The Why and What behind Stephen's Diet....

Before I share the 'what' of our diet I want to share two main thoughts that came to me that first year and gave me motivation for the 'why' of our diet.

The first thought was shared with me by another mother in our aspergers/PDD support group. I was discouraged with the lack of help and support from the IU and felt so helpless about Stephen's future. She looked at me in the eye and said, “You are Stephen's biggest advocate. No one else cares about him like you do. It is your job to access services, design his educational program and advocate for what he needs. At this point I realized that it was my responsibility to get help for Stephen— no one else!

There are so many supports available to us in America that sometimes I think we forget to think for ourselves. This was something I remembered and had to apply over and over....when I requested a re-eval for Stephen to get more services, when I told all his teachers that he couldn't have the school snacks, when I discussed vaccinations with several pediatricians, when I asked the head gastro doctor at Hershey to transfer our daughter to another hospital. Not everybody agreed with my/our decision but the end result was our responsibility and they all respected that.

The second major thought was shared with me by a Christian herbal consultant. We were discussing healthy eating and supplements and she told me that we are what we eat. If we eat sugar that is what our body cells crave and thrive on. If we eat healthy food that is the state of our cells also. The 'why' of eating healthy became much more clear to me as I took in all this information. It was my responsibility to help Stephen and he needed the highest quality nutrients to support his brain growth and development......now WHERE to start?

At this point we had all ready removed all the 'bad' stuff from our cupboards but it was overwhelming to think of planning three healthy meals every day, on a budget, for a very picky eater, a toddler and a growing baby! Back to the drawing board we went :-) With the help of my friend, again :-), I wrote out a weekly menu of what Stephen typically ate. Then I went hunting in the stores for healthy replacements. The first principle I learned....start gradual, start with favorite foods and pick replacement foods that are appealing and taste good! The goal is to train your body to crave less sugar, less white flour and more 'good stuff.' In the beginning I didn't worry about variety or balance as much as quality. Breakfast was the easiest meal for us to start. Here is the before and after picture of his menu:

Before: Lucky charms, pop-tarts, cereal, instant oatmeal, doughnuts, pancakes(syrup with HFCS), sausage, eggs

After: Jones(all-natural sausage), organic instant oatmeal, whole grain pancakes with flax seed added, maple syrup or Log Cabin(no HFCS), scrambled eggs, french toast with whole grain bread.

We did the same thing with his lunch and supper menu items...keeping plenty of healthy stuff on hand—within less than a week we noticed a difference! As he stopped craving all the pure white sugar and white flour he started to clean his plate and eat more meats and more balanced meals!

I found several places including Amelia's, Sharp Shopper and Wegman's where I could get 'safe' food at a discount and learned what to keep on hand to make meals doable and healthy.

At this point he began speech therapy at the IU(September 09) and also started receiving Behavior therapy support in the home once a week(October 09). His stimming, chewing and other abnormal behavior lessened with the healthy diet but he still had a hard time relating to other people...especially his sisters! I found myself making excuses for him or answering for him when an adult asked him a question that he rarely knew how to answer....I desperately wanted him to be 'normal'...to be like all the other little boys that I saw playing together and interacting with friends...Life continued to be a whirlwind of therapy, research, shopping and reading as we tried to make sense of this diagnosis and anticipate what the future might hold.

The information we had learned so far was the key to unlocking Stephen's world...the door wasn't open yet but the key was in the lock and we were primed to go! Keep reading future blogs as I share more of what we learned!