation like this, whether you have an food allergy or a celiac disease, and also your, you know, your literal gut to help you learn, well, okay, I did X and I probably shouldn’t have, and then this was the Y result, so I need to.

Make sure I’m more careful next time, so. Mm-hmm. Like it’s kind of a both thing 

Katy Harvey: to use Yeah. To use that as a learning opportunity. And I even think back to, you know, when you were doing the paleo thing and figuring out, okay, like there’s something going on here. Like, you trusted your gut that there was something.

Within your body, medically speaking, that needed to be investigated and you pushed for those answers and you trusted your gut to talk to the pediatrician to say, look, I have this. My understanding is it can be genetic and you got your kids tested and you know, I just think that there’s a lot to be said for our instincts and, and also being able to connect with our bodies and in instead of viewing our body as the enemy in some way, to figure out, okay, how do you work with your body and honor what it needs?

Carrie Saunders: Yes, exactly. And you know, I’m sure you talk about this too, if we are what we eat, so we need to listen to how our body reacts to what we eat because some things work for some people and some things don’t. Like certain types of foods, you know, go better and are in certain people’s digestive systems and others.

Even if we, not even talking about celiac, you sometimes we’re just not compatible with a certain thing. Yeah. Like 

Katy Harvey: yeah, you mentioned IBS earlier and it’s, there’s such a wide variability of what people do and don’t tolerate with that and Right. And. To help people reconcile that with intuitive eating that we talk about a lot around here.

You know, it’s, we can recognize that without labeling foods as being inherently good or bad, that like your body may feel better or worse when you eat certain things. And when we can look at that without judgment attached to the food, that is you listening to your body and cultivating that intuition.

Carrie Saunders: Exactly. And for me example, for example, I. You know, I am celiac, but I feel better not on grains. So I find I feel better not on corn too, for example, or oats. You know, I can tolerate some oats, and so that’s kind of more intuitive. Eating there is like I’ve found, I feel better not eating those things.

I occasionally eat them. There’s not like they’re harmful like gluten is to me, but you know, I don’t look at them as bad foods. I just look at them and say, you know, every once in a while I might eat this food, but in general I feel better not eating it, you know, all the time. 

Katy Harvey: Oh, and that’s a good example for people listening to a mindset where like the gluten has to be an all or none thing and we try not to be all or none around here unless we have to be.

This is one of those times where you have to be, but with something like that where you can be like, yeah, I’ll eat it Sometimes I kind of know that I might not feel great after I eat it, but like there’s flexibility there, but it’s like you understand when there is a need. To be rigid and when there can be a little bit more wiggle room.

And I think when it comes to stuff with food, our culture kind of teaches us to always be very all or none with it. And that often backfires on people. 

Carrie Saunders: Yeah. And I think it’s really unhealthy mentally to really be that way, especially if it’s something you don’t have to stay off of. You know, you don’t wanna.

Restrict yourself and make yourself upset or sad or, or angry at yourself ’cause you ate something you shouldn’t have eaten, even though it was just kind of more of something that didn’t work as well as your body. Kind of like the corn thing for me. So I give myself grace sometimes. I want to have a few corn chips, you know, and that’s okay.

I just know that I might not feel the best the next day, but it’s not gonna harm me like, yeah, celiac. So I do think we gotta eat mentally and physically for ourselves. 

Katy Harvey: Yeah, for sure. What advice would you give to someone who has been told that they do need to limit or eliminate certain foods for health reasons, but they’re trying to escape that cycle of food rules and restrictions?

Like how? How do you think about that for yourself and for your kids where it’s like, okay, I do want to do what I need to do with food to feel good and to be healthy, but I don’t want to be overly rigid and restrictive. Like how do you find that middle ground? 

Carrie Saunders: For me, I look at it as a long-term health benefit.

I look at it as this makes me feel good. This makes me feel better, obviously ’cause I can’t have gluten and, and have C and I have Celiac. So look at it as an opportunity to. Nurture myself and not feel like it’s a restriction. Just feel like it’s just part of life. It’s just a way of life. It’s just what it is.

And I try to always bring joy to it and happiness, and find the ways that I can. I find alternatives to whatever food it is you’re not allowed to eat. Whether it’s a peanut allergy or something like that. You know, what can I do to make myself mentally happy around food while keeping myself safe? So we always just try to bring joy and.

