About Me
My name is Arminda. Originally from Michigan, I moved to Georgia at the age of 14. I have struggled with my weight most of my life, like many, starting around puberty. My mother, who became an R.N. when I was 13, and battled with her own weight most of her life and lost it when I was 2 years old, was health conscience to say the least. I was always taught about "good nutrition" and exercise, so I knew from an early age that I had an issue with weight. Diet after diet, year after year, I became more and more convinced that I would never lose my weight.
At 20 years old I had my first son Elijah. I was plagued
with stretch marks, which only hurt my self-esteem even more. I don't mean just
any stretch marks. I'm talking the kind that comes about when you've been
carrying a baby Godzilla around for 9 months! Yes, my oldest son was a whopping
11 lbs! He was three days early too, and no, I did not have gestational
diabetes... I just gave birth to King Kong. This is a picture of Elijah on his
first day of... You'll never guess... 3rd grade! Notice how tall he is in
comparison with the door. He had just turned 8 two months before this picture
was taken. (Ignore the date, it's wrong. I never fix it, that's just how I roll). His pediatrician estimates that he'll
be 6'6 by the time he's 18. He will be 9 this summer (2013), and he's almost as
tall as me, and I am not a short woman! When Elijah was first born, like any
mother, I wanted the best for him, and that meant I wanted him to be better
than me. I breastfed him, I practiced attachment parenting, etc. I taught him
from a young age the ropes about nutrition and tried to make sure that he would
grow up into a healthier, and thinner, person than I was. Elijah was the
perfect first child, especially for a young mother like I was. He was rarely
sick, he hit every milestone way ahead of the game, and he always grew at a
good pace in proportion for his height. He is smart as a whip, and takes in
information like a sponge. I worked with him at home before he started Pre-K,
and he was ahead of all the other kids. Let’s put it this way, they didn’t
teach him anything there that he hadn’t already learned at home with me. He
knew his ABC’s by sight, upper and lower case letters, he could count to 20,
and knew all of his colors and shapes. I was one proud mama!
Three and a half years later, I gave birth to this little weasel, Gabriel. He is my baby, and the name is both appropriate and ironic. He is indeed my angel, as all babies are to their mothers. And then there are days when I think that he’s more like Lucifer! But all kidding aside, from the time I was pregnant with him, I felt something wasn’t quite right. I worried my whole pregnancy, and when he was born, the first thing I could do was to count his fingers and toes! Everything seemed normal, and my “then” husband assured me that it was only hormones. But this wasn’t my first rodeo! I had been there, done that. This was beyond the normal worry that every mother has with their babies. This was something more, gnawing at the back of my mind. A week later we found out he had jaundice. My husband insisted this was what I had been worrying about, but why did I still feel that way? I knew there was something more, and I knew in time, that it would reveal itself. And it did…
Gabriel wouldn’t hit his milestones, even remotely on time. Here I was used to Elijah hitting everything ahead of time, and then when it came to Gabriel, nothing… I knew that he was smart, I could see it in his eyes. But something was off, and I was determined to figure out what. When I would talk to my mother about it, she would just tell me, “Honey, all kids are different. You can’t expect one to hit certain milestones the same as another”. Well, as wise as my mother is, when it comes to her children and grandchildren, she’s an optimist. Gabriel wouldn’t crawl until 11 months, and he walked a few months behind the normal months that he was suppose to. There were other delays like rolling over, sitting up, etc. He eventually hit them all, but my worry was not over. On his 2nd Birthday is when I think things really started to set in… He wasn’t talking.
We were celebrating his 2nd Birthday, and I started to reminisce about Elijah’s 2nd. Elijah had gotten a bedding set for his toddler bed, after much searching and not being able to find an actual set for that size. He was so excited, and I can remember having a coherent , in depth conversation about it with him… As I watched Gabriel play with his presents, I realized, here is my 2 year old, with an extremely limited vocabulary. All he could really say were things you’d expect an 8 month old to say, “mama”, “dada”, and he would even chop up “nana”, and to this day still calls my mom “manna”, no matter how much we try to enunciate for him.
Gabriel wouldn’t hit his milestones, even remotely on time. Here I was used to Elijah hitting everything ahead of time, and then when it came to Gabriel, nothing… I knew that he was smart, I could see it in his eyes. But something was off, and I was determined to figure out what. When I would talk to my mother about it, she would just tell me, “Honey, all kids are different. You can’t expect one to hit certain milestones the same as another”. Well, as wise as my mother is, when it comes to her children and grandchildren, she’s an optimist. Gabriel wouldn’t crawl until 11 months, and he walked a few months behind the normal months that he was suppose to. There were other delays like rolling over, sitting up, etc. He eventually hit them all, but my worry was not over. On his 2nd Birthday is when I think things really started to set in… He wasn’t talking.
