The GAPS diet

I've recently embarked on something called the "Gaps" diet. It would take pages to describe the intricacies that make this diet unique so I'll leave you with a link. It was created by a neurologist to help treat her autistic son through nourishing soups and easy to digest foods. This diet is not for weight loss purposes but is rather a healing protocol that puts your body through a very intention process to begin healing many many issues including digestive disorder (extreme or minor), leaky gut, skin conditions behavioral issues, and so on. The base is homemade stock/broth made from well sources animals. With that stock you make soups with easily digestible veggies and boiled meats and graduallllllllly add foods in over the course of several weeks or months depending on your body.

Someday I will write out my health journey but it's hard to write that out so publicly! I have been wanting to do this diet for years after seeing the success of many I know going through it. My brother went through the entire program (which is a 1-2 year process) and had amazing results - I won't share his health story for him lol. Timing hasn't worked out until now because I was either pregnant or breastfeeding and can't be done during those times. I knew after the holidays was a good time to embark especially while it's still winter and soup is actually appealing. 



However, after all the waiting the idea of starting this was daunting to say the least. As the primary cook of my family I knew it was going to be hard to cook meals for them and then eat my soup. I began on January 8th which makes today day 13. WHOOOOO! This diet is broken up in stages, beginning with the most limited and ever so slowly moving forward to the "Full Gaps" diet which is similar to SCD/paleo diets. I spent several weeks reading the GAPS book as well as many guide gooks and cook books to make the process easier. The biggest trick for me was making almost everything before hand. This is has been crucial to my success in not slipping because when I'm tired and done from the day I can grab one bag of soup from the freezer. I expected stage 1 to be difficult, but this whole process has been even harder than imagined for me personally. There is something called "die off" which is essentially when all the bacteria/pathogens in your gut that live off of sugars/grains/etc begin to die because they aren't being fed they can produce flu like symptoms or worse. For me it was a couple days of living in the bathroom :/ tmi.

Since stage 1 is already incredibly limited to broth, meats boiled in broth and very very cooked vegetables, I was so bummed when my body wasn't tolerating the vegetables very well and that left just broth and meat. Don't worry, this stage is not meant to be long as it's not healthy to live on broth and meat alone - but it's necessary for a time in order to get that healing process going. It's giving your digestive system a huge break from having to break down foods and gives a great platform to rebuilding a broken wall. When I moved onto stage 2 soft boiled eggs tasted like heaven and I was eating so many a day lol!

Broths at work :) :) 

How am I feeling? To be honest, not good........yet. I'm holding out though. I'm praying it's just taking my body time to get rid of all the toxins and begin that healing process. I was sure the hardest part of the diet was going to be eating soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner ---- but it's by far been how sick I've been and felt. I lost 10 lbs in 10 days - this where I need that one teeth face emoji.

I believe wholly in this diet though and I am making adjustment with probiotics and such to hopefully get there. I can't believe I haven't slipped up, not one grain of rice not one crumb of bread!!!! My addiction to sugar was so so strong. I was positive this was going to be hard. The thing that keeps me from cheating is that then all those days were for nothing. It's not the kind of diet you can cheat on because any amount of the allergens keep those bacteria alive in the gut and they don't die off.


My plan was to blog my way through this intro diet but I've felt so crummy I've been taking care of the basic tasks of feeding my family and keeping my home somewhat orderly. With homeschool and work and doctors appointments thrown in there it's a good thing I'm allowed tea with a tiny bit of honey cause that is what keeps my blood sugar up!!!

Day 1 Breakfast!

Die off feeeeeels :( 

Just broth and meats :( 

Eggs - oh the joy!

Saving dishes - right out of the pot.