My son and I just started the zone a little over a week ago because he has ADD. Both of us are quite thin...he's more like a stick. Since starting the zone he's been losing weight, around 5lbs. Will this stop? I'd like for him to gain weight, how do I do that? He's on 11 blocks and is 11 years old.

I'd appreciate any help!

Thanks

It's important that growing children receive adequate amounts of protein, fruits and vegetables. Weight loss can be corrected by consuming more blocks. See FAQ #31 at www.drsears.com. I think I remember Dr. Sears saying as long as the meal is balanced with favorable P/C/F let your kids eat all they want. They'll know when to stop.

Try adding more fat to his portions. If he is eating the appropriate amount of blocks of protein, then the way to gain weight/fat is to add fat. Too much protein or carbs will not keep him in the Zone.

In additioin to the info already given, kids experience growth spurts, too, during which they need additional complete balanced P/C/Fblocks, not just additional fat. You may notice changes in your son's appeitte and food consumption from time to time. I wouldn't restrict your son's block intake (within reason) as long as he's eating Zone balanced. He will most likely not be able to eat too much as long as it's Zone balanced. His level and type of activity will also dictate his add'l block needs as he continues to grow.

Thank you Sue for clarifying that, I certainly did not want to give impression that I was suggesting to "restrict" block intake.

When I said "if he is eating the appropriate amount of blocks", I was hoping that it was already established what his nutritional needs were.

Great! Thanks so much! I wasn't totally sure about increasing blocks but I'll go ahead and do that. Right now I have him at 11 blocks but I'll increase it to 13. Eww, I just found a website that tells you how much protein a child should get each day...take their weight and divide by two and that will give you the amount of grams. That will be helpful.

Actually that wasn't very helpful because according to that he should need 46 grams of protein which would mean only 6 1/2 blocks of protein a day. I think I'll keep him at 11 or 12 blocks a day and see what happens. He had problems with his kidneys a few years back so I worry a little about stressing them with extra protein.

Hi Jenny,

I wasn't suggesting you'd advised to limit blocks. :)


sue

Many protein recommendations are based on the FDA recommendations for protein, which is lower in protein.

Hi Sue!

After reading my post and then yours, it looked to me like my post was not clear about that, so just wanted to be sure that my advice didn't give anyone the impression that I was suggesting limiting blocks.

Thanks--and glad to see you back!

Hi Jenny,

Understood. And glad to be back!

sue :)

To Vicki,

With all the focus of this thread being on wt loss prevention, I forgot to mention something. I can't say enough abotu how much the Zne an Omega RX helped my son. Now age 21 and a JR in college, he began the Zone and Omega RX for his ADD 5 1/2 years ago. His results were immediate and amazing! He has strictly ADD, (without the behavior manifestations of ADHD), and also has an auditory processing disorder. He received Sp. Ed. assistance in the public schools from the age of 3 throughout HS, in mainstreamed classes. When we added Omega RX,at the age of 15, two very notable things happened very quiclkly. His skin, which had been breaking out terribly for all his teenage years cleared to baby soft, no breakouts, no scars, nothing, within the first three weeks! It remains so to this day. His grades, which were failing in some classes to barely passing in others (the usual for him up until that time), became a B average, with even some A's, in the time frame of one marking period (1/4 of the school year). He continues to take Omega RX and does very well. His grades in college remain a B average. We're very proud of him. We're also very thankful to Barry Sears for all his research and efforts to make an excellent FO product available for all.

Keep us updated on your son's progress.

sue

Thanks for the info Susan! How much fish oil did you give your son when he was 15?
I did some research on fish oil...thanks to a different thread...and found some fish oil that pretty much mirrors Barry's but I can place a larger order and get a discount. The fish oil is just so expensive and we're on a very tight budget but I went ahead and ordered some anyway because of all of the great things I've heard about it. My son is currently going through testing for ADD because it's like all of a sudden he has hit a wall and his grades are beginning to suffer and he's having a terrible time socially. We go for our second visit on Thursday and I'll request to wait for meds until after he's been on the fish oil for a while. I'll be praying for speedy results like your sons.

