Q&A: How to Thrive as an Entrepreneur With Celiac Disease
An interview with Amanda Goetz, founder of Life’s a Game
Amanda Goetz is the founder and author of Life’s a Game, an anti-hustle newsletter that provides professional and personal growth tips and frameworks every week. She’s also a marketing consultant, brand builder, and coaches solopreneurs in her Office Hours group. On top of all that, she’s a mom of three — and she has celiac disease.
I first met Amanda during the pandemic at a press event for the CBD company she founded back in 2018. I followed her on Twitter (now X) to stay up-to-date on her career — and you can imagine my surprise when I saw her post last year that she had been diagnosed with celiac disease!
I’ve been so inspired watching Amanda kick ass in her career (all while raising a family and handling her recent celiac diagnosis). I reached out to her this past fall to ask if I could interview her for my newsletter and was so excited when she said yes!
Ahead, Amanda shares how being diagnosed with celiac disease changed her life, how she handles being gluten-free at home with her family and on the road for work, and the genius advice she has for moms balancing their careers, family, and a chronic health condition.
On her life-changing celiac diagnosis
Amanda was officially diagnosed with celiac disease in October 2023. “This was literally after years of having stomach issues,” she says. “When I was little, I was told I was an anxious kid, which I definitely was — but I remember I had to drink Mylanta every morning, and then I thought I couldn’t have dairy, so I tried cutting that out. I was always trying to find a solution.”
Amanda worked in the health and wellness industry as an adult, first as an ACE-certified trainer in college, and has been an athlete her whole life. “Health and wellness are part of my DNA,” she says. She would go to doctors, try all sorts of diets, and take all sorts of tests — but celiac disease never came up.
Fast forward to her first vacation with her current partner, now fiancé. “I remember saying to him, ‘Listen, by day three or four, I’m going to be wildly constipated and need to go find something. I’m just giving you a heads up. This is how I am when I travel, and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to go find emergency colonics when I’m on vacation because it gets so bad. There’s always one day on vacation where I’m either about to throw up or so uncomfortable,’” she says.
It’s a situation a lot of celiacs (myself included) have found themselves in before they were diagnosed — and Amanda’s partner pointed out that it wasn’t normal. That was the push she needed to back to the doctor and ask for more testing to figure out what was going on.
“My doctor did the biopsies of my small intestine and it came back that I had celiac disease,” she says. “The first month I cut out gluten, I already started to feel better — and then by month three, I remember thinking, ‘Wait, so this is how everybody lives. You go to the bathroom every day. I can eat food and not bloat.’ I just never knew this was a thing.”
Amanda says learning how to advocate for her health has positively impacted her personal growth. “I’m more comfortable taking up space and being slightly inconvenient to somebody else for my needs,” she says.
“My doctor did the biopsies of my small intestine and it came back that I had celiac disease. The first month I cut out gluten, I already started to feel better — and then by month three, I remember thinking, ‘Wait, so this is how everybody lives. You go to the bathroom every day. I can eat food and not bloat.’ I just never knew this was a thing.”
On raising kids while managing celiac disease
Amanda says her family has a set schedule of what they eat throughout the week to keep things simple. For example, Tuesday is Taco Tuesday. “I can just turn mine into a salad,” says Amanda. Wednesday is pasta night, during which Amanda makes gluten-free pasta for herself and regular pasta for her kids. “I think the best thing that’s happened to me is that this has forced me to get really good about meal planning,” says Amanda.
She’s a fan of a healthy spot in Miami called Naked Farmer. Every Monday, she’ll order a family-sized portion of meat and chicken that she can eat throughout the week for lunch. “This situation has forced me to know what I’m putting into my body and to plan ahead,” says Amanda. “I’m so much healthier now.”
On eating gluten-free while traveling for work
“I eat the same thing every day — I’m the most boring person ever,” says Amanda. One of her favorite spots to grab a gluten-free lunch is Sweetgreen. “I just stick to what I know,” she says.
Currently, Amanda works as a fractional CMO for The Post, a community of former elite athletes. “I travel to New York City for work, and luckily, they’re all health conscious and one of the other team members is celiac as well,” she says. “So I’m finding that it’s becoming more common for people to have it and people are more aware.”
However, events can be harder as there often aren’t gluten-free options, notes Amanda. “I’m a lot more aware of looking ahead to see if food may not be available to me because I get cranky if I’m hungry,” she says. “If I’m going to an event, I eat when I can control it and I don’t rely on eating at parties.”
On juggling her career, parenting, and health
Amanda shares wise words for other women who have all of the things going on in their lives: “We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘Put your oxygen mask on before you help others,’” she says. “But the way I think about it is, if I don’t take care of myself and eat something or I don’t plan ahead, it can lead to me being knocked out for a day for my family.”
She always goes back to what the main goal in her life is: “It’s to be present for the people I care about most,” says Amanda. “And if I’m not setting myself up to be able to do that, then what is it all for?”
Amanda has a couple of tactical tips for how she prioritizes self-care. First, her family knows she goes off-duty as mom at 8 pm (so long as there aren’t any emergencies).
“We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘put your oxygen mask on before you help others.’ But the way I think about it is, if I don’t take care of myself and eat something or I don’t plan ahead, it can lead to me being knocked out for a day for my family.”
“I set a timer at 7:30 pm and say, ‘Everybody’s got 30 minutes and then mommy’s off-duty,’” she says. “At 8 pm, my boundary is that I’m on the couch cuddled up with my tea — I don’t get up anymore. I need that hour from 8 to 9 pm to decompress and spend time with my partner.” If one of her children gets out of bed after 8 pm, they know that they’re going to have to put themselves back to bed.
Her other tip? “I talk about my ‘commute bath,’ which is when I transition from work mode to parent mode,” she says. “For any ambitious woman who’s trying to juggle work and family, you know the struggle of coming out of a meeting and being in more of an aggressive mindset. Kids need a very different energy and a very different patience — and that’s a very different role for me.”
Amanda says you have to honor the transition between those roles you’re playing and give yourself that commute. “For me, that’s always a bath,” she says. “At the end of the workday, I take a 10-minute bath. I listen to music, scroll, whatever I need to do. “I come out and that’s the moment where I embody the next role I have to play.”
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I loved this interview!
Such an inspiration!