Healing with GAPS

We've just started the GAPS protocol about two weeks ago. Would love to chat to anyone else interested or doing it too :D

We found GAPS because my eldest son is autistic and we're hoping to heal him. We also hope to heal our youngest before his gut flora gets out of control and he ends up with the same issues.

As a GAPS mum I want to heal myself too!

GAPS is used by people wanting to treat psychological disorders such as autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and autoimmune conditions.

I want to do this, but it seems so much WORK! I might start it once we move in with my parents in a couple of weeks, I think it'll be awesome for us. Let us know how you go!

It took some getting my head around it... try starting as vegetarian and THEN complain it's a lot of work :p

But it's actually not really nearly as hard or as much work as I expected. Well, the cooking anyway. Getting my resistant eater son to eat new foods is the hardest thing I've ever done. I figure the alternative, to not heal ourselves, is worse than spending some extra time cooking up broths and making my own yoghurt (which is super easy in the dehydrator anyway).

I hope we start to have some good news to report once my son actually starts eating enough of it for it to do anything! I have a long way to go myself. To cope with my sugar addiction I'm eating way too much fruit and honey so I'm not really doing GAPS very well at this point. And I can't do the detox anyway because I'm breastfeeding, so I hope to look to healing myself and doing intro in about a year or so when my youngest should be feeding much less and can cope with my detox.

Do it Keike! you wont regret it! Do you have the book? Get that and study it now- it took me a couple of months of "practice cooking" before I felt ready to really start.

Yeah, I'm worried about the detoxing mainly. I know I'm hopelessly addicted to sugar, and it won't be pretty coming off it :)

No I haven't got the book yet. You've reminded me, I wanna ask my surgeon if it'd be safe to do after my surgery. I'm getting weight loss surgery, and I figure if it's safe to do after surgery (when I can eat again of course), that might be the best time to do it, when I've gotta take time off and when my gut will REALLY need the help.

I know Yeddi does it as well, I'm not sure if she's still around BB though, I haven't seen her for ages.

I look forward to reading how you go, and I'll let you know what the surgeon says!

I'd not heard of this particular diet but it seems to be what I was looking for. I've been moving to a healthier, chemical free lifestyle and been reading about the importance of gut health and how fermented products are good, sugar bad etc. I call it my Paranoid Person lifestyle but this ties in nicely. It doesnt look easy which just shows how many unknowns are in our food and other products.

The other thing I'm researching is the effect of electro magnetic radiation on the body. There are links to gut health there too because it seems that gut health is the key to health overall.

Anyway, I'm interested in learning more. I doubt DH would do it though.

Yeah, Yeddi was doing a modified version of GAPS. I miss her- hope she comes back and lets us know how things are going soon!

GAPS is a really healthy diet Keike so I would think it would be fine after surgery. I'm not sure if they are doing something to change your ability to digest fats or anything though. If your stomach functions are being altered and bile supply affected for example then it may not work. A good naturopath should be able to help you out there if needed.

I've been pretty much doing full GAPS with cheating for 2 months. I cut out all grains as we ate out a lot of the pantry and got used to new breakfast etc. And I had cheats like a biscuit when out and about or a few pieces of good dark chocolate every day. In that time I lost 7kgs! Not that everyone loses weight- those that are underweight put weight on. I've seen it referred to as a "weight normalising" diet which makes sense as it's just healthy eating. It includes a lot of fat, which your body uses and needs because it's mostly made up of fat. Eating fat helps curb the sugar cravings too.

I think you would REALLY like the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) book Tashy. It talks about how and why the industry has pushed us away from good food like lard and onto crap like canola oil. Sounds wrong huh? All part of the smear campaign on natural, not as money earning, fats. It's funny that we see something like lard as really unhealthy but it's hardly eaten now and heart disease is rapidly increasing.

The GAPS protocol isn't just about diet though and it's been good to do all the other stuff too. We've now got pot plants all around the house to clean the air in our home, we NEVER use the microwave... I'd like to find out more about electro-magnetic radiation. I bury my head in the sand about that sometimes as we depend on wifi and mobile phones so much!

We're almost 3 weeks in and my son is actually letting me feed him without a fight now. It's been a horrible few weeks but we're getting there!

