Welcome from our Whole Family!
Our family challenged ourselves almost 2 years ago to get back to the basics in our physical and spiritual health and have been on this journey as a “Whole Family” ever since. We thought it would be fun to document our successes, our challenges, our ups downs and in-betweens, and share it with you. We hope we are an encouragement to you on your journey.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting our crazy family up close let me introduce ourselves.
Brandon is 32 and a business banker who lovingly supports our family and makes all we do possible.
I, 
Jacque, am now 30 and a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom. I love what I do and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I have been homeschooling for 6 years and plan on continuing, if that be God’s will, all the way through. I cherish every moment with my kids and love seeing them learn new things and have their own convictions about what they believe and do and say.
Speaking of kids…our oldest is Jeremiah who is 9. He is an awesome kid with a kind heart, who loves to learn new things. He plays guitar, basketball, football and is learning taekwondo. He loves to read, play chess and beat us in video games. He also has had type 1 diabetes for over 5 years.
Our little princess, Shiloh, is 6 and has the biggest servant’s heart I have ever seen. She loves to serve, encourage and make other people’s lives brighter. She is so much fun to watch. She plays piano, loves to draw, cheers for Jeremiah’s basketball team and is also learning taekwondo.
Levi is our 3 year old (who actually believes he’s 5) little miracle that we prayed and prayed for. He brings joy to every one of our lives and is so much fun. He thinks everything, and I mean everything, is a hot dog and loves anything that his big siblings like. He’s a sweetie and I can’t cuddle with him enough.
We have a new addition to our family, Mercy Elizabeth, who graced us with her presence on March 15. She is a wonderful baby and an absolute joy to be around. We can’t help but sit and stare at the amazing blessing she is.
We also recently welcomed a diabetic alert dog into our family named Jazz. Jazz is supposed to alert us to fluctuations in Jeremiah’s blood sugar and help us to regulate it even more.
So that’s us! Hope you enjoy getting to know us more!
As much as we are focusing on our physical health our main focus is on our spiritual health and our relationship with Jesus Christ. We have committed to having a daily worship/devotional time as a family. We are each also studying the bible on our own daily. We very much desire to grow closer to each other as we grow closer to the Lord. In everything we do we want to honor the Lord whether that be through what we eat, how we care for our bodies, how we live, or how we seek to learn more about Him.
When it comes to eating we normally follow the whole9, or Paleo, eating plan, 80% of the time. This means we eat mainly good meats and fish, fruits, veggies, some nuts and berries, and lots of good fat. Whole Foods….
We have been unexpectedly amazed at what eating paleo has done for our son, Jeremiah’s, type 1 diabetes. His blood sugar numbers have been much better than they have ever been before. This is just one more reason we have for continuing to eat so well.
As for exercise, Brandon works out at our local gym and I do TRX , Crossfit, running and occasionally meet up with Brandon at the gym. Lately we enjoy taking family bike rides around our neighborhood lake. Jeremiah and Shiloh participate in taekwondo and Levi is convinced he is doing it too. As a family we make purposeful decisions to do something active daily.
We have been blessed. We are excited to be on this journey and are amazed at how God continues to work in both our spiritual and physical lives. I hope our journey encourages you on yours. Thank you for joining us!
Hi. Just found your blog from Robb Wolf’s re: Type I DM……would love to follow you on facebook as well
So glad you found us!
I want to commend you on what you’re doing for your family. It’s no easy feat to abstain from what’s become the norm for feeding our children.
I am on a similar journey (although mine includes daily doses of our own goats’ milk and cheese, and as much of our own meat and produce as we can raise) and it can be very hard to stay the course.
Congratulations on making a fine choice for your family, and for being courageous enough to allow God’s word to guide you through it.
Well wishes
Jennifer
Thank you so much for the encouragement Jennifer. So glad to know we are walking together.
to say I’m excited to find another Christian Paleo family would be an understatement. Beautiful family and testimony!
I agree fully! It is rare, but here we are! Glad we are on this journey together.
Hello, I stumbled on your blog with a google search for Peleo and type 1 diabetes. I have a unique situation. Our family had been eating peleo for almost a year when my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
To add to our unique situation, our family lives in Loja, Ecuador. We are missionaries here. THis adds to the confusion of the diagnosis. Not only do we have to learn all of this new stuff to keep our son alive, but we must do it in Spanish.
