December Gratitude & Some Reading

I had put a “T” on his whiteboard as an example for our son to practice drawing one of his own five days ago, and he wrote the rest of the letters without any sort of example or guide instead. Him and I at school in mid-November. Photos and screenshots by Ariana.

A Quick Note of Gratitude to BCBA K.H.

This note is more than a year overdue, and you have my sincerest apologies for that. Balancing the time I have needed for healing with my regular “to do” list has meant that many things have gone undone or even unsaid. For our readers who may not know, our son was discharged from ABA in October of 2024 once he was able to sustain tolerating an entire school day. Throughout the year and a half we worked with K.H., she listened intently to the needs of the family, she wrote smart and effective programming, and she was instrumental in helping with the first year of the school transition.

I cannot thank you enough, Ms. K. H., for making time to show up at IEP’s and for coming in once a month to assess him in the school environment to recommend any needed tweaks to the behavioral supports he was getting. Our son’s case has many challenges associated with it, and you handled them with extraordinary grace and professionalism. We miss working with you, but are confident that each of your clients going forward will be as blessed as we were by the caring you bring to your therapeutic recommendations and interventions.

A Brief Note

Yes, I know my blog still has not had a freshen up in terms of replacing the photos and the features that existed with the old theme that stopped working with recent updates. I am thinking that may happen on our son’s Christmas break, but if it doesn’t, I thank you again for your patience in putting up with what is just a visually more blah blog for now. <3

Some Reading To Consider

“Fasting-Like Diet Lowers Risk Factors for Disease, Reduces Biological Age in Humans,” by Beth Newcomb for USC Leonard Davis

and…

“Fasting-mimicking diet promotes Ngn3-driven B-call regeneration to reverse diabetes,” study by Cheng, Villani, Buono, Wei, Kumar, Yilmaz, Cohen, Sneddon, Perin, ad Longo as found on the PubMed, National Library of Medicine

As we head into a time where insurance coverage is likely to be less, more expensive, and for some even unobtainable, sometimes looking to what science has to offer in terms of lifestyle remedies may be the only support some of us can afford to reach for. In this spirit, I spent some time looking for studies that could be applicable to reversing prediabetes if one is on a medication that makes weight loss difficult or even impossible. I know that diabetes is a risk factor for some of my family members who read with us here, and I felt like these bits of information I found were good to know. This diet doesn’t require a person to give up food entirely for the fasting period, just to maintain certain calorie restrictions for a period of five consecutive days out of each month.

The summative is that fast-mimicking diet can, as the study I posted mention, “reverse organ dysfunction” and “restore insulin secretion.” Basically it can speed up the rate at which cells break down cellular material that isn’t functioning properly and can cause other pancreas cells to differentiate into new Beta cells, which are the ones that produce insulin in the pancreas. Another study, mentioned in the article, references it’s ability to lower biological age, and it can also reverse fatty deposits in the liver. As you can see from the picture below, it won’t get rid of gray hairs even if it will improve cellular aging markers (that’s me about an hour before I posted this and those hairs are looking grayer than ever, LOL), but currently the science is indicating it may be useful for reversing some previous poor lifestyle choices or the effects of a virus on your body, depending on what caused the area of medical concern. That next pic was my fasting blood sugar from this morning. I am on day 4 of the first month’s fasting-mimicking cycle, and I haven’t seen a fasting blood sugar this low since my preoperative blood sugar that was taken a couple weeks before I got COVID at the end of last December.

The more important things I feel like any of you would need to know is that you eat a reduced calorie diet with a very specific macro distribution for fats, protiens and carbs over a five day period and then eat your normal diet for the remaining 25 days of the month, whatever that looks like for you. The first day is only 1100 calories and the next 4 you are supposed to be capped out at 750 calories, with a recommendation that you drink a minimum of 70 ounces of water or caffeine-free herbal tea each day. I already have to drink that much because of my postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, but if you also do soups and broths, please be aware you could spend some extra time in the bathroom and may need to give explanations if appropriate to your employer, etc. There is a company that makes premade kits for these fasts, but it is significantly cheaper to do the calorie crunching and macro accounting yourself (though that does take a lot more time than clicking “buy” on one of those kits). And making your own menus may be the only option for someone with extensive food allergies, so heads up. I personally feel like a few days of discomfort each month are worth the potential benefits, hence the reading recommendations. You can click on the article or study titles for links to those reading sources.

Cinderella is Dead, by Kalynn Bayron.

This book offers a refreshing (albeit significantly darker) reimaging of the Cinderella fairytale. Our heroine Sophia, like every female in the kingdom of Mersailles, is required to memorize a story they are told factually recounts the love story of Cinderella and her prince roughly 200 years prior to the story’s main narrative as they prepare for their own balls at which a male of the kingdom will ask for their hands in marriage. If by the third ball a marriage contract isn’t obtained, the girl in question is considered forfeit to the palace and mysteriously never seen again. As she seeks to fight against an oppressive patriarchal society in which women do not have rights to determine their own fates or advocate for themselves in any manner, she discovers the horror that really happened and that every word she was required to memorize was a twisted distortion that bore no substantial resemblance to the historical facts. I do not want to give any spoilers, as this retelling is most impactful if you are not entirely certain of what is coming. That being said, I know some of my readers will want to know that the female lead in this book is a lesbian, and this book is LGBTQ+ affirming. As a Bi woman, I remain committed to supporting literature that recognizes the beauty and viability of all of us who were divinely created, however we choose to love in this life.