For the month of September 2015, we decided to try Whole30
as family. You can see more details at www.whole30.com, but basically it’s a very
strict diet that focuses on eating only healthy foods (meats, eggs, vegetables,
and fruits) and eliminating ALL others foods (no sugar, no grains, no dairy,
etc) for 30 days. The main objective for
us choosing to do this was in hopes that it would begin to heal Silas’s gut,
and eventually heal his skin.
So, how did it go?
Well, that’s a complicated answer, of course. ;)
First of all, I should say that the boys did AWESOME! Their attitude was fantastic! Thankfully, they are generally good eaters,
and most of the time I could still serve foods that they enjoy, so they really
didn’t complain about the foods they couldn’t eat. A typical meal would be a meat, a starchy
vegetable, and another (non-starchy, usually green) vegetable. Breakfast was mostly eggs, with fruit or
maybe potatoes. We snacked on lots of
nuts and fruit. The ‘results’ varied
quite a bit for each person.
Clarence – did
great, with no cheats for the entire 30 days.
He even lost 10lbs, which I was quite surprised about, since he had lost
quite a bit in the beginning of the year, and didn’t need to lose any more,
IMO. He is super self-disciplined, and
already has way less cravings, etc. for ‘bad food’.
Anna – I did good
for the first 3 weeks, but ended up quitting at Day 23 – for a variety of
reasons. I only lost a few pounds and
still have lots of unhealthy cravings.
Oh well.
Austin – we basically
just had him do the Whole30 at home, and allowed him to eat others things when
he was out. This seemed to be a good
compromise for him.
Silas – the
biggest questions, of course, is ‘Did it
help Silas’s skin?’ Unfortunately, not
yet, since the skin is such a huge organ.
We have decided to continue with the program for him. Three years of skin issues and probably a
leaky gut will take a while to heal.
We’re hoping that if we continue the diet we will see changes in the
next month or two. We will allow a few
exceptions to the diet – particularly eating rice again (this is not allowed on
the Whole30 diet, but adding this back in will make life much easier for
everyone).
I’m not completely sure yet how this will look for our
family with Silas still on the diet, but the rest of us not really. I will probably keep most of meals still
gluten free, dairy free, and sugar free, since these are especially problematic
for someone with a leaky gut. But I
might sneak a few sandwiches into Austin and Clarence’s packed lunches when
Silas is not around. ;) I have to say, again, how impressed I am with
how well Silas has handled this and how he really hasn’t complained. But of course it wouldn’t be too polite of us
to eating macaroni and cheese right in front of him and telling him he can’t
have any!
So, we continue to persevere and pray for God’s healing on
Silas. Thank you to everyone for your
support and prayers during this journey.
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