Digestive Wellness – Overfed and Undernourished

Is now posted at www.FoodAllergy911.com!

Digestive Wellness for Children

Today we finally begin our journey through Digestive Wellness for Children, every Friday we’ll tackle a bit more of it. It is posted on www.FoodAllergy911.com so come on over and learn with me!

Milestones

 

We went North for 3 weeks. The DAY before we left on the normally 18 hour road trip, Jordan decided he wanted to potty train…and he did!!!  The “18 hour” trip took few additional hours though.

This is an area where I didn’t want to push him.  Due to his resistance to change I knew I would lose if I tried to rush him, so I thought I’d wait for him to  decide. I had thought he was ready, but thought I’d wait until AFTER the trip to add some motivation and awareness.  What I didn’t expect was for him to decide and potty train himself the day before our big trip!

The greatest part is that it’s just another milestone that marks his progess away from autism and toward being neurotypical. Everyday I absob his hugs, revel in his smiles and giggles, delight at his climbing and hanging off things like a monkey, and they all zing straight at my heart with a thankfulness that makes me teary for how incredibly blessed we are . Certainly, it was and still is a lot of work, but considering what his life would be if we hadn’t done it is nearly unthinkable.

So, we are reveling in the joy of it…when we aren’t having a clash of wills and the normal 3 year old battles.  But even that brings joy (afterward) it is so wonderful to know I’m battling his will, shaping and forming his character, and that the tantrums aren’t mostly due to autism and overwhelmed-ness anymore.

New Blog!

If you follow my blog for health information, it is now moving to www.FoodAllergies911.com. I will continue to maintain this site as a personal blog to update information on our family, Jordan and health as it relates to Jordan and his journey. The new blog will strictly be health information and much less personal updates. So come check out the new space and subscribe to the new blog! I will be doing series of information there such as a journey through Digestive Wellness on Fridays along with other information. Glad to have you following, it’s about to get even better!

Best Intentions…New Start Date!

Although I had the best of intentions, I didn’t get started with Digestive Wellness when I wanted to. It was preempted by 3 close family members having TIA’s, cancer, and another with a neurologic disorder, and a trip across the country. So this got put on hold for awhile. Next week we start homeschooling for the first time and I’ve been getting things for that in order. All that to say…

Our trip through Digestive Wellness will start Friday September 3rd! If you want to learn where a majority of illnesses begin, and what you can do about it, come visit on Fridays!

Allergies, Autism & Nutrition. Join Me For A Jouney About Digestive Wellness

Autism Facts

• 1 in 91 individuals is diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.
• 1 out of 58 are boys, making it the fastest growing developmental disorder we have ever seen.
• The economic impact of autism is more than $90 billion and is expected to more than double within the next decade.

The Nutrition Link

Not only has the prevalence of Autism skyrocketed, the rates of asthma, ADHD, and allergies are also growing. One thing that can improve all of these conditions – diet and nutrition. One thing that every child I’ve ever heard of recovering from autism had in common – diet. Some only required an allergy avoidance diet. Others, an allergy avoidance diet plus other nutrition and supplementation, plus therapies. For Jordan, allergy avoidance was the foundation of his diet. We didn’t see anything spectacular developmentally when we avoided his allergies, we had to get super healthy on top of that plus do supplements and detoxing. However, if we hadn’t done the diet (or when it was accidentally broken, everything else we had done (therapies, brain exercises, etc) and the improvements he had made  fell apart.

When I started studying nutrition 3 years ago when our journey with Jordan started, I was shocked to find that everything I had been taught through school, the media and while growing up (such as the food pyramid, milk is a good source of calcium, etc) was flat out wrong. Three things were right. Those three things are…drumroll please – fruits and vegetables are good for you (that’s two). Third, sugar is not good for you! Those are the sum total of accurate things I learned about diet and nutrition throughout all my first 30 years. As I began to learn, the amount of misinformation and conflicting information surrounding nutrition can create a lot of confusion. But after studying, learning trustworthy sources, sources that can’t be trusted, and learning some basic foundational guidelines it became much easier to confidently make truly healthy choices.

To say the least, diet and nutrition are the cornerstones of a healthy body – for everyone, not just children struggling with physical or neurological issues. Next to diet and nutrition (what goes in the body) in importance, is digestion (what you absorb and eliminate). I’d like to invite you to come with me on a journey, sharing some of the things I’ve learned through the research I’ve done to recover Jordan and in my studies to be come a CNHP.  I never know what to share or where to start sharing what I’ve learned, so I’m going to walk through the book, Digestive Wellness for Children by Elizabeth Lipski Ph.D., C.C.N. As I read the first couple chapters I thought, wow, so much of the basics of what I’ve learned the last 3 years are right here, packaged neatly in this book. Of course, I’m not going to plagiarized the book, but each week I’ll review a section of the book and post some highlights, with comments.

So that you know what is coming, below is the Table of Contents. We’ll start slow, in the first 2 1/2 sections and then pick up speed as we make our way through.

PART ONE – AN OVERVIEW OF CHILDREN’S HEALTH ISSUES AND DIGESTION

• Our Kids: Overfed and Undernourished
• Chemicals and Convenience: Consumer Be Aware!
• A Journey Through the Digestive System
• Enzymes: The Body’s Workhorses
• Probiotics and Prebiotics: Keys to Healthful Resilience
• Dybiosis: An Unbalanced Body Ecology
• Acid-Alkaline Balance: Optimizing Cellular Function

PART TWO – HEALING YOUR CHILD WITH FOOD

• We Are What We Eat!
• Making The Change
• How to Feed Your Kids So They’ll Be Happy and You’ll Be Happy

PART THREE – DIGESTIVE HEALTH ISSUES IN CHILDREN

• Introduction to Part 3
• Food and Environmental Sensitivities
• Leaky Gut Syndrome
• Care and Feeding of Infants and Toddlers
• Issues of the Mouth, Esophagus, and Stomach
• Issues of the Small Intestine
• Issues of the Large Intestine
• Inflamed or Irritable Bowels

PART FOUR – ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS THAT BENEFIT FROM A HEALTHY GUT

• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Attention Deficit Disorder
• Autism
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Diabetes
• Down’s Syndrome
• Influenza
• Migraine