I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. and I’ve always had a passion for food.  I grew up in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother and eventually passed my love for food down to my daughter.  At a very young age, basically as far back as I can remember, I can recall having stomach pain nearly anytime I’d eat. I believe my parents probably thought I was a complete hypochondriac but in their defense each visit to the doctor resulted in a diagnosis of “there’s nothing wrong with her...she’s perfectly healthy”. I’m not trying to date myself lol... but back then doctors didn’t know anything about gluten intolerance or celiac disease and many of them still don’t. Again...not their fault! It’s a statistic that medical doctors only receive about 9 hours of education on nutrition during their schooling to become a doctor, so in Dr. Goldberg’s defense he simply didn’t know what was wrong with me.  It wasn’t until my early 30’s that my reaction to gluten intensified and I remember this day in great detail until I backed out while driving with my 6 year old daughter in the back seat. We were driving home on the freeway coming home from shopping and lunch when all of the sudden my hands and face felt numb and tingling. I recall looking in the rear view mirror and noticed that my lips were purple and triple the size when all of the sudden my entire world started to close in on me. I had never blacked out in my life so I wasn’t sure what was happening but I knew it wasn’t good. I hooked it over 4 lane’s and threw the car in park just as I had blacked out completely. The next thing I recall was being pulled out of the car by the paramedics on the side of the freeway...thank goodness I taught my kids to push the SOS button in the car if anything were to ever happen. That day my daughter saved my life! My airway had completely closed...and all because I had eaten pizza aka gluten and my body finally decided to say nope enough is enough. As it turns out, gluten had been the culprit of my debilitating stomach pains all through life and so began my journey of health and wellness. It was a long process, even back then in 2005 the doctors just thought I was having a panic attack which was super frustrating by the way. I was not a sufferer of anxiety nor had I ever had a panic attack much less anything to be anxious about. I had 2 beautiful kids and lots to live for so I wasn’t going to accept an anxiety diagnosis from anyone. So, when the ER doctor sent me home with Xanax I nearly lost my sh*#!  I’m the type of person who has to nearly be crying before I take pain medication to relieve a headache, so that was an absolute no on the Xanax. Here’s where I tell you to be intuitive about your own body...only you know what’s best for you and if something doesn’t feel right don’t do it! Do your research and be your own advocate of your health because I’m here to tell you that no one and I mean no one will advocate for you better than you! I began researching and testing which by the way food allergy test’s were completely inconclusive, so I had to come up with my own way. My allergy specialist at the time had performed $3000 with of lab tests on me and the conclusion was the I’m the proud owner of an allergy to cats and some type of tree LOL.  When I questioned my specialist about the foods, explaining that his test showed that I was not allergic to a handful of foods that bothered me his response was priceless.  He said “food allergy tested are inconclusive, if you eat it and react then you’re allergic”.  Frankly I wish he had told me that before I spent all that money on blood tests but that neither here nor there.  From that point on I read practically every book out there. I was determined to figure out how to overcome this.  I tried everything, kept what worked and ditched what didn’t and in the end I had The Carie Lisa Method. This took many years of trial and error all tested and perfected on yours truly, but the final result is a fool proof way to know what works for your individual body. It’s not cookie cutter and it’s certainly not easy but if you’re serious about upping your health game I’d love to hear from you.

Xo,

Carie