First Change : Diet!

Where do we begin! Our lives have been so full of change this past year.

Let's start with our diets since that's probably the biggest change we've made, and the one we're most hopeful about!

Dustin's diet has drastically changed since we met. He went from eating Hot Pockets, frozen pot pies, and take-out to making homemade meals from scratch. It definitely didn't happen over night! There were many times when he was in the grocery store staring at the frozen food aisle longingly. 

(Dustin: 2010, pre-diet ...see my face in the background, I was secretly scheming up ways to get him to eat healthier!)

It was funny - he couldn't imagine eating any differently, eating healthier... and I couldn't imagine eating so unhealthy!

Well, that's not completely true. I did know what it felt like to have a diet like that - I grew up eating a lot of junk food. My mom didn't understand the importance of diet back then and we lived on sugary lemonades and fruit punches, Tasty Kakes, and pre-packaged pasta dinners.

I ate like that for a long time, until I turned 19 and started making an effort to stay on top of my Osteoporosis and cholesterol. Finding out my cholesterol was high at an early age was a definite motivator to eat healthier. Unfortunately though, I really didn't know how to eat healthy. I'd eaten that way for so long. I was still eating a lot of white bread, canned soups, and other products that contained a lot of artificial ingredients, including MSG, which I'd eventually realize I could not tolerate. 

A few years ago, I went to a holistic doctor who was a great influence on my diet. From there I started reading a lot online about food and suddenly it all made so much sense to me.

Food is not supposed to be manufactured or man-made. 

It's supposed to be from nature!

I was horrified to read about the chemicals and preservatives that were lurking in our foods. Even more than that, I was completely disgusted when I learned about the antibiotics and hormones used in our meats.

Here I was, as sick as ever with a ton of hormone imbalances, and I was eating this stuff?

I immediately cut out processed foods, which was harder than I thought. I've been eating this way for so long that I barely remember the grocery store trips where I'd have to look at every single label, trying to figure out what "fake" ingredients were in each product. I was especially on the look-out for MSG which I learned is usually disguised with other names like 'autolyzed yeast extract' (there's a whole list! google it!). 


Shortly after that I cut out gluten, after a test a GI doctor gave me showed high antibodies. I was never officially diagnosed with Celiac Disease, but I decided to go gluten-free either way and have been so for over two years now. There was no looking back! I never really feel like I'm missing out on much eating gluten-free. Sure, it can be complicated when you're at a restaurant or a friend's house, but I've learned that eating doesn't have to be the most important part of a social outing. And more than that I've decided that my health comes before any of that. Plus, I've gotten pretty good at figuring out gluten-free options no matter where I am! 

(Me; 2009, just beginning on my healthy diet journey! Yum! Kabobs!)

In the last year or so though, I've started to get off track again. Even though I stayed 100% gluten-free, I started to indulge in all of the gluten-free products I could find - Udi's bread, Betty Crocker gluten-free chocolate chip cookies (yum!), and a ton of rice. 


And now, after a recent bout of colitis (which resulted in a hospital stay and a dreaded colonoscopy), I've once again committed to an even healthier diet - 


The SCD Diet.


The Specific-Carbohydrate Diet is a diet created by Dr. Sidney V. Haas and made famous by author Elaine Gottschall. It's used primarily in conditions like Colitis and Crohn's Disease, but it's also proven beneficial for those with Autism and other disorders.

I read the book as soon as I got out of the hospital, and started making changes to my diet right away. Before I started on the diet, I was rushing back and forth to the bathroom (I felt like just putting a sleeping bag in there and not leaving!), sick and weak as ever. I was losing blood and quickly becoming anemic. I thought there was no end in sight. The stomach cramps I was having were bringing me to tears. I guess I just got tired of laying in the hospital bed feeling hopeless and so I dove into this diet headfirst, and wow, it's the best thing I've ever done!


Within a few days my stomach started to normalize and almost all of my issues were gone! I'm still having some pain here and there and I have a long way to go before my colon inflammation is gone, but I couldn't be more grateful for the progress I've already made.


The SCD diet is more than just a diet for the above mentioned conditions - it's a healthy diet, period. It's the way I should have been eating my whole life. Though, I really hope that with time I can transition into a raw diet, once my colon calms down. That would be even better!


Dustin started on the diet about two days ago and he's really having fun finding new food options.


OK - so here are the basics: 


-No gluten
-No grains
-No sugar (aside from natural sugars like fruit and honey)
-No additives/preservatives


Here's a  whole list with illegal and legal foods:
Illegal/Legal Foods

"The Specific Carbohydrate Diet™ is biologically correct because it is species appropriate. The allowed foods are mainly those that early man ate before agriculture began. The diet we evolved to eat over millions of years was predominantly one of meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, nuts, low-sugar fruits. Our modern diet including starches, grains, pasta, legumes, and breads has only been consumed for a mere 10,000 years. In the last hundred years the increase in complex sugars and chemical additives in the diet has led to a huge increase in health problems ranging from severe bowel disorders to obesity and brain function disorders. We have not adapted to eat this modern diet as there has not been enough time for natural selection to operate. It therefore makes sense to eat the diet we evolved with." - Elaine Gottschall 

To start off, all vegetables must be cooked well-done so they're easier to digest.


Click below to see the introduction diet that I'm currently following:


SCD Diet Beginner's Guide

So, just to give you guys an example, here was our diet yesterday:


Breakfast: Fried eggs and a banana
(Dustin is following the diet at a later stage, so he also had raw apples.)


Lunch: Chicken Soup


Dinner: Salmon with zucchinni and squash


(Dustin also had some other veggies.)


For a snack, we had the most amazing banana ice cream... 


Ingredients?


Just 2 frozen bananas in the food processor with a dash of cinnamon!


It was delicious!


Also, some homemade jello which we made with Welch's grape juice - no added sugar.

To make our life a little bit easier, we recently joined something called a CSA. Prior to living here, I didn't even know they existed! 

A CSA is a form of community supported agriculture. Basically you invest some money into your local farms  - here, we pay for a 20-week period where we'll be able to pick up a basket of produce every week right down the street from us. 

We're so excited about it! The basket will include fruit and veggies, whatever is available at the time, and now and then they'll even include eggs, oils, and flowers.

The CSA will help us to make better eating choices because no matter what we'll have a basket of healthy food waiting for us every single week. Plus it's locally farmed and organic. What could be better?

An organic meat CSA!

(We're joining that one too later on this year! Organic, locally farmed meat every week!) 

We're so excited about these big changes we've made to our diets. As I write this, Dustin's in the kitchen making zucchini pasta (which is just thin slices of zucchini cooked in some butter with salt). 

I bet he never thought he'd be doing that a year ago...lol...

We'll keep you posted on our diet progress and of course, include pictures and hopefully videos. And we'll update you soon on the other changes we're making, as well.

Here's to health and happiness!

-Kyli and Dustin