bite

It has been brought to my attention that 62 minus 5 is not a fifty eight. It is a fifty seven. So I swam those 100's in 57. Color me smile all over again. However Thursday..... didn't go so well due to that!

Onward.... I have had my nose in research this and last week. Not for school. For personal uses. I am researching Attention Deficit Disorder and Autism, and actually every learning disability on the spectrum of it. If you take a look at the research, not from Google but from the medical journals that you can access via Pub Med and such, the research is absolutely astonishing. The common theme is that many of these children are deficient in common vitamins and minerals. The research is actually overwhelming. So overwhelming that I have to wonder how on earth we've become such a medication nation.

There is a time and a place for medications. Even for ADD and other disorders. What I can't understand is that when medication regimes are prescribed, why are there no real instructions for plugging in the holes with nutrition as well, and in some cases, instead of? Does every child diagnosed with a disorder need to be drugged?

I often shake my head as I see children in the school lunchroom pulling Coke and Diet Coke out of their lunchboxes. Supplement that with a Crustable and some cheeze -its.

No wonder our society is so sick. Look at the typical American Diet.

I can't really blame the medical profession. Physicians don't get all that much training in nutrition, and to be very honest, neither do nurses. Even at the Masters level.

As I have gravitated towards a whole foods diet, I realized that this is the way my husband has always eaten. No wonder he's 52 and looks like he does, and is so amazingly healthy. And I eat very healthy, I just never took the time to look at the nutrients, or lack thereof in the bagels and powerbars that fill my diet.

It's been over a week since I have had a slice of bread or my beloved bagel. I am getting my carbohydrates from other sources. I have not gone all vegan (I wish!) but I am getting better carbohydrates form better sources. Steel rolled oats. Fruits and vegetables. Food with a small if any ingredient list.

It's expensive to eat whole foods, organic foods. Thank god I have one child and one husband. But as I stood in the grocery store the other night and really took a look at the differences in prices for organic and processed foods, I was astonished. Imagine being on food stamps.... to make that dollar stretch you are almost forced into eating processed foods.

It's sad. Very sad. And there's so much more that can be said about all of this, the medication nation, the standard American diet, the disorders that are multiplying every single day, the cost of food, etc. But we will save that for a later day and a later forum.

I lost my health last year and I made the decision to rebuild my body cell membrane by cell membrane. In shifting my diet to a whole food / primal / diet I have found research that is convincing to me that improved nutrition can help in learning disabilities, disorders. Could it cure them? I don't know. But how can good wholefood nutrition possibly HURT?

In the week I have been Gluten and Wheat free I can honestly say I feel incredible. I feel balanced nutritionally. In just a week I don't even crave my beloved before swimming bagel. I increased my Omega 3 fats and the good fats tenfold..... and thank you to a few of you kind souls who gave me comforting words about that...... and I am down 3 pounds, but more importantly those corn syrup cravings have vanished. And I mean vanished.

I am making this change for so many reasons. For my own health as I never want to lose it again. I am a nurse and I am tired of us health care professionals being terrible examples of health..... you know the overweight donut eating smoking ones..... I can be that change in our profession. As I work on my Masters my interest is growing in the field of Functional Medicine. As I shift Luc over to this way of eating.... I am seeing some small and subtle changes in his behavior.

There is a world of opportunity available to me by just changing the way that I eat. Will wholefood nutrition cure every ailment? Heck no. It can however be the supplement to anything. I don't understand how wholefood nutrition can ever hurt anything.

There are several resources I have been using to guide me.

The Ultramind Solution by Dr. Hyman was recommended to me by Cyndi Weis, and as I paged through it, I bought it because of the extensive bibliography (of medical studies).

The Omnovore's Dilema was recommended to me by one of my athletes, who follows this way of eating as well.

Checking in with Gordo, see his four pillars...... really good information.

Bottom line for me and my family...... nutrition is an easy thing to shift. What if by shifting our nutrition to wholefood organic eating, we can stay healthy? It took me losing my health almost completely to sit up and look around. What if the power really is in our hands?

What if we truly are what we eat?