Day Seven- Little Miss Grumpy

     I did not post yesterday because I was a grump!  I was sick of soup.  I was sick of being hungry.  I was sick of my kids, house, life...pretty much everything.  I think some of the problem was die off.  Die off is a hard thing to figure out, though.  No one really knows what is going on inside their guts.  So many people go to doctors and have tests run and still can not figure out what is going on in their body.  This really is no different.  I only hope that it is temporary.  I only hope that it is die off, and maybe a bit of stress, and it will go away.

     Today was stacking up to be more of the same.  I could not let that happen.  I had to think out side the box.  Chicken was on sale, which was awesome.  So my husband brought home six!  I put one in the crock-pot right away this morning.  I drank my broth at breakfast time, and had some coffee.  I tried to force down the last cup full of soup (from a few days ago) I had, and could not do it.  The previous day's soup I had made did not turn out well.  Miserable fail!  I had some frozen shredded zucchini.  I had planned on defrosting it, and straining out as much water as I could.  I forgot; in a hurry I dumped the whole gallon bag into the soup.  As it began to cook I could not stand the smell of it.  I served it to the whole family at dinner.  They liked it alright.  The one bowl I ate was okay, but there were zucchini seeds (apparently this was from a very large zucchini) in it.  Back to this morning, and not eating anything but broth....by 1:00 the chicken in the crock-pot was done.  I devoured two leg quarters and drank a big mug full of broth.  It was really good.  I planned on feeding the kids the soup for lunch and again for dinner.  They like it, so that works great!  For dinner I just can not bring myself to eat the soup from yesterday.  I also can not bring myself to make any more soup.  Then I get an idea.  If I am sick of soup, maybe I do not have to make soup, exactly.  I take the broth from the crock-pot and put it in a pan.  I fill the pan with broccoli and cauliflower florets and cook it on low until tender.  For dinner I ate more chicken, a bowl full of broccoli and cauliflower and a big mug of brother.  It was so delicious and wonderful!  I can do this!  Thinking outside the box!

Day Five- What Can I Eat Again?

     I have had a few questions about what exactly one is allowed to eat on the first stage.  This is actually a pretty easy question to answer, because gapsdiet.com has everything listed for you.  The harder part is actually implementing this stage.

     Here is a detailed list of what can be eaten on Stage 1 (my condensed version and interpretation from gapsdiet.com) :

Homemade meat or fish broth
Chicken broth (very gentle on the stomach)
Natural unprocessed salt
Black peppercorns
Meats and Fish
Soft tissues from the bones
Bone marrow
Warm meat or fish broth as a drink
Fat in the broth and off the bones

Homemade soup (with your homemade meat or fish broth).
Vegetables cooked in broth: onions, carrots, broccoli, leeks, cauliflower, zucchini, most squash
(avoid very fibrous vegetables- such as all varieties of cabbage and celery, beans and legumes, artichokes, peas, brussels sprouts)
All particularly fibrous parts of vegetables need to be removed, such as skin and seeds on pumpkins and squashes, stalk of broccoli and cauliflower and any other parts that look too fibrous.
Garlic
Boiled meat, fish and other soft tissues off the bones

Probiotic foods.
Homemade yogurt or kefir (if tolerated)
Juice from your homemade sauerkraut, fermented vegetables or vegetable medley

Ginger tea with a little honey between meals.
Fresh ginger root (grated, in tea)
Honey (in small amounts in tea)

     The real key to this stage is resetting the gut.  It is damaged, and needs to have extreme measures taken, but ones that will be gentle and gradual.  I really suggest you journal through the entire Introduction Diet, but if nothing else, at least the first stage.  Everything is new, your body is going to be going through changes (for healing) and with all the work to do in the kitchen, your brain is going to have a hard time remembering when you did what, and what vegetables you have tried.

     When my whole family first started GAPS in 2011 we kept a "Poop Journal".  It was getting really hard to track all three kids' bowel movements, cook all day, and stay sane.  My husband printed this picture out, taped it to the front of a spiral notebook and I would draw lines on the pages to separate each person.  Kind of like this but by hand:

     I would write the day number as I went, but I did this one in excel, so used the handy "fill" tool.  The blank boxes under names is where I would write each person name.  Under their name, beside the date I would write a number representing the bowel moment they had (if they had one, multiple numbers were written in if they had more than one).

