The Diet

First, we would like to go ahead and say thank you to everyone who has offered to make and/or bring us food. You have no idea how much that helps. However, Josh has some pretty strict diet restrictions right now. It's a restricted anti-inflammatory diet. Which let me tell you, is NOT easy! (I want to be supportive and I definitely don't want him doing this alone. We are in this together! So the girls and I are doing it with him) Anyway, we love you all for the offers and support, and you truly don't have to feel obligated to do this we appreciate just all the love and thoughtfulness. But if you still insist to bring us food, or make us food here is the long list of restrictions as many have requested to see…

Everything has to be non-GMO and 100% Organic.

List of things he CANNOT have:

Dairy

Eggs

Red Meat/Pork

Wheat products of any kind (including white flour)

Citrus fruits

Tomatoes
Potatoes

Corn Products

Peppers (black pepper for seasoning is fine)

Peanuts & Peanut Butter

All forms of caffeine 

Alcohol

Sugar (he can have agave, honey, stevia or maple syrup as sweeteners) 

Fried foods

Any processed food 

He can have fish but it has to be Deep Ocean fresh, it cannot be farmed. 

Basically think Gluten free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free, and GMO free and all organic, with a couple of the extra restrictions. Everything within those guidelines he can have. 

It's hard.. we miss cheese. We miss eggs. We miss hot sauce(oh man do we miss hot sauce!!! Lol) . We miss sugar. But everything else hasn't been too hard to abide by. 

Now, you must be thinking, what the heck are we doing this for? 

Well, first and foremost, we have to remember that food is medicine. Nutrition is so important. The average American diet is pretty inflammatory to our system. We never ate horribly, but could we have eaten healthier? Sure! Now that he has to go through chemo, the anti-inflammatory isn't required, but it certainly helps with his side effects. If he has a better diet and stops the inflammation inside, his body accepts the chemo better, has less side affects, and it helps with cell and platelet growth, as the chemo is killing off both good and bad cells. So it helps to keep up, and also helps the chemo work better. Cancer cannot grow in an alkalized body. This is a fact. So if we feed our bodies nothing but anti-inflammatory foods, then we essentially can help starve out any cancer.  

Also, with chemo, your taste buds change, you get sick easily, you feel nauseous, and sometimes you don't want to eat at all, so this diet is very easy on his stomach. 

Now, before we get heat about being overly cautious lol. (We have gotten a few eye rolls, which I just go ahead and assume they're clearly not educated on this particular subject, because as soon as people hear "all natural" they think we are bunch of tree hugging hippies that think Tree bark is the cure of life....) I just want to say, in our defense, we don't believe a tablespoon of maple syrup everyday is going to cure cancer. We are realistic, we know we have to fight this with medicine.. But, we also believe we should use every defense we have and fight this every way possible. As they say, you wouldn't bring 1 solider to the battle; you'd bring the whole army. So that's what we are doing. 

We are currently seeing multiple doctors. We are currently seeing a regular oncologist who practices western medicine, and also an acupuncturist/healer who practices eastern medicine working with food and energy and herbs and all that fun stuff. He can also help with easing the inevitable side effects that medicine can't help us with, so truly, we need to have resources from all angles..... We believe in both practices and think using both is obviously a no brainer. Who wouldn't want to fight this every way possible?  Also, both doctors agree that it's great to practice both.

When people work together to heal, the better chance we have!  

 Just remember, this whole fight is for Josh. We don't want him to feel like crap, or have to fight more off than he has to. He can't eat these things mostly because it will irritate his stomach; it's a lot harder for him to digest certain foods now. A lot of foods won't taste good. We want this chemo treatment to not kick his ass. If we can follow these rules until he's done with the chemo, not only is his body going to thank us, he will feel a lot better and heal from the medicine a lot quicker than he would if his body wasn't nutritionally healthy as he can be. A full balanced meal is exactly what everyone needs. And right now more than ever is that so important for him! 

Again, we thank you so much. The support has been overwhelming. Love you guys. xoxo!