Friday, July 17, 2015

Trying a New, Old Thing

The bad news: We've had some regression. I've seen a back-step in his spatial planning, muscle tone, anxiety levels, and overall mental awareness.  

The good news: I can pretty much trace the 'Why'. 
I added back in the Ubiquinol that we had cut at his last appointment. I added back half of the dose that he was taking and I'm already seeing positive gains in his muscle tone and posture. 

As for the rest, it's back to that Hippocratic remedy; diet. As Dr. Goldberg states in his book, The Myth of Autism, often going gluten free isn't enough since grains in general can be so inflammatory. Thus, I had decided that going back to our Paleo ways was probably best. But I hated the thought. Even worse, he hated the thought!  To have that bit of dietary freedom retracted made him understandably bummed.

The even-better news: My friend had been encouraging me to study the Keto (short for Ketogenetic) lifestyle for my own auto-immune dysfunction, namely Insulin Resistance and Hypo-Thyroidism. The keto diet, which has been the recommended diet for epileptic patients since the 1920s, is not just very low carb, but very high fat-as in 80% of your diet coming from good fat, the rest from protein and veggies and very low carbs. The Atkins diet is a version of a keto-diet, but while it stresses 'net carbs' and high protein, the Keto emphasizes real foods (non-synthetic) and healing fats with as little total carbs as possible.  For a really good introduction on the lifestyle and nutritional science behind it, I highly recommend visiting mariamindbodyhealth.com and/or her book Keto-Adapted which is available as a paper book from bookstores or as an ebook from Amazon and B&N.  The more I read about the anti-inflammatory benefits of eating this way, I began to wonder if this would be great for N to combat his neuro inflammation. This was confirmed as I read further and saw how this diet is benefiting Alzheimers patients (N is on an Alzheimers med), and then confirmed finally by the section where she talks about the positive effects they are seeing with Spectrum kids being switched to this diet. 

The more I read, the more I saw the similarities between how we were eating at the very beginning of this journey back in 2012 and Keto. By combining Paleo and Candida diets, we were eating high protein and low carb. BUT, since the fat molecules carry the flavor, we were missing out on the good and tasty foods by not compensating for low carb with fats!  Another of Maria E's books,  The Art of Healthy Eating-Kids, is quickly becoming my newest cookbook handbook. Using the dairy substitutions, we are getting to eat cheesecakes, frozen treats called 'Fat Bombs' which range from chocolate peanut butter to lemon and so on, milkshakes, yummy waffles, etc. It's made it so much easier to get family buy-in and cooperation this time! As I write this, I'm finishing off a bowl of spiralized zucchini noodles sauteed in garlic, EVOO, and Romano cheese. Soooo good!

 After just 3 days, Nathan saw improvement!I didn't tell him exactly why we were eating this way other than to say that I think it would help him get off his meds eventually, and on day 3, he volunteered this testimonial, " You know Mom, sometimes my brain was starting to feel fuzzy, but the last few days I feel like I can control it better." Hallelujah!!! Thank you, Lord, for your guiding hand!

As for me, I felt crummy yesterday, and then realized that I was probably experiencing yeast die-off and sugar withdrawals. I pushed through, and today I feel great!

The final bad news: Now I have more groceries to purge again. This time it is all of the special starches and GF foods that we have bought. I will have to revamp my pantry, as well as go back to making pretty much EVERYHING from scratch. But it's all good, and that just means my priorities have been rearranged. If we all end up healthier, then who am I to complain?

As always, thank you again for your encouragement and support. I can't tell you how much it means on this bumpy road that we're on.

Blessings,
Hillary