Day 16 of GAPS continued...

I forgot to mention a couple of unexpected "side effects" of GAPS:

1. For as long as I can remember, I've had bumps on the back of my arms.  This used to really bother me... It still bothers me, I guess, but I've learned to live with it.  But since starting GAPS, the bumps seem to be lessening.  Yay!  Even my husband noticed.
2. Also, like countless other women, I have cellulite on my hips and thighs.  When you lose weight, sometimes it can make the cellulite seem worse because it becomes more pronounced.  But with GAPS, it seems like the cellulite is lessening too!  I think it might be all the collagen, gelatin, etc. that I'm eating with the broths.
3. I no longer want to watch TV all night!  Up until a few years ago, I really didn't love to watch TV.  I would get bored and go do something else.  Which is how I prefer it.  But these past few years, I've really just wanted to "veg" in front of the TV, no matter what was on.  Sometimes to the detriment of what I needed to do (work, house stuff, etc.).  It was depressing to me!  I'm happy to say that I pretty much have no interest in watching TV anymore!  That was DEFINITELY unexpected!  I wonder if "vegging" in front of the TV released some hormone that calmed me... and I don't need it anymore?  Huh.  Any thoughts?

My yogurt just got done and I ate some about 30 minutes ago.  I was so excited!  I really hope it goes well.  BUT... I may be noticing the following symptoms:  ear ache, skin itchiness, possibly an irritated throat, and a bit of a tummy ache.  I have no idea if I'm imagining it since I'm watching for every little thing and sitting here just thinking about it!  So I will give it some time.  I started with a half cup.  The GAPS book says to start with a teaspoon.  I was like - OMG no.  How in the world would I limit myself to a TEASPOON???  :)  I thought limiting to a half cup was pretty good.  I also mixed a small little bit of honey into it.  Yum!

Prior to eating the bowl of yogurt, I quickly tried a small little bite of the cream cultured with yogurt.  It was good!  I probably ate about a 1/2 tsp, just for a quick taste.  :)  If all goes well with the yogurt, sour cream will probably be next.

Day 16 of GAPS (48 days into LEAP)

I'm long overdue for an update.

The first week of GAPS - I felt pretty good overall.  My digestion improved a lot and very quickly - within a day or two.  I still have "deeper" pain in my abdominal area.  But the really sharp pains I would get have gone away.  I didn't have cravings and I felt pretty satisfied.  I really tried to make sure that I was eating enough food and that I didn't get overly hungry.  I feel like my appetite decreased a bit over the week, but nothing drastic.  I think all the fat on the diet really helped me feel full.  I still had joint pain at the end of Week 1.

My story for dairy this week - I had decided to add dairy in on the second week of GAPS.  With the LEAP diet, I have been off dairy for five weeks, so I felt like it was time to add in good raw yogurt.  I ordered some from our farm (where we are members) and it was supposed to be delivered last Tuesday (day 6 of GAPS).  I have to make 24 hour yogurt, so it would have been done fermenting late on Day 7, which would have been perfect.  Well, for some reason the drop got screwed up - someone picked up our products, or something.  So I didn't get it that day.... I was SO disappointed!  So later that week, we decided to head up to the farm on our way up to my husband's 20th reunion.  Well, work ran late, and it took forever to get packed, and by the time we headed up there, it was going to be close to 10pm by the time we got up there.  I texted our farmer and she said, okay the porch light will be on until 10pm, if the lights are off, that means she's gone to bed and it's locked.  WELL, we didn't want to drive an hour out of our way and then show up and have it be locked (we were really cutting it close on the timing!).  So we decided not to go.  Then she texted us and said to come anyway, she'd make sure we could pick up.  But we were already about 10 miles past our exit.  It was getting so late, we decided not to go.  I truly could have cried!  That's how emotional I was about this damn yogurt!!!  It's been so long since I've had food variety, I was REALLY looking forward to it!  So I just thought - I'll order next Tuesday, it's not that much longer to wait.  And of course on Monday, the farmer texted and said her daughter had gone into early labor and the milk would be delivered on THURSDAY!  What????  Aaahhhhh!!!!  I thought I was going to die.  Okay, so FINALLY we got yogurt yesterday and I got it fermenting ASAP, and it will be ready today around 7:30 PM.  THANK GOD.  So I will actually be starting dairy into my third week on GAPS.

