I started this blog several weeks after actually beginning the GAPS diet and protocol, so most of my blog posts are going to be written in retrospect. I will also note that my life has been... generally extremely busy (moving will do that to you) and I am... quite frankly *not* the type to blog everysinglebloomin'day. Don't worry though, I keep a journal and ya'll shall get the day-by-day play-by play as best I am able to give. =)

 

Week 1 My “Unofficial Start”

In the GAPS book, Dr Campbell-McBride lists 7 different stages for the GAPS diet. (in the GAPS guide she lists 8..) The last stage or “ full GAPS diet” is essentially the SCD or specific carbohydrate diet. But if you are trying to actually heal your digestive system/ neurological system etc. Simply going on the full GAPS diet is not enough. In fact, if you went straight from eating and doing whatever you please, directly onto the full GAPS diet you may just cause your body as much or more upset than healing just out of shock. So, to avoid this, you start with Stage 1 ( The intro diet ) and work your way through the process of healing, moving on to each stage only as your body allows.

 

Stage one is VERY basic... almost painfully so. The only things you are allowed are boiled, organic meat and bone broths; and soups made from them and a list of low-fiber/ low starch, easily digestible cooked vegetables; fermented dairy in the form of homemade sour cream, youghart and such; and your fermented vegetable juice.  Ok, so look at that list.. then omit dairy since I'm allergic to it, and you've got what I was eating for Stage One.  ( You are also allowed to use fresh herbs in your soups, and have mint tea and ginger tea made from fresh mint and ginger... but I did not know this at the time. >.< )
  You are not allowed sugars or really even starches of any kind at all. No fruit, no grain, no potatoes, no processed anything, and no sugar. Period. Also, you are allowed no real amounts of fiber since they just irritate your gut when it is in need of healing.
You also are told to avoid... pretty much everything else for at least until your digestion starts to straighten out. The goal is healing with easily digestible/ high nutrient foods and not giving the bad bacteria/parasites inside you anything to grow on.

  Ok, that said, she says that it is often good to “ ease into” even the intro diet. Don't go whole hog into it without allowing your body to adjust or it will likely just flip out, you'll panic because your body is flipping out, and that will be that.  You’ll quit.
So for me, week one was the “ unofficial start”. Now, this was probably a lot easier for me than the average person for a number of reasons. Since I am allergic to gluten and am generally health conscious, I had already been gluten-free, caffeine-free and dairy-free for years, and had also essentially been off of  eggs, junk food and most sugar.

  If, however, you are used to the standard western diet, frankly, I pity you. Because this is/was NOT easy to do even for me as determined as I am. My suggestion for you would be work in slowly. I mean very slowly... If you are used to the semi-standard diet involving donuts/pastries (or even bread at all) and coffee or mountain dew/energy drinks every day, you are going to have issues, and it would be best to wean yourself off slowly to avoid major withdraws. This could take a few weeks, it could take a month or more. Even going that slowly, you will probably still go through some hefty withdraws, but it will be much MUCH easier to handle if you go slow.

   For my part... even going off of fresh fruit and grain caused some mild withdraw issues that I wasn't anticipating, my mother and I were both used to using fruit as a “blood sugar kick” pick-me-up throughout the day while we were working on other things... and if you are like me, and you don't have that, and you haven't adapted yet, you (surprise) go through a little bit of a sugar withdraw. After a day or so of being mildly grumpy and agitated and finally learning to eat more frequently (and make enough food so that I COULD eat more frequently) to avoid the blood sugar dips, I didn't have too much trouble.

 

  The “ week” started for me on a Tuesday. That morning, I had my usual pro-biotic capsule before breakfast, but then instead of reaching for the gluten-free cereal and rice milk, I had to re-adjust my thinking and have a cup of broth with some (about a teaspoon) of the pro-biotic juice from my fermented vegetables added in. I also had some coconut milk kefir that I had been eating before without any trouble so decided to continue with.