     Enter Bristol Stool Chart.  If you think about it, this journal could be really disgusting.  And at first, it really was.  All manner of descriptive words were used to help my husband and I pin point what was going on in our children's guts (there, now you know why I am not afraid to talk about poop).  My kids coined the phrase, "Mommy, I pooped," but it was not said so nicely back then.  It was more of a, "Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I pooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  (I like to text it to my mother when I am feeling feisty.)

     My husband saved the day.  Just when I thought I could not take writing the description of my son's poop one more time, he found this handy chart!

     In the beginning I had three copies of this chart; one in each bathroom and one taped inside the cover of the poop journal.  We quickly memorized them though.  The only real problem with the chart that we had was my husband and my inability to agree on just what number a poop was, or what a poop actually meant by "soft" or "fluffy".  But I will not gross you out with the details.  THANK YOU, LORD, that part of the diet is over.  We are officially on to "if you have a bad poop go find mom and tell her" stage.  It is wonderful.  Now the only time I hear, "Mommyyyyyyyyyyy, I pooooooped!!!!!!!!!!!" is from the toddler.

     Back to what one can eat on Stage 1.  (What, you're not hungry any more?)  When we started trying new things, I added a notes column at the end.  I would write down what we tried, if we tried anything new, so that it was easy to back track if someone had a bad poop.  Apparently Dr. McBride says you can react to food up to three days.  This through us off a bit, until I realized it.  Someone would have a bad poop and I would think back over the day, and maybe even yesterday and could not figure it out.  But when I took into account two more days back, it started making a bit more sense.  I think this is another reason Dr. McBride suggests two day minimum spent on each stage.

     Another thing to remember, it could very well be impossible to track your whole family if you allow some to move on with out the others.  We chose to hold everyone back until everyone was ready to move on.  It just made sense.  First, it would be horrible for the ones not doing well to have to watch those who were doing better eat something they could not, and second, it would be very difficult to keep it all straight.  This was hard to do, at times, but looking back, I would not have done it differently.

     Well, this is day five for me, and looking over that list was a bit of a refresher.  I thought I knew what I could eat....oops.  The oven cooked chicken might not be a good idea.  The crispy, delicious skin is probably not doing me any favors right now.  Bummer.

     Which leads me to my final thought for today, taking short cuts.  There were a couple of times, on our GAPS journey, that we could not figure out what was causing us problems.  Several times we would ponder and ponder why we were stuck on Stage 1, still (the second time we went through Intro we were on Stage 1 for 6 months).  Looking back I wish I would have known the things I know now; I think it would have saved us a lot of time on Stage 1.  Not doing our research about something may have saved time in the beginning, but it added time to the end.

     One of those things was salt.  We used a lot of salt, it was our only real seasoning.  We thought salt was salt.  We assumed buying pure salt, with no caking agents would be enough.  After all, it does not get any more organic than pure salt.  This was not our first hiccup on the road to recovery, but it was a huge one.  Like I always did when we felt stuck in a rut, I would open up my Gut And Psychology Syndrome Diet book and start reading again.  My husband would read over my shoulder and give his interpretation on it.  We would discuss it, quite intensely sometimes, and come to a conclusion, and make a change.  On one of these occasions I happened to catch something on salt.  This led my husband to get is mad awesome google-ing skills on.  At the end of it all, we decided that we thought the salt was giving us problems.  We switched to natural sea salt, and it made a huge difference.

     I wish I could say that was it, and we moved on after that, but I can not.  There were many more of these hiccups that kept us on Stage 1 a lot longer than I think we really needed to be.  For example, probiotic (or fermented foods).  It never occurred to me to cool the soup down to a temperature in range of supporting the good bacteria's life.  All that yogurt and sauerkraut juice wasted.  What was I thinking.

     Just those to hiccups alone could have saved us months.  But that is the story of my life, learning how not to do things.  Hopefully this information can help someone else not take six months on Intro.  I can hope, anyway.

cauliflower rice

Cauliflower Rice

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower

2 tbsp. fat (lard, butter, coconut oil)

salt

garlic

freshly ground black pepper 

parsley

Directions:

Place the cauliflower into a food processor and pulse until it has a grainy rice-like consistency. Season with minced garlic, chopped parsley, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Meanwhile, heat a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add fat when hot.

