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Challenge #2 Update: My Still Spirited but Much Healthier Kids

May 5, 2012 in 2012, About Sarah's Family

Over the past 6 months, I have successfully transitioned my daughters to a lacto-paleo diet.  I tackled this transition by finding great paleo substitutes for their favorites, gradually introducing new foods, and slowly phasing out the foods that we don’t eat anymore.  You can read about various aspects of my children’s transition to paleo in these posts:

and also about my general approach to the transition in this post:

How has going paleo improved their health?  Both girls had small patches of eczema that cleared up once their diet was gluten-free.  My youngest still gets very mild rashes from time to time, which I think might indicate a dairy sensitivity and I am also growing suspicious of strawberries (she got a very obvious rash after eating birthday cake so we know she is for sure gluten-sensitive).  I love that I don’t have to slather my girls in cortisone cream anymore!  I have also noticed that, since going gluten-free, both my daughters’ immune systems seem to be much stronger.  The last few colds that passed through our house were so minor as to be barely noticed.  We used to be sick all the time and catch absolutely everything that was going around.  Now, I’ve even started to not worry about exposure to other sick kids because for I finally have some confidence in their immune systems actually doing their job!  The most amazing accomplishment is that we were able to wean my oldest off of Miralax, which she had been on for the last three years (since she was 2!) for chronic constipation.  And this is saving a noticeable amount of money!  My oldest also seems to be sleeping a bit better and has better energy, but still seems lower energy than other kids her age.  We’ve had her tested for various deficiencies, all of which she doesn’t have, so it seems to be simply caused by not eating enough, or at least, not regulating her blood sugar well with what she is eating. 

Unfortunately, my youngest still has nighttime breathing issues which continue to be not fully diagnosed (and actually even less clear than they were before because now they continue after she awakes, so it doesn’t look like sleep apnea anymore).  We have taken her off the acid reflux medicine (it never did anything anyway!), which I think is progress in terms of ruling that out as a potential cause (I also disliked that she was on proton-pump inhibitors at all, so I am very pleased to have her off of them!).  We do know that she still has a laryngomalacia (a floppy epiglottis) and that her vocal cord bands are tight.  This may be the root cause of her breathing issues (in which case, she may grow out of it, but surgery is an option), which would be unrelated to diet.  We have another sleep study booked (her third!) to see whether or not she is still experiencing any obstructive sleep apnea and will proceed from there.

So, what are my goals with my kids?  I am proud of my girls (and myself) for making and accepting so many changes to their diets.  However, I have decided that I want to remove dairy products from their diet after all.  For my youngest, I am hoping it will fix whatever is causing her to gasp for air at night and hopefully put an end to the occasional rashes she gets.  For my oldest, I am hoping that removing these insulinogenic foods from her diet will help balance her blood sugar and hence her energy levels during the day.  I have actually already started the process.  We got my youngest used to drinking water instead of milk throughout the day (this was never an issue with my oldest who never did like to drink straight milk).  We no longer have cow’s milk in the house so that if they do want milk, it’s coconut milk.  And I have been experimenting with flavoring my own homemade coconut milk yogurt so that the girls will eat it.  I haven’t quite figured out what to do about cheese, except try to get used to not eating it.  My youngest doesn’t eat much, so this is mostly an issue for my oldest. 

When I think back to how my kids ate just 6 months ago, I am completely amazed at how much progress we have made.  I still have challenges ahead of me; but I can now say that I feel confident that I am feeding my children optimal nutrition and teaching them how to eat to stay healthy for their entire lives.  And that feels pretty good!

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Challenge #1 Update: My Much Less Skeptical Husband

May 1, 2012 in 2012, About Sarah's Family

This week is my 6 month blogiversary, which means that I have been working on transitioning my family to a paleo diet for half of a year!  But, all those small changes have really added up and we have made amazing progress.  So, I felt an update to my challenges (and my goals) is overdue.

In anticipation of writing this update, I asked my husband what he thought about “this whole paleo thing”.  He said (in a fairly nonchalant voice) “It’s fine”.  My initial dismay at this unenthusiastic reply was immediately tempered by what he said next:  “You have made such innovative recipes in your pursuit of paleo perfection, that I don’t really miss anything.  Except beer.  Can you make paleo beer?”. 

