GAPS Intro Diet: Day Five

The GAPS Intro Diet is tough, but it gets easier every day. I spent 6 hours cooking and cleaning up the kitchen yesterday, plus 2 hours shopping (I had to go to two different stores).

I can see why people lose weight on this diet! Not only are you eating less, you burn off a lot of calories with all the cooking, shopping and cleaning up!

I like being in the kitchen. I love to cook, and Seth has been helping out tremendously by doing dishes, even though he feels tired and crappy. He also had the housekeeper come yesterday and that was really nice. While I work, I’ve been listening to Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride on my iPhone while I work (I have her lectures from last year’s Weston A. Price Foundation conference).

Yesterday I made 2 quarts of sauerkraut (we’re eating Bubbie’s storebought sauerkraut now) and 4 gallons of kombucha (we’re drinking GT Dave’s now). I also made a pint of sour cream (it will be ready tonight,) roasted a duck and rendered the duck fat, and strained 2 batches of broth: one beef and one chicken.

Lots of bone broth in the fridge, plus lots of rendered animal fats. See that giant vat of beef stock (the one in the middle?) I used that WHOLE thing to make beef stew tonight — reduced it from a little over a gallon to about 5 cups. One thing people don’t always realize is you CAN reduce your stock. You can reduce it some for stew, or reduce it a whole lot for thick gravy. Click here to see what everything is in the fridge.

This morning I spent about half an hour making breakfast and then we went to the farmer’s market to buy 8 dozen pastured eggs.

For dinner, I made grass-fed beef stew. I also soaked some sunflower seeds and started two more crock pots full of broth (one chicken stock and one beef stock).

Our Progress

Kate and I are speeding through the phases of the Intro Diet and are pretty much ready to progress to the full diet. We started GAPS with no symptoms and no issues. I think this is due to the fact that I spent 2 years healing my gut and taking probiotics when I was in my 20s.

Also due to the fact that Kate and I have been taking Biokult since she was about 7 months. We took it pretty much every day for about 2-3 years (and the rest of the time on and off again, whenever I remembered).

So far, Kate and I have successfully added sauerkraut juice, ghee, sour cream, kefir, egg yolks and egg whites, fruit, coconut water, kombucha, and honey. We added fermented cod liver oil today. I need to buy more Biokult for us — it’s on my to do list for this week.

Seth is going slower since he has a lot of issues (allergies to dairy and gluten, hyptothyroid, etc.). So far, he has been able to introduce sauerkraut juice, sauerkraut, Biokult, ghee, sour cream, kombucha, and egg yolks. He’ll start on the fermented cod liver oil in the next day or so. He is drinking a lot of kombucha. He says it really helps him.

Seth and I both had constipation but it cleared up yesterday with the introduction of sour cream. We were both able to digest store-bought organic sour cream with no problems.

Seth was having some trouble digesting all the fat on this diet but he is now taking Swedish bitters and that is helping.

No More Wine, Carb & Chocolate Cravings!

I’m also super excited because my cravings for wine, chocolate and carbs are totally gone. You can read this post I wrote a few weeks ago: How I Kicked My Wine and Chocolate Cravings.

Since then, I’ve dropped down to just 3 amino acids that I am taking: tryptophan and melatonin in the afternoon and at night (for sleep,) and I pop a GABA when I feel stressed out.

Seth is still taking all of his amino acids but he hasn’t had a drink in almost a week now. Like me, he doesn’t crave alcohol anymore. And he used to drink Scotch or whisky every single night! Major progress! He’s still drinking coffee but only 1-2 cups a day — he’s way down from the amount of coffee he used to drink. He also hasn’t had any cravings for sweets or carbs. He is still taking all of his amino acids.

FitDay Journal

I posted what I ate today below. And if you want to see exactly what I’m eating, here is the link to my FitDay journal.

GAPS Intro Diet: Day Five

Breakfast:

1 cup organic decaf coffee
1 cup homemade chicken stock with 1/4 cup sauerkraut
2 pastured eggs plus one extra yolk, scrambled with 1 tablespoon sour cream in 1/2 tablespoon ghee

Snack:

8 oz ginger kombucha
1 oz dried cherries (at farmer’s market)
2 oz grass-fed cheese (at farmer’s market)

Lunch:

1 cup homemade chicken soup with carrots, celery and chicken
1/4 cup kimchi
1 tablespoon sour cream
16 oz kombucha
2 tablespoons fermented cod liver oil/high-vitamin butter oil blend

Dinner:

1 1/2 cups grass-fed beef stew made with reduced homemade beef stock, stew beef, carrots and cauliflower
1 tablespoon roasted bone marrow (I set it on the table like a condiment for us to add to our stew)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 cup decaf herbal tea

GAPS Intro Diet Tips

I’ve got two tips for you today!

1. Buy more than one crock pot. I used to only have one crock pot. The other day I went out and bought two more. This is awesome! Now I can have two crock pots going all the time making broth, and use the other one to render fat or keep soup or a roast warm (for easy dinners and lunches). Three crock pots makes GAPS so much easier!

2. Roast marrow bones. Marrow bones are terrific. I buy a few pounds at a time, roast them in the oven for 10-15 minutes, then scoop out the marrow and put it in a bowl. We then store the marrow in the fridge and add it to our soups and stews. I then take the bones and throw them in the crock pot to make beef broth.

Marrow tastes very savory and yummy (like meat butter) and it’s SUPER good for you and has lots of fat-soluble activators (especially if the bones are from grass-fed cows or lambs). And kids won’t even taste it in soup.

Share Your Comments

Are you on the GAPS Diet? Or planning to start? What are you experiencing? Are you struggling? Have you seen any benefits since you started? Are you planning to start but have fears of how hard it will be? Please share your thoughts below.