Sunday, April 29, 2012

Gaps day 13

Pea!. I think I'm having a reaction to peas. I mentioned in previously how before starting the diet that almost every morning I was waking up with a runny nose. Shortly after starting intro that stopped, now over the last few day it has started again. I looked back over my posts and I think the symptoms started very mildly after adding peas to our diet. So I'm taking a few steps back and seeing what happens. The other possibilities is that it could be a die off symptom, as I haven't been having my detox baths lately, and they body uses mucus to remove toxins from the systems, and as we have quiet alot of die off and detoxing happening over night and predominantly in the early mornings, that could also be the reason. Will make sure that I continue those baths. Will update you on how that goes.

Ben said to me this morning that he is feeling 25% better than normal. I think it would be even more than that if he wasn't constipated. He has been have carrot juice to try and combat that, so far not much luck. I have ordered a few things in the supplement orders to hopefully help with that as well. We are also thinking about starting him on Yoghurt, so that he can get some of those probiotics down into the lower parts of the digestive system. So I will keep you up dated on that one as well.

Providing us with much fun at the moment is a bout of hiccups, which he is finding hilarious! While there is not poo, there may well be wee if he keeps laughing and hicuping like this. (joking nothing to worry about, just a drink going do wrong)

I was asked today how I am feeling, I'm feeling quite good, it would be great if I can get rid of this nose runny again. Currently have Lamb and beef stock on the stove at the moment. I can't believe that we have been through well over 22 litres of stock so far.

We were talking today about how so much of our lives is about food. One of the interesting parts about being on this diet is looking for ways to socialize that don't include food. Also looking for entertainment that doesn't involve food. We were thinking of going to the movies last week but didn't think that we could handle it,the smell of popcorn, and the thought of sweets, and soft drink were too much. I suggested to Ben that he should go play with the guitar. Which later he thanked me for. It helped brighten his mood.

See you tomorrow for our two week anniversary of being on GAPS.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Gaps Intro day 12

Day 12. Today was shopping day. We loaded back up with GAPS food, and looking forward to including more foods. We are expecting our order of supplements on Tuesday, We both can't wait to start introducing them to diet. We have added over the last few days Magnesium oil to our daily routine, you simply spray on to the skin and rub in. We Orders ours from Echolife Australia http://www.echolife.com.au/.

Something that we both have noticed is the improvement in our minds. Ben has always been a little foggy, more so at some times than others. However that fog seems to be clearing and his memory is improving. Mine has been as well. Today I was studying about carbohydrates, and different types, monosaccarides, Disaccarides, and so on. I had studied that same information about two weeks ago, but just couldn't seem to get my head around it. However today I could fully understand it, could recall it, could talk about it. I even impressed myself.

Introduced foods today, Ghee, whole soft boiled eggs, Seafood, salmon, prawns, mussels, crab, scallops.
I know, I know, we introduces a heap of foods, Ben in particular is getting bored, so we decided to more forward with adding a few more foods. Lets hope it all sits well with us. When Ben had his ghee today, he was over joyed, he said it tastes like sunshine LOL.

Food for today, this morning was
mineral water,
chicken soup,
Pork chops cooked in chicken stock, served with a soft pouched egg, and carrots and beans, with ghee.
Dinner, seafood chowder type meal. First I made Fish stock, then drained, added carrots, onion and Zucchini. Next I add some salmon chunks, scallops, prawns, and mussels, I added crab to our bowls, as they were already cooked and just needed a little heat. Man it was tasty! Even Ben who has not been a seafood lover at all, enjoyed it.

It's very exciting to see the changes in my mind and my body, looking forward to seeing more.

Christina.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Gaps Intro day 11

Today was a bit on the busy side, and our first outing where we needed to take our own food with us. On Friday's we go and visit my mother and pick up our raw milk. Normally mum does lunch for us all, but now we are on the diet we need to take our lunch with us. So I was making all our meats for the day first things this morning. We had breakfast sausages with marrow and carrots, Chicken soup with some cold chicken for lunch, and Quail for dinner, which I put in the slow cooker this morning. Our breakfast sausages this morning were very tasty, we added rosemary and Italian parsley that we had in our garden, my word they were yummy, and for something different I used a cookie cutter to cut the marrow (zucchini) into star shapes. That was Fun.