Sauté cauliflower in a pan.

     This is really tasty with just about any meal.  It was really nice to have something with the consistency of rice for a change.  I miss rice so much.

     Of course, I did not make this today.  Today was catch up and get ahead day!  I love those days.  You know the days where the kids actually listen, entertain themselves, get their school work done mostly on their own?  Yeah, they are rare.  If you have never had one of those days, you will, hang in there.  Today we got all our school work done (we are behind), cleaned hour rooms, organized the play room and really just got back to our daily routines which have been off ever since we got sick back in NOVEMBER!  Yikes!  I had to crack the whip starting last night, but we are back to business now.  Another reason I was able to do this today was I made such a big pot of soup yesterday I did not have to cook a thing today.  I made some yogurt this morning, but other than that, nothing (but chicken legs)!  It was a nice break.  Tomorrow I will be back to making more soup, but for now I am thankful for the day that actually went according to plan, because they are SO RARE!

     Also, some of the depression and brain fog I have been feeling left me sometime during the night.  I felt so clear this morning.  That was an interesting development.  I did not realize I was feeling that way until it left.  Over all I am feeling really good today, and today is Day 4.  All I have eaten today is soup and three chicken legs *sheepish grin*.  I have drank my morning broth, coffee with honey and my two quarts of water I like to drink daily.  Over all I am feeling really good.  God is awesome.

This was the sunrise that God greeted me with this morning.  I love living in Painesdale!

Day 3 Magnesium

This is my all time favorite apron that my sister made me.  It has two holes in this picture.  Soon after this picture I caught one of the holes on the drawer knob and ripped it wide open.  Boo. :(

     I ate soft boiled eggs this morning.  DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!  But...I do not think I am ready for Stage 2.  I think I may go back to Stage 1.  This is the hardest part about this diet.  How do you know?  How do you know when to move on, and when to stay.  Before I always pushed us to the next level as soon as possible because time was money.  This diet is expensive, and feeding a family of six on GAPS is not easy on the budget.  With only me to worry about, I am trying not to rush.  I do not want to have to start over again.  I tolerated the eggs just fine, but I do not feel that awesome, healthy, non-bloated feeling I use to feel.  I feel boarder line ill, even though things seem to be going fine.  So, I am going to hold of on the eggs for two more days.

     A friend of mine sent me a link to an article on magnesium deficiency.  (Here is the link: http://www.gwens-nest.com/magnesium-the-calming-essential-mineral/ )  What caught my attention was "Eye Twitch".  In 2003, when I was in college, I was in a car accident; the drive tried to turn before I reached the intersection, not accounting for the snowy, slippery roads.  It was not a bad accident.  The worst part about the whole thing was my awesome 1980 Buick got the left headlight smashed almost beyond repair.  My really nice cousin who was a mechanic was able to patch it up for me, so it worked, but it was not in its original splendor any longer.  The insurance company deemed the car only worth $250 (grrrr.....really, I am not still bitter about this), so I got a check, and a "sorry" your car is not worth more speech.  Anyway, back to the "Eye Twitch".  The event was pretty stressful, and from that night on, for what I could only imagine would be for the rest of my life (but only ended up being two years), my left eye started twitching.  It would not twitch all day, but at random times through out the day the skin under my bottom eyelid would start to tremble, repeatedly.  It was the strangest thing.  I just figured my eye was damaged some how from the stress of the accident.  Usually holding my finger lightly on the area would help it calm down.  It was quite annoying.  About two years later I realized I had not been having it any more, and I did not really know why.

     Fast forward to 2013.  My eye starts twitching again, randomly.  Not every day, but once a week, or something.  Very strange.  I figure it is due to the lack of sleep and general stress that comes with being the mother of four.  Another year goes by, and I start having heart palpitations, only I do not know what they are!  The first time it happens, I nearly faint from worry; am I having a heart attack?!?!?!  Then I remember a friend of mine and my sister both had similar things happen to them, went to the hospital, and it ended up being nothing.  (Sorry to both my friend and my sister for turning their very traumatic experience into a quick summary.)  So I forced myself to calm down.  I experienced this every night for a week.  You can not breath deeply through these things, it has the opposite affect, you end up hyperventilating.  I had to calm myself and make myself breath normally.  It was so weird and scary.

