Today’s blog is being entered at the 11th hour because I had much that I wanted to say. It did not help that everything that I wanted to say was bits & pieces of unrelated stuff. I was trying to think of how to mesh them all together. Then, all my ideas were completely forgotten when I went over to the bulletin boards/forum section of this site. There, I found that my son has joined the group!

As a parent, this makes me feel really good. Back in February of ’03 (when I first started following the BTD), I tried it first on myself. It worked so well, I told my husband about it in greater detail...only to be told that he was already aware that he shouldn’t be eating wheat. He said it had recently started to give him bad heartburn every time he ate it. We both started BTD-ing. My husband and were both so pleased with our results that we decided that our teenage son should be following it, too.

That was MUCH easier said than done. He was completely against the idea for every conceivable reason and excuse imaginable. To make matters worse, I had lost much of my credibility with him about exactly what correct eating habits were. In the past I had tried many other eating styles and at the time been convinced that those others were right. Several months later, I always found out that I had been wrong.

I still remember him standing in our kitchen one day. He was telling me that this diet was just another of my crazy ideas on nutrition and health. I emphatically told him that no, it most definitely was not and that he could wait until the cows came home, but I was not going to change my mind on this issue. I also told him it was not just my idea, but that it had been recommended by our ND to help me lose the extra fat I was lugging.

Hearing that our ND had actually recommended it, instead of it just being something that I had stumbled across, made him take a little bit of a notice, but he still was not cooperative. An entire year passed - with him doing everything conceivable to dodge this lifestyle and way of eating. I was exasperated and frustrated...and not just with him. I still feel like kicking myself from time to time when I recall how his tiny A body reacted as a baby the very first time I fed him beef. It was horrible. He screamed, yelled, and cried for HOURS. I had no clue why. Now, I knew why. Now, I felt I had the task of getting my son to believe me before he moved out. Then I would have zero say in what he did or didn’t do.

My husband I had already decided that we would no longer buy pork any more. That was not because of the BTD nor was it for religious reasons. It was due to all the things I had learned about pork back when I had been in culinary school. Someone we knew had become a living example of what life-threatening things can happen to those that eat it. Therefore, we decided that we were also no longer going to buy our son any more beef. Period. So, guess who started going out to eat and getting it with his friends in restaurants? Yep. Our son. He’d even come home mystified as to why he would then not feel good...

Then, enter the reappearance of the BTD Forums back in September. I was overjoyed! Now I had a place that I could “go” that I didn’t feel like such an outcast as to what I would and would not eat. It offered contact with LOTS of other people that thought generally along the same lines I did. To make it even better, I met some more AB’s!

My son thought this was amusing...his Mom had become a “forum-dwelling troglodyte” just like himself (I still maintain that I am NOT - but that’s another story). One day, as I was reading the testimonials that various people had posted, he started reading over my shoulder. The humorous signature line of someone had caught his eye. More importantly, it had struck some sort of chord within him. He asked if this person posted much. I told him a little bit about the person from what I knew. As it turns out, it was someone who was also a blogger and also the same blood type and gender as my son (he was reading Paul Buckless' blogs if you are curious).

A day passed. Then, my son started voluntarily reading Paul's archives. Then, something clicked. He agreed to try the BTD for 42 days under the condition that if at the end of that time he was still unconvinced that I would not bring up the BTD ever again. That was extreme to me. Was I really that much of a pest? Did I really trust the BTD to give him undeniable results in less than 2 months? He wasn’t overweight, didn’t have any of the typical teen skin problems, or anything else that he was trying to resolve other than some recurring warts on his hands. I agreed, with reservation, to his terms and with one modification. As his parent, who loved him, I could not guarantee to never ever mention the BTD to him again, but I would agree try not to mention it to him.

He started drinking coffee the next morning. He HATED it. Nevertheless, he kept drinking it. Two days later, his warts were noticeably smaller. He stopped eating beef when out with friends...his stomach felt much better. He started asking me to double check his lunches for avoids. He asked for a mini coffee maker and an electric grill so that he could start learning how to cook compliantly! He started eating salads for lunch...with actual vegetables in them instead of being half croutons that he had gotten at the grocery. Then he asked me to start teaching him how to do the appropriate A types of exercise.

Then, it happened. Last night, he did a complete A workout for the second time. After his shower, while I was working on some other stuff, he joined the forums. He is trying to find ways to help speed up his rate of compliance. While it would be nice, I don’t have all the answers for him. But I am SO HAPPY that I kept at him. Bottom line: DO NOT be a nag, I really didn’t mean to be one if I really was, BUT DO NOT give up either.