   Now, the reason I mention potentially having trouble with the kefir, is that a lot of GAPS people can't handle the higher strength culture in the kefir right away, so she does not have you add kefir until much later than stage one.. But, eh, I hadn't fully started yet, and I was doing ok with the kefir before, and I hadn't learned fully what else to eat soyeah.. that's what I had. X)

Lunch and dinner were both the chicken soup that I had grown up with ( see recipe here) with the pro-biotic fermented vegetable juice added. (for our recipe on fermenting vegetables see recipe here) My side dishes were a few “California style frozen vegetables” that I had boiled in broth and salted. ... And yeah. That was that.

Days two and three were essentially the same as day 1 ( I am very grateful that I am NOT the type to get bored of food easily! ) Except that I had some zucchini and summer squash sauteed with onions in duck fat along with my soup... Drank lots more broth all day long, and some homemade coconut-milk yogurt for a snack after dinner. …I *did* eat a few things that we were trying to get eaten up before the full start of GAPS but I honestly don't recall what they were now, and I hadn't started my journal at that point. I'm also pretty sure I couldn't stand it and had a banana or two in there somewhere.. But like I said, I was just starting out.

 

Not much seemed to change those first few days other than the mild withdraws of trying to learn to be without any fruit/fruit juice and grains. I hadn't fully started yet, but it was a fairly successful start as far as I was concerned.

 

Day 4 was... Different. I'm still not sure if what happened was a short form of the flu, food poisoning or some crazy allergy reaction to something non-GAPS that I had eaten, but, whatever it was, it resulted in a few things getting rather better acquainted than they would have liked. I got quite familiar with pretty much every cranny of our main-bathroom toilet and my esophagus and my stomach acid had a number of intense meetings which I think we all would have greatly preferred to avoid. Needless to say, it was miserable. End story.
I was sitting there in a cold sweat on the bathroom floor losing the contents of my stomach every 10 minutes or so and.. ( I'm sorry but) I DIDN'T GIVE A CARE what the GAPS lady said I wanted apple juice and seltzer water! (It's the same concept as drinking soda to settle your stomach, it is just less sugar. )

Drinking it did little more than give me something in my stomach to evict again, but since doing so felt better than retching with nothing.. I honestly didn't care much about GAPS at that level of misery. I concluded I'd start again once I recovered.

 

Getting Started

I suppose that I probably should have posted this post *before* the post on fermented vegetables.. but, I did not. Regardless, for what it's worth, I'm doing it now. X)

When starting GAPS, I rapidly found that there are a number of things (equipment, supplements, etc.) that you simply must have to get started.

So this post is dedicated to all... that... various and sundry ... stuff.

The picture (left) is of the absolute bare-bones basics. I'll try to group them into categories and explain their uses as I come to them.

The first and foremost things when starting the GAPS protocol are 1) probiotics and good fats and related supplements 2) broths /boiled meats and non starchy vegetables and 3) fermented vegetables/ fermented vegetable juice.


The supplements.
As far as the supplements go, the probiotics are the most absolutely crucial. The one I started with ( pictured below second to left with the green label.) was Nature's Sunshine Probiotic Eleven. It is a lower dose ( approximate 10billion CFU in total) of 11 different cultures. This was just a personal preference. I had already been taking this pro-biotic and knew that it settled well with my body. Also, it contains 11 different cultures instead of just 1 to 4 kinds like a lot of the others. Doctor Cambell-Mcbride eventually wants you to work your way up to a therapeutic dose of probiotics (20+ CFU such as Bio-kult) when you do GAPS, but she wants you to do it slowly so you can see where exactly the dose is that your body starts cleansing out the bad bacteria at. For me, it was easier to start taking a few smaller doses than to try and divide a big dose into smaller portions.

The other supplements that you start out on early in are (right to left) HCL with pepsin ( to help your body process and digest the nutrients you are putting in it!) the ProEFA, and the fermented fish oil ( yuuuum yum!). The fermented fish oil and ProEFA are your " good fats" (Omega 3s and 6s) in a form that is partially broken down already so your body can make use of it easier when your digestion is still messed up. Sadly.. I'm allergic to fish. So, (happily for my taste buds, sadly for my progress) I won't be starting either of those two for a while. X)

One other supplement ( furthest left) that she did suggest on start up was a specific pro-biotic called Saccharomyces Boulardii (gotta love crazy-long Latin names for bacteria, or S. Boulardii). From what I can understand, it is not one of the bacteria that actually lives in your gut with the other " good guys" but instead while it is there after you take it.. it simply attacks the bad guys and absorbs any toxins and such that are being released when they die. All I know for sure is that my body really seems to like the stuff! But I'll get to that later on.

