You probably don't know me ('cept Grandma Ruthie and Leens), but I feel like I know you guys all! I lurk here almost daily lately because I find you all such a humerous and resourceful bunch!
I am going to have to do the 'newbie' thing and ask a few questions, because I am really in need of advice/opinions.
My daughter Katelyn is at the ideal weight for her age (but over the 100th percentile in height!) and has a healthy appetite. Lately we've been struggling with some behavioral issues that could be related to a lot of things (which I am working on), but one that sticks out in my mind is her diet (her daycare teacher is the one who brought this up and it has really captured my attention).
I am approx. 150 lbs. overweight. My issues with food seem to be most prevelent after Katelyn goes to bed or during my workday. We eat dinner together, and I always make sure she gets her veggies, healthy proteins, dairy's, etc. But we almost always have a large carb with that meal (her daycare is another story; it's almost all carbs!).
I've decided that it can't hurt to re-evaluate our meals, and change some things around to see if this effects some of her behavior at daycare. I know that when I eat a large amount of carbs, I feel yuck-o and moody, so perhaps it is that way for some children as well?
I am also going to start packing her lunches for her daycare on the days that I feel they are too carb heavy. By no means do I think a child, nor an adult should be on a "diet", I am just looking to make minor adjustments that will help us be healthier.
My questions to you wise experts are :
1. What is a reasonable amount of carb gram intakes per day for a child? (I talked to my Doc. about this, and he wants to refer me to a Nutritionist, which is not covered under my insurance. I'm hoping someone will have experience with this)
2. What are some suggestions of low carb snacks that your children really enjoy?
3. Since I feel that doing things together is most effective, I plan on starting a lower carb diet for myself as well. I've read here that induction on Atkins is 20g per day? What about people who decide to not go as drastic as Atkins?
I did purchase "The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet" by the Dr.'s Heller and plan on reading it soon. I'm a little overwhelmed with reading right now for school, so I am hoping some of you will have advice or experience with this stuff that I can keep in mind while starting this new WOL.
Thanks in advance for any advice or tips that you can offer!
Michelle
Last edited by spartanMOM; 11-14-2002 at 07:01 PM.
Hi Michelle, It's nice that you came out of lurking and joined us. I'm glad that you did. I'm sure that you'll enjoy posting and I know that I am looking forward to getting to know you.
As far as low carbing for yourself. There are alot of low carb plans out there. If I had to guess I'd say that the Atkins plan is probably the most strict. I do Atkins only because I think I need the strick structure . If you wanted to try something less strict there is SomerSizing (sp?) and CALP, CAD, and there are probably more then I haven't listed.
As far as low carbing for kids. I have five boys and I was wondering the same thing a while back. Instead of putting them on a low carb plan I just cut back in their carby junk that they liked. I dont get the cookies, snack cakes, doritos, cheetos, fruit bars, etc.....the list is probably endless. If they want a snack they eat fruit, whole grain bread with peanut butter on it. or a little all fruit spread, raw veggies with ranch salad dressing as dip, bologna and cheese rolled up together, cubed cheese they like to dip that too in ranch dressing, celery that's filled with cream cheese or peanut butter, they also like peanut butter on bananas. I let them have carbs just not the yucky ones. Oh, I do let them have pretzels the whole grain ones and pop corn, not the butter lovers one, just the regular flavored. They seem to like these things and dont miss the junk. If they want something that's homemade I try to make it out of whole grain flour and sneak some good for them things in like grated carrots, zucchinin, nuts, raisins.
You might also want to watch the amount of food dye that's in the foods that she's eating. I personally dont think that any of that is good for them. To me if I can't pronounce it they dont need to eat it.
Around my house I dont even buy prepackaged breafast cereals. Beside the fact that you'll pay anywhere from $4-$5 a box they are loaded with fillers and sugar. I make them oatmeal not the instant mico. stuff that's loaded with sugar and all the yucky extras . I also make them cream of wheat, egg sandwiches, home made pancakes with apples sauce topping, waffles with apples sauce topping.
I know this has been long and I'll step off my soap box now and get back to my humble position. I do hope this has helped you and if you need anymore help with recipes etc. just let me know I'd be more then happy to help you out.
Let us know what LC plan you pick. Remember when you have the time the library will probably have all the books that you'll be needing.
