4 Weeks In...Our Auto-Immune Journey

So, we've made 4 full weeks on this baby. I gotta say, it's not easy, but it's not quite as hard as I thought it would be.  One thing I had to do, right in the beginning, was try to shift my mindset. Honestly, that was the biggest piece. Instead of looking at it like it was going to BE SO HARD...I had to tell myself that, really, it wasn't so bad. We get bacon. :) We get grass-fed burgers. We can have loads of fish (thankfully Aidan likes fish), and heaps of veggies. We can do that. In order for me to have a handle on the cooking I created a list of meals that I was going to repeat every single week. And, 80% of the time, that's what I did. Here's a snapshot of my week (click on it to view larger):

Honestly, this is what I did most of the time and just varied the fish recipes a bit here and there. By the end, cooking dinner was a snap. The harder part was breakfast and lunch. The breakfast mindset shift is much harder for me. Since we can't have eggs or oatmeal, that eliminates a lot of choice for an 11 yr old. Greens for breakfast? Hard sell. So, we've had bacon, turkey bacon, and AIP friendly sausage with a green smoothie EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Phew. Aidan doesn't seem to mind, but I do. As a nutrition coach, I know what it means to be eating that much salt and 'red' meat. And I don't like it. I'm having a bit of a crisis of conscience here and Rob and I keep wracking our brains on how to improve upon this. And, since lunch is more meat with veggies, this house has become much more meat eating than I like (or know is right for really long term health). Now let me be clear, I don't think eating meat is bad, but that's only if you've got a great variety going and you eat WAY more veggies and healthy fat than meat. Gotta get your fiber in there to counteract your meat, and your healthy fat for a variety of reasons as well (this part isn't hard on this diet).

You may be wondering how this is helping Aidan. The first two weeks we saw big improvement--the kind of improvement when you think, "Pinch me!". The third week the eczema came back full force. Outdoor allergies hit hard in our region and it was completely demoralizing. We thought about quitting, but pushed through as I know this can take a long time to see complete remission. Week 4: a bit better. Still has eczema (remember, his eczema is severe), but it seems to be a bit more diminished than last week.

Aidan has remained so strong, given his little 11 years. As I've said before, he is amazing. But, he's also suffering. The kind of suffering that happens when he sees his friends eat pizza and cookies for lunch, when we go to town and we can't stop in at our favorite bakery, and at night when he wants a little somethin' somethin' after dinner. Today, we did a hefty bike ride to town and the boys were hungry. We all very much wanted to eat in town, but there just isn't much choice (as we didn't want to spend heaps of money). Big crocodile tears came down his face and my heart broke in two. I told him that we could stop today. He did his 4 weeks, so let's just be done now. I think that was all he needed--to know that I would support that. But as we talked, we came up with a new plan and new weekly rewards, and we're going to keep chugging. Our new goal is Halloween (well, just before!). So, I'm trying to stay strong and renew my intention to get my boy steely strong, so that he can play water polo without misery, and eat pizza with his friends on those special nights without having a set back.

Onward and upward.