My Gluten Free Adventure

It all started a year ago, when a regular checkup discovered I was missing some important vitamins in my body. As a very health-conscious person, I was a bit concerned. I eat very healthy food and have loads of energy, so there had been no indication anything was wrong.

My doctor was great. He did not just give me supplements but was very determined to find the source of the deficiency. I went through a series of checks that ended up discovering I do not have the enzyme required to digest lactose, the sugar in cow’s milk. It was sad to learn that (I love milk, yoghurt and cheese), but at the same time relieved, because it could have been worse.

During that period, I met a friend who had discovered she had Lupus (an autoimmune disease) and had almost died from organ failure. For the two previous years, she had taken chemotherapy medication, looked half-dead and we had all been very worried about her. When we met, she was still on the same medication, but she looked amazingly better than ever.

When I asked her how she had recovered so well, she said she had discovered she was gluten intolerant and had decided to stop eating gluten. I asked her if she had Celiac (my doctor had sent me to check that too and, thank God, I do not have it) and she said, “No, I don’t, but I figured I could try not eating gluten for a while and if I felt better, I’d know it was a good choice”.

That was 6 months ago.

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Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Food

Many parents have issues with kids and food. I have to say that running a family and making sure they stay healthy is not easy, especially when your kids are babies and your heart aches with them whenever they are sick.

I added the connection between food and health to my bible after a huge pain of trying very hard to get rid of Eden’s pneumonia when she was just an 18-month-old baby. By the time she was 2 years old, Eden had been sick with pneumonia 3 times already and had been constantly on antibiotics and inhalers. Before those scary 6 months, I had never thought about what I ate and had just gone to the supermarket and bought the same things my parents and Gal’s parents had.

One of my friends, who was trying to help me, told me Eden should eat certain things and avoid eating others to improve her health. I thought she was not normal (which was true, but in a good sense) and that food had nothing to do with germs and health problems. It was only later, when we discovered Eden was sensitive to dairy food, that I realized just how tight the relationship between food and health was.

Food, and only food, was the difference between having a very sick girl (with pneumonia that 6 months of antibiotics could not fix) and having a healthy girl that went to see the doctor only once in the following 20 years. Food, and only food, was the difference between being anemic and having a healthy iron level. During my second, third, fourth and fifth pregnancies, while every other woman had to take iron tablets, my iron level was strong and stable, even the doctor was shocked. Food, and only food, was the difference between Gal having sinus surgery to unblock his nose and not needing that surgery until today.

This post is part 3 of 10 in the series Ronit's Parenting Bible

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Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (7): What drives you nuts?

Parenting can be a hard task. Although we love our kids very much, there are many things in parenting that can drive even the calmest person nuts.

When I ask parents about their challenges, they talk mostly about their kids’ (bad or annoying) behavior. However, I think that is a reflection of other challenges we have. As you will see from the top parenting bloggers’ answers below, parenting challenges are varied and reflect our wider perspective on parenting.

In this part of Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss, I asked each blogger about the things they find challenging as parents. I told them it did not have to be their kids’ behavior but in parenting in general or anything else directly or indirectly related to raising kids. I believe you will find what they have to say very interesting.

This post is part 7 of 14 in the series Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss

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Topsy Turvy World (2)

Last week, I wrote about some things that make our world seem to be operating upside down, including relaxing to accomplish more, exercising to have more time, giving to receive, listening to be heard and praising your kids so they will do better.

But life is so weird and wonderful, there are other examples of its topsy turvy ways and I just have to share them with you, because they have helped me and will likely help you too.

Is the sun bad for you?

Should you eat lots of protein?

Should you lose weight?

Should you be perfect?

Maybe this will help you choose, be happy and be a great parent too.

This post is part 2 of 4 in the series Topsy Turvy World

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The Universe is Trying to Tell Me Something

Have you ever heard something over and over again from different, unrelated sources and you have said, “Wow, what a coincidence. I read about this yesterday” or “I got an email about this just last week”?

Well, when I get so many “coincidences” like that in a short time, I think the Universe is trying to tell me something.

One particular coincidental chain started a long time ago, when I was a kid. I listened to a “pirate” radio called “The Voice of Peace”, which played one commercial over and over again, saying “Water. Drink only water”. While they still played sponsored commercials for coke and other soft drinks, they ran this one more frequently than anything and did not get paid for it.

I loved the idea of that radio station, which promoted peace, and I loved the fact that they encouraged people to be healthy, unlike other stations that were selling air time to the highest paying advertiser.

When I was 18, I attended a workshop for girls about the world of cosmetics. Our presenter told us that if we wanted to have soft skin (“like a baby’s bum”), we needed to drink plenty of water, regardless of the price of the moisturizer we bought. Well, 3 of us experimented with this and, just like she said, after only a week, everyone commented on our wonderful, glowing skin.

But these things alone did not seem like they were going anywhere yet.

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Crazy Women

This week, I lost it. I finished a session and came crying to Gal. I think I am surrounded with crazy women. It usually takes me a lot longer to say things like this about people, especially when I do not know them, but this week’s emotions accumulated to the point where I must vent.

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TV Diet (2): Health Concerns

Many studies have been done on the influence of TV on viewers (in fact there have been 4,000 studies on the effect on children alone, which you should not read if you love watching TV). Excessive TV viewing raises concerns in five major areas: Health, Behavior, Outlook on life, Relationship and Education

This post is part 2 of 18 in the series TV Diet

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Stories: Fact or Fiction?

As an author, people ask me about the origin of my stories. Almost every person who has read my stories has asked, “Are they real?” Maybe this is a good opportunity for me to write how I came up with them, because some of the stories are so real it was painful. All my characters are based on real people whose personalities I borrowed without their knowledge, but some parts of the stories are twists I created to convey a message.

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Healthy Eating by Shock Treatment

Unless there is something wrong with them, all parents want their kids to be healthy and eat well. With so many supermarkets and so many items on the shelves that are mostly processed, full of food colors, additives and lots of sugar, keeping your kids healthy is not easy. Not easy, but more important than ever!

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How to Raise Food-Smart Kids

These days, when children’s eating habits have led to an increase in obesity, parents’ responsibility to raise food-smart children has increased too.

It is the quality or the nutrition in the food we give our kids, coupled with the teaching of good habits, that will determine our kids’ health as children and later as grownups.

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