Optimism for our eating. You know, we try to look at it from another perspective and, and the light side of the, of the way of it. 

Katy Harvey: That’s beautiful. Okay, so social situations. How do you navigate that where maybe there’s gonna be gluten there or you’re kind of not sure what’s in what or what may have been cross-contaminated.

I’m picturing something like a summer barbecue and like the chips bag example, or there’s different serving spoons that have been used for different things. How do you navigate a scenario like that? 

Carrie Saunders: Well, we have a couple different approaches. If I know the person that’s hosting it, well, I’ll talk to them about it and we’ll bring something of our own that’s safe.

Usually we’ll have a table where we just, you know, our kids know they just go first then, then we share with the rest because our stuff is delicious. I’ll just say that, that I make. So other people wanna eat it too. So what we’ll do is, we’ll, you know, we’ll just graciously serve ourselves first and or we’ll have it ordered in the line so that it’s before the stuff that could cross contaminate it.

Or if we don’t know the person very well, or the sit very well, situation very well, we either eat, be. Or we’ll bring our own food in like a lunch box type thing and just have our own individual meal. Also, it kind of depends upon where we’re going. After doing this for over 10 years, most of our friends and family just automatically know we need something.

But in the beginning, that’s kind of how we navigated it, just kind of depending upon the situation. 

Katy Harvey: And you, it sounds like you do have to continue to be your own advocate and ask for what you need and to sometimes just bring your own food and say, this is, you know, I’m not gonna worry about what everybody else is doing.

I’ve got what I need. And it, I’m also hearing you say it’s not keeping you from going and doing things, it’s you’re still participating. Mm-hmm. 

Carrie Saunders: Right? Yes. And that’s one of the goals I wanted to make sure, especially with my kids. We found out my kids had it. You know, we purposely try not to miss out on anything just because of the food that’s there.

I mean, it’s just hard on you emotionally. So you need to make sure you can find a way to do it without that social restriction that could otherwise make you sad or depressed or something. You know, you need to enjoy life. 

Katy Harvey: A million percent. Yes. When someone is first coming to grips with a diagnosis or just kind of realizing that they, you know, need to eat differently, I mean, this could totally translate for somebody too.

It doesn’t have to just be Celiac. It could be like getting a diabetes diagnosis and understanding that you need to approach food a little differently. At that initial phase of trying to figure things out, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges for people just both like kind of logistically, but also like mentally and emotionally?

Carrie Saunders: I think first off, what I did was I, I accepted the reality. I tried not to deny it. I accepted the reality, and then what I did was. I started working through my days and my weeks mentally, oh, tomorrow is day X. I will be eating here for lunch. I will, or I’ll be going here for dinner. How would I prepare?

How would I be ready for that? So I like to pre-plan and pre-think ahead of what the situation would be and how would I handle it? That way I don’t get into the situation and be surprised or feel like I’m flatfooted and panicked or something like that. So I. Taking the time to like to plan ahead.

You’re gonna be more comfortable, you’re going to feel better. It’s gonna be an easier social situation. I actually helped my grandmother, she raised me from fourth grade on, she got diagnosed with diabetes, so I actually helped her eat a diabetic life and I helped her measure her food and all the things that go with eating diabetic.

So we just work to plan ahead and plan for wherever we’re going to make sure that we’re. Bring the nutrition that she needed. So I feel like accepting it and being gracious with it, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just everybody’s different. That’s just a different part of you, that’s just a difference of your body.

And then planning is really the two things that can really help. And getting a support group, finding other people that are dealing with the same situation, whether it’s diabetes or celiac disease or a food allergy. You know, asking them, how did you handle this type of social situation? What did you do in this instance?

What if you show up somewhere and there’s food and you can’t eat anything, you know? How do you deal with those things? You know, we always have some snacks packed in my purse, for example, in case we get in a situation where we’re tied up and out and about a little bit too long. So I think giving yourself grace, but then learning as you go, you know, how do I plan better next time too?

So if you do make a mistake, you know, how do I plan this better next time so I can take care of myself? So 

Katy Harvey: smart. And I just feel like everybody needs a carry in their life where it’s like, okay, we’re like, we’re gonna accept that this is what our body needs and we’re gonna take care of ourselves and we’re gonna think through it ahead of time and we’re gonna have a backup plan.