We were celebrating his 2nd Birthday, and I started to reminisce about Elijah’s 2nd. Elijah had gotten a bedding set for his toddler bed, after much searching and not being able to find an actual set for that size. He was so excited, and I can remember having a coherent , in depth conversation about it with him… As I watched Gabriel play with his presents, I realized, here is my 2 year old, with an extremely limited vocabulary. All he could really say were things you’d expect an 8 month old to say, “mama”, “dada”, and he would even chop up “nana”, and to this day still calls my mom “manna”, no matter how much we try to enunciate for him.
Well, 3 came, and then 4, and there really were no vast improvements. In fact, between those two years, he really hadn’t hit any major milestones at all, and at this point, wasn’t even potty trained by the age of 4. Pre-K sign-ups were beginning in March of 2012, and while I really felt he needed it, I wasn’t sure he would even be a candidate without being potty trained. We tried though, from the time he was 2 years old, but no amount of explaining it was getting through to him, he just didn’t understand. When the time came, I went ahead and signed him up anyway, and by the grace of God, I was determined to get the boy trained over the Summer. And luckily, by the skin of our teeth, he was trained 2 weeks before school started, even though nights were iffy for the next 6 months.
Before school started last Fall, I had to take the boys for their annual check-ups, and we saw a new doctor, which I love, and he was surprised at the delay in his verbal skills. We couldn’t even explain to him how to do the hearing screening properly, and had to watch his eyes to know if he was hearing the sounds or not. (His hearing was fine by the way). His advice to me was to not say anything to the teacher to give her any bias, and to let him go through the school year, and see if they felt there were any deficiencies, and then we would get back together and discuss what to do next. Well over the first half of the year, there still weren’t any major changes, despite the daily interactions with his peers. Before Christmas break, I went in for parent-teacher conferences, and my fears were confirmed. They said that he was behind developmentally, dead last in the class to be exact, and they felt that he needed to be tested for early intervention for Special Ed. His teacher hugged me as I felt apart in her class room. I cried my eyes out, going over my whole pregnancy, wondering what I had done to make him this way. She tried to comfort me by telling me I was a wonderful mother, and there was nothing I did, these things just sometimes happen. But no amount of consoling could keep me from wondering what I did. I felt like such a failure as a mother.
At the beginning of 2013, after Christmas break, I was starting a new semester in College. I was in my lecture class for Anatomy & Physiology II, and my professor, who had lost a good bit of weight just over the last month when we were out for break, started telling us about this wonderful new diet he was doing, called the Paleo Diet. He said he was reading this book called, “The Primal Blueprint”, and even though I had never been a fan of fad diets, for some reason, I was compelled to write it down in my notes. A couple of weeks had went by, and a lady that I clean for started telling me how her husband had recently been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and how they had to go gluten-free. Of course, I knew nothing about these two things being tied pretty closely together, let alone what gluten was. Another week went by, and we were talking about the Paleolithic Era in my Humanities class. And then the same day, my Lab instructor was talking about how bad processed foods were, and how bad wheat was, and how our bodies really couldn’t handle it. All these things were coming at me at the same time, and there was a little light bulb going off in my head. I was definitely intrigued to say the least. The final straw was a neighbor that I had friended on Facebook, who is very much into the organic and clean eating lifestyle. She would post a lot about this stuff, and that’s when the fireworks started going off in my head. I was talking to her almost every day, taking in all this new information, and asking everything single thought that ran through my head to make these pieces fit together, and it made sense. Bless her that she didn't wring my neck for bugging her every 15 minutes! At first, I must admit, I was only thinking of losing weight and getting healthy. I had struggled with my weight my whole life, and I started thinking, this might actually be the answer! So I decided to go for it. I started dabbling at first, of course, I was still learning. Over Spring Break, the boys and my boyfriend were subjected to my new, weird way of cooking, but they were happy to oblige.
But then something happened, something wonderful… Over the course of only a few days, Gabriel had been eating only at home, no school breakfasts or lunches, and not coming home and eating tons of gluten throughout the day. Well within 3 days, a miracle was taking place. On this third day, Gabriel woke up, somehow different. He was better behaved, calm, focused. Not only that, what we call his “jibberish” was subsiding! He was using real words, and putting whole sentences together! I can’t remember what it was that he said that morning, but when he walked in and said something, my jaw hit the floor! My boyfriend and I just looked at each other astonished. That night, we went to my parents’ house for dinner, and my mom, the eternal cynic, even noticed! She commented on how she could actually understand him. She knew about the diet I was doing, but I still hadn’t made the connection with the gluten. I just knew that it was a no no on the paleo diet. Three days after that we went back to my mom’s, and she commented again on his speech. I told her, “You said that the other day when we were here”, she replied, “no, I mean since I saw him the other day, he’s talking even better! Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” That was all I needed to hear. But I still wanted to make sure. So when he went back to school the next week, I allowed him to eat lunch there. I read an article that said if you’re testing for issues with the diet and you see a change, to take them off of it, so you know that it wasn’t all in your head, and document the difference. Well sure enough, he came home, bouncing off the walls, couldn’t focus, wouldn’t listen, and was speaking his “jibberish” all over again. The next day I was sitting on my porch reading, and I found an article online about a woman who found out that her daughter was gluten-intolerant. She said that because it wasn’t an actual allergy, but an intolerance, that it doesn’t show up on an allergy test. This is because the gluten is having a negative effect on the body, but it’s not eliciting an immune response. But just because it’s not an allergy, doesn’t mean that it’s not any less damaging. I read this woman’s story, and her daughter reminded me of Gabriel. From everything that I had researched and had been reading over those past few months, I knew that gluten was harmful to the digestive tract, but I had yet to read anything about links to neurological or mental deficiencies, although I had been suspecting it. I started googling links by typing in “gluten developmental delays”, and boy, it was like I struck gold! That was when it all hit me like a ton of bricks! I had a major epiphany and ran in the house screaming to my boyfriend that I had figured out what was wrong with Gabriel!