For me today was the day that I really missed being able to get some take away. Fridays is normally such a late day that usually get take out on the way home, so we can get eating over and done and that children can go to bed. I think it will take a little while to get over this one. Establishing a new routine. I do however feel proud to be able to say that I have cooked every meal that we have had for the last 11 days. :0)

Ben is finding this afternoon hard. He is a bit disappointed that he hasn't seen much progress with his stomach. He is getting used to the food, but just now having a bit of a tantrum about not being able to have a cup of tea again! LOL. Quite funny watching a grown man getting upset about a cup of tea.

Something else that we have been doing to help us on this journey is watching the Youtube courses every so often. Again I highly recommend them.

Well I'm off. Hope you all have a great day/night.
Christina

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Best!

I have been thinking about the idea of "The Best" recently. Having the best car, the best house, the best school for your children, the best food, the best Life! But what is the best? I think as a society in general that we spend a lot of our time trying to do our best, but not really knowing what the best is, as long as it is better than someone else. Something that I have learned and continuing to learn is that the best is not the same for everyone. The best car for my family is not the best car for the family next door. I would actually like to encourage you to stop worrying about what others are doing. what the books are saying about what is best for you, but to start listening to God, and your self about what REALLY is best for you, your family, and your best life. I know over the years I have spent so much time chasing my tail, try to do what works for other families because it sounds better than what I am doing, and of course I want the best for my family. But in the end, God has made us all different, that difference is for a reason. Seek out your reason, Rest in Him, and only do what is BEST for your life.

Gaps Intro day 10!

Day 10, Oh we are so close to the two week mark. Today has been my moody day. I think that has far more to do with my son getting over somethings, so has been drinking from me all night, which means very little sleep for me. I hope that passes soon. We weighted ourselves to day it looks like Ben has lost 6kgs, and have lost 4kgs, very happy with that, and looking forward to increasing those numbers. However this diet isn't about the losing weight, it's just and added bonus. It's about healing and re balancing our bodies. Beside being moody, I have feel pretty good health wise. Food for today. Mineral water, Chicken Broth, Pork, Mushrooms, Peas, onions, cooked in beef broth, Dinner tonight was boiled Chicken, bokchoy, peas, with mushroom and chicken gravy, and of course of a serving of fermented veggies. Short and sweet for tonight guys :0) By for now, I hear my bed calling me.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Gaps Intro day 9

Day 9 done and dusted. For me at this point things are getting good. I've settled in to the routine more, and am no longer having head aches. I think the one thing that I really miss at the moment is snacks. You know once the children have gone to bed, and mum and dad treat themselves, with a little something. Lately that has been chocolate. I'm also missing something to crunch. However I think I am settling in at this stage. I'm a little afraid to move on. Not sure if that makes sense but I feel like we have made so much progress, that I don't want to mess it up. My body is feeling good, I'm losing weight, symptoms to going away. So I don't want to ruin any of that by moving to fast along the program. I explained to my mum today that we are doing a diet, so Ben and I will be bring our own lunch to her house on Friday , and she will be cooking for the children. She took it really well. She knows the pain that Ben has been through so is thankfully very understanding. I did have another test today, one of the children near by had a birthday today, and we were invited to come over to diner and cake, Ben didn't think he would cope at this stage with all the temptation. So I took the children, which was fine because it was a communal dinner there wasn't any real need for me to eat. I just eat before I went. The children however might have learnt a little lesson. They has pizza, and chips and bread, cake, ice cream and so on. Well very shortly after coming back home, Elijah vomited. The older children knew straight away it was because of the food. One of them even said to me that maybe they need to stay on the gaps food. yay! I'm trying not push them at all, just letting them learn there own lessons on this. Of course most of their food at home is gaps food, with a few extra, and I try not to allow them to spend too much of their pocket money on lollies, instead encouraging them to spend there money of other things that they would love to buy. Today was the first day that Ben woke up before me and got straight out of bed. Normally he is really tired and would stay in bed for a while. He has very little in the way of symptoms today, of course still his stomach pain but he is lot better than he was yesterday. Also much better in his mental state as well. Very pleased. I don't really like living with a Ogre much. He says he is getting bored with the food, so maybe I need to move on for that reason. We will see. I made some more pickles today that are on the bench fermenting as I type. We also had some family over for a quick visit and was able to share about what we are doing with the diet and so on. I even sent them home with three bottle of fermented veggies. :0) Ok so food for day. Mineral water Beef stock. Then turkey Chicken soup. I enjoyed this soup so much we had that for lunch and Dinner. Thanks for reading :0)

