To have celiac disease, or gluten intolerance, in the United States would be like being allergic to rice in China. Why? Because in America grains like wheat, rye, oats, and barley are used to make most of the popular foods like pasta, pizza, and bread.

As most of us know, diet health is crucial for your well-being. These major grains listed above contain natural carbohydrates, which give the body energy, or fuel. Without eating any grains you will find yourself feeling lethargic.

This obviously can create some frustration for those that are gluten intolerant. However, there are ways around it. You just need to educate yourself and learn what other things you can use to substitute into your diet for the major Western grains. Some of these alternative grains are healthier anyway.

Gluten-Free Grains For Your Diet Health

While the following grains are gluten-free when you use them as substitutes in your diet the taste of what you prepare will vary slightly from the original. But with time and experimenting with things like spices and flavorings you can get your gluten-free meals to taste just as good as anything else.

You will be able to find these grains in most supermarkets, specialty super markets, and health food stores. The first gluten-free grain is buckwheat.

I know it is confusing, but “Buckwheat” doesn’t have any wheat in it. Buckwheat can be found at most grocery stores and health food stores. Buckwheat can be a great substitute in waffles and pancakes.

The second gluten-free grain is quinoa. Quinoa is a rice-like grain from South America that can be used as a substitute in virtually any couscous, rice, or pasta recipe. Be aware that cooking with quinoa and learning the proper portions takes some getting used to.

The next gluten-free grain is one the first ever cultivated grains. It is known as millet. This grain is inexpensive and should be easy to find at your local health food store. You should also be able to easily find millet bread. This bread is delicious and makes a great substitute.

Then you have corn. Obviously you can just eat it as is or you can use corn flour as a substitute for regular flour. Corn starch is another type of gluten-free grain substitute.

The last common grain substitue is Sorghum. Sorghum looks like sugar cane, can be used as a sweetener, and can be used to make gluten-free beer. It is also used as an ingredient in ice cream.

Less Known Grains

Some other grains, although more difficult to find are also gluten-free and can be used as wheat substitutes for your diet health. They include:
* Amaranth
* Teff (a small Ethiopian grain found within the ancient Pyramids and still used as a primary dinner ingredient in Egypt)
* Montina (sometimes called Indian rice grass)
* Wild Rice

Your best place to find these grains is at some type of specialty ethnic grocery store or market. If you are gluten intolerant I hope you can use some of the above suggestions to help you find gluten-free substitutes for your diet health.

Brue M. Baker is an expert on natural health and fitness who has helped people from across the world sky-rocket their health and well-being. To find the best natural health resources anywhere on the web visit: http://www.DietHealthAndFitness.com

There are six common mistakes most people make when trying to lose weight – I know because I made them too! Here are some great tips for avoiding these gaffes and achieving success on your weight loss diet plan.

YOU ARE TRYING TO DO TOO MUCH TOO SOON

Trying to go from Sedentary Slob to Super Dieter on a Monday morning? Not so smart. It is a surefire way to be back to the Twinkies by mid-day Wednesday. You can’t expect to undo years worth of damage overnight.

If you typically eat “three square meals” a day, start out by adding a snack – either in the morning or the afternoon, then work your way to six small meals every 2-3 hours. This approach to fat loss is called kaizen, a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. Making a small change once a day or once a week leads to a constant state of improvement.

YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE QUICK FIX

I was convinced I had a Loch Ness Monster in my colon and that was making me fat! But the colon cleanser I purchased only left me with a very sore butt, some leafy-looking things in the toilet and not a single pound lost.

Now I was convinced that I needed a deluxe fat burner – one that would melt away the fat while I sat on my butt doing nothing!

After thousands of dollars and lots of false hope, I realized that the only way I was going to achieve the lean body that I desired was to come up with a solid nutrition and exercise plan, and to add supplements that were backed by solid science.

YOU ARE LETTING OTHERS KNOCK YOU OFF-TRACK

My family is full of enablers – they mean well, but they were not sensitive to the fact that I was trying to stay on track with my fat loss efforts. “C’mon a little bit won’t hurt you” or “you can start again tomorrow” was all it took to convince me that they were right. Within 30 minutes I had eaten myself stupid and undone all of the positive progress that I had spent the past week achieving.

Let those around you know how important your fat loss efforts are and what it means to both you, and them, that you stay on track.

YOU ARE NOT GETTING BACK “ON THE WAGON” IMMEDIATELY AFTER FALLING OFF

I would usually fall off my diet toward the end of any given week. It was at that point that I rationalized that, since I was “off the wagon” I would wait until Monday to get started again!

This probably won’t come as a big shock, but science now has proven that weekends can wreak havoc on your waistline. That was the conclusion of Washington University researchers, who found that even people on strict diet and exercise programs lose weight more slowly than expected because they eat more on weekends.

The verdict: People don’t need a holiday to eat more; they tend to do it every weekend because human lifestyle patterns can be very different.

There were two key takeaways for me from this:

1.The best time to get back “on the wagon” was at your next meal – do not wait until you’ve done more damage.
2. Do not let the weekends be different than any other day – stick with your plan whether it is a Saturday or a Wednesday

YOU ARE TRYING TO BE PERFECT EVERY DAY

Life is not perfect – and your diet plan shouldn’t be either. You can’t expect yourself to follow your program to the letter every second of every day until you reach your goal. If you do, you are setting yourself up for failure. That is why you need to apply the 90/10 rule to your nutrition and exercise.

The 90/10 rule is very simple – if you are on your program 90% of the time, then you will not be hurt by the 10% of the time you are not. Your weight loss diet should have a minimum of 5 meals per day, with 6 meals as your goal. Following the 90/10 rule with 6 meals a day (or 42 meals a week) means that you have 4 meals a week where you can go off your program without halting progress, as long as those meals are reasonable.

Same rules apply to exercise. Let’s say your schedule permits you to work out 4 days per week. So in a month, you have 16 workouts – and following the 90/10 rule, you can miss 1 or 2 workouts without derailing yourself. However, you should save your “skips” for times when you really need to skip – like a poor night’s sleep, illness, or hectic travel schedule.

YOU ARE NOT SETTING REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

It took you your entire life to get to this point, and you expect to reverse all of the damage in 3 weeks? That is what a lot of diet products would like you to believe.

You absolutely MUST set goals, but they MUST be realistic. What is realistic? 1-2 pounds of fat per week is a good expectation. The more you have to lose, the higher you can set your expectation. But if you are approaching double-digits with your expectations, you will ultimately fail.

Matt is a fat loss authority and author of The Burrito Diet, the diet plan he used to lose 80 pounds in 8 months and maintain low body fat. Matt conquered his life-long struggle with his weight through the power of the burrito – find out more about his amazing story at http://burritodiet.com