That week, the lady through the school, in charge of the Special Ed program, contacted me to set up Gabriel’s testing. I told her that I believed I had found the culprit, and that I wanted to wait to see if this would change over the summer. She suggested that I keep him on gluten and have him tested, and if there were any major changes over the summer, they would gladly re-test him. Not only that, I had made an appointment to have him tested for the allergy, to know which I was dealing with, and in order to have a true test, they have to have gluten in their system for it to show up. So I figured since we were so close to the end of the school year, I’d just let him ride it out a few more weeks, and then start a big experiment over the summer.
But then something happened, something wonderful… Over the course of only a few days, Gabriel had been eating only at home, no school breakfasts or lunches, and not coming home and eating tons of gluten throughout the day. Well within 3 days, a miracle was taking place. On this third day, Gabriel woke up, somehow different. He was better behaved, calm, focused. Not only that, what we call his “jibberish” was subsiding! He was using real words, and putting whole sentences together! I can’t remember what it was that he said that morning, but when he walked in and said something, my jaw hit the floor! My boyfriend and I just looked at each other astonished. That night, we went to my parents’ house for dinner, and my mom, the eternal cynic, even noticed! She commented on how she could actually understand him. She knew about the diet I was doing, but I still hadn’t made the connection with the gluten. I just knew that it was a no no on the paleo diet. Three days after that we went back to my mom’s, and she commented again on his speech. I told her, “You said that the other day when we were here”, she replied, “no, I mean since I saw him the other day, he’s talking even better! Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” That was all I needed to hear. But I still wanted to make sure. So when he went back to school the next week, I allowed him to eat lunch there. I read an article that said if you’re testing for issues with the diet and you see a change, to take them off of it, so you know that it wasn’t all in your head, and document the difference. Well sure enough, he came home, bouncing off the walls, couldn’t focus, wouldn’t listen, and was speaking his “jibberish” all over again. The next day I was sitting on my porch reading, and I found an article online about a woman who found out that her daughter was gluten-intolerant. She said that because it wasn’t an actual allergy, but an intolerance, that it doesn’t show up on an allergy test. This is because the gluten is having a negative effect on the body, but it’s not eliciting an immune response. But just because it’s not an allergy, doesn’t mean that it’s not any less damaging. I read this woman’s story, and her daughter reminded me of Gabriel. From everything that I had researched and had been reading over those past few months, I knew that gluten was harmful to the digestive tract, but I had yet to read anything about links to neurological or mental deficiencies, although I had been suspecting it. I started googling links by typing in “gluten developmental delays”, and boy, it was like I struck gold! That was when it all hit me like a ton of bricks! I had a major epiphany and ran in the house screaming to my boyfriend that I had figured out what was wrong with Gabriel!
That week, the lady through the school, in charge of the Special Ed program, contacted me to set up Gabriel’s testing. I told her that I believed I had found the culprit, and that I wanted to wait to see if this would change over the summer. She suggested that I keep him on gluten and have him tested, and if there were any major changes over the summer, they would gladly re-test him. Not only that, I had made an appointment to have him tested for the allergy, to know which I was dealing with, and in order to have a true test, they have to have gluten in their system for it to show up. So I figured since we were so close to the end of the school year, I’d just let him ride it out a few more weeks, and then start a big experiment over the summer.
This page is dedicated to just that. Our experiment… I’m no expert, but I have done a ton of research and I have the basics down. We’ve been following this at home strictly for a few weeks now, a little lax for longer. Today was Gabriel’s last day of school this school year, and thus, our journey begins. I will be documenting his progress and milestones, as well as posting recipes and maybe some fun projects. I hope you’ll join us in our journey to learn more. Our journey to better health, physical and mental. I hope that we can all learn together, as I myself am still learning somewhat. I hope that I can help some people along the way, and I hope our story inspires you to look beyond medication and doctors, and learn to make yourselves healthy and whole through food. Let thy food be thy medicine.