GAPS Intro Diet: Stage 1 - 3

We started our Intro to GAPS diet this weekend, on Friday. Holden woke up and immediately asked for "chockit milk" to which I replied "Holden, remember chocolate milk was part of the toxic jungle, so we threw it out in the garbage?!" His face fell. And he ran to the door and said "open the door, open the door!" I don't doubt that if he had been allowed outside in the freezing cold he would have figured out a way to climb inside the garbage to retrieve his cereal and chocolate milk.

The first day wasn't bad. I had a work lunch and had to sit and drink water while everyone had Iggy's, but I had eaten my homemade chicken veggie soup before and I was satisfied. Holden skipped breakfast but then finally ate some soup with Wes for lunch. I was sick of chicken soup after just one day of it for every meal and decided to make a different kind of soup. Holden skipped that as well.

Here's our GAPS Diet Intro: Stage 1 menu

Breakfast – Chicken Soup (chicken, carrots, squash, zucchini, garlic) w/ sour cream
Snack – Ginger tea with honey
Lunch – Chicken Soup (chicken, carrots, squash, zucchini, garlic) w/ sour cream
Snack – Chicken Broth
Dinner – Farmer’s Market Chicken (rutabaga, roma tomatoes, parsnips, leeks, baby spinach leaves). w/ sour cream
Snack – Sour cream with honey

And probiotics - therapeutic strength.

GAPS Intro Diet Stage 2
Saturday was a different story. I woke up with my heart racing so fast it was like I had sprinted for a mile. I couldn't calm it down. I was shaking really bad and I just kept thinking "Whelp, this is die-off" I threw up and everything and was just really, really weak most of the day. And then I did what any responsible 30ish mom would do: I called my mother. Who came promptly and took care of me and my boys. My dad worked on my garden and my mom helped us all day. They're amazing. Holden slept in until 10:30 and was irrational and frustrated all day. And he put himself on a starvation diet - not eating anything. We could barely get him to drink water. Apparently this is somewhat common. There are a lot of blogs out there where people are talking about getting through GAPS and kids just don't like change. It's really tough.

Where was Wes in all this? Wes has not experience ANY die-off symptoms, which means he has a good balance of the good bacteria. He thinks this is due to the 2 years he spent in Bulgaria drinking yogurt for every meal. Makes sense to me. Here's what I ate on Stage 2 (we are moving through the intro pretty quickly.)

Here's our GAPS Diet Intro: Stage 2 menu

Breakfast – Cooked vegetables with soft boiled eggs
Snack – Mint tea w/ honey
Lunch – Farmer’s Market Chicken (rutabaga, roma tomatoes, parsnips, leeks, baby spinach leaves). Serve with avocado, soft boiled eggs, and yogurt.
Snack – Chicken broth
Dinner – Farmer’s Market Chicken (leftover) with eggs
Snack – Sour cream with honey

We backed off the probiotics on Holds on Sunday (day 3) to see if that helped. He was still very weak from not eating anything. He still refused the broth and soup. His general language was unintelligible today. He screamed in jabber and muttered a lot. It was frightening. I tried to catch it on video but he stopped right before I took this.



We got him to eat a few bites of chicken today. And for supper he had a few bites of chicken soup and vegetables and we rewarded him with some strawberries.

Here's our GAPS Diet Intro: Stage 3 menu

Breakfast – Smoothie (2 eggs, fresh apple juice, carrot juice, and yogurt)
Snack – Soft boiled eggs and mint tea
Lunch – Swedish Gravlax (skinless, boneless salmon fillet, salt, water, honey, and ground pepper – leave at room temperature for 1-1 ½ hours). Mashed cauliflower.
Dinner – Chicken Tortilla Soup (chicken broth, stewed tomatoes, chicken, sweet pepper, avocado, cilantro, egg yolk and sour cream) with a couple strawberries
Snack – Pancakes (made with eggs, sunbutter, and zucchini) with honey.

Finally this evening I made the "pancakes" that's recommended on Stage 4 just to see what they were like. Holden saw me eating one and jumped off the couch. He hate one, then wanted another, then 2 more! I was SO happy to see him eating something. He went to bed full and I am going to bed more at ease!