     Fast forward to the present, and I have started having heart palpitations again.  I figure all the stress from the almost finished house, home school, health issues, GAPS are all taking their toll on me.  But maybe it is not that at all.  What if I have this magnesium deficiency.  I am definitely looking into this more.

     Here is a link to the video about "Unique Water", which is supposed to be really healthy and have lots of benefits to your over all health: http://www.gwens-nest.com/magnesium-supplements-a-great-diy-recipe/ .  This is also the post with a DIY recipe for making your own drink, but I am thinking there has got to be a better way.  I know my mother has struggled with leg cramps (along with her mother and sisters) and she started spraying magnesium oil on her legs, and it has helped her.  So I think I will be doing a little more research.  The positive affects on peoples health when they up their magnesium seems to be extraordinary.  It may be worth a try.

Stage 1- Day 2

     Is it poetic justice that healthy foods called to me at every turn today?  This is a really nice reward for doing GAPS Introduction Diet.  I remember adding things the first time we went through Intro, and how fantastic it was to be able to eat a raw vegetable.  When we could eat apple sauce we were ecstatic.  Today I found myself drooling over tangerines and pining for cabbage salad.  No cravings for snickers or ice cream.  That is the silver lining behind this diet.  It is also another reason to start with Intro, instead of going straight to full GAPS.

     Feeling deprived is a difficulty my kids, in  particular, struggle with.  In our culture of over abundance there is food everywhere you go, and it is tasty food.  Recipes for the perfect gooey dessert for the next event you have planned are limitless.  If those of us on GAPS lived in a bubble, I do not think we would feel as deprived.  It is not like my kids are going hungry.

     In the first two weeks of our GAPS journey, three and a half years ago, my kids (even the really picky ones) learned to eat soup.  They were long, hard weeks.  It was gut wrenching watching my kids laying around, void of energy, no more pep.  I agonized over our decision to do GAPS Intro.  I just could not believe that it was good for my kids to act this way.  They refused to eat very much, they did not like the soup.  I kept offering them soup, and by the end of the first week they started to eat it.  By the end of week two they ate soup, and they liked it.  Another six months into the diet and it was not uncommon for the then four year old who would cry at the first sight of a green bean to beg for them, along with beets, cauliflower, and other vegetables he would never have tried before.

     Intro changed our taste buds, for the better.  When we would venture out to a restaurant, it was very common for me to vow never to eat their again because, if I am going to pay money to have someone make me food, it better taste good.  Most times I leave feeling I could make it better.  These days I know what to look for in a good resturant, fresh and unprocessed ingredients.  It is amazing what flavor you find in raw ingredients, as straight from the farm as possible.

     Today our struggle is not so much with feeling deprived and more with over eating.  It seems we have won one battle, just to have created a whole new one.  Because my kids have felt so deprived for so long any time they have a chance to eat something they like they can not stop themselves.  It has become so bad that I have to portion out their food, and tell them that is all they get (and hope with all that I am that I gave them enough).  They will look at me with those big brown or blue eyes, with the saddest, hungriest expressions on their faces.  It is more than a mother can bare, but I have learned, time and time again, that if I let them have a little more they will leave the table feeling sick.  My kids will eat themselves sick!  I am praying about this issue.  Obesity runs on both my husband's and my side of the family.  I am praying that once we introduce grains back into our diets, and my kids start to eat yummy things more often, not feeling deprived when we go to events and functions, that they will stop doing this.  Only time will tell.