The second week of GAPS - I decided to stay on Stage 1 until I could introduce yogurt.  As you can see, that has turned into quite a fiasco.  So I went through my second week of GAPS, still on Stage 1 (minus yogurt) and I just felt like I was at a plateau.  I'm not sure if that's because I am on Stage 1 for too long, or if my body is just working through things, or what.  My joints still hurt and that is disappointing.  So on Tuesday night, I realized I hadn't done some of the *extra* things on GAPS - things like detox baths, enemas, castor oil compresses, etc.  So I did them all on Tuesday night.  Yikes!  That was a mistake!  I woke up on Wednesday and felt terrible!  I could barely get to work and make it through and hour and a half of meetings.  So Wednesday night, what did I do - well, I decided to do it all again - enema, detox bath, castor oil compress.  I thought that I might as well get all that bad stuff out!!!  As you probably guessed, Thursday I woke up feeling even worse!  Again, I just made it through some meetings at work and then came home.  I was lightheaded/dizzy, weak, nauseous, had blurry vision and a headache.  And I was EXHAUSTED.  All day.  I hope since feeling terrible corresponded with the extra detox things I did, I hope and assume it was die-off.  Because if it was die-off, maybe I will eventually feel a lot better!  Today (Friday), I do feel better than I did on Wednesday and Thursday.  I didn't do any of the detox things yesterday, I was quite literally too exhausted.  But -sigh- I still have joint pain.  I still feel achy.  I still have "deep" pain in my abdomen.  I am still constipated.  I still lack energy.

There is conflicting advice out there - Leave Stage 1 as soon as your immediate digestive concerns settle down (which happened to me within 2-3 days), but no longer than 7 days no matter what.  OR Stay on Stage 1 for as long as it takes for your major symptoms to subside.  For me, that's my joint pain.  I have been concerned about eggs and nightshades for my joints.... and Stage 2 adds eggs right away.  Nightshades come quickly thereafter.  So I am left with this dilemma...   Stay on Stage 1 for a long time (how long will it take?) or take a risk and move onto Stage 2, trusting that if I'm healing my gut, my joint pain will resolve itself in due time.  After a lot of soul searching this week, I have decided to move to do the latter, and move to Stage 2 early next week.  This is truly not because I am wanting more food variety (well, I am.... but that's not why I'm moving on).... I feel like my body is telling me it needs more nutrition.  And since I was on LEAP for a full month before this, I've been off of eggs and nightshades for 6 weeks.  Theoretically, that should be enough time to tell a difference.  Except that my joint pain hasn't gotten better, so how am I supposed to know if eggs/nightshades make a difference?  Ah!  I'm pretty frustrated.  Okay, but I'm pretty convinced I need to add new foods.  So here my progression so far, and what I plan to do:

• Day 1-15:  I ate meat broth, boiled meats, animal fats (no dairy yet), and boiled vegetables - only carrots, leeks, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, winter squash.  Sea salt for seasoning.  Questionable foods (made my stomach kind of rumbly):  cauliflower, leeks
• Day 16-18:  Introduce 24-hour fermented raw goat yogurt.
• Day 19:  If all goes well with yogurt, move to Stage 2, introduce egg yolk first.  If the yogurt doesn't go well, I will eliminate it again, let my digestive system settle down, and then move to Stage 2 without yogurt.

I have read that it is safe and healthy to stay on Stage 3 indefinitely.  So my goal is to try to get to Stage 3 (still going slowly with the introductions in Stage 2) and stay there until my joint pain subsides.  