Gaps Intro day 8

I feel like today was the a day to start getting life back to normal, it was our first big adventure out as a family while on Gaps. We took the children to the library and the shops to spend their pocket money and birthday money. They have been waiting nearly two weeks due to the car being out of order. I started study again, I have put it off whole on the first part of intro because my mind just couldn't take in the information at the time, for those of you that don't know I'm studying to be a naturopathy, and nutrition is my current subject of study. Actually now I'm starting to thinking that maybe at the end of my study I might take on the training to be a GAPS Consultant as well, but that is a while a way so we will see when we get there. It has been the same with the children school work, up until now I didn't really have the brain space to teach them or even correct their work. However life is starting to fall back into normal. We took out some great books from the Library about Volcano's as Sophie has been talking about them the last couple of weeks, so I though why not jump into a unit study on them, so we have some interesting reads, and I got a build your own volcano kit, which you build, paint, and then erupt. So we will have some great fun with that and it's totally not food related. :0) I think one of the biggest challenges is when cooking not to just stick things in your mouth. At the moment I'm tending my cultures to keep them alive, I'm making yoghurt, Kefir, milk and water, and Kombucha, the children are eating them but we are waiting until we introduce them back into the diet, which we are not that far away from doing, I want to wait until after we get our probiotics and supplements. We have ordered them but they are probably still a week away. I know that we probably should have got them before we started the diet, but we had a window of opportunity were we couldn't really go to far from home, and could get strong on the diet before we HAD to face the world, so we took it. So I'm very excited about that order coming. Something that I have been thinking about recently is that just because you are limited to your food choices doesn't mean you can't be creative. I have also order a veggie twister
Which I think is really fun. It means that I can add noodles to our soups to make life more fun. I'm also thinking of trying to make a seafood soup, just to change this up and exposes us to lots of variety will still in the limitations. I feel like my creative juices in the kitchen are coming back. SO I'll keep you up dated on those as I give them a try. After watching Course 2 of the GAPS Diet on Youtube, we heard more abut magnesium and think that Ben in particular my have a deficiency in that area. So we have also ordered some Magnesium oil for us. So will let you know how that goes and how we are using it when it arrives. We also brought another juicer yesterday, we did have one but I gave it away when we brought our thermomix but as we soon will be introducing carrot juice every day we thought having one would be handy, this particular is not top of the range, but it does separate the pulp and the juice which means that it's easier to keep the pulp for a recipe, or to feed our worms. We have also got our Fermented Cod liver oil coming as well. We have been taking it for just over a month, before we started the diet, but stop everything we had start and will reintroduce it back in slowly when they arrive. One step at a time, so it seems that we will be here on stage two for a while now. Oh we received a package in the mail yesterday, I had totally forgotten that I had ordered them, it was actually a couple of months ago, they were a preorder item. In the package was 5 fun egg and pancake pans, they are all different shapes, like a heart shape, star shape, a pig, a frog, and a bear. SO this is another way I'm going to make food fun in our house. Yesterday when we were in the Library, I heard Ben sneeze. It wasn't until that point that I realised that I actually hadn't heard him sneeze for while, and neither had I. Before starting the diet we both would have sneezing fits almost daily were we would sneeze over and over again. Ben in particular had lots of mucus and sinus, itchy eyes, and the like. So there is another positive for doing this. However saying that today was his worst day feeling his stomach was bad, he was irraible, grumpy, snappy, and generally unpleasant to be around. We both have lost some weight. Not sure how much as we don't own some scales but we are thinking of buying some so that we can monitor that side of things as well. Ok enough chatter here is what we eat today. Mineral water - we are making a mix of water and colloidal minerals in a jug ( we purchase ours from www.changinghabits.com.au) and leave on the table overnight so that it is room temp in the morning. Chicken stock Lunch we had left over pork, diced and heated in some stock with peas and carrots. Dinner was boiled turkey legs, in chicken stock, served with peas, carrots, and Marrow, with chicken and onion gravy. Ok bye for now. Christina.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Gaps Intro day 7

WOW!, day 7!. We have been doing this for a week. I think apart from self control, the hardest part, coming from the Mumma of the house, is managing to cook food at the right times. Like remembering to put the meat in the slow cooker in the morning for the evening meal or there will be no dinner.

