Thursday, October 4, 2012

Hope

Hi GF friends, 

Many of you know my story of why I started on my Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Whole Foods journey. I decided to change due to my daughter's growing health issues and my health issues. In the beginning, I didn't know food was even an issue until I met a sweet lady by the name of Eileen Bader.  A close friend had given me her email and told me that Eileen had made these radical food changes in her family's life. I contacted Eileen mainly out of curiosity and desperation to make some change in my own family's life. I wasn't sure what she was going to tell me but I sure was open because everything I was trying, on my own accord, was not working.  Eileen's story inspired me to make a change for myself and my family.  She has been gracious enough to share on our blog her experiences in hopes of reaching you...Thank you Eileen!

Gluten Free Momma


The Bader Family
Tulsa, Oklahoma


HOPE.  Such a simple four-letter word which means so much.  This is all that I wanted for our family when I realized my children’s significant learning difficulties. 

In 2009 I brought our 1st grade daughter home from a school environment to join her older brother to be homeschooled.  She had a difficult time in Kindergarten and I was hoping that one-on-one teaching would be the key to her learning.  What shocked me when I brought our daughter home was that she couldn’t sit still through any of our lessons.  She had always been a very energetic child and I knew she had a joy for life, but I never realized that energy was spilling over to the point of a lack of self control.  She would physically rock back and forth in her chair, fall out of her chair, and have a complete lack of focus on anything I would try to teach her.  She also has many challenges with her impulse control.  We have had these issues since she was young but I never related them to ADD/ADHD until I started homeschooling and putting all the pieces of her behavior together.

Life was very hard and it was heart wrenching not having an answer for what could help.  That is when I started my research about diet/nutrition and how food affects the body.  What I found is that there is a gut/brain connection and everything we eat can affect our bodies in more ways than we can imagine. 

What we realized for our daughter, and also son, is that both of them are very sensitive to sugar, artificial preservatives, artificial colors, artificial flavors, milk, and gluten.  We started supplementing with fish oil to help with brain development.  http://www.diannecraft.org/article-009.htm  We also started taking probioitics to help digestion, strengthen their immune system, and balance their gut flora.  Balanced gut flora is important to all the functions of the body.

Within one month of starting on this new diet I saw a completely new child immerge.  She could sit in her chair (no rocking or falling out of it).  She could focus on her work for the first time.  She was able to have more self control.  I was amazed and ecstatic that a simple diet change could have so much affect on her.

Also, in the process of changing our family’s diet I reaped quite a few unexpected benefits.  Some of these include:  lost 30 pounds, no more joint pain, no more fatigue, unbelievable energy, no more PMS, an indescribable feeling of joy and contentment, no more foot and arch pain, no more prescription allergy medication, and no more sinus infections.

Some of the books I read that helped me to understand the link between food and our brains/bodies are:
· Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
· Healing the New Childhood Epidemics by Dr. Kenneth Bock

It was then that I went further in the research and watched some movies (from the library) that talked about how much our food supply has changed in the last 50 years:
· Food Inc.
· Future of Food

For the first time I had hope that the future was going to be bright!  What a wonderful feeling of joy knowing there was something I could do to help my family. 



This article was written by Eileen Bader. Eileen currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband and two children. She is a proud homeschool mom.