It’s true that one of the most helpful parts in transitioning my family was to find or create recipes for paleo versions of their staples:  things like muffins, yeast-based paleo bread, granola bars, and even yogurt.  My husband doesn’t have an emotional attachment to food (like I do!).  So, as long as it’s easy for him, tastes okay, and doesn’t make him feel ill, he’s “fine”.  That’s what he meant.  And, my husband’s diet does qualify as paleo now!  He relies heavily on nuts and paleo baked goods, drinks heavy cream in his coffee, and has the occasional piece of cheese or serving of rice.  But, my husband doesn’t have health issues that would suggest he needs to be 100% compliant.  He is a man who can cheat on a paleo diet and get away with it.  However, I wanted to know whether my husband is paleo simply because I cook him paleo food.  Has he bought into the concepts behind the paleo diet?  We had a long discussion about this and the answer is “maybe not entirely”.  But, he has really changed his way of thinking about gluten and would no longer intentionally consume it.  When he travels or attends a catered function at work, he loosens the other aspects of his diet but remains steadfastly gluten-free.  While I think his level of buy-in still qualifies more as supporting me than supporting this way of life, I am pleased that he has accepted this key concept.

It helped to change gradually.  This allowed my family’s taste buds to adjust slowly and mitigated any adjustment period that they would have felt with a more cold-turkey-like transition (like the one I did for myself).  And if you don’t have obvious health issues that are compelling you to make a dramatic change, why not transition gradually?  Some people need to just jump in with both feet (I’m like this due to some sugar addiction issues), but others need to warm up to paleo more slowly.  And, I want this to be a lifelong way of eating and living for my whole family, so my focus is on sustainability rather than achieving the paleo dieter badge as quickly as possible.  I have addressed parts of my husband’s transition to paelo in these posts:

As an update on our attempt to get my husband to gain some weight, he has gained 4 pounds in the last 3 weeks with the increased food intake.  He feels terrible if he skips a meal or doesn’t eat enough protein at breakfast and his appetite definitely seems better.  I’d like to see him gain another 10-20 pounds, preferably mostly as muscle.  But that will require further changes to his lifestyle, especially his stress management. 

My husband is an assistant professor with his tenure review constantly looming over him in addition to the incessant pressure of getting grants in a very competitive funding environment.  He is under a great deal of stress, what we refer to as “Assistant Professor Syndrome”.  One of his colleagues recently joked that, due to the demands of assistant professorship, he was only “allowed” 4 hours of sleep.  When we started transitioning to a paleo diet, my husband didn’t have major health issues that needed improving.  And the continued issues he does have are likely caused by living with too much stress rather than deficiencies in his diet.  Changing his diet didn’t affect his seasonal allergies this spring (although he was eating alot more dairy at the time).  We did discover that he has a mild FODMAP sensitivity, which simply means we can’t eat quite as many cruciferous veggies as I would like (or else he gets a pretty bad stomach ache).  He still has issues sleeping and feels tired much of the time.  He knows that he needs to do better with carving out more time for exercise, but most days, it seems like an insurmountable task. 

So, what are my new goals for my husband?  I guess now, I want to work on the other tenets of the paleolithic lifestyle.  I want to find ways to help him manage his stress and get better quality sleep.  I want to help him find more time to exercise and get outdoors.  I’m not sure exactly how to do this, beyond being as supportive as I can.  I am hoping that the recent diet changes we’ve made will help regulate his stress and sleep hormones a little better (which usually takes a couple of months to really see).  But, he is making gradual progress in these areas too, and I want to emphasize how much positive change he has made these last 6 months.  And I truly appreciate his continued support of my venture to improve our family’s health and my desire to candidly share our story with you.  Maybe I’ll thank him by buying him some gluten-free beer.

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Challenge #2: My Kids

November 9, 2011 in 2011, About Sarah's Family

So this would all have been easier if I had found paleolithic nutrition BEFORE motherhood.  But I didn’t.  I was close to my biggest when I got pregnant with my first daughter.  Gestational diabetes, which evolved into pre-diabetes after she was born, spurned me on to lose 100 pounds before getting pregnant with my second daughter.  But I used a type II diabetes type diet, relying on willpower to make what I thought were good food choices.  I struggled for the first year after my second daughter was born to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Now, as my youngest fast approaches two years old, I am finally putting all the pieces together for myself:  paleolithic nutrition, lots of fun non-strenuous activity, and good sleep.  But my husband and kids are still firmly entrenched in a world of nutrition misinformation, a world I belonged to not that long ago. 

There are many blogs out there of families living a paleolithic lifestyle with great success (see www.everydaypaleo.com and www.paleoparents.com for inspiring examples).  Some of these families were committed to paleolithic nutrition before having children or after their children were substantially older than mine, which I think would make things easier.  AND all the blogs I have read thus far have parents united in their efforts to expel all those offensive grains, legumes and dairy products from their diets.  This is not the case for me; but, I doubt that my challenge is unique.  I am trying to transition a very stubborn family to paleolithic nutrition, mostly against their will (but for their own good, dammit!).

