Recently, I reconnected with a friend I had lost contact with about six years ago. In my pre-GAPS life, she and I were very, very close. When I found her again, we easily picked up where we left off, spending hours holding hands, laughing, talking, catching up, and enjoying a meal out.
She noticed things.
Wait -you’re eating garlic and onions. How are you doing that?
Huh? Oh, right! Pre-GAPS, when she and I had participated in a Community Kitchen together, I could take home only dishes in which any garlic or onions had been extremely well cooked. Otherwise, I experienced severe heartburn for hours and hours. GAPS changed this, such that I can now eat them any which way.
Later she said,
“Hey, you’re driving! You’re not just driving, you’re driving well! And calmly! In a big city, no less!”
Oh, right! When she knew me, I was not able to drive, even in our small city with big wide roads. I simply had not been able to manage the executive functions involved. On GAPS, driving was easy. (To this day, I notice the effects of diet on my driving.)
The anxiety, extreme OCD, and a number of other issues she and I used to commiserate about had also resolved with GAPS.
I had been aware of these changes in me, but it was really neat to reconnect with someone who had only ever known me in my pre-GAPS life, and to see those changes through her (very surprised and wondrous) eyes. It made me laugh with delight, excitement, and celebration about the impact of a nutrient-dense diet on every aspect of one’s being.
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Hi!
I am two months into the diet (still on intro) and having serious issues. Felt better on it for about a week, but since then it has been murder. Does any of this sound familiar?
Horrible charley horses (every two or three nights), irritability way beyond normal, brain fog, ocd-like thoughts, stomach issues anytime I try to introduce a new food (even foods that didn’t seem to be an issue before), dizziness at times.
Until the last couple of weeks, I didn’t cheat at all. But the lack of carbs seemed to be killing me, so I added in some blended bananas, then bananas and other fruit (one at a time) in small amounts. This helped with the charley horses, but nothing else.
I have lots of food intolerances so I can’t eat even some of the stuff on the intro diet. I am so sick of boiled squash, carrots, onions, greens, beets, meat and broth. The only joy is the fermented foods!
Any thoughts on trouble shooting so I can get out of the intro diet? I have felt horrible for two months straight.
Thanks so much.
amy
Dear Amy,
I have a few thoughts…
1. What steps are you taking each day to actively detox? Sometimes we focus on food and forget to ensure 1-3 bowel movements daily, forget to take a different type of detox bath daily, forget to start probiotics (including fermented foods) from a very tiny amount and work up very slowly, and so on.
2. It is important to move forward with additional foods. If an Intro food you actually test -even using the low and slow method and/or in broth- is actually not tolerated, keep moving forward regardless -temporarily eliminating from your program each intolerated foods and moving on to test each post-Intro food.
3. A source of magnesium may help. If you cannot tolerate sufficient amounts if magnesium-rich foods, you can use a commercial powder.
4. Be sure to connect with one of the email support lists, as linked to from this blog’s Support for You page.
5. If a person is having challenges with the program, I recommend consulting with a health practitioner familiar with GAPS (see this blog’s Support for You page).
Amy, please let me know how things go for you.
All my best,
Baden
I am not pretending to have knowledge of all the good recipes that can be eaten on the GAPS diet, but I can say that my wife has been extremely inventive when it comes to daily routines that make it possible to eat such that we and our daughter have plenty of food that tastes great – and satisfying food really helps in so many ways. She makes perpetual broth by putting 2 chickens in 2 crock pots and filling them to the top with filtered water. Once a day she drains them, puts the broth in the refrigerator, and refills them with water. She is able to use these same chickens for about 4 to 5 days to keep a steady flow of broth available. This way, I can grab broth whenever I need to. My daughter’s “veggie broth” is made by fetching the plain chicken broth and boiling it in a pot with 2 onions, 2 packages of frozen broccoli and cauliflower, and 1 peeled and cubed butternut squash. When it is soft I take an immersion blender to it and put this in the refrigerator as well. I then can take a portion of this veggie broth every morning and mix Bubbies-brand pickle juice, raw egg yolks, and salt into it. We actually made tons of our own fermented pickles and sauerkraut and used brine from those as well. Our daughter gets half of it for breakfast and the other half is put into a preheated thermos for her lunch(preheated by pouring boiling water into it beforehand). Try not to get the veggie broth too hot or it will kill the pro-biotic in the pickle juice. This actually takes the labor down to a manageable level to get both broth and vegetables into her for breakfast and lunch every day. I should also mention that I think this “soup” tastes great. Getting our daughter to eat something like this seemed impossible prior to starting the diet as she has always been so picky. She would never even tolerate sitting at the dinner table prior to this if we were eating broccoli or cauliflower because she hated the smell. She also had not shown any improvements at a simple GFCF diet in the past either. We started the GAPS diet out of desperation, but were surprised to find that it actually helped not just a little, but a lot! We also make pancakes and other baked goods out of almond flour or coconut flour. I make all sorts of other soups from the plain chicken broth and have continued this diet on myself because I no longer get frequent headaches. The last tips I can think of are to consider getting some three lac to supplement your gut health and make sure the honey you use is raw and not adulterated with corn syrup. Apparently this happens in some cases and it is not shown on the list of ingredients.
Wonderful, Robert! Thank you so much for sharing all of this with all of us!
All my best,
Baden