Week One Update

Last Sunday, July 3, was day 0 of Cade's new diet. It's a big adjustment not just for him, but for most of those he's close with.

Our principles with this diet, at least for the first month, and probably for the first several months are:
1. No grains.
2. No Dairy.
3. No legumes.

The food list for this diet was mainly taken from the shopping list found in Robb Wolf's book The Paleo Solution.  We made a Google doc of the food list to share with family and friends, which you can look at if you're interested.

Eating Updates
1. Eggs
Cade ate two scrambled eggs each morning and has recently begun asking for more. He eats them with a little ketchup, a brand we found without too much sugar and no corn syrup.

2. Meat
Cade doesn't complain when we give him meat to eat. A few months ago, it would have been a chore to even get a single bite into his mouth. He still chews it FOREVER, and it takes him a long time to swallow, but it all ends up in his belly. His digestive system probably doesn't have to do much with it with how much he chews the stuff.

3. Veggies
Pre Paleo diet, Cade received most of his "veggies" from a glass of V8 Fusion, which we eventually discovered was quite the sugar bomb of a drink. The closest thing to a veggie that Cade ate before beginning this diet was a potato, and he still would really only eat instant potatoes.
This week, he's taken a bite of green beans and, at one meal, eaten five whole baby carrots. I boiled the carrots, salted them, and paired them with bites of a hamburger. I think the chewiness of the hamburger hid the carrots pretty well.
A big challenge on this diet in regards to veggies is the lack of dairy. When I was eating low carb, I could put all the butter I wanted on top of my carrots. BUT, I think I came up with a solution: bacon fat!
We cook our bacon on a George Foreman grill, collect the bacon grease, and store it in the fridge. I put a pat of bacon grease, which looked quite a bit like butter, on top of the carrots, and they were AWESOME! I'm not sure if Cade cared, but they helped me eat them!

4. Cupcakes and Cheerios
Cupcakes and Cheerios? Isn't that the opposite of the Paleo diet? You're right, but Cade had both of them this week! Cade attended a pirate themed day camp. We informed them ahead of time that he was on a special diet and should only eat the bag of cashews we sent with him. However, Cade told us that he had shared a friend's Cheerios on Tuesday and on Thursday, he had a cupcake that was brought in for another child's birthday! Needless to say, my wife had to reiterate that he wasn't supposed to have anything the other kids brought in!
It's a bit frustrating because we tried really hard to stick to the diet strictly for this first week and BAM! We're starting from scratch. So, in terms of being fully grain-free, we have to start counting at Thursday.

5. Cashews
Cade likes cashews and since we've removed all the processed snacks he loved so much, we gladly give them to him. They are filling and full of fat. But, while cashews are allowed on this diet, I would imagine the fact that the ones we bought were covered in peanut (AKA legume) oil would be frowned upon! This was another frustration on top of the cupcake revelation, as we were trying our best to follow Cade's diet to the letter!
I simply thought that a cashew was a cashew, but apparently not. My wife looked through the grocery aisle and found very few options of cashews that had no added oils. We found these cashews on Amazon which have no added oils and ordered them. Interestingly enough, Amazon has a subscribe feature for food and pantry items where they'll automatically send however many you want every month or two or three. We ordered two three-packs in order to qualify for free shipping and set the reorder date to every two months. We'll let you know if this system works out.

Cade Updates
1. Swimming
Cade's grandma has a decent-sized kid pool in her backyard. Not sure if this is a result of eating better, but Cade went from very gingerly walking around the pool in swimmies and always staying above the water to jumping off the ladder and going under the water in a few day's time. Today he even started swimming under the water!

2. Language
For a child with autism, Cade is very high functioning. He's the type where people who don't know him well would say, "He can't be autistic!", but he struggles with understanding conversation, as well as expressing himself.
This week, returning from his swimming escapades and coming into the house, Cade said to me, "Daddy, mommy said you'd be so proud of me!" I asked what he thought I'd be proud of and he relayed the story about jumping under the water. This doesn't seem like much, but it sounded odd hearing him say it because he sounded so much like a regular kid.

Okay, I think that's it for week one. Now on to week two! Main priorities are: no Cheerios, no cupcakes, and no peanut-oil soaked cashews!