Today Ben and I read a blog post on GAPS from a man's point of view it was SO funny, and really good and encouraging. I totally recommend reading it.
http://bridgingthegapsdiet.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/gaps-for-men.html

I noticed something today while filling out our daily journal, one of the questions is do you have a runny nose. Well actually over the last couple of months I have been waking up with a runny nose everyday. Not a cold, but a runny nose. Now mucus is one way the body safely removed toxins from the system. Well after two days my morning runny nose had stopped. I no longer wake up needing a tissue. I have been a little ill today, I'm not sure if it was because of the introducing something that we are not ready for or if it was a tummy bug, as Xavier has been sick with high temps for 4 days, and two of the other children were a little off as well. However I am feeling fine this evening is if it was a tummy bug, it was over pretty quickly. I also think I'm starting to get used to drinking more water. I really noticed in the first few days that I was really thirst, but I wasn't really drinking enough water I don't think.

Ben had another ruff night but is feeling slightly better than normal, SO hopefully it will continue to get better and he will find more sleep. Another positive note is that He has lost weight. I'm looking forward to the day when I can write one here that he has no more pain.

Another positive thing is that with such a limited diet once you start making the meals, you know what your cooking. You don't have all these choices to choose from. It's simplified, and you learn to appreciate food more.

Something I'm not looking forward to is going out. Over the beginning of this year we started a routine of visiting my mother and normally that would include lunch. I'm not looking forward to telling her that Ben and I won't be eating the food, I'm hoping she will be understand and not offended. So we will see how that goes, on Friday. Must stay strong.

Foods introduced today, we had peas again,egg yolk,broccoflower green beans, and fermented veggies.

Food for today
Mineral water
Chicken stock with an egg yolk mixed in.
Boiled mince, in beef stock, with peas and carrots, garlic and onion.
Lunch was Leek soup made with Leeks and beef broth
Dinner was boiled pork, with beans, carrots and masked broccoflower. With a serving of ferment veggies.

Also we are trying Chamomile tea today.
Thanks for reading see you tomorrow.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Gaps Intro day 6.

Yay! we are on stage 2, well the start of it anyway.

Today we introduced fermented veggies, and peas into our diet. I'll let you know how that has gone tomorrow. We now have far more choices open to us and I'm really trying not to rush it by introducing too many things at once. We are vaguely following "What can I eat Now" 30 days on Gaps Intro ebook by Healthy, Home, and Happiness. http://www.healthhomehappy.com/2011/06/what-can-i-eat-now-30-days-on-the-gaps-intro-diet.html Now it really should take you longer than 30 days to fully complete Gaps intro, taking your time to make sure that everything is sitting well with your body, Healing takes time. However it is a really good resource that can help you get a good idea about each stage and recipes that you can follow.

So we will be staying on stage two until we have included everything that you can include at this stage back in. But one or two things at a time so we can see if there are reactions, so it might take a while. Or then again we might get feed up of same stuff and move forward quicker. Will see how we go.

Ok Yesterday Ben had a really bad stomach pain, I have now asked him to number the pain so I can have more of an idea about whether it is getting better or not. Yesterday was a 5, today was a 4. Yay small victory. Also helped along by a bowel movement. Lack of BM stopped him from sleeping last night, finally getting to bed around 5 this morning. Which has been a common thing in our house over the several years. So far last night was the only night that we has been up this late since we started, so I'm hoping to see less and less of these nights in the future. On another interesting note, Ben has his normal day sleep this afternoon, after which he woke up and shared a very vivid dream, were he was hiding in a cupboard and ate some dry biscuits...LOL. then in the dream asked me if the diet could be salvaged, my reply was no.... SO He then continued to eat the whole packet of dry biscuits. LOL I think someone is missing sweet biscuits.