     Back to my second day on Intro, where I fought the urge to consume the entire bowl of cabbage salad I made for my family for dinner.  My bone broth, which cooked all night, was hot and ready for drinking this morning.  I gave some to the kids too.  I kept it simmering until dinner time. I had hoped to make it into soup before dinner, so I had something new to eat.  Today was a busy day though.  Thankfully I had enough soup to keep me out of the kitchen, because I needed to run errands this morning.  I got them all done before 1:00 but I grabbed a rotisserie chicken from Walmart on my way home.  I could not help myself.  After I got the kids their lunch I started eating the chicken, and I had to force myself to stop and eat soup.  From previous experience I have learned the dangers of only eating chicken.  The last time I did Intro. I became constipated.  It was a real struggle to eat soup.  Sometimes I could get one bowl down in the morning, and then just not eat anything except coffee, honey and water (well, that is more like drinking than eating).  Then, when the chicken was ready to go into the next batch of soup, I would devour the skin and some of the meat, and be satisfied until the next day, and do it all over again.

     With this previous experience in mind, I did force myself to eat soup.  I had several bowls through the course of the day.  Still, I did not have a bowel movement.  I know, too much information, but it is pertinent to this topic.  A year ago I was struggling on Stage 1 with severe constipation (again, TMI...sorry) and finally did some research and decided to introduce juicing ahead of schedule.  I am copying from the gapsdiet website (http://www.gapsdiet.com/uploads/FAQS_Listing_0114.pdf):

When reading your recommendations for constipation it seems to me that dairy plays a key role. What if you cannot tolerate dairy?

Constipation is not about dairy, it is due to lack of beneficial microbes in the gut and an imbalance of the intestinal nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system is too active, while parasympathetic is suppressed. By restoring gut flora with probiotics and diet, we resolve constipation long-term. Short-term we need to re-balance the nervous system with diet. In order to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and to calm down the sympathetic one we need raw juices, rich in magnesium, potassium and other substances; we need more animal fat with meals, and we need to change the ratio of vegetables to meats in our meals (less muscle meats and more vegetables with gelatinous meats).

After 13 months in Intro, I still cannot digest fat and have problems with carbs. Fat maldigestion contributes to my daily heartburn and SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) side effects: fibre gives me bloating. I know low carb-low fat is an unsustainable diet long-term, and I am underweight, and often hungry. There is plenty I cannot eat yet: garlic, onion, good fats, nuts, and fruit. I eat meats, fish, broth soups, zucchini and juices. I am taking herbal anti-parasite remedies and have started coffee/whey enemas although I don’t suffer from constipation. Any other ideas?

Please, look at questions in the section Liver. Poor fat digestion is usually due to bile stones. You need to introduce GAPS milkshakes, coffee enemas and use Ox bile supplements with your meals. Introduce fats gradually, starting from small amounts per meal. 
GAPS Milkshake: make a juice from a mixture of fruit and vegetables, add 1-2 raw eggs (both the yolk and the white) and a large dollop of raw sour cream (if sour cream was not introduced yet, use coconut oil) and whisk the whole thing. It will turn into a delicious ‘milkshake’. The fats and protein balance the sugars in the juice, keeping the blood sugar under control. The juices of apple, celery, beetroot and other vegetables soften the gallbladder stones over time, while the fat provides gentle stimulation to the liver to squeeze these stones out. Start this milkshake from a few tablespoons per day and gradually increase to 2 glasses per day: fist thing in the morning on an empty stomach and middle of afternoon.

     These are just two of the hundreds of questions answered on the website, and a lot to pour over and try to figure out.  When I started drinking a GAPS Milkshake every morning, I finally started being regular.  Today I got worried, and although I do not have any sour cream handy, I drank some orange juice.  Tonight I plan to make sour cream, and tomorrow make a GAPS Milkshake.

     A bright spot of my day were the rutabaga I found on sale!  They are huge!  I love rutabaga, but I try to keep my vegetable purchase down to two dollars a pound or less.  Normally rutabaga (which I buy organic because they are not on the "Clean Fifteen") are $2.29 a pound.  Every once in a while I will splurge.  Today I bought every single one they had at the Keweenaw Co-Op because they were locally grown (instead of full out organic, but their growing practices are very close to organic) and only $1.79 a pound.  Thank you, Lord.  I am very excited to make a rutabaga, red bell pepper (which I splurged and bought at the Co-Op for $4 a pound, yikes!) and carrot soup.

