How hard is it to be healthy?

My energy is slowly returning, it has felt like a long slow process! But at last my joie de vie is seeping back, and this makes me feel relieved as well as very happy! I keep hearing of more and more of my friends and colleagues who have become seriously ill, and as a result are no longer eating gluten. Wikipedia tells me that coeliac disease is most often diagnosed in people between the ages of 40-60 (yes sadly myself and my friends are now moving into this age bracket!). I guess the effects of the auto-immune problems and malnutritian take a long while to take hold, and build up to a level where it becomes a big enough problem to stop you dead in your tracks. So how difficult is it to be healthy? Harder than I thought to be honest! (And more expensive!!) (and I didn't think I was that unhealthy before, but helllooo! Wake up time!). Now (and forever more) grabbing a sandwich, pie, biscuit or bit of cake are all off the menu for me (along with most ready meals), so I have had to allocate more time and effort into sorting out what I eat. Funny also that when I'm out at meal times and ask for gluten free food, people think I have put myself on a calorie controlled diet and must only want to eat a lettuce leaf plus maybe half a tomato. Hmmm, no!! I would like to eat a tasty filling nutritious meal that does not poison me! I am not purposefully depriving myself of food because I want to be thin, what I would like is to be healthy and full of energy, as opposed to being really really exhausted and ill. So now I have to put together a balanced nutritional plan, making sure I am making up for previous malnurishment. Quite a lot of things to consider! but I am feeling so much better, so it is most definitely worth it. (Actually I would love a cream tea or a beer with a pizza but - well tough! If I wanted to I could drink crabbies ginger beer or cider, and eat chocolate, so all is not lost. Although now my body is a temple of course....)(Ha ha ha). Life is good.