And I just love your attitude about it. Like it’s very just kind of neutral and matter of fact, and. Not getting all swept up in like emotion and drama, which there has to be room for emotion too. But I, I love just kind of your like even keel, we’re gonna figure it out and that’s it, you’re not becoming catastrophic in any way, which I really appreciate.

And that’s a great tip to always have a snack with you. And I tell people that just in general, even if they don’t have a health condition, like to keep snacks with you all the time. ’cause you never know. 

Carrie Saunders: Right. Yeah. I mean, you might be trying not to eat out, like at fast food places, that might be your goal, you know?

So then if you have a snack with you and you’re hungry and you’re out and about, you have it solved already. 

Katy Harvey: Yeah, exactly. Or like if you’re at the airport and like you get on the airplane and you’re stuck on the tarmac, no problem. You have your snack or like in the car, like I have a snack with, I have snacks.

Beside me, they’re in my purse, they’re in the car. You gotta be prepared. Right? What would you say, so now that you’re, you’re more of a veteran at this point, your years into this journey, what has changed the most for you in terms of how you relate to food, to your body and to your health? 

Carrie Saunders: I feel like I have been much better at giving myself grace and the permission to eat the foods that I love and to really not feel as restricted.

Just the look, I mean, in the beginning, yes, you might feel restricted, you might feel, uh, whatever your diet restriction might happen to be. You might feel restricted, you might feel suffocated, but just start looking for that light, start looking for those opportunities of how can I make this situation better next time and more prepared next time?

And I think just really giving yourself grace here. ’cause I just, I love to try to make sure that I am taken care of now, you know? And in the beginning I was like, it was more until my kids needed it. But now I’m like, I. I’m important. I need to take care of my health. I need to take care of my nutrition. I need to have fun in these social situations no matter what they are.

And so I think just working on changing your mindset along those lines slowly. I mean, it might take time depending on where you start, but working on changing your mindset so that you’re happy with whatever food restriction you might have.

Katy Harvey: That’s beautiful. And you did mention earlier the importance of having some type of community or, or support group or place that people can ask questions.

I think that that’s so important too because some of it is like just the little tips and tricks that you wouldn’t have thought of, but people who have that lived experience can tell you ’cause they’ve figured out what works and doesn’t work. It’s like sometimes I’ll even get great ideas from clients that I’m working with or people that I encounter because of it, it’s like nobody knows.

All the things about all the things. And that’s where, you know, having other communities of humans that we trust and connect with can be so helpful. Are there any particular places that you recommend or that you have found helpful online As far as celiac specific support groups? Or also I want you to tell us about your podcast because I think that’s a great resource.

Carrie Saunders: Whenever I found out I had celiac, there wasn’t that much into Facebook groups or anything like that at the time. So I feel like you can search on Facebook or you know, community you work in to find the celiac support groups. I actually have a Facebook community called the Gluten-Free Engineer, so you can search that on Facebook to find us too.

We are a great group. I think we have for 150 people at the time of this recording and growing of Celiac, other Celiacs across the world, and my podcast is named the Gluten-Free Engineer as well. So you can search for that on your favorite podcast player. And I love to just. Really make it, break it down, make it simple.

Have some great tips. You know, sometimes it’s convenience food, sometimes it’s those things you can get off the shelf. Sometimes it’s hand making that delicious gluten-free chocolate cake. I have the best chocolate cake recipe on my website too at the gluten-free engineer.com. But I feel like finding that support group, when I was in the beginning of this journey, I actually connected to, so if you’re a celiac and you’re like, well, I don’t know any other celiacs around me.

Connecting to people with food allergies is actually a really great way. Yeah. To get those tips too. ’cause I connected with this mom and her children. They had a wheat allergy, a dairy allergy, and a nut allergy. Like their kids were so allergic to food. It wasn’t even funny. And so that really helped me too.

So it could be not just a celiac, it could be another food allergy person to help you with those tips of how to deal with eating out or. Going places with That’s a great point. Yeah. 

Katy Harvey: Just kind of, sort of expanding your mind to recognize that the type of support you need might come from places that aren’t just literally exclusive to Celiac or whatever your, your diagnosis might be.

Right? Yeah. And anyone out here who has Celiac or knows someone with Celiac, definitely check out Carrie’s group and or podcast because that’s gonna be a great place that you’re going to get some of that connection and those lived experiences and tips. And I bet everybody listening is like, Ooh, I want that chocolate cake recipe.

