My Journey

I'm Mary, I have an amazing husband and four wonderful children, all with names that start with E. I started down the whole foods road about over 4 years ago, due to a wonderful friends' influence on a forum on www.thebabywearer.com . Thanks to her journey and the other awesome ladies on there, I learned about traditional foods and healthy fats. 


Two years ago in August 2009, I was pregnant with our third and started having more GI issues, causing me to lose weight. I became intolerant to dairy, gluten and corn and was already intolerant to soy. It turned out my baby was intolerant to all those things, PLUS (we found out when she was a few weeks old) rice. She's outgrown everything except rice, blueberries & bananas (as far as we know, we don't do gluten or oats in our home). I lost 56 lbs in 2010, while nursing E3, due to eating a Primal/Paleo diet (although I didn't know what it was called at the time). I looked the best I ever had & healthy, was wearing sizes I'd NEVER worn as an adult, and felt awesome. I even did the Insanity workout!


Shortly after E3 was born, the kids went dairy & gluten free with me. My oldest daughter had throat clearing issues when she had milk products and both of them had had eczema from the time they were babies.


My son changed. He became better able to communicate and his behavior went from tantrums all the time to being a pleasure to be around. It turns out he is on the Autism Spectrum with Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. SPD is very similar to Asperger's, but not as severe. It's the communication problems and many of the social skills, but he's not rigid in his schedule or rules, so doesn't freak out if we change things up. It's like he's come out of a fog. He's such a wonderful child to be with now! I hate to say it like that, but it's true. I'm tearing up, just remembering. We were feeding him poison for him. Chicken nuggets, gluten bread, etc. He couldn't communicate with us and was so frustrated. He's very bright and finished his first grade math and reading/language program a semester early. He's in speech therapy to help him learn some of the social skills he won't just pick up like neurotypical kids, and it's helped a lot.


My children, husband and myself are healthier. We rarely get sick (praise the Lord!). My older kids haven't taken antibiotics since about 2007, and my younger kids have never had them. My son and oldest daughter used to get lots of ear infections. Since starting chiropractic care, eating well, and trying to get lots of Vitamin D through the sun in the summer, and cod liver oil in the winter, they haven't had one to my knowledge. If they do start to get sore ears, we get them adjusted, and that takes care of it. We occasionally get colds and flu, but they're quick and not that bad, overall.


I am so thankful for what I've learned and the way we eat, because of the amazing changes we've seen in our family. 


I just had our fourth baby last month, and it seems she's intolerant to rice, also, so I'm back on the Primal band wagon full force. 


I choose Primal Blueprint www.marksdailyapple.com over Paleo because of the 80/20 rule (eat best 80% of the time, eat whatever 20%, though I try to be closer to 100%), the allowance of natural sweeteners like maple syrup, raw local honey, coconut sugar, and used to do stevia (but I'm allergic to ragweed and stevia is in that family or something, so I got allergy headaches from it).


Why eat foods that hurt me? I don't want to feel crappy or in pain, so I choose to eat this way for me, my family, and my little baby who can't choose what to eat herself.

What can whole foods eating do for you?

Well, a lot. It can help you have more energy, be more focused, and lots more. You'll never know what all can be achieved until you try it for yourself! Whole foods is what our family eats - whole foods, as unprocessed as possible, cooked from scratch and good, nutritious ingredients. If man made it, I try not to eat it - chemicals, food colorings (not food based), etc.

This is my dear, sweet friend, Holly's story. She's the one who first introduced the idea of whole foods to me, and she gave me permission to share this story that she wrote in 2008 about her family and their whole foods journey.

My name is Holly. I'm the mother in a family of recovering bariatrics.

On Dec. 23rd, 2007 my dear adopted son had an intense, obsessive, ranting reaction about what my in-laws served for dinner. Basically, it wasn't chicken nuggets! So he didn't eat and then demanded dessert. Needless to say, dessert wasn't granted. So he stole some truffles and ate them in the back seat while we began our four hour trip back home.

That night the camel's back broke in two! We ranted/cried/argued and then prayed. Then we discussed how to respond in a way that might having lasting effect without instituting further useless punishment on our very damaged (reactive attachment disorder) and very ill (bipolar) son.

The shocking conclusion to that conversation was our decision to drop sugar and processed foods from our diet... PERMANENTLY! I finished my final COKE and drove home to a new life.

John
I'll have to go back and look at my original posts but John became stable for the first time in only a couple of weeks. He began occasionally having dry nights. He began to show interest in relationships and activities. He is a completely different child than he was a year ago.

John is on lower doses of all his medications and is more stable than I have EVER known him. Most people who meet John nowdays have no idea that he has very serious special needs.

Due to excess calcium in his bloodstream, John requires extra vitamin D to remain stable. I believe that is why he has always had more difficulty in the winter. This winter is our best ever thanks to the extra D/sunlight I'm trying very hard to pump into his system.

We've also discovered that his bedwetting and daytime wetting is directly related to wheat intolerance if not gluten altogether. And the joy of whole foods is that when you find an unacceptable food, it is simple to eliminate.

I used to have to make John's pants for him because we could not squeeze him into size 20 huskies at 8 years old. And the adult pant legs were so long I had to hem at least 18 inches off of them. Size 10 boys pants now fit him perfectly, even in length. We aren't certain of his top weight but we believe him to have lost over 40 lbs.

Oh, and remember the huge fit over not having chicken nuggets? Well, now, he jumps up and down with excitement when we serve brussells sprouts!

Dear Husband: Theo
Theo topped out at 301 lbs. He has lost just over 60 lbs and has reduced some of his blood pressure medication and some allergy medication. (We've discovered sugar affects the immune system and increases allergies.) His eyesight has improved and he's hoping he'll lose enough weight to stop using his c-pap machine.

Hannah
Hannah has an allergy to milk and soy. Her allergies are a cinch to manage on a whole foods diet. She, too, was becoming addicted at the ripe age of one to processed foods and starting to snub her nose at healthier offerings. But today she is also a lover of brussells sprouts and nearly anything she can put in her mouth! At 2 years old, she can name all the ingredients for guacamole, a particularly favorite food!

She's the only one in the family who is gaining weight. And actually, she's really leveled off, until her next growth spurt, that is.

Myself
Hmmm, who knew this solution to John's behavior would change my life? I've lost 75 lbs. I'm now a runner! My feet don't have big, bleeding crevices in the heels anymore. My PMS is quite mild now (though, my DH does remind me it is there). My cycle included a short luteal phase which I believe contributed to at least one chemical pregnancy and some difficultly in conception. My cycle has lengthened on average about four days. My vision has also improved. We all had a bout of colds/flus in the first couple of months after switching to whole foods and now we've all been healthy longer than ever before and when someone does show symptoms, they are gone in only a day or so as opposed to weeks before.

I have more before and after photos on the original thread but here is our family before and now.