Vicki

Hi Vicki,

Dr Sears helped us personally with my son's FO dose. The dose was 2T (yes, tablespoons) per day, which Dr. Sears had him work up to over 2 weeks time. He started with 1T for 1 week, then increased to 1 1/2 T for the second week, then increased to 2T at the end of the second week.

He takes 1T now, not even every day (forgets sometimes).

sue

Wow, that's alot of fish oil. I wonder how many pills a day 2T is? Any ideas?

Hi Vicki,

That's the usual dose for kids from about age 6 and over, for treating ADD. It was explained to me that the bodies of people with ADD degrade FO very quickly, so the large dose is necessary in order for them to receive the same benefit the average person would from a much lower dose.

Two tablespoons of liquid provides around 16g of EPA and DHA combined, so you'd use the number of capsules which would provide 16g. I'm not sure how many that would be. The easiest way to find out would be to check the nutrition labeling on the FO capsule page.

Way back when my son was in elementary school, we had decided not to use meds for his ADD, after having researched the impact they can have on a growing child. It wasn't until many years later that I learned of Barry Sears' work with FO and ADD kids. You know the rest.

sue :)

Sue,

16 pills a day it would be! I could never afford to supply him with that much fish oil. He does love fish, in particular tuna and sardines. He's always loved tuna since he could start eating solid food. I'll just have to make it a point to increase the amount of fish we eat every week. I could substitute canned salmon for his tuna since salmon has 3,000 mg of omega 3 in 6 oz. We'll see what happens.

Thanks so much for your help Sue.

Vicki

Hi,

I doubt you'll get the result you're looking for by eating fish. Tuna is not that high in EPA/DHA. And if he could ever eat enough fish in any given day (impossible, as I see it), he'd be ingesting far too many toxins.

I wish you and your son the best in your endeavor.

sue

Hi Vicki;

I know Sue is opposed to it, but for those on a budget, there is the Natural Factors brand of Purified FO. It is at 60% concentration, the same as Dr. Sears brand.

And at ~ $15 for 120 capsules, 1000 g ea - the same as Dr. sears. And for purity, though not submitted for IFOS (the sticking point with Sue) several of us, quite a while ago - asked NF to provide the purity levels. They are similar to Dr. Sears, albeit based on their own, and not independent testing. However, the NF brand is much more affordable to those on a very, very tight budget. I order mine from iHerb dot com.

I know, I have seen a dramatic lowering of my Cholesterol numbers since I started the ZONE and NF FO, nearly 3 (or 4, now?) years ago.

Strange that this site does not include NF in it's cost comparison, isn't it!

P.S. Life Extension Foundation, very high quality (and tends to be most expensive, except on super-sale). They offer a similar product; however, you have to subscribe, and then only buy it at their super-sale to get similar pricing. And their member subscription is also high, unless you register at their site, delay signing-on, and then wait for them to send you a very, highly discounted membership, as I did.

A number of fish oils have been recalled this year for purity purposes despite the "assurances of the manufacturer".

I personally would not take a product that was not independently tested in a consumer ready state (IFOS).

Of course, everyone has their own comfort level.

[quote]
16 pills a day it would be! [/quote]


Actually, 16grams of EPA/DHA would be closer to 27 capsules. (600mg EPA+DHA per 1000g capsule x 27 = 16,200mg EPA/DHA)

[quote]Posted By Scott on 02/01/2007 11:15 AM

I personally would not take a product that was not independently tested in a consumer ready state (IFOS).

Of course, everyone has their own comfort level.



[/quote]


I wholeheartedly second that opinion!

sue

Don't worry ya'll, I went to that website and did some comparison shopping. I'll be ordering Omaxtra and the more bottles I ordered the cheaper each bottle became so I ended up paying $23 for a bottle of 120.
As far as the fish goes 1 oz of canned salmon contains 3,000mg of omega 3 and the levels of contamination are undetectable. (I researched all that info too) =o)

Vicki

Here's some FYI from "The Omega RX Zone " by Barry Sears (refer to pages 64 to 68). To paraphrase, even if one could eat the pounds of fish in a day which wouldbe necessary to acheive adequate amounts of FO, there are many drawbacks. One couldn't acheive otpimal eicosanoid control because fish muscle is rich in AA. One would also ingest large amounts of chemical and heavy metal pollution. You'd think eating farmed fish would lessen the pollution problem, but it would result in even worse eicosanoid control because, due to its inferior diet(soy oil vs the algae eaten by fish in the wild), it contains much more AA than wild fish.

