dianthus - in my experience, the best way to find out if you might potentially be gluten-intolerant is to completely eliminate it from your diet for 2-4 weeks, and see if you don't feel a whole lot better. That said, there is gluten in things you'd never suspect, so I would always recommend that someone who suspects a food intolerance of some kind start with a Paleo-style diet instead, as it naturally eliminates all/most foods that people are commonly reactive to. This would be easier than spending a lot of time and effort to research where gluten is found, and possibly find yourself not feeling better, because of 'hidden' gluten in something. The paleo-style plans out there automatically exclude any possibility of gluten.
Hidden gluten? For instance soy sauce. Now, you *can* get a gluten-free tamari sauce that tastes just as good, just that it can sometimes be hard to find. Another weird one? Worcestershire sauce in the US is gluten-free, but not the one in Canada - see what I mean?
Meanwhile, a Paleo diet is both restrictive and also quite 'easy' - here's why:
All the meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts (except peanuts, which are a legume), natural fats you want. You limit/eliminate processed foods - if you can, you also ditch dairy for a time, though lots of Paleo type of plans are somewhat kind of 'grey area' with dairy. The best thing about this plan is that you're not counting calories, weighing food and so on.
It really does work, though for weight loss, you might skew towards a slightly lower-carb variation for awhile - this means you'd limit fruit to some degree (and not go for the 'all you can eat' deal at first), and choose only the lowest carb fruits (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, after that - things like cantaloupe are pretty low in carb content), and you might be a bit chintzy with the nuts for awhile (this is for weight loss). Two tablespoons of toasted sliced almonds are very low in carbs, and are a great addition to salads or on top of vegetables.
I want to add that most products that have been 're-done' to be "gluten free" (example gluten free bread or things from a specialty gluten-free bakery or some such) are usually higher in calories and carb content than their normal versions. In this respect, it is easier to just eliminate those types of foods for a short time (no bread, no pasta, no muffins, no cereal, no donuts etc.). There are so many foods that are naturally gluten-free - so while it might feel really limiting at first, it's just a bit of a change-up. We do not need a bagel for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner.
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Meanwhile, there is a YLF'er here at the forums (amyreh) who has a blog, called "lowcarbhighstyle" - and I have found her reviews and trials of Paleo recipes to be really excellent. She makes it a lot easier, because her meals and experiments with recipes are low-fuss, and do not require a ton of work.
http://lowcarbhighstyle.wordpress.com/
link to her recipe section:
http://lowcarbhighstyle.wordpr.....ipe-index/
A good book to read is "The Primal Blueprint" by Mark Sisson.
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This is turning out to be a great thread - I'm really enjoying reading everyone's posts here.
ETA --> I just scrolled up and realized you've come up with a starting point dianthus...as you were saying:
"I think I will likely continue the WW counting points but will tailor my intake to be more focused on lean proteins, healthy fats, and fruit/vegetables. Much lower grains and breads. These are the principles of the Paleo and Fat Flush programs so maybe I will have better results."
I think this is a *great* idea. You can tweak WW to work for you.
