Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Elimination Diet

This past week has brought a new eating regime into our home with hopes that we will be able to detail exactly what foods are triggers for W's ADHD. So, it also means that the whole family has been eating differently and it's gone extremely well! The boys and I haven't had one slice of bread all week! That's amazing.
So, for seven days eggs, sugar, corn, wheat, peanuts, oranges, chocolate, food colorings and dairy have been eliminated. It's quite entertaining to prepare hamburgers or pork chops for breakfast combined with a bowl of oatmeal (which W won't touch!) and fruit.
After seven days of this I will start adding one of the above foods a day at a time and charting behaviors each day. For example, on Tuesday eggs will be reintroduced, which is a good thing as W loves them....Bup not so much.
I'm looking forward to this week and seeing the results. Will keep you posted!
By the way, this Elimination Diet is found in a most helpful book; 12 Effective Ways to Help Your ADD/ADHD child: Drug-Free Alternatives for Attention-Deficit Disorders by Laura. J. Stevens, M.S. So, far I've found that it is a worthy read.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, good for you Super Mommy!
    It's not easy getting the family on board with menu changes. And no bread?? Amazing. I bow down to you...

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  2. I haven't done that but, I think part of the reason was i didn't really know how. I don't know if my Tweedle could do it?

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  3. Thank you for the information! Yesterday actually, I don't know what Ashton had that he reacted to, but it lasted ALL day. He was driving me crazy!! That's alot of things to avoid though, it would be interesting/hard to do. We tend not to eat much meat here when Dad is away at work. So either I would have to offer more meat so we have some kind of variety, or just eat fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds for a week... I'll have to read that book and plan the menu ahead.
    Thanks again!
    Steph

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