Incidentally, according to the book, a 3.5 oz serving of salmon contains 1.1 g omega 3. Considering it one would need to eat many pounds of fish per day to recieve a therapeutic high dose of FO, and the the FO would most likely not have an optimal EPA/DHA, as well as come with a hefty amount of AA, it would seem to contadict relying on eating fish for obtaining high doses of omega 3.

sue

Life Extension Foundation:
Super Omega-3 EPA/DHA
IFOS 5 STAR RATING!
.
.
1 bottle..(120)..for $21.60 ea
4 bottles..."....for . $18.90 ea
10..."......."....for ... $16.81 ea

[quote]Posted By John on 02/02/2007 12:21 PM

Life Extension Foundation:
Super Omega-3 EPA/DHA
IFOS 5 STAR RATING!
.
.
1 bottle..(120)..for $21.60 ea
4 bottles..."....for . $18.90 ea
10..."......."....for ... $16.81 ea

[/quote]

If you take a closer look (here's the product page from the Life Extension website http://www.lef.org/newshop/items/it...0902.html) you'll note this is is not a comparable product to Zone Labs FO's and some of the other highly concentrated FO's. First of all, it's a molecularly distilled product, which puts it steps below the quality of highly concentrated FO's. Also worth noting is that it doesn't have the optimal EPA/DHA ratio. Then if you go on to take a look at the most recent IFOS consumer reports page you'll see that only two batches of this Life Extension FO received the 5 star rating during the past couple of years. If I were purchasing the product, I'd want to be sure my bottle contained FO from one of those 2 batches.

No more needs to be said, except maybe that one gets what one pays for.

sue

Ya'll are really getting into this! =o)

When you think about it people were much healthier a long, long time ago because they simply ate better. The American diet is downright horrible...a good DVD to watch is "Supersize Me". For all of us on the zone diet I bet we all just feel better which is a great indication that our bodies are healthier. We can sit and pick at all the different fish oils out there and I'm sure Dr. Sears has one of the best kinds out there but it's not affordable for everyone. (I don't hope for this)--Maybe one day someone taking large quantities of health food grade fish oil will go to the doctor and discover that they have extremely high levels of whatever in their system, turn around and file a lawsuit, and maybe in turn there will be tighter restrictions on the fish oil industry. But until then, we'll just try to choose wisely.

My son is not severely ADD so I'm sure anything will help. We got our fish oil in the mail today so I'll start him on that Sunday. I've decided to let him venture out of the zone tonight since it's Friday and he's been so cooperative saying goodbye to all of the sugary goodies he likes and tomorrow my dad is taking him to the circus so I'm sure my dad will "treat" him to some non zone friendly foods. =o)

I'll post something in a couple of weeks to let you know how things are going. Thanks so much for your opinions and input, it really has been helpful.

Vicki

Unfortunately, I have jumped in a bit late. I also wanted to share a bit that I know, as I also have an ADD daughter. Not ADHD, and it doesn't appear to be a severe case of ADD, but nonetheless, she has it.

Personally, I have not been able to get her going on fish oil--she won't swallow the capsules, and we were unable to mask the taste of the oil in liquid form. She was having problems with liquid diarrhea, also, just by increasing to 2 tsp per day. So, we are nowhere near the "recommended" level, but we are at a level that she can tolerate.

I am finding that diet control is very important, regardless of whether or not she is on fish oil. I don't worry so much about getting specific "blocks" into her, but I just don't have all sugary treats around. My kids have pretty much the same thing that I eat, with a few exceptions (taste-wise!).

One further comment and then I will have it all in. Wouldn't it be nice if fish oil were considered a "medicine" rather than a "nutritional supplement"? I had switched over to a Health Savings Account a year ago, and was hoping that I could use the money in my HSA to buy fish oil. However, I have found that fish oil is not covered under HSA. Would have been nice, as I was hoping that I could count on that money which I am setting aside for my health care needs to use for my "health promotion".