Developing a diet that is healthful, balanced, and appropriate for your particular caloric needs is easy enough and is absolutely critical to establishing a healthful lifestyle that incorporates proper nutrition, adequate fitness, and mental resilience.

Everyone has their own definition of a healthy lifestyle, and mine has come to mean making health a priority but not an obsession.

The Dorm Room Diet is nothing like the conventional diets you may have tried in the past. It offers guidelines for creating a healthy lifestyle on your own, without the daunting restrictions of a quick-fix diet.

After my first week of no wheat, my stomachaches were gone, my mucous cleared up, and I felt incredibly energetic. My headaches were also less frequent and less severe, and I had lost 3 pounds, most of it swelling and water weight my body had been holding onto as part of its response to the wheat products in my diet.

A gluten-free diet still allows you access to almost every fruit and vegetable, a variety of grains and legumes, your pick of dairy products, fresh meats and fish and a whole slew of special gluten-free delights to satisfy your pretzel-bagel-muffin-doughnut craving.

A 'diet' is simply an individual's eating regimen: it doesn't have to mean the restrictive plan we've come to associate this word with.