I have also realized that I probably have not been getting enough natural probiotics.  I am supposed to be having sauerkraut liquid and/or fermented dairy everyday.  Well, I've really been doing neither.  I ran out of sauerkraut liquid probably about a week ago, and I really need to make more.  Actually, I'm going to buy more... There's a woman at our local farmers market that sells THE BEST lacto-fermented sauerkraut.  I'll be going on Saturday to get some.  I cannot wait!  This stuff is amazing.  And the yogurt will definitely help.  It brings up the point that this stuff takes a long time to make (waiting for it to ferment), so preparation is key.

It's also been a long time since I've posted my measurements.  I am FINALLY losing weight, remember that last post where I explained how I dropped so quickly.... yeah, well I've been losing since then!  Not that fast of course.  Actually, I've really needed to make sure that I'm eating enough so that I don't lose very quickly... So here's where I'm at right now:

• Weight:  173.9 (started at 191.7, down 17.8 pounds)
• Clothing Size:  14 (started at 16, down 1 size)
• Waist:  40.5 (started at 43.25, down 2.75")
• Hips:  43.25 (started at 45.5, down 2.25")
• Upper Arms:  12.375 (started at 12.75, down 0.375")
• Upper Thighs:  24.375 (started at 25.75, 1.375")
• Calves:  15.625 (started at 15.875, down 0.25")
• Bust:  39.5 (started at 41.5, down 2")

That's a total of 9" lost!  I can really feel it of course.  I am solidly in a Size 14 now, and I finally was able to ditch some jeans and a belt that I got when I was my biggest.  That felt good!  I will keep donating clothes as I lose weight.  But I won't ditch anything smaller than a Size 12 until I know I'm going to stay down.  I don't want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe!  My regular adult size should be about a Size 8.  So if I could get down to a Size 10 again, I'd be pretty darn happy.  So I'll make sure I stay there for at least six months before I donate any Size 12s.

Well this has been a long enough post!  I haven't posted much because I've been busy with work and I haven't introduced foods.  I'll try to post again sooner!

Day 35 of LEAP, Day 3 of GAPS

Thumbs up so far for GAPS.  My digestion is definitely improved.  I do seem to notice a bit of issue with cauliflower, so I'm going to leave it out for the next day to see if anything changes.  I haven't noticed any changes with joint pain though.  It's only been a few days, and I read a blog posting from someone else who said that their joint pain went away in two weeks on GAPS.  So I guess I'll keep trying.  :)

A couple of things of note:

• I forgot to mention that about 27 days into the LEAP diet, I still hadn't lost much weight... Maybe three pounds.  Although my weight fluctuates enough that I would still call that negligible.  On Day 28 and 29, I had some very.... shall we say... unpleasant..... uh, movements.  Although going to the bathroom is an unpleasant topic, I still am a firm believer that it should actually be talked about more.  I mean, the digestion system has so much influence on our overall well being.  And... well, everyone poops!  Plus, when you're looking for answers on the internet, sometimes you really just need to hear the truth.  So here goes... I'll try to be brief and to the point.  But close your eyes if you don't want to read this.  For two days in a row, I had poops that were very close to diarrhea but with hard chunks in it.  There were also "stages" during the same "session" of very soft stool too.  It was very unpleasant and I actually felt kind of sick.  I probably spend about 10-15 minutes on the toilet, which is quite unusual for me.  Although I've had abdominal pain and stomach discomfort for a long time, I haven't really had "bad" bowel movements.  This was new for me.  Well, anyway, each day once those were done, I felt normal and went about my day.  A couple days later, I had lost SEVEN more pounds, bringing my total weight loss to about 10 pounds.  I finally went down a half a pant size (I say half because women's clothes are so strange - I'm wearing pants I didn't fit into a week ago, but they still say size 16.  I'm also wearing some of the "larger" 14's that I have.)  I'm convinced those bathroom experiences had something to do with me dropping weight in such a short amount of time, after having held on to the weight for close to a month.  I was eating such a clean diet, and I still was not losing weight.  Something happened - a detox of sorts, I guess - and I suddenly lost a bunch.  It's still too early to tell, but it appears to be continuing.  I'm down 11-12 pounds now, depending on the day (since I still fluctuate).
• Day 1 of GAPS was pretty darn easy for me, since it was so close to how I was already eating.  The main thing is that my digestion liked it better.  By the end of Day 1, I was pretty tired and just wanted to get to bed.  On Day 2, I woke up feeling worse, still fatigued and achy (my joint felt worse), and I think I was having a bit of a "die off" reaction.  Later that day, my husband and I were working in the kitchen and all of a sudden I was like - I have to go to the bathroom right now.  It was very loose and chunky again, but I had a surge of energy after that, which lasted until 1 AM, when I forced myself to go to bed.
• Today is Day 3 and I'm feeling pretty good, despite lack of sleep from some commotion outside our house last night.  I'll try to keep you posted.