Ive been doing Atkins for a about 4 weeks, and Im happy with the results. I dont have time to think about what to eat next or how to eat it. Atkins offers me the structure and the simplicity. Keeping it below 20grams is easy for me. I'll continue induction until Ive got myself under 200lbs. Slowly I'll add more carbs....but good ones, like a different veggies etc. Nothing that would trigger my sugar.
As for my daughter, I have cut out most of the pasta's and most breads. If I let her, that would be all she would eat, and of course its easy to make, and fast. I still allow mac and cheese, only because its her favourite. But for snacks, Chrissy has some great ideas....also cold cuts with cheese rolled up in the middle, cook up some bacon to snack on, low carb fruits and berries.....blueberries, strawberries, cantalopes etc. I found that when my daughter and I make popcorn the old fashion way (on the stove)lol she thinks its a great treat!! You can get some fancy toppings for popcorn, give everyone their own bowl and their own topping. Its alot of fun and good for them.
My daughter doesnt have the weight problem that I have. I hope that by doing this now, she never will. Its hard enough on us, we dont need to watch our kids go thru the same pain.
The library has some great books on this topic, there is also a book relating to allergies. Im sorry, I dont remember the name of it. But it has to do with behaviour and food allergies. A girlfriend of mine was having some serious behaviour problems with her son.......after reading this book, she discovered that the behaviour and the perpetual rosy cheeks were allergies to apples. And the kids drank apple juice and ate apple sauce like he lived for it. She took the apples away, and he's been fine since.
I have done some research for this. there is a definate link between ADD/ADHD/ODD and carbohydrates soem add/adhd docs reccomend low carbing for the kids. i think if you chose lower glycemic index foods then your kids will do fine. i will say that when i restrict the carbs frm my kids they do much better especially the middle kids which i have big problems in school for them. when i gave them p drinks for breakfast the showed markedly improved attention spans and concentration in school. it is ahrd to feed kids low carb when every thing else is high carb.
Hi Michelle! I don't know much about the carb restriction in kids, but I am getting ready to research it myself. I am afraid my son is going to inherit my metabolism, so I have to get moving! So far with what I have read, Sugar Busters for Kids has a good, sound program. It is mostly cutting out the bad carbs, like white flour and pure sugar, and replacing them with sugar free whole wheat bread, low glycemic fruits like berries and apples, and healthy snacks.
Sadly, if I want this to work for him, I will have to pack his lunch forever because school lunches are CRAP! Do you know what he had today? Pizza, a banana and a sugar cookie. Yesterday was french toast, steak fries and a banana. The day before was peanut butter whole wheat sandwiches. Plain peanut butter and bread, and there was sugar in the bread, no doubt. Ok, before I rant anymore, I will stop!
Also, for you, check this link on the site and it will give you a wonderful synopsis of the various low carb programs written by some of our very smart ladies here on the forum. http://www.3fatchicks.com/lowcarb/
On the right hand side are various diets, so click on those for the rundown on which diet you are interested in reading about. Great info!
By all means I encourage you to put your daughter on a lowish carb diet. In the past I have tried to put my boys on a dairy free, red dye, blue dye, wheat/gluten free diet to improve their behavior. I had little success with it in reguards to improving their behavior, although I did notice a huge difference in my little ones raging after consuming products with red dye. BUT I know of parents who have had great success with it and that is why I encourage you to persue it.
Consider visiting the site www.conductdisorders.com
It IS a "scare the pants off of mom, " site but there is a lot of good information there and there are women who are very knowledgable in behavior and nutritional "stuff" I believe there are seperate forums for home rememdies as well as preschool children.
BUT nothing takes the place of doing your homework and consulting your doctor or a specialist in this area....especially if the change in diet shows no improvement.
My two boys, now age seven and nine were collectively booted out of five (5) preschools. Now, they are doing very well, and I am extremely proud of them....but looking back I think I should have a medal for surving those years.
If I can in anyway be of help to you...please let me know.
Hiya, Michelle and hugs to K! I'm glad you came out of lurkdom.
You are absolutely right to be worried about K's diet at school. They just serve carbcrap! The more recently experienced mommies in here have lots of suggestions. I do know that my wired Jim (before we had ADDH or whatever) was less wired on lower carb meals. Now he is 39, still somewhat wired but eating properly.