Our dr here sent us to a nutritionist who immediately put us on a new diet. This diet involves 40 grams of carbs for three meals a day and 20 grams of carbs for his three snacks. We now eat a cup of rice at every single meal (sometimes I exchange that for black beans or corn tortillas.)
Besides some sometimes erratic numbers, my T-1 son seems to be thriving. of course, this is in comparison to how ill he was before diagnosis.
The biggest problem is that my health has gone down the tubes. I have not gained any of the weight back that I lost with my whole 30 because every portion is carefully measured, but my body seems to be deteriorating by the day. I want my family back on the whole9/peleo way of living but I am scared to death that with the medical care provided for us here, that I will hurt my son.
I write this to ask if you would be willing to converse with me about your son and his diet?
Our dr here will NOT be supportive of this and as his wife is the nutritionist who changed our diet in the first place we may actually cause offense and lose the only diabetic specialist we have access to.
If you would be willing to talk to me, please send me an email. Thank you so much.
Absoutely. I’ll be in contact with you soon Becka.
I have to agree about packaged GF foods. I never went crazy on them becuase they’re usually out of my budget, but the few that I’ve tried have been disappointing, and I didn’t feel well after eating them. In my own cooking I tend to focus on things that are naturally gluten-free without trying to mimic glutenous foods. Many of the ingredients used in GF recipes don’t even qualify as food, in my opinion.
Becca – how are you doing? Some people find they do better incorporating some “safe” starches such as in the “Perfect Health” diet. I do believe it is a very individual thing. Paleo eating for my 12 year old daughter actually causes her blood sugars to stay higher, but my husband thrives on it. I believe it might be an undiagnosed intolerance to beef in my daughter, but I’m not sure. She is doing better now. We try to limit carbs to 130-150/day as the standard diabetic diet is just too high and she certainly doesn’t do the number of recommended grains. She eats fish, eggs, some nuts and seeds, and some legumes (only those she tolerates and that are labelled as safe on the specific carbohydrate diet – pea beans, black beans, lentils, and split peas). Typical day would be veggie omelet for breakfast, flax meal muffin, fruits, and veggies for lunch, fruit with nut butter for afternoon snack, fish and veggies or lentil/legume based soup/stew for dinner. She also tolerates white rice (safe starch) and oats in small amounts (I know, not paleo, but her FBG has dropped on average 1 mmol/L since changing her diet). I actually now deal with a more open minded dietician who looked at what I was doing when I was adamant that a standard diabetic diet would mean insulin for my daughter (she is still borderline diabetic at this time – latent autoimmune form-we belive this is because she was put on a dairy free gluten free diet when she was quite young). Just my experience – hopefully it’s helpful or finds you at a time when things are stable and you have support still. I am definitely not against Paleo eating as I have several in my family that do better on a Paleo diet.
I would like to offer fundraising if possible! Please contact me if you would like more info.
Hello,
I found your blog from a link at Whole 9, as I was looking through the testimonials. How wonderful to find a family that loves the Lord, eats Paleo and homeschools too! Our family has been Paleo/Primal (we do drink raw milk and cheese from our dairy goats) since Jan 2012 due to my autoimmune Hashimotos. My daughter and I just started our first Whole 30 a few days ago and I feel so blessed to have found your blog. Looking forward to reading more about your spiritual journey as well as your journey to better health.
Blessings,
Janae
I’m so glad to have found you via pinterest! I’m a mom to 3 littles and I love your whole family concept!! I’m starting my first whole 30 next week and am very interested in crossfit, trx, and couch 2 5k! I can’t wait to read more of your site!!
Kristi
I am enjoying your blog!!! Thank you for the handy recipe link and the whole 30 meal plans. And your kids are so cute. And I love how you teamed with other wives to make meals for your husbands as they went on a retreat. I love so much of your family and your routines.
Also, Can you help me find the kale chip recipe? I know I saw it on your blog last week. Something with kale, not sure it was called chip. But I think you said it was your favorite way to eat kale…does this ring a bell? I wanted to try it, but now I can’t find the recipe…I thought I would find it under snacks, but its not there. you made it sound so yummy that I bought kale, for the first time! I also bought cabbage for the first time and made kicken cabbage and loved it. Thank you!
So glad you’re enjoying it Shelley! I’m glad you pointed out the kale thing, I need to put it in the recipe section. Here’s the post with it, enjoy! http://wholefamilystrong.com/real-food-munchies-whole-family/
You have a really great blog!