A note on the supplements; Nutrivene.com is the only site that I have found that has all of the ones she really likes you to have all together. ( the ProEFA, Fermented fish oil, bio-kult etc.) on a page specifically for people on GAPS. If you are having a hard time finding them, you may want to start there.


The equipment.
The equipment that you need to make the broth/soup is fairly simple but VERY important! It involves your kettle ( or crockpot) a strainer ( and either another large pot or a very large glass/metal bowl to strain the broth into), your sea salt and peppercorns... and way to smash your peppercorns. ( we found a plastic baggy and meat mallet works dandily. X)
( It also involves your meat/bones, of course, ... but I'm sticking mostly with equipment and ... bottled things, mostly on this post. X) Oh, and you'll probably need a stove... just in case that wasn't obvious. =p


The other things I would say you absolutely need need to start off mostly pertain to fermenting vegetables. To do that you need two large jars with sealing lids ( any kind works really, I pictured a few different ones that we like to use.) Large canning jars work nicely, wide mouth is nice ; a cutting board; some sharp knives; good quality sea salt, and a (very large) mixing bowl. Vegetable culture starter is optional.



Again, these are the very basic ones. Some other things that I personally found VERY helpful were such things as a food processor; a dehydrator; kombucha tea (the pure kind without sugar and such), a skillet for sauteing, a few smaller sauce-pan-sized pans to warm up a serving of something, (microwaves are forbidden) mint tea, ginger, and... a food processor! (I'm using the daylights out of that silly thing!) Like I said, they're NOT entirely necessary.. But they sure make life a bit easier. (You'll find out why I said this once I actually post the next several days worth of experiences. X)

There are a few other things that you will eventually need later on ( a Juicer, some other crazy-fun foods, baking soda etc. A dehydrator is wonderful but not crucial) But as I have not gotten there yet.. I'm not exactly worried about those at the moment. =p

So speaking of posts about the next several days... Shall we?

Fermented vegetables (Days i through xxvi)

Two weeks before we officially started the GAPS diet, it came to my attention that we were going to be fermenting vegetables.

Fermenting... Vegetables.

Ok, soooo I'm not sure what your initial reaction to this may be, but for me personally, even though I KNEW that this was standard practice for pretty much every existing culture in the world for several thousand years up until... very very recently I still had a bit of the " Um.. Ew." and "Wait... Is that... Safe?" reactions to work my way through. X)

In our western world, fermenting food is just something that we don't really think of much. We are so used to everything being sterilized, sanitized and otherwise "ized". That even though we may technically *know* that beer and wine and yogurt are fermented, and maybe we even know that sauerkraut or sour cream literally originally meant "soured kraut (cabbage)" and " cream that has been allowed to sour" respectively... Still, these things come to us in little sanitized bottles with pretty printed labels and we don't really have to think much about the fact that it was once something that was a food substance, that has now had it's properties altered by the presence of some or other bacteria or yeast that was ALLOWED to grow in it *intentionally* and.. yes.. it is fermented.

The essence of the GAPS diet is obtaining proper, easily digestible nutrition, and obtaining and keeping the proper gut flora. (So that your gut/immune system heals properly.) Since in sauerkraut, yogurt, cultured butter, kifer etc. those self-same bacteria that ferment your food, are actually the kind of bacteria your gut needs, and since they are also foods that are easily digestible with highly available nutrients, eating fermented foods is part and parcel to the GAPS diet.

