Do me a favor. I want you to think about those moms who are super clean with their kids’ eating. They are uber careful with processed foods, preservatives and dyes. Gluten, dairy and refined sugars never pass their children’s lips. Giving their kids processed food is the equivalent of feeding them poison.
I used to think these moms were crazy. Then I realized they were on to something.
They KNOW that what their child is eating is ABSOLUTELY affecting the way they THINK, FEEL and BEHAVE.
Once you understand the role the gut plays in your child’s physical and emotional health, the decision to clean their diet is an obvious one.
So like anything else that’s new, this will at first be difficult. But anything worth doing is never easy. I PROMISE you can do this and you will see your child improve in ways you didn’t expect possible.
I was a mom just like you. I have six kids and my youngest was almost 5 when I learned that his diet was most likely a leading cause of years of behavioral and emotional issues. I was EXTREMELY skeptical. I considered myself well educated and was doing all the right things according to the practitioners I had been seeing. No one (until then) had mentioned diet or system overload as a causative factor. But the trajectory we were on caused me to leave No Stone Unturned so I decided to see if this “clean diet thing” really held water.
And Oh How it did.
Like many first-timers, I first focused on gluten and dairy and removed these 2 items for 3 weeks with ABSOLUTELY no discernible change in my son. Ha! I was actually happy about this because it meant that I could go back to our regular eating routines. I had no idea that by substituting his favorite foods with packaged Gluten-Free (GF) or Dairy-Free (DF) versions that I was simply replacing gluten and dairy with a ton of preservatives and sugars. I DID NOT understand the concept of an overloaded system.
I want to teach you what took me months and months of research and trial u0026amp; error to learn.
10 Simple Lessons -- Gut Health 101: The Link Between Diet and Your ADHD Child
- Your child has an overloaded system. The body is a miraculous machine and will work each day at detoxing impurities. When your child is eating food which he cannot assimilate into his body, the body sees this food as toxins. Toxins aren’t easily eliminated when the body is too busy trying to digest all the new foods barraging it. So toxins take up residency in your child’s body.
- Your child’s gut was designed to be bountiful of healthy bacteria living in harmony and off-setting overgrowth of yeast and unhealthy bacteria. This environment is the nerve center of your child’s entire system, affecting all other systems.
- When the gut is compromised, there is a cascading effect which affects all other organs, including the brain.
- Because the gut is responsible for manufacturing your child’s neurotransmitters, it cannot do its job at regulating mood if it is damaged. (For example, Did you know 90% of serotonin is created in the gut? I didn’t.)
- Continual poor gut health inhibits one’s ability to break down food and multiple food sensitivities arise. Did you hear that?!?
- As the gut continues to be pummeled by one’s wrong eating, the pores of the intestines eventually open into the body allowing undigested matter to leak. This condition known as “Leaky Gut” causes the body systems to become inflamed as they try to protect and repair themselves.
- The child is often hungry All The Time and always seemingly in need of carbohydrates. This is because the brain is so smart and it’s job is to keep us safe from pain and danger. Due to the imbalance of yeast in the gut, the yeast wins out and needs to be fed. If the yeast is not fed it begins to die off and eliminate itself from the body. This die-off is very uncomfortable because as it eliminates it must run through all the body systems including the brain. The brain (and the child) just want to feel better during these times of elimination and the quick fix (without them knowing it) is to eat something that will feed the yeast. Once they eat, the body must stop its elimination process and go to work on the new job at hand—which is digestion. By stopping the elimination, the child will feel peaceful. But finish eating and in about 30 minutes to one hour’s time, the miraculous elimination process begins again. This in turn brings discomfort to the child and the ‘fix’ is carb eating. Do you see the cycle?
- This continued cycle means the yeast is never eliminated and the body continues to become inflamed. The increasing food sensitivities mean that the body also cannot digest foods it once could and now MORE inflammation results. Inflammation originating from yeast affects all systems and can first manifest as diaper rash, oral thrush, eczema, congestion, respiratory illness, stomach ailments, food sensitivities and allergies.
