Everyone wants to be at a healthy weight, and billions of dollars are spent each year in an attempt to lose excess weight. Unfortunately, most of the methods simply don't work. If a dieter does manage to lose any weight on a reduced-calorie diet, as soon as the diet is over, the pounds come back and they bring a few friends.

I spent years trying to lose weight - exercising an hour or more a day, eating practically nothing (1,000 calories or fewer), and the scale never moved. My doctor finally said I must have "metabolic syndrome," that my body essentially acted as if 100 calories was really 1000 or more when it came to weight gain. He stressed that no matter what I did, I wouldn't be able to lose any weight, and my diabetes would never go away. He explained that I would never get back to my high school weight of 125 - 135. At 5'8" I would have been happy even weighing from 150 - 175, but the doctor was telling me that that was never going to happen either. I stopped starving myself and gave up on losing any weight.

Fast forward a few years. When our pediatrician discovered that my new baby was allergic to wheat and milk and said that chances were high that everyone in the family had the same allergies, I immersed myself in research. I found that food allergies and sensitivities can cause hundreds of symptoms, including weight gain and difficulty losing weight. That didn't really register with me at the time, but because of the allergies, our entire family made the dietary change.

That dietary change, a change to a gluten-free, casein-free diet, it what triggered my weight loss. It was amazing weight loss - something you'd hear about in a commercial and know that the claim was too good to be true. A pound a day is impossible - everyone knows that. And it's probably all water weight or muscle loss, right? Mine wasn't. Part of it was water weight - food allergies and sensitivities cause you to retain water in your tissues, and cause inflammation in the body. I lost a ring size in a few days. The rest of it was fat - mostly from my abdomen, hips, and thighs. I wasn't trying to lose weight (remember, I had given up on that already). I was still eating the same number of calories and I wasn't exercising, but I lost a pound a day for more than a month. I dropped 6 sizes, and if it hadn't been for a new pregnancy, I'm sure I would still be dropping.

Most people are weakened and tired while they're losing weight. After three days on the GFCF diet, I had more energy than I'd had in years and my Fibromyalgia and arthritis were all but gone. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and if anyone had told me that they experienced something like this, I would not have believed a word of it. Only by doing the GFCF dietary trial myself could I see and believe the results.