Meeting with Dietitian

Well, if there is word to describe our meeting with the dietitian today it would be overwhelmed!  Holy Cow - lots of information and numbers!  Our appt. was scheduled for 1 hour and it lasted 2.5 and probably could have gone longer had she not had to run.  Joy is our dietitian and she was great and was "on the ball" from the beginning and was very fast paced (which I liked).  There is too much information that we received to share everything, but here is an overview of what Joshua will be required to eat everyday.

1) 2 KetoCal drinks per day (these are specific drinks for people on the Keto diet and from what I am told are kind of like a milk consistency).  We have to purchase these from a special website and are extremely expensive.

2) 90 Grams of Fruit (only certain ones allowed) per day

3) 90 Grams of Vegetables (only certain ones allowed) per day.  Note:  90 grams is not much!

4) 2 teaspoons of coconut oil 3 times a day

5) 115 grams of heavy cream per day (either drink it or mixed into a recipe)

6) 21 grams of protein per day minimum

7) 129 grams of Fat per day minimum

8) No more than 21 grams of carbs per day

9) Calorie goal - 1,342 calories per day

10) 49 oz. (6 cups) of water per day

In addition he is being put on a multi-vitamin supplement (sugar free), Calcium vitamin and Phosphorus.  We ordered the multi-vitamin online, but still need the other two.  We also have to get his seizure meds changed over to non-carb/sugar substances, but don't know yet how that is going to work.  We also had to go buy low/no carb/sugar products such as toothpaste, soap, shampoo, sunscreen, cough medicine, ointment, etc. because these products can be absorbed through the skin and can add unwanted carbs to the patient and cause them to get out of a state of ketosis (therefore causing seizures).  Who knew!?!?  I find that kind of fascinating...

We came home and tried to put some meals together in the online tool (Keto Calculator), but it proved difficult to find the right meals to equal out the right amount of everything for each day (took us an hour to calculate 1 breakfast and 1 snack).  When the book says you do not have to weigh anything on MAD they were wrong!  From what we found out today MAD is just like Keto except it is a lower ratio than Keto and you can have a bit more food.  Instead of trying to figure out how to do all the calculations tonight we decided to brain storm meal ideas and then tomorrow put those in the tool and then tweak the recipes to meet his numbers.  I think that will be easier (I hope!). 


We are going to start this Saturday and I'm a nervous wreck about it!!!  But, I want to start so we can hopefully see seizure reduction faster.  Chip unfortunately is working 12 hour shifts from 3PM - 3AM the first 10 days we are on the diet so that makes me even more nervous.  My Mom is going to come over this weekend and help me do some planning and cooking and help me power through my first few days.  Thanks, Mom!!!

I will post this weekend about how our first few days are going and how he is handling the new foods we are giving to him.  I'm sure it will prove to be an exhausting weekend.

Tomorrow morning is our appt. with the school district for placement into special education preschool.  I will post tomorrow night the results as we should know tomorrow if he will be put into the preschool or not and if he will start this year or in the fall. 

I'm exhausted after a long day and am going to bed! 

Michelle