My oldest daughter has never liked food.  She had acid reflux as a baby that lasted well into her toddler years.  She didn’t like most of the baby foods we tried (homemade and store-bought).  Her weight percentile slowly dropped relative to her height over her first year until she reached 5th percentile for weight (but 75th percentile for height!) at her one year check-up.  We were on doctor’s orders to fatten her up fast!  We were told to make instant pudding with cream instead of milk and give it to her after every meal.  Well, it worked.  But how do you go back from that???  I have catered food for her for over four years.  Sure, we were able to wean off the high sugar content foods (and anything with preservatives or colorings), but she still doesn’t like most food.  There are no good protein sources that she eats reliably, except maybe cheese but she only eats this on top of club crackers!  She doesn’t eat vegetables and only eats three different kinds of fruit.  And here’s the thing:  most kids will eventually eat something they don’t really like if it’s the only thing offered (my youngest daughter, for example).  This child would literally starve.  She has made a profession out of ignoring her physical requirements (we used to joke that the three things she never did as a baby were eat, sleep or poop!).  My biggest challenge with my oldest is just plain old finding paleolithic foods that she likes.

My youngest daughter does like food.  I introduced foods to her in a very different way, made everything myself, introduced great variety, focused on fruits, vegetables and proteins with grains as an afterthought.  But shortly after wheat was introduced to her diet, she started suffering obstructive sleep apnea.  It took a year of tests to diagnose that she has a slightly floppy epiglottis (called a laryngomalacia) and severe acid reflux (which shocked us because she almost never spat up as a baby).  Our pediatric gastroenterologist doesn’t think a gluten-free diet would help (I actually heard him on NPR this week talking about how we should try acid reflux medicine in babies before altering the mom’s diet to treat colic!) and would like to just “wait and see if she grows out of it”.  Fortunately, our pediatrician is on board with trying a gluten-free diet, so I’m going to!  My biggest challenge with my youngest is getting through the stubborn, picky toddler phase that she is just entering.  This is even harder when my oldest is eating foods I’d rather not have in the house.

My strategy with my kids is similar to my husband.  First find great paleolithic alternatives to their staples and then phase out the neolithic foods.  For now, I won’t sweat sugar intake if it’s in the form of fruits, starchy veggies and healthy paleo baking.  And I have no intention of cutting out dairy products for the moment.  Let’s get grains and legumes out first.  My hope for my oldest daughter is that improving her nutrition will rectify her chronic constipation, help balance her energy levels (she’s always complaining about being tired), help her sleep more soundly, and clear up her eczema.  My hope for my youngest daughter is that her acid reflux and obstructive sleep apnea will completely disappear.  And of course, my biggest hope for both my girls is that they will never have the health and weight issues that I had.  Again, wish me luck!

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Challenge #1: My Skeptic Husband

November 7, 2011 in 2011, About Sarah's Family

I love my husband.  We have been married for over 8 years and together for 16 years.  I was very overweight for most of that time.  I think he takes almost as much joy in my newfound health as I do.  But that doesn’t mean he wants to eat like me.  My husband is a skinny fat man.  That means that he is naturally lean, but not particularly muscular.  His blood lipids and blood pressure are good.  He doesn’t exercise, but he’s in good enough shape to enjoy a hike with the girls where they ride on our shoulders most of the way.  So there is no real incentive for him to change anything.  And he loves grains.

I can tell that my husband is intrigued by how well I’m sleeping, how energetic I am all day, how much more balanced my moods are, and how health issues like IBS, GERD and migraines have disappeared. But every time I get encouraged by his interest and start to steer him toward a commitment to paleolithic nutrition, he ruffles his feathers and gets this indignant teenager attitude.  He’ll say things like “I agreed to cut back on my grains but not cut them out!”.  He’s stubborn and, while he has a great work ethic at his job, he’s lazy when it comes to making himself breakfast and packing his lunch.

Sure, I could wipe out the pantry of all the bad neolithic foods; but frankly, I just can’t afford to throw food out.  Nor do I particularly want to test the strength of our marriage by creating a food ultimatum (we are both very stubborn so this could get bad quickly).  So here is my strategy:  I am going to have to work hard to find paleolithic foods that meet his taste, comfort food and convenience requirements.  This will be a little difficult given that my husband dislikes a lot of my daytime staples, like nuts, coconut and canned fish.  But once we have a good repertoire of healthy choices that he likes, we can phase out the bad stuff.  At least he is enjoying the paleo suppers that I am making and many of the paleo treats I’ve experimented with (recipes coming soon! I promise!).

My goal with my husband is to not only transition him to a 100% paleolithic diet, but to get him to really buy in.  I hope that he will also see big improvements to his health, in particular to his sleep quality, fatigue during the day, stress and anxiety (not to mention reducing his risk for cancer and heart disease for which there is a strong family history).  I am also encouraging him to find an active hobby (like join a soccer team) and trying to get the whole family outside for active play, whether it’s a walk to the playground, a weekend hike, or just a romp in the backyard.  So, wish me luck!

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