Atkins is hard because you are virtually giving up carbs. CALP on the other hand has 2 very low carb meals and one meal where you can have carbs in restricted and balanced amounts.
Hang out in here and holler when you have questions.
And what happened with the vehicle? Was it fixable?
Thanks for the warm welcome and great tips everyone!
I was doing some serious thinking last night (scary ) and I realized that it's been months since I have started Katelyn's day with a protein. It has always, always been a carb. Waffles, pancakes, toast, cereal, nutrigrain bar, etc. I guess because they are fast in easy.
Today I made us some scrambled eggs and bacon and she LOVED it. I will be curious to see how her day goes. Since carbs only energize us for a short amount of time and she has breakfast at 6AM and lunch not until 12, I'm thinking a more substancial breakfast will help (hopefully )
I definitely plan to do some more reading. I've taken a quick glance at the websites you've recommended and they all look like great resources.
Pooky- I will be buying that book very soon, thanks
ChrissyB- Thank you so much for the snack suggestions, I wrote them down. I have already been monitoring the amount of red/blue dye's she is getting because the red seems to make her throw up less then two hours afterwards. I just can't believe how much junk is out there and accessible to kids that I never even realized!
Robin- Thanks for adding your experiences. Congrats on your success!
Jennifer- Those lunches are horrible! When I think back on it, that's what I had for lunches as a kid to. And since my kiddo's daycare program serves the same lunches as the elementary kids get (same building), I'm sure it's just loaded with unhealthy things. I can't believe I missed the 3FC Low carb information page! I'll check it out.
Peach- I'm glad things are working out for your kids. Dealing with behavior issues in children is so difficult, and there are so many different things to have to think about and how they are effecting them. Thanks for the weblink, I'll check them out!
GRuthie, I am certainly going to check out CALP more. It sounds more up my alley. The truck is supposedly fixable, it's costing about 5K! Insurance is covering it though, so we'll see. Makes me nervous to drive a vehicle that's been through that much damage and repairs. How is Gpa doing?
Ok, suppose I should get back to work. Have a great day chickee's, I'll come back to the coop soon with an update!
On the PP forum there was some discussion last year regarding this. very interesting i will see if i can pul some of the info for that and see if there was any lnks that i can add to that since my puter crased and i lost all my webv sites i have been at a serious dissadvantage here. so let me do a little research for you (my favorite thing here!!)
restarting some of my research check out this link it is wonderful.
http://borntoexplore.org/whatisadd.htm make sure you get to the link for site map on the bottom of the page ten start to really explore this site it is very informative for diagnstic and research info re add adhd. also get the link for the diagostic testing my kids hit every one of the add/ attention deficits (my middle two)
this next link talks about the magnesium and calcium link to add adhd as well as the link between the deficits of the fatty acids. there is a definat elink between these daignostics and the lack of omega 3's but atlas i need to find that site that the info was found (it was a great site!!!)
I found my favorite research article site!!! YAHOOO!!! this give tons and tons of info regarding many of the herbals, vits and min supps you just need the lead of what to look for!!
research this article and magnesium and also calcium too. you will find also reseach for the link between omega 3 and 7 and the difference and that fact that the diet that we eat now is in sad dissporportinate of 3-6 where we eat way too much 6 compared to 3 and that leads to things like joint pain, lack of concentration and much more. (the PPLP book had brought this up) but the research that i had started on had talked about the link and that the body does not always change 6 to 3 as many think it does they actally work in contrast of each other and if you are over the 6 to the 3 then like a see saw you are out balanced. so it is important to take your 3 supps even if they taste terrible. I am a good one to talk!! but as i had said if i can find the research for the add and stuff there was a definate decrease of the 3 uptake in these children and talk that the coremega supplements have been very successful in the focus and concentration as well. i have often thought about getting that focus facor for my kids thinking that it would get them to get to their potential. they have iq's of 120 but only work at a c grade level.
Low Carbing and Children
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Hi Michelle, It's nice that you came out of lurking and joined us. I'm glad that you did. I'm sure that you'll enjoy posting and I know that I am looking forward to getting to know you.
) and I realized that it's been months since I have started Katelyn's day with a protein. It has always, always been a carb. Waffles, pancakes, toast, cereal, nutrigrain bar, etc. I guess because they are fast in easy. 
)