Personally, I'm finding the carb cravings constant. I just want some toast for breakfast! I need to make more of the GAPS things like nut crackers and bread.

A couple of things I forgot to say before...
Keike- you wont detox just by cutting out sugar so don't worry about going through detox that you can't handle. The book explains how to slow down detoxing so you don't overload your body by releasing too many toxins too quickly. The main ways to detox are by adding in probiotics and drinking fresh vegetable juices. I'll most likely skip the juicing while I'm BFing.
The carb cravings are another matter though and it can be a little tough but not nearly as bad as I thought. And I honestly was a MAJOR sugar/carb addict.

Tashybabe- It would obviously be best/easiest if your H did GAPS too but plenty of people do it alone and it wont stop your healing if your H doesn't do it. If you develop a good gut flora you will be able to fight off his bad bacteria (introduced to you during sex) and your children will mostly get your flora so they would be fine too.

Good on you meow for trying this! I have read a fair bit about it, and I also think gut health is paramount to our health.

I am on a sugar free, low dairy and carb diet and I found fats to be the key to cravings (didn't read it, just followed my instincts) but I have read that chromium is great for sugar cravings. I found the first three days sugar free the worst, and now I can't go back. Even a lick of honey makes my brain feel funny because its sooooo sweet. I am also fruit free, except for raspberries which are low in sugar.

I'm off to read up on the other GAPS philosophies now. I do eat grains, but it's only oats, rice and spelt.

Good luck!

GAPS is a healing diet, not a forever diet so you may not feel you need to go any further Arcadia. Your diet sounds very similar though! When we go off this diet, the plan is to move onto Nourishing Traditions diet which has some grains... even wheat! I'm hanging for sourdough bread... mmm...

This diet is refined sugar free so fructose is still allowed though is supposed to be kept to a minimum. Funny you mention raspberries... I was just looking at the list of fruits by amount of fructose on here to modify my fruits.

Another Mercola article (I wasn't sure if I could post Mercola links but I checked and Kelly posts them), this one summarises the GAPS book quite well.

How're y'all going?

I've decided that I was looking at it the wrong way - instead of doing it AFTER surgery, I should do it BEFORE, because chances are, once I've healed myself, I won't need the surgery! Plus, we won't be able to afford it for a while yet, so I might as well try this in the meantime. So I'm gonna buy the book after payday and start my planning :)

Oh keike, that's awesome! I've heard book depository is the cheapest place to buy it. My sister has a good friend who is coming off the diet now after two years... she started almost on antidepressants and is now happy and well. A good friend of mine has started the diet with her son, his anxiety was so bad he was out of school as he would vomit just trying to go out the front door. Within the first few weeks he was able to walk out the door without vomiting. This diet does work. Join the gapsdiet and gapshelp yahoogroups. The extra support is essential when you start. We eased in by stopping buying non-legal food but eating out the pantry... helped not to just jump in.

We're going well. E is 4 weeks in. 2 weeks of actually being off his old food and eating lots of the new food. He's regained the weight he lost and is happy and playing again. Still a little way to go to get full energy but we're close. He has a certain sparkle in his smile that my H and have both noticed. I can't quite explain it but he's connecting better. His poos are normal!! First time ever in his life!

I think this diet is a great way to approach your health and weight loss. I lost 7 kgs in the 2 months I was "almost" on the diet. And another 2 in past 4 weeks that I've been completely grain and sugar free. Don't be afraid to eat all the fat. Your body needs it and metabolises it. Sugar is the evil weight gainer.

I need to buy the book too. I was reading about it online and it sounds interesting. How do you handle all that meat broth? It reminds me a bit of the Brewer pregnancy diet - lots of protein and animal fats are good for both mum and a growing bub. It also reminds me a lot of foods people used to eat. If you read something like Mrs Beeton's, which was written about 1860, there are a lot of meat broths & meat jellie type dishes in the invalid diet sections. I recently gave myself food poisoning (hummus) and the only thing I could eat was chicken soup and brown rice. In fact the brown rice in the chicken soup was lovely :) Then I found a home remedy is apple cider vinegar, so I've been trying to drink that on a daily basis. It seems to be a cure for a lot of things. That, an lots of pro-biotics. I'm back trying to take the inliven probiotic again. It's so disgusting though. Sorry, seem to have got off track. I should buy the book :)

As I'm GF, I now eat a lot of "seeds" like quinoa, chia etc which are not grains. They're high in protein and Omega 3's so I'm not sure I would need to give them up.

