It was always my intention once we moved to our new home to grow most of the food that we ate. I was tired of all the processed foods with all the hidden chemicals. It just felt like there had to be a better way.
Good intentions don’t always lead to the correct actions. As I am sure, you can all agree life gets busy especially with now three little girls. Sure we took some steps, we have a flock of chickens and ducks that give us more than enough eggs. They even provide a little meat in the fall. We planted some pretty modest gardens with even more modest results. We just never seem to kick into that next gear.
Well, that all changed at the end of this summer. Our oldest daughter, Reagen, had been struggling with what appeared to be allergies. She would get some bad rashes that just never seemed to go entirely away. We weren’t getting much help from the traditional medical doctors, so we took her to get muscle tested.
The results showed that she was sensitive to gluten. We went right to work removing gluten and coming up with substitutes for as many of her favorite foods as possible. It was a big adjustment for all of us, but the results were worth it. She skins cleared up. She became less tired and irritable.
Next, it was my turn. Let just say it was no big secret that I was overweight. So it didn’t surprise me at all that at my doctor’s appointment I had some issues. My liver functions were out of whack, due to a fatty liver. I had very high fasting blood sugars and A1C. The doctor wanted to put me on me out diabetes medication. I convinced her to give me a shot at making a change myself first. I could tell that she wasn’t putting much faith in me being able to make that needed modifications to my lifestyle. I can hardly blame her. It wasn’t like the extra pounds had snuck up on me, and I have a strong family history of diabetics.
I knew for sure the first thing to cut out was the pop. I had become too used to drinking the sugary drinks. After doing some research online, I found that there were doctors that were endorsing a low carb diet to cure diabetes. That was a smaller amount of carbs then the conventional diabetic diet called for. After cutting the carbs, the pounds started falling off, and my blood sugar levels dropped dramatically.
Next, my wife and second daughter, Kennedy, did the muscle testing. Kennedy needs to stay away from corn, including corn syrup (which is in everything), dairy and red food dye. Joleen was off of gluten and sugar. We are just starting down this part of our journey. It has been a challenge to find things to eat that will work in all of our diets.
Our goal and hope are to bring you all along with us on our journey. Let you know what worked, what didn’t and let you learn from our experiences.