   

Stage 1- Day 1

     Before I went to bed last night I quickly thought through my plan for today.  I knew I had several jars of bone broth in the refrigerator, so I checked that off the list, in  my mind, and decided I was good to go.  I thought I could "quickly" make some soup for breakfast.  I got started at 8:30 am and did not actually eat anything until 11:00 am.  Why do I always think making soup is quick and easy?  It seems like a no brainer, but it always takes longer than I think it will.

Wow, I really need to clean my stove!

     Part of the reason it took so long was my food processor.  I collected all the parts from the dishwasher, put everything together, and hit the on button.  Nothing.  I tried redoing it.  Still nothing.  I finally gave up and used my three cup food processor.  Thankfully I had that one, otherwise I would have been chopping my vegetables with a knife, and probably adding another hour to my total time in the kitchen.

A fun reminder that I am loved.  This is the door to my refrigerator.  (Rainbow by Abigail, picture of my mom and me, and a photo booth picture set with my bestie.)

     By 9:30 am I have a headache (the beginnings of a migraine).  After my third kid I started getting migraines when I would not get enough sleep.  Over the last six years I have learned to catch the migraine before it gets beyond help.  Today I did not want to take anything for it, though.  I was determined to make it through the day with only eating soup and drinking broth and water.  At 10:00 am, when I realized the soup still was not ready, I started to worry that this little headache might turn into a full blown migraine, and I just could not do that to myself and my family.  My husband asked me if I had drank any coffee yet today.  I told him I was giving it up.  He just stared at me, in disbelief.  (He drinks as much coffee as water, or maybe slightly more coffee.)  I told him that if I had coffee to rely on I knew I would drink that, rather than eat soup.  He told me I could not cut caffeine out of  my diet cold turkey with out side affects, and proceeded to make me a half a pot of coffee.  I was still determined not to drink it, though.  I took two Tylenol and drank a bunch of water.  By this time, the chicken is cooked and ready to go into the soup.  I devour the crispy chicken skin, and then realize that technically that is not allowed on this stage.  Oops.  My head starts to feel a bit better.  I have a bowl of soup and then take a shower.  My headache is still lingering.  The coffee is calling my name from the kitchen.  I give in.  I have two cups.

     The soup is made, now time to think forward to the next couple of meals.  Lunch for the kids will be soup.  Check.  They all have colds right now, and can benefit from a good bowl of chicken soup.  I look in the pot, though, and think about not giving it to them, because the more they eat, the more soup I have to make.  Oh well, it is worth it to have everyone healthy again.

     I use to boil a whole chicken in my soup pot and then remove it from the pot, and have my broth for my soup.  (That was 2 years ago.)  Now I roast the whole chicken in the oven and use the bones to make bone broth.  I also save all the parts of the vegetables I use for the broth.  This adds a really nice flavor.  For example, if I am making cabbage salad, I cut out the cabbage core and place it in a plastic bag, along with any onion peels and carrot peels I have.  I put it in the freezer for

another day.  Today I realized my freezer was full of bags of vegetable peels and chicken bones.  I have a giant roaster oven that my mother gave me.  I filled it up with bones and vegetables from the freezer, and filled it with water.  That is going on the counter right now.  It is set to 250 degrees, and I will let it go for twenty-four hours, at least.

Roaster oven filled with cabbage cores, carrot peels, chicken bones, onion tops and bottoms.

     One of the most challenging things when starting GAPS is filling up.  What do you eat?  How do you handle food cravings?  First, it is going to be a good three days until you stop physically craving sugar.  For me, in particular, I feel almost ill.  Thankfully, since I do not eat much sugar these days, today I did not suffer from sugar withdrawal.  When I first started GAPS it was very difficult.  Honey was my saving grace.  Caution with honey- it can become your food, and the soup will be your once in awhile indulgence.  When we started GAPS Intro (again) I found myself not able to stomach the thought of soup, again.  I would drink coffee with honey in it, instead of eating.  I lost a lot of weight doing this.  When people commented on how "good I looked" I would say, "Well, I have two choices, eat soup or go  hungry.  Going hungry does not seem as bad as eating soup."  I literally came to the point of not having a problem with being hungry!  That was a first.  I do not suggest this.  I merely tell you this so you are prepared.  To make your soup more appetizing, I suggest  you put in good combinations of vegetables that you enjoy.  I really hate to mix vegetables.  There are certain combinations that I really enjoy though.  I usually add chopped kale and shredded carrots (along with onions and garlic) to every pot of soup, then I will add rutabaga, or cauliflower and broccoli, or green beans, or zucchini.  That is my preference.  Everyone has different taste buds.  I researched the perfect chicken soup.  Time and time again celery, carrot and onion were the winning combination.  I am not a big fan of celery, though.  Whatever your combination, add a lot of vegetables.  This will help your soup be more filling.  As I move through the stages I will try to remember to mention specific ways to "fill up".  Stage 1 is a bit more challenging.  The more devoted to "filling up" with bone broth and soup you are, the quicker you will make it through the first stage.