Last night I saw GAPS Diet Course Two on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7wVa7o-J3k Course 1 is there are well. Which is really worth watching if you are thinking about doing this diet, or just interested to know more about it. The teacher Melissa Washburn also had bad stomach pains like Ben so it was really encouraging to hear that it took about a month on the diet before she saw some real changes in herself. I also really love how she talks about The diet just being one aspect of healing (a pretty major one). She has come up with an Acronym for the Healing journey.

H- Hunger no more - Nourish yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually.

E- Eliminate Toxins (emotional and physical) and stresses that keep you stuck. End the negative chatter in you mind. Exercise!

A - Adopt your life - the life you want. Attitude and Gratitude. Allow for rest, rejuvenation, and sleep.

L- Let love be your motive. Love God, self, family, health, life and opportunities. Work on Loving relationships. Love your work.

Which really sums things up well. As we all know eating is not just about putting food in you mouth. There is a psychological side to food and eating that we all partake in. Whether it be a particular food smell that reminds of you childhood, or a time you were sad, or happy, etc. For me I wasn't doing too badly eating more of the should eat foods, and lot less of the should not eat foods. Then my father passed away. Well Chocolate became my friend. I couln'td walk into a shop with money in my pocket and not buy any. It was my go to drug of choice, if you like. So when you take all those foods out of your life, you need to be prepared to face those emotional battles with something new. I'm yet to struggle there, but I'm sure there will come a time when I will need to face a demon with out chocolate in my corner to numb the pain. As am a believer I hope it will bring me closer to my Lord.

Ok Food for today
Mineral water
Chicken stock - I was filled by that I didn't want anything else this morning.
Snack - Ferment pickle.
Lunch - Yesterdays Pumpkin soup. Scoring another meal I didn't have to cook.
Dinner - Was boiled slow cooked chicken, with peas and carrots, and a choice of fermented veggies, about 2 tbs. I have made a few so that we can feel like we have more variety and not so limited. We have Saurkraut, pickles, Kimchi, and purple carrots.

So we will see how those go tomorrow. Also a detox bath. I'm currently trying to have them daily.

See you tomorrow, and any questions please feel free to leave me a comment.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Gaps Intro day 5

Yay! Other day down.

Tomorrow we are starting stage two, which I am excited about. Having been so limited over the last 5 days, I am looking forward to including more things in to our diet.

Stage 2
- Meat or fish stock
- Well boiled GAPS - Legal veggies
- Squash winter and summer
- Boiled meat
- sea salt
- Fresh herbs - YAY!!!!
- Fermented fish
- Fermented veggies, Sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles
- Egg- yolk,
- Homemade Ghee
- Stews and Casseroles made with meat and veggies.


So there are a number of things that I'm looking forward to including in our diets, one of which is fermented veggies, I have been hanging out to start having these. Also fresh herbs to make our food more flavourful.

I had to laugh at my husband today, because he REALLY REALLY misses his cups of tea, and the occasional coffee. I think he is have some withdraws from the caffeine and sugar, but more importantly the daily routine of making several cups of tea. We are drinking ginger tea and mint tea, which have been surprisingly nice. For me I don't really like herbal tea so the adjustment of my taste buds have been a real surprise.


My laughter at him was the fact that he would like to cheat on that aspect.... Out of all the things that you can't have at the moment He would think about cheating for a cup of TEA!

For me at this point it would have to be something really really good to make me cheat, mainly because I know how hard those first few day were and I don't want to do them again if I can help it.

Another unexpected side effect for me is confidence. As each day goes my and I am developing my self control, I'm feeling more and more empowered. I can change my health, and the direction of my life. I have noticed today that I have lost some weight in my face, not large amounts that others will notice but I notice. I was smiling today and totally could feel my cheeks in a new way.

Ben on the other hand has not seen many results as yet, His stomach is still painful, however that pain has changed, so that is different. He has stopped farting, which if you are one of my facebook friends you might have seen several posts about how bad his farting has been of late. So I'm very pleased about that one. However I do wish we would have made more progress with his stomach pain.

