Skog Jennifer - Danielle Walkers against all grain. Meals made simple: gluten-free, dairy-free, and paleo recipes to make anytime

The prospect of living the rest of my life, through careers, motherhood, and grandchildren, with an irreversible illness was an extremely disheartening prognosis and left me feeling hopeless and alone. I had always dreamt of being a wife and a mom, and those dreams seemed to be crashing down around me. I remember lying in the hospital bed searching for answers from my doctor, and the only question that I could mutter out amongst tears was, Will I be able to have children? He assured me that I could live a normal life if I just took the medications he prescribed. As we are taught to do by our mothers, I listened to my doctor and took the prescriptions. I was ushered out of the hospital with very little information as to what the disease was, how it was caused, the symptoms, or the forms of relief. I was not aware of the inexplicable episodes that were to come, which I now know as flare-ups.

I also was not aware of the drastic side effects that the medications would begin to cause, or that the so-called normal life I was promised would be everything but. For years, I suffered from the standard symptoms that accompany ulcerative colitis, as well as malabsorption, drastic weight loss, joint pain, and malnutrition. After countless doctor visits and trips to the emergency room and an expansive array of medications and high-dose prednisone steroids, I found myself hospitalized numerous times each year, admitted repeatedly for multiple blood transfusions due to morbidly low hemoglobin levels. Left with a choice between major surgery and lifelong frequent IV treatments with harsh side effects, I began my own research to explore other options. After reading through community support boards and meeting a friend who had tried the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), I reluctantly gave it a try, eating only grain-free, sugar-free, starch-free, lactose-free, and unprocessed foods. Although no doctor would suggest, or even support, dietary change as a part of my treatment, I realized that I had take things into my own hands to achieve real results.

I noticed significant improvement within a matter of months, but committing to a new, drastically different diet was not easy, and I frequently fell off the regimen. I was able to conceive after quite some time of trying and, after experiencing a heartbreaking and rare loss with a first pregnancy, my son, Asher, was born in October 2010. When he was just nine months old, I had an extreme setback that caused me to be hospitalized for fourteen days, required multiple blood transfusions, and debilitated me for nearly four months. It was the darkest point of my life thus far and still conjures a flood of emotion when I recall it. My son was not allowed to visit me in the hospital, and there were many times when I was at home in bed that I had to turn him away because I was too sick or exhausted to entertain him. My family and friends rallied during that time and became his surrogate mother, which was both comforting and tragic for me.

Looking back on it now, I push away the feelings of guilt, knowing that he was young enough that he will never remember those months and will only remember me as his healthy mom who was present during his upbringing and attended each and every baseball game. He will never remember me uttering the words Mommy is sick or Mommy cannot come downstairs today. We all have a revelatory moment in our lives right before committing to an extreme lifestyle alteration. That was my moment, the point in my life when I realized that being incapacitated for months at a time was not an option now that I had a helpless life relying on me to care for him. It was no longer just my life, or even my ever-supportive husband Ryans life, that was in jeopardy. There was a tiny human being who needed his mother, and during that final hospital stay I made the commitment to always be there for him.

As soon as I was released and gained enough strength to venture out, I began eliminating even more food groups, including all dairy and legumes, following a plan that closely mimicked the Paleo diet. After seeing dramatic progress after just forty-eight hours, I committed to the diet wholeheartedly and dedicated my free time to creating delicious comfort foods that could be enjoyed on a restricted diet. I started to become aware of the many different diseases and ailments that this style of diet can alleviate and decided to share my story and recipes on my blog, Against All Grain, in an attempt to ensure that no one else would have to feel as alone or lost as I did. I began to gain a following of people suffering from a vast array of autoimmune diseases, autism spectrum disorders, diabetes, and so much more. Emails flooded in from people searching for hope and quality recipes that could make this diet sustainable long-term, which further fueled my desire to be a spokesperson for the movement. I never would have imagined, while lying in countless hospital beds, that everything I went through could be used to help bring hope to hundreds of thousands of people.

As unbearable as it was, Ryan and I both agree now that we would not change any of it for the world. To be useful in such an impactful way, and out of such misfortune, is one of the most rewarding experiences I will ever have. For an in-depth account of my health journey and the different stages I went through to find Paleo, see my first book, Against All Grain, and www.againstallgrain.com/my-journey THE NUMBER-ONE CONCERN I HEAR from people attempting to transition to a Paleo lifestyle is about the amount of time and preparation involved. Undeniably, a real-foods, grain-free diet takes more of an effort and is not as convenient as purchasing ready-made food items, canned goods, or frozen meals at the grocery store. This book was born out of a desire to alleviate those concerns and the pressure that so many families feel when they are cooking for a new diet. Learning which foods are acceptable and unacceptable is enough to consume someone completely in the beginning.