     I side note, something I wish I had realized in the beginning- when adding  your probiotic to your soups, make sure your soups are below 120 degrees.  Any higher than that and you risk killing the good bacteria, which defeats the purpose all together.

     By the end of the day I am hungry.  I throw another chicken in the oven for dinner.  I also boil spaghetti squash for the family.   Right before dinner time, I can not take it any more, and reheat some soup, and force myself to eat two bowls.  When the family's food is ready to eat, I serve up the chicken and fork out the spaghetti squash, adding chicken drippings to the squash for flavor.  They eat it like pasta.  I also eat a chicken quarter.  Finally I feel satisfied.

     I have soup ready for tomorrow, stock cooking in the roaster oven.  I feel happy, healthy, but exhausted.  My kids help make me smile.  The picture on the left is my youngest with a "peg leg".  (It's the top of my crayon piggy bank.)

     All in all, I am thankful to have made it through the day.  I am also hopeful that tomorrow will be the last day of Stage 1 and I will get soft boiled eggs the next day!  (But I keep reminding myself that anything could happen, and I could still be on Stage 1 next week.)  But, let's stay positive, shall we?

   

GAPS Introduction Diet

     It has been sixty-three days since my last post.   Part of me is shocked that I have been meaning to write a blog post  for sixty-three days and have not succeeded.  The other part of me is thinking, "Wow, all of that happened in sixty-three days!?"  It has been a rough sixty-three days.  So rough, in fact, that the very basis for this blog was shaken- heal the gut, eat healthy, be healthy.  This has been my rock solid belief and practice for the last three years.  So why have we been dealing with sickness after sickness for the last two months?  I wish I had an answer.

     When I wrote my first post at the end of July last year, I mentioned I was planning on going back to the introduction diet because of a recent miscarriage and the degeneration of eating habits, due to stress.  I never succeeded in this plan either.  I have so many excuses (as we all do when procrastinating).  The one at the top of the list is my family.  They have been through the Intro. Diet already, how can I make them do it again, just for me?  I should just practice some self control and cook two meals.  Enter the second excuse on  my list, my adoring husband who truly believes I should spend the remainder of my days propped up with pillows with servants at my every beck and call (I may be exaggerating just a bit) not having to lift a finger to do anything but be me.  (Is he not the sweetest man alive?)  He is so convinced of this that he tries to save me and pamper me as often as he can.  Since he works at Walmart he is always bringing home some goody or other to either save me work, or delight my taste buds.  This will not work for my introduction diet plans.  (He is also slow to get on the band wagon, hence the one hundred eight-six days since my first public declaration to start GAPS Intro. again.)

     The GAPS Introduction Diet is six stages.  Do no bother asking how long it normally takes, there is no normal.  In fact, I thought I might just be the odd one who took two months on Stage 1, so I looked it up on the good ole' internet.  Turns out everyone says it can take a few weeks, but they took longer.  Everyone.  So let me give you a list of seven things that will help you be prepared for GAPS Introduction Diet.

1. Be prepared for Stage 1 to take five times longer than you expect.  There are a number of reasons for this.  The biggest reason is your body's acclamation to this strange new way of eating.  Another reason is die off.  If you are considering GAPS you have gut issues.  If you have gut issues, than you have bad bacteria wreaking havoc in your gut.  When you take severe measures to kill this bacteria, you will have considerable die off symptoms.  This leads to the next way to be prepared before starting Intro.