Discouragement... And the Will to Continue. Day 34.

I haven't written in a really long time.  The truth is that I've been incredibly discouraged about this whole thing.  Plus, I got really bored of writing the same thing over and over again... I would eat the same things, feel the same way.

After two weeks on Phase 1, I realized I needed to try something different.  My joint pain hadn't been relieved, which from my research I guess is to be expected.  But more tellingly, my digestion issues hadn't eased up AT ALL.  And maybe had gotten just a tiny bit worse.

So I tried following my nutritionists advice to cut out fructose.  She had told me that if I didn't see relief from symptoms, I should either cut the foods out that I had added from other phases (e.g. lettuce was on Phase 4, but she had let me add it right away so I'd have better variety), or I should cut out fructose.  So I did both.  I researched ... Of the foods I was eating, which ones should be avoided on a low fructose diet (basically FODMAPS).

One day was all I could stand.  My stomach issues got so severe I was literally doubled over in pain after eating.  I specifically remember getting terrible pains after eating a cucumber spear.  However, when I would eat meat, I wouldn't get such bad reactions.

The next day, I tried an all meat diet, just as an experiment.  Just meat patties and bone broth.  Virtually no stomach issues.  The next day I tried the same thing, but added in some cooked beets.  My stomach issues were still pretty good.  Then I added in sweet potatoes.  Not as good as the beets, but still I was feeling better.

I didn't want to maintain this limited diet without some kind of a plan, so I hopped on the internet to see if this new discovery would give me any clues to why I feel so crappy.

So I did a quick google search for something like "feel fine eating meat stomach pain eating raw vegetables."  So scientific!  :)

The search came up with countless stories of Crohn's Disease.  Hmmm....  when I had my colonoscopy last year, it showed inflammation of the terminal ileum (classic Crohn's) but "not enough" to warrant a diagnosis of Crohn's, according to my doc.  In addition, I didn't have the classic diarrhea or weight loss associated with Crohn's.  But I do have severe joint pain, and the stomach issues of course.

So I started diving into researching Crohn's.  Had I just caught my Crohn's early?  Since I have been struggling with health for 25+ years, and have used diet to manage my health, was I just more in tune with my body than other people?  Do other people maybe just ignore these nagging symptoms, or take something to cover them up?  Do I have "pre-Crohn's"?  Did I just make up that term?  I think so.

I have been very familiar with using diet to cure or manage Crohn's, since I had read quite a few of Jordan Rubin's books.  It got me thinking.... What did he do to get better?  What research did he do, and what books was he reading, and who was he talking with?  I realized that Crohn's was just another manifestation of a leaky gut... Which is why I had done the MRT testing in the first place.  I really need to fix that damn thing.

I'll make a long story a little shorter and just get to the end... I decided to continue on Phase 1 of the LEAP diet, while following the protocol for GAPS intro diet.  If you haven't yet heard of GAPS, do a quick google search and you'll find a plethora of info.  I started it yesterday.

As a wrap up to this post, I just wanted to list the foods I at over the couple weeks of "Phase 1", and what I'm eating now.  Note the expansion of foods, especially fruits, from what I was eating before.  The reason I did this (kind of had to do this), is because I had a week of teaching a kids camp, and working 14+ hours a day, and I couldn't get by without some quick hand foods and quick energy.  It was already three weeks into the protocol anyway.  All the foods listed below are still in the Green area on the MRT testing.