Actually, I'm scared of suggesting more change to my DH. We've already rearranged bedroom furniture and I've been turning off appliances and wi-fi at night just to try to reduce EMFs and help me sleep (I've become insomniac). Oh well.. I can at least read and then suggest. I just don't know if we could make a 2 year commitment.

btw - as I was reading, I noticed this diet would be so much easier with us having a Thermomix. I know you can't get them in the states, but if you head back to Oz, you might find it useful, especially when you can go back to breads etc.

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GAPS is used by people wanting to treat psychological disorders such as autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and autoimmune conditions.

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He he he crohns disease isn't a physiological disease... Lol (typo ;) )

I've heard gaps is good for asthmatics but my asthma is flared with ALL forms of dairy incl goat and sheep forms. I get the pro biotic aspect of the diet tho. My hubby has crohns and colitis. We manage his diet through raw and loads of greens, no red meat animal as it's acidic and we want to prevent cancer. He isn't on medication either.




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Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

I'm braindead these days but I have no idea what the typo is?? I get zero spare time and barely any sleep so I function in a haze sorry :lol:

Tashy- quinoa is actually not allowed on the diet. It's not just grains but rather all high starch foods so potatoes, quinoa, most beans (including chickpeas) are off the list too. It's to starve the candida. If you want to keep the seeds I believe The Body Ecology diet allows them and you might like looking into that. It's a similar diet with emphasis on probiotic foods restoring the gut flora and people report good healing on it. But I don't think the author is as well researched as Dr Campbell-McBride, who I think doesn't allow these foods for good reason. I personally have more faith that GAPS is the diet to really heal on.

I am not drinking broth. Personally I'm a very poor example of being on the diet. I eat well but I don't put a lot of thought into my own eating (see haze above) and I'm not focusing on my own healing at this point. I use the broth I make to make soup which the boys eat and my H takes in a thermos for lunch at work. But we don't drink broth like we 'should'. E is only eating the soup so I'm not pushing onto anything else just yet and my H and I tried to drink broth once but coming from being vegetarian it's just more than I can stand at the moment. I eat cultured dairy and eat fermented vegetables but I haven't started to take probiotics yet. I'm nervous about triggering too much die off and A) passing toxins in my breastmilk and B) sending myself mental when I need to hold it together to heal E before I worry about myself.

I have Biokult, which are the GAPS probiotics I'll have to try one- they are jsut capsules so I didn't think they would taste bad? You can get them in Oz off the GAPS australia website.

I'm considering doing the intro diet and looking at healing myself when F is at least 18mths, or maybe 2 years old, depending upon how much he is still BFing. If we decide we want to have another baby then I want to spend at least 6 months before trying to make a healthy gut flora so that might persuade my timeline.

You don't have to commit for 2 years, it depends how much you need 'fixing' as to how long you will take to heal. Those with minor complaints can be helped in about 6 months apparently. I think I'm fairly minor as my mental health is pretty good so I'm not overly affected by my git flora. As E is autistic he his clearly very affected so we'll have him on the diet for at least 2 years.

Have you heard about earthing sheets? I'm dubious but I've seen people say good things about them and they are supposed to help with grounding out of the electrical fields we're exposed to I think.

I'd LOVE a thermomix. I looked them up when we were started and was shocked to see I can't get one in USA!! I'll be getting a vitamix or blendtec soon because I need a super blender but I'd rather a thermomix.

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.... and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis....

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Get it now?? He he eh




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Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

No. Can you spell out your issue for me?

Meow - you can get Thermomix in Canada but if the voltage is different, I wouldnt bother. Using the converters stuffs up the warranty and can stuff up the machine.

At the moment, I'm researching Rayguard technology wrt to stopping EMFs, but it's expensive. About $2.5k for the house. 2 tiny things on my iphone cost $50. Unfortuantely, it seems grief & shock have left me supersensitive to things like that. I'm trying to heal with healthy diet and a heap of supplements and time.

Crohns and colitis are not physiological it's a inflammatory bowel disease to do with the digestive system, not mental... :)




---------
Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!