2. Be prepared for a lot of questions.  These will mainly be about what is going on in your body.  The really stinky thing about this one is no one really knows what is going on in your body.  I cannot tell you how many times I have said to my husband, about my kids, "I just wish I could cut open their insides and see what is going on in there."  Know that you may not ever have all the answers (I know I do not), but that it does not mean that your body is not healing.

3. Be prepared for a lot of work.  On a good day I spend at least five hours in the kitchen.  I write that I am thinking to myself, "Only five, really?"  As I think about it more, I think that is twice as long as I spent in before I started GAPS, and that is a good day.  On a more tedious day I will spend another hour or two making things like stock, yogurt, sauerkraut and maybe chopping vegetables for the next days meals.  (None of this accounts for cleaning up my mess in the kitchen, either.)

4.  Be prepared by having meat stock and fermented foods on hand.  This is my first suggestion to anyone about to start GAPS Intro.  When I first started GAPS I never thought to do anything ahead of time.  I quit the old way of eating cold turkey and on the first day of the diet I started making meat stock and fermented foods.  This left me not only exhausted from the diet change, but physically exhausted from all the work.

5.  Be prepared to be discouraged.  The diet will not go the way you plan.  It can be so disheartening.  At times when I am at the lowest I have to remind myself of the reasons I am doing GAPS and the benefits I have experienced.  Quite frequently my mother and I would be talking on the phone and she would remind me of how sickly my youngest son use to be.  She would remind me of all the good things that GAPS had brought to my family.  She would reaffirm me and my decisions, and tell me that the sun would come out tomorrow.  Keep in mind all the reasons you want to start GAPS.  Keep a journal of all the good things (and the bad, so you can see how they change too).  One of the things I would remind myself of the most was God's leading.  I had prayed about GAPS, and I felt it was what he wanted us to do.  I had to walk in faith and trust him.  It was not always easy, but it helped a lot.

6. Be prepared with a plan.  This is the greatest tool for success I have found.  When you have a plan you are stronger.  As I begin to think about tomorrow I am forming a plan of what I will eat, and what I will do.  When I look at my calendar for the next event where there will be food I can think of things I can bring, or plan to eat before hand, or have a special treat for myself afterwards, thus making me prepared to face the temptations that come with being at functions where there is food you can not eat.  When I look to the next birthday celebration and can plan things that will make it special, instead of happening upon the day and being completely depressed.  Which leads to my next point.

7. Be prepared with a positive attitude.  This is key!  Stay positive.  Think of all the things you have to be thankful for.  Think of all the successes you have had that day (or week).  When an event is coming up, get excited about trying something new.  Get creative.  

     After reading all of that some of you may wonder why I am still on GAPS.  It is a lot of hassle.  This is a question I am asking myself as well.  I got an answer this morning.  A painful reminder why GAPS has helped me and my family.  Before we started GAPS I could not have any dairy whatsoever with out severe abdominal pain (usually followed by diarrhea).  It had gotten so bad that I could not even eat something that was processed in a factory that also processed anything with dairy in it.  I kept a list of companies that did not have dairy in their factories.  I also could not eat things other people made because of the risk of contamination.  My son was the same way.  If you cut a loaf of bread on a cutting board, anything you cut on that board afterwards would be contaminated.  When we ate out I had a few restaurants we could go, and I would spend a good five to ten minutes explaining to the person taking my order how important it was that they not contaminate our food with gluten or dairy.

     Today, that is all gone.  I can eat at a friends house with out any concern for their cutting boards.  I can eat at a restaurant without five minute lectures.  Our guts are  mostly healed.  Well, my families guts are mostly healed.  This morning I was reminded that I still have some work to do.  I had to take antibiotics with my miscarriage.  In addition to that set back, I also started seeing a chiropractor for back problems and found I had parasites.  The parasites are gone, but before they departed they dumped all the bacteria they had been harboring in their little shells into my gut.  I had a bowl of cereal (raw, whole milk and organic granola) for breakfast this morning, and it caused some serious pain.  I had forgotten how painful it was!

     So here I am, committing to all who read this to start Intro!  I will try to blog regularly as a way of accountability, and to maybe give encouragement to someone who is on a similar journey.  I will not give up.  He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world.  God is my mighty fortress, and he will help me see this through to the end.