- As the inflammation is prolonged, the brain is greatly affected. Brain inflammation will reveal itself in many ways. Just to name some examples: emotional swings, foggy thinking, having a faraway look in their eyes, , sensory overload, long lasting temper tantrums, strings of curse words, inappropriate laughter, extremely short fuse, raging anger, obsessive behaviors, unclear speech or lack of speech, absence of original thinking. The list goes on and on.
- The answer is simple: We Must first Heal The Gut To Begin Healing The Brain.
Yes, the answer is SIMPLE. The lifestyle change is HARD. But the payoff is OFF THE CHARTS.
5 Things to Know When Cleaning Your Child's Gut
- BELIEVE that a clean diet leads to a healthy gut. KNOW that gut inflammation causes brain inflammation.
- Remember we are undoing years of damage. The science and research clearly support the gut/brain connection. Healing may seem slow at times, but it will come. Outward manifestations of healing will sometimes come in a flash and other times unfold subtly. Be patient.
- ADDING the right food is just as important as REMOVING the wrong food. Quality probiotics, fermented veggies, and kefir repair gut damage and restore healthy flora.
- Feeding your child simple whole foods that will not overload his system is the key.
- Removing the Big 5 is your governing rule: Gluten, Dairy, Preservatives, Dyes, Refined Sugar
But How Do I Start, You Ask?!?
The reason most moms (and dads!) get overwhelmed before they even begin is because they focus on what their children should NOT eat. Let me illustrate this for us…
Let’s say you were just hired as a bank teller at a very successful banking chain at one of its main branches. If I were to tell you that you were required to adhere to a dress code at work, how would I be MOST helpful? Certainly I could give you a running list of every possible clothing option that you CANNOT wear. (I call this a ‘NO’ List.) This would then leave you to come up with many possible options which you then would check against my ‘NO’ List.
Sounds extremely time consuming, overwhelming and inefficient to say the least- Wouldn’t you agree?
OR… I could tell you the General Theme (our GOAL) of what we are trying to portray to the client. I would provide you a list of commonly accepted clothing articles and colors (‘YES’ List). I would then give you an extremely short ‘NO’ List just for those most frequently misunderstood (yet popular) items that many of our new employees have needed clarification on. (In jiving with our metaphor, this would be Gluten, Dairy, Preservatives, Dyes and Refined Sugar.) Please Check out Charlie’s ‘YES’ List of healthy foods.
Does this mean that just because Sleeveless Hawaiian Print Button-downs are NOT listed on the ‘NO’ List that you should wear those to your job as a bank teller? No. But you wouldn’t need to ask me that because my General Theme/Goal is so clear that it sets the stage for what is most likely accepted. It gives you a overlying concept of what we are looking for in our bank teller’s appearance. After some time you won’t even need to check the ‘Yes’ List because getting dressed in the proper attire will become second nature. And after some more time, YOU’LL be the one gently telling the newest recruits that sleeveless Hawaiian button-downs are not the Right Choice.
Now that you get my drift, let’s move on.
Here’s your GENERAL THEME OR GOAL:
Feed Them Simple, Real Food. Don't Overload Their System.
Start there.
Do carrots, celery sticks or apple slices dipped in almond or cashew butter seem difficult? How about grilled chicken and brown rice? What about eggs and millet-based toast from DeLand Bakery? (Yes, they deliver to my home every month the best bagels, bread and rolls. Easy peasy.) NOTE: These products are from their All Natural line. We’ve used them without problem for 3 years now. You will see a disclaimer under the ingredients for cross contamination saying: “Contains: Wheat, Gluten or Yeast”. These products are not made with these items. (If you are a true celiac, you can of course look at their Certified GF line although they make these items with more ingredients than the Natural Line.)