Food for today
mineral water
beef stock
Mince, boiled, in beef stock with carrots and broccoli for Breakfast
Pumpkin soup for lunch
Dinner tonight was Slow boiled Duck! Yum! with mashed Cauliflower, carrots and Broccoli, with juices from the duck reduced to make a really rich gravy.

For those of you that are looking for links to help you on your own GAPS journey here is one that we watch a few times over that could prove to be very useful to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnbtmqO204Q

Bye for now, see you tomorrow.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Gaps Intro day 4.

Wow! Four days down! I feel like I need to stand up in on of those meetings and confession. My Name is...... and I am currently 4 days sober from sugar, grain, and dairy. The more I go on with this diet the more clearly I am thinking. The first few days were just complete fog and tiredness. I really wished I could just sleep it off until I got better. I mentioned before that my rash was clearing. Well that has continued to clear more today. I have started to loss weight which is something I really need to do. I also have been testing my blood sugars and ketones levels to make sure I know what is going on in my body. SO far so good.

Food today
Mineral water
Chicken stock and Sauerkraut juice.
Both Ben and I were feeling full after our morning stock so we didn't bother with anymore food.

For lunch we had some of the left over Lamb, breakfast sausages, and veggies in stock/gravy, with some pumpkin soup.

Dinner tonight was boil whole chicken, with Cauliflower mash boiled carrots and broccoli, with chicken stock/ gravy. Yum! I and enjoy it more and more.

SO tomorrow is day Five and after that we are moving on the stage two and introducing more foods into our diets. I am totally looking forward to the ferment veggies. With all this cooked food I find myself hanging out for something crunchy. :0)

Today was a bit of Testing day for me. Up until now I have been at home, with no vehicle and only the food we are allowed to eat. So today I had to catch the bus into town and pick the van up. So while in town the children wanted a drink, so we quickly stopped into a shop and got them a apple juice and a little take away snack, as we are not making them do the Gaps diet, but that is what they are exposed to 80% of the time if not more. So the smells of that junk food were very present. I don't think I would have coped as well if it was day 1, 2, or 3. Next was the supermarket. Which I must say I think I did really well, I just went in and got what I need and left as quickly as I came. No hanging around to us today.

Ben's brain fog has cleared mainly but has almost gone. However He is still having stomach pains, which is somewhat to be expected as he has has almost constant stomach pains for the last ten for so years that I have know him. I'm so looking forward to the day when He no longer has that pain.

I was saying to a friend today that we have drawn a line in the sand and are making our stand again poor health and pain.

Gaps Intro day 3

Day 3 and my muscles and joints are sort, my brain is still fog, but I think it's a little better than the last few days. I have a rash on my stomach that developed not long after my last baby was born, about 10 months ago. I didn't want to go to a doctor about as they would probably prescribe a steroid. Which I didn't want to use, for a number reason. I like avoid medication if I can, but also during my last pregnancy my son threatened to come early at 32 weeks, so the hospital thought it was best to give a steroid to help his lungs develop incase he came early. Well I reacted to the steroids and my pancreas came close to not working at all. SO was one high doses of Insulin. In the end he was 5 weeks early. Anyhow back to the rash, today I see that it is faded slightly. My no means is it gone or cleared up, but there is changed there for the better.

My husband on the other hand has had worst stomach pains. He is in pain but says that he thinks the diet is doing something. So looking forward to seeing results there with his body.

Food today.
Water with minerals.
Chicken stock - I prefer the chicken stock to drink over the beef and any other stock. I prefer the beef and meater stocks to cooking in and with.
Breakfast sausages, this time a mix between pork and beef mince. boiled carrots and broccoli and gravy.

Lunch was pumpkin soup

Dinner was slow cooked lamb (boiled slowly, in the slow cooker)
served with broccoli, carrots and mashed cauliflower, and served with the stock blender gravy.

We also introduced sauerkraut juice with each meal today.
A detox bath in Apple cider vinegar.

An interesting note, when you go on any diet or fast like this were you are freeing yourself from the control of food and start to see how much food has ruled you life. For me it makes me realise how unfair I am being when I make a choice to put something unhealthy in my mouth. I'm being unfair to myself, robbing myself of joy, energy, happiness and so on. Robbing my husband and children but not letting them have the best of me. I have lots to look forward to on this diet. Most of all bring alignment to my life.