Aaaaaaand since the easiest to digest and least allergy-causing one of those things is the juice ( not even the actual vegetables yet) from vegetables that have been fermented. You guessed it, you start there. You make your own. So, we made our own.
A note that I personally would add to anyone with access to major health food stores such as WholeFoods. Some of these stores actually carry fermented vegetables (such as sauerkraut) with the live cultures still in them. So, if you want to start asap, or you suddenly run out unexpectedly. You could probably use these just fine for a little while. (so long as they don't contain any chemicals or preservatives. =)
My mother and I... do not have any such luck. So, like I said we have made every scrap of our own so far. The recipe that we used/made can be found at this link on my other blog. Pretty much every recipe that we found was...quite frankly... a bit confusing! So, that is our simplified and " bettered" version for easy use. ^_^

At any rate, with bit of realization, a package or two of living bacteria, and a smidgen of mental adjusting, I have now drunk the juice from said fermented vegetables..(and eaten a few as well) and not only that, I ... survived! =p
They're admittedly *not* the tastiest things in the world...being .. rather (extremely) SOUR but hey, they're actually not as bad as I expected. I found it kinda nifty that they didn't... you know... rot. They actually just ferment and bubble away on the counter there for a couple of weeks. There is a top layer "seal leaf" (of cabbage) on the top that actually may rot a bit.. but everything underneath is just.. fine. I'll admit, I was probably pretty pathetic in how amazing I found that to be. haha!

So, yes. They are now fermented, and I have eaten them... and the happy little bugs they contain are inside me; helping, heal my gut, kill off bad bugs, be happy, live a long joyous life, you know... all that jazz. ^_^ Here's hoping!

Sooo... I am a person with IBS, multiple food allergies and fibromyalgia, who grew up as a child with chronic fatigue and stomach migraines. Lame, right?

Dr. Campbell-Mcbride studied the relation between many of the neurological diseases (Autism, depression, dyslexia, ADHD etc.) and digestion issues, made some amazing discoveries and, basically, in her book, goes through and shows you what to do to use the proper nutrition (in ways that a compromised and weakened body can handle) to heal the body of those (and various other) digestion problems and a lot of those neurological problems as well. Amazing right?
You can find the book on Amazon here.
Or see a website explaining more about the GAPS here:

Like I said, essentially, she shows you how to heal your digestion, (from intolerance, food allergies, parasites, non-beneficial bacteria overgrowth, yeast overgrowth etc.) and helps you learn to feed your body the proper nutrition to heal not only your digestion, but your immune system so it has the building blocks to re-build the rest of your body including a compromised neurological system, hence aiding greatly in the healing of those diseases.

Because I am someone with A) Multiple food allergies (and other digestive issues) and B) other chronic health issues. When I found someone who basically put every bit of research I had found valid over the many years of searching and studying concerning things that I have (as well as what many other people have) and what I should to to recover/heal from it... Iiiiii was pretty excited!
She not only puts a lot of the medical research into fairly shirt-sleeve English, but she combined what I already knew and gives a step-by-step on what to heal from it. =)
My mother and I found this diet that basically teaches how to be healed from almost every food allergy, as well as parasites and such ( which I have fought with endlessly over the years) So that they don't come back. So, since it doesn't contradict most research I've done, (and actually supports practically all of it!) you better believe that I am going to do it!

I also must add, that I, for my own part, truly do believe this to be an answered prayer. My family and I have been praying for so many years that God would heal me/help me to be healed, and after many different trials and lessons, this diet/protocol with all it's extended research, promises to be exactly the help I needed all along! =)

On this blog will be the extent of my personal path and (a probably greatly simplified version of) the day-to-day happenings of personally living on the GAPS diet; as well the process of my gradual healing. It is a year-long program. The blog I plan to make my project for April 2012-early 1213. I'm doing this in order for anyone wanting to do the GAPS diet themselves to see what I am doing, how it works, and what tips there are that I would give any fellow GAPSters from my journey towards (God willing) a healthy- allergy free body! =)
*Woot!* =)

So here is my journey. Follow if you wish. Comment if you please. I hope (*especially* if you are looking into doing the GAPS diet yourself) that you find it either helpful, interesting, or maybe, just maybe, even a little of both. =)

(P.S. for anyone actually starting the GAPS diet, I would also highly recommend the "GAPS GUIDE" book, as it is a bit more of a comprehensive guide to actually implementing the GAPS protocol. =) *wishes you the best of luck!*