And don’t get overwhelmed trying to find healthy but convenient snacks. How about simple black bean chips (from Beanitos or Beanfields) dipped in homemade guacamole or classic hummus? What about any fruit (within reason if eradicating yeast)? How about some organic non-GMO popcorn made on the stove sprinkled with sea salt and light butter or (when the gut is healed) glazed in warm coconut oil and maple syrup? (Can you say Best Cracker Jacks ever?)
When you understand the concept behind lightening the load on their digestive system, making food choices isn’t so daunting.
What ingredients overload the system?
The Top 5 Ingredients to stay clear of when healing your child’s gut: Gluten, Dairy, Preservatives, Dyes, Refined Sugars. Basically if it’s packaged there’s a good chance it’s processed which is then hard on a fragile digestive tract.
- Packaged foods should have no more than 3 or 4 ingredients and should NOT include gluten, dairy, dyes/preservatives or refined sugars (like cane!).
- Keep it a rule that if it comes from a package, then it needs to be super clean and with only 3-4 ingredients.
- Understand the reason behind staying clear of packaged foods while the gut is healing. Packaged foods have been processed and many use preservatives. Both these factors are detrimental to the healing gut.
- And DON’T BE FOOLED by ‘Natural Flavors/Flavoring’. If the flavors were truly sourced naturally, the labeling would name the sources. (For example, it would say flavored by apples or grapes as opposed to ‘natural flavoring’).
- Even MSG is actually hidden under a multitude of names. But we can avoid the headaches by just keeping our child’s food simple, preservative free, and feeding with whole foods when we can.
THIS IS NOT A SPRINT!! Go slow. Progress WILL be seen.
When I started this ‘diet stuff’ with my child, I WAS SO OVERWHELMED. I was NOT a WholeFoods kind of girl! Sure, I liked good food and ate well when I could, but having Double Stuffed Oreos or Pepperidge Farm Milanos in my kitchen cabinet was the norm. We didn’t have a carton of ice cream in the freezer, we had 3. PB u0026amp; J sandwiches on whole wheat bread were in everyone’s lunchboxes. So were goldfish, granola bars and juice boxes. Chicken nuggets, french fries, regular pasta or Mac and Cheese were staples. Oh how little I knew!!
Do Not Worry
As you become more familiar with feeding your child simple real foods that will nourish their bodies, heal their gut and reduce inflammation, you will become One Confident Mama (or Papa!). Remember that you are not the first to walk this path and there are many, many resources.
For example, I found a fantastic website (NourishingMeals.com) devoted to recipes of GF, DF, Preservative Free and Refined Sugar Free menu items. I use this site for all it’s fabulous recipes, but it’s chock full of great tips and tricks to heal the gut through an Elimination Diet.
Even my Charlie knows how to pull up the NourishingMeals site on my iPad and peruse the dessert list. (Realize I was unable to give him sweet foods during that critical year of eradicating his yeast. I’m still VERY careful on sweet recipes that will cause Charlie to overgrow the yeast in his sensitive system, but it’s all about balance.)
YOU WON’T GAIN CONFIDENCE UNTIL YOU START
My child’s amazing holistic nurse practitioner offered me books, evidence-based diets and wonderful advice but it wasn’t until I really delved in and BELIEVED Charlie’s diet was an absolute causative factor in his out of control emotions and behaviors, that I FINALLY got the hang of it.
And YOU will too. I want you to visualize your ADHD child as a clogged up machine and your job is to clear the build-up. Just small changes at first. Slow and steady wins this race.
If you’re ready to begin, come join my Facebook Group: Healing ADHD Together. You can ask me anything. If you are suffering and overwhelmed by your child’s ADHD behaviors, I’ve seen it before. Tell me where you are and I can help.
And Remember This: The Body is Miraculous and The Brain is Malleable. When we remove inflammation and heal the gut, we create the best possible conditions to heal the brain.
Carolyn offers encouragement and knowledge so other moms can experience the same successful results as her son. One of her older sons, also ADHD, struggled for YEARS with O.D.D. symptoms. She wants you to know you can have control over symptoms even when given that VERY overwhelming ADHD or O.D.D. diagnosis.