For those thinking of doing the diet here is a link that you might find useful.

http://gapsaustralia.com.au/

Thursday, April 19, 2012

GAPS Day two

Ok so far we have made it through two days on GAPS Intro. So some unexpected symptoms for me was during the night I developed a migraine, which actually shows me how much I want to use this diet to put my body in line, so I don't have to go through another migraine. As well as so many other things.

Brain fog is bad today, and very tired.

Food for today.
Water with minerals.
Chicken stock.
Breakfast sausages, which was just mince meat, with salt and pepper, mixed together. Boiled in beef stock with some onions and garlic. Once the sausages are cook I removed them, and put the stock in a jar with the onions and garlic and whizzed them with the stick blender to make a gravy. I served it with boiled Zucchini and broccoli. I get the children a fried egg with theirs.

Lunch was purple carrot soup, which looked like lots of fun, which Ben and I thought it was good, the children didn't really like it much at all. So needless to say I won't be cooking that one again.

Dinner was a whole chicken boiled in the slow cooker with onions and carrots. I served it with boiled broccoli and pumpkin, and the stock gravy made from the chicken juices and onions, just whizzed with the hand blender.

Having learnt from my migraine the night before I made sure I had a detox bath.

So anyone else doing the GAPS Intro? I would love to hear how you are going.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

GAPS Day one

We have decided to do the intro diet together, but to let the children have other foods, that are GAPS legal but not just intro food. So I give the intro food, and if they are hungry they can have an apple, or something else. The main reason for this is that our children don't seem to have a lot of issues health wise that need dealing with. Also as the detox can leave you tired, foggy, and irritable we don't really need a whole household like that at the moment. :0)

OK so Day 1.
We woke up and had room temp mineral water, let it sit while I reheated some chicken stock. I then put some cauliflower in a pot to make soup with. SO from morning and through lunch we had Cauliflower soup. For lunch I gave our children a fried egg, cooking in rendered pig fat. Then for dinner, we had Pork chops that were cooked in thee slow cooker with enough water to cover, and onions, and carrots, boiled pumpkin,and broccoli. Once the meat was cooked I removed the meat and carrots and put aside. I them took the onions and some of stock to cook the meat in put it in a wide mouth jar and blended them with my stick blender, to make a very tasty GAPS gravy. Was actually very tasty.

Also at the beginning of each day we take a few minutes to fill out a health chart, so we can keep track of changes in our bodies, and symptoms. This list includes Number of hour sleep, stools, medications, Nausea, vomiting, Diarrhea, and so on. Also adding any symptoms that are not common, or special notes.

By about mid afternoon I became really foggy with my thinking. I also failed to have a detox bath at the end of the day, which I paid for that night, as I had really bad headache all night during my sleep, Not enough to fully wake me up, but enough to stop me getting into a really deep solid sleep.

Well that's all for day one.

GAPS Diet



For those of you that actually know my family, know that my husband has some very painful stomach issues. Over the years we have done a number of things that have really helped, like introducing probiotic foods, like kefir, kombucha, sour dough breads, fermented veggies and so on. However the stomach pain is still hanging on. So now we have decided it's time to take some more drastic steps to actually healing the gut. So after about a year of considering, pondering, researching, and planning, we have decided to take the plug and do the GAPS Diet. Now we are doing it not only for his health but also mine. I'm currently over weight and have been struggling with Gestation Diabetes with all my pregnancies, and we as a few other things. So I'm hoping that this time will be a healing time for us all. I would love to get my body in line/ order before having another baby. I dream of one day being able to have problem free pregnancy and birth. Also my husband and I are currently both studying natural Medicine. Ben is doing Herbal Medicine, and I am studying to be a Naturopath. For me I can see how the GAPS Diet would be helpful for a large number of people, so if it's something that I would proscribe I would like to have first hand experience with it. SO on my Cultures page I was asked if I was blogging about this experience and at the time I didn't really think about doing that. However as I think more about it I actually think blogging about the experience would be helpful to me and to other as we go along.

SO Yes I'm going to blog about it.

Day one coming up. Oh and Please mind my typos I have extreme brain fog at the moment. I hope you can read what I'm writing and will fix it when I have a clearer mind. :0)