Carrie Saunders: Yes. And you’re welcome to have it on my website and you can use regular flour if you’re not Celiac and it will work deliciously. Yeah, I actually converted it from a gluten full recipe and I just substituted so you can use it just as is. Just use regular flour for it. 

Katy Harvey: Amazing. I love that. Alright, Carrie, any takeaways? Just like sentiments or thoughts that you would want people to leave with? 

Carrie Saunders: I think leaving with the fact that no matter what, whether it’s a celiac diagnosis, a dietary restriction like diabetes or a food allergy, just take it one day at a time.

Give yourself grace. Take each day and learn from it so that you can do better the next day. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody can make this type of a switch on a dime, or it’d be really rare to be able to make this switch on a dime, especially mentally and emotionally, and just listen to your body. Both physically as well as mentally and you know, work towards that goal of whatever you need to do for your food restriction and know there’s other people out there just like you and find them and have a great support group.

You’re gonna meet some really great, awesome people I know I have in this journey. And it just creates a great community to have those that you can relate 

Katy Harvey: Beautiful. I love that. And then everybody who comes on my show has to do my rapid fire questions at the end. They’re really easy, I promise. Okay, so first one is, what is currently your favorite snack?

Carrie Saunders: My favorite snack, oh my goodness. Probably the Siete chips. That’s a grain-free brand. Um, it’s the Spanish word. And they make the best nacho cheese chips and they’re dairy free too. And they taste amazing. 

Katy Harvey: Ooh, nice because yeah, there are a lot of people out there who need that dairy free component as well.

That’s good to know. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Yeah. What about cats versus dogs? 

Carrie Saunders: Oh, that’s a hard one. So I love both, but I do have a countless number of cats. I have two office cats at my business, as well as three cats at my house and more cats outside my office. So I would say cats over dogs. But I love dogs too.

I have. That’s awesome. What about summer versus winter? Which do you prefer? Oh my goodness. Summer, hands down. I love it. 80, 85, 90 degrees. I am a summer girl. I need that Vitamin D. Me too. I’m good way. Yeah, 

Katy Harvey: What about like a TV show or a book you’ve read recently? Like anything good, anything that’s binge worthy.

Carrie Saunders: Oh my goodness. So the Queen’s Gambit. I absolutely love that series on Netflix and I really wanna rewatch it again. It’s just such a really good series. And don’t feel like you need to know chess or be a chess geek. It is a really good story about an orphan. It’s a really great story.

Katy Harvey: Okay. Last one. What is your favorite form of self-care? 

Carrie Saunders: Um, my favorite form of self-care is being outside in my flower gardens or being in my pool and just absorbing nature. I love to be, I love to be outside in nature. So that would be my, that’s 

Katy Harvey: Awesome. I can see why you love summer so much then. Amazing. Alright, Carrie, well we’ll link to your Facebook group and your podcast and your website and the show notes. If people wanna connect with you, what would be the best place for them to find you? 

Carrie Saunders: Probably the best place would be Facebook or LinkedIn.

You can just search for Carrie Saunders. I am the first Carrie Saunders on LinkedIn and I’m the one in Athens, Ohio. If you wanna do that search on Facebook. So Carrie Saunders in Athens, Ohio. 

Katy Harvey: Amazing. Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom and your resources with us. This was great.

Carrie Saunders: Thank you so much, Katy. 

Katy Harvey: I absolutely loved this conversation and how honest and nuanced it was, and it’s not easy to untangle and separate out health from diet culture. And when we’re dealing with a condition like celiac disease, it becomes even trickier to figure out how to honor what your body needs without living life too restrictively.

But I want you to really hear from Carrie and from her engineering mind. We can figure this out. We can figure out how to honor what our body needs, how to still enjoy life and have fun, and not feel restricted, and not feel deprived, and to do it from a place of trust and not fear. So if something in this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear about it.

If you know anybody in your life who has celiac disease in particular. Definitely grab the link and send it to them because I know that they’re gonna love this episode. And feel free to DM or tag me on Instagram and let’s keep this conversation going. I would love to hear any additional ideas for episodes that you wanna hear and topics you wanna hear.

And if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a quick rating and review if you haven’t done so already. It really helps other people to find this and for us to be able to spread that word and continue to dismantle diet culture together. So thank you so much for listening, and in case nobody told you today, you are worthy just as you are.

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