For the past month weeks, with the "very limited" being in the last two weeks:

1. Beef
2. Turkey
3. Chicken
4. Elk, Buffalo, Wild Game, Etc.
5. Sweet Potato
6. Oat
7. Quinoa (very limited)
8. Beet
9. Spinach
10. Aspragus
11. Carrot
12. Cucumber
13. Broccoli
14. Cabbage (very limited)
15. String Bean
16. Celery (very limited)
17. Lettuce
18. Cantaloupe (very limited)
19. Olive
20. Apple
21. Cherry (very limited)
22. Raspberry (very limited)
23. Pear (very limited)
24. Banana (very limited)
25. Watermelon (very limited)
26. Grape (very limited)
27. Pineapple (very limited)
28. Strawberry (very limited)
29. Olive Oil
30. Sunflower Seed Oil
31. Honey
32. Unsweetened Raw Cocoa Powder

Now on the GAPS Intro diet, this is what the diet calls for on Stage 1 (3-5 days).  In blue, I also listed the corresponding LEAP diet result and how I plan to modify for my use.

Meat or Fish Stock

• I plan to stay with meat stock, since MRT indicated that I react badly to fish.  Beef broth and chicken broth will be my staples.  I'll see if I can find other soup bones at the farmers market this Saturday.

Boiled Meats (turkey, beef, chicken, wild game, etc.)

• I shouldn't have to modify this much for MRT.  Beef and Turkey are Phase 1, Chicken is Phase 2.  Since meats tested so well for me, I think wild game will be okay too.

Well boiled broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, leeks

• Broccoli is Phase 3
• Cauliflower is Phase 2
• Carrot is Phase 1
• Onion is Phase 2
• Leek is Phase 2
• Should have no problems!

Squash, winter and summer

• Squash, summer:  Here's my biggest conflict.  Zucchini is in the Yellow Zone, so I will avoid it.  Does that mean I should also avoid yellow squash (which shows up in Phase 4 in LEAP)?  How about pattypan or crookneck?  I'm just not sure.
• Squash, winter:  Winter squash is also related to summer squash.  Which, if we want to get really technical, is also related to cucumbers and melons.  So do I avoid winter squash too?   It makes up the bulk of the carbohydrates on this diet and I don't want to go into ketosis.  I'm still undecided on this one.  I think I might try a few days using butternut squash... If I'm not experiencing relief, I'll cut it out for awhile to see if it makes a difference.

Sea Salt

• This is what I've been using for LEAP, so I see no problems.

Lacto-Fermented Sauerkraut Juice

• This is a natural probiotic, and they have us ease into it very slowly (1-2 tsp per day), so I don't anticipate this being a conflict with MRT.

As you can see, the GAPS diet integrates pretty darn well with my MRT testing, at least in Stage 1 of the Intro.  The biggest issue is the summer squash - I think I'll avoid it all together.  The winter squash I'll give a go, if I need to, I'll back off.  

I figure if it works, I'll continue to GAPS Intro Stage 2, with the same thought given to staying within the confines of the LEAP diet.  

Day 13

Oops, I got busy!  Today is Day 13 on the LEAP diet.  I am still 100% on Phase 1.  I haven't really noticed improvement of symptoms.  I did intend to redo my measurements and symptom checker on a weekly basis, so I will do that tomorrow.

I read that joint pain can take 3 weeks to 3 MONTHS to subside once you remove whatever it is that is causing the reaction.  Yes, I said three MONTHS!  Yikes. So I am trying to be patient with the process.  Assuming that I eliminated the correct foods, I probably won't see results for at least three weeks.  And if the test didn't catch the right foods... well, then I'm just kinda screwed!  :)

In the meantime, I'm trying to rid my body of candida using the protocol my dietician gave me.  I don't have much time, so I'll try to write more later.