A Peek into Day 1 of the GAPS Diet

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Welcome! I'm Jennifer, the owner & founder of Healing Redefined Holistic Wellness Center, holistic practitioner, and head nutrition nerd here at Healing Redefined.

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5 Responses

  1. Hi! Thanks so much for these posts on Gaps. My daughter and I are In our first week of intro (in stage 3). We’re only doing Strictly Gaps for a few months as we only have a few minor health issues to heal.

    I’m curious, are you doing intro right now, or just the full Gaps diet? I ask because you had bananas for snacks which is not at the beginning of intro. ? I tend to be a rule-follower and so have felt guilty about our need to change a few things up (I’m still breastfeeding and needing more carbs, so have had some nuts today).

    Also, my daughter (almost two years old) is picky and is mostly eating butternut squash-based meals. I’m still getting a little broth into her at each meal but have been feeling terrible about her eating so much squash.

    Any encouragement? 🙂

    1. The Intro Diet is contraindicated while breastfeeding. I would move to Full GAPS immediately to stop the possibility of any heavy detox. It has been shown to cause health problems in nursing children from toxins flowing through breast milk. I don’t want to scare you but do want you to be aware. It’s especially problematic for mothers with amalgams and high body concentrations of heavy metals.

      We are doing Full GAPS right now. I don’t recommend that anyone start with intro since it’s too harsh, so we’re all easing into it. We will likely start in the fall once the weather cools down and all of those well-cooked foods aren’t so painful to eat. 🙂 Why don’t both of you do a few months of Full GAPS and see where your healing takes you? With minor problem, you may not even need intro. It’s a program for those with serious digestive disorders, so you may get off easy!

      For your daughter, I find that many littles will eat just about anything if it’s fun. You can check out my Pinterest boards for some helpful recipes (http://pinterest.com/witchdoctorjen/). We love the meatloaf cupcakes with mashed cauliflower in place of potatoes and coconut berry delights. You can also make jello with freshly made juice, water kefir, or kombucha and grass-fed beef gelatin. Here’s my method over at Cheeseslave: http://www.cheeseslave.com/kombucha-jello/).

      I hope that helps a bit!

      1. Jennifer,
        Thanks so much for your quick response!

        Before deciding to start intro while breastfeeding I gave it a lot of thought and research, thought perhaps since I don’t have a very deep understanding of how the body works, maybe it wasn’t a good choice. I have done some really huge detoxes in the past (multiple week long veggie cleanses, the Master Cleanse for about a month…maybe not the smartest, but I saw good results then, etc.) and we’ve been eating fairly close to “Weston A. Price” diet for about a year and a half. Because of this I didn’t think I’d experience any heavy detoxing (I don’t have amalgams). Also, I have a friend who is a certified nurse, is really into natural health stuff, teaches classes on digestion/enzymes, etc. She’s breastfeeding, but always doing detoxes and such so I asked her about the aspect of the toxins going into the breast milk and she looked at me like I was from Mars, and said something about how we detox through sweat and other things, but that the milk-production system in our body is completely separate in our body, and so toxins wouldn’t go through it. I know, that doesn’t really make sense, but it still confused me. 🙂

        I was more drawn to intro because of the aspect of the broth *sealing* and *healing* my gut (and not just detoxing). The “mild issues” I mentioned are
        -candida overgrowth (this has gotten much better in the past years…haven’t had a yeast infection for a long time, but when I do enemas I see what I believe is yeast, and my daughter has a yeast diaper rash that we haven’t been able to get rid of, so I’m sure she got this issue from me. along with this is intense and constant sugar/starch cravings)
        -randomly swollen ankles…well, not my actual ankles, but more like the area between my ankle and calf…”cankles”…they were constantly swollen during my teens (I’m 25 now) and I thought that was just how God made me – with big ankles, until after my daughter’s birth when we started to eat really healthy and I realized that I could have normal “ankles”. Sometimes they’ll be randomly slightly swollen though.
        -acne. This has also gotten much better since we’ve been eating better, but I still have some (partially related to hormones, I’m sure, since I get more right around my period)…but I know this is a sign of something being “off” in my gut
        -random headaches (not very often, but it still concerns me)
        -slight possible dairy/egg sensitivity (randomly when I eat these I get slightly congested immediately afterwards)

        After considering your response, I do believe it’s best that we move into full Gaps (though I’m going to hold of on the dairy for a bit longer). This past 5 days that we’ve been doing intro I’ve been feeling like it’s been almost impossible to get the carbs that I need for breastfeeding, even with lots of planning.

        Again, thank you so much for responding. Sorry this is SOOO long…I can tend to say too much as you can see. 🙂 Blessings to you and your family, and for all that you do here on your blog!

        Chloe

  2. GAPS can be quite confusing, and the heading Day 1 could be mistaken for Stage One, as it did with me.
    I know you’ve hyperlinked something I’m thinking an explanation, but It would be helpful it you state in the first paragraph that you have not followed Stage 1, rather you have proceeded with full Gaps and this was your first day. Thanks.

    1. Hey Lucy! This wasn’t GAPS intro. I’ll go back and make a note of that in the post. If you are looking for more of my GAPS posts, I have them chronicled here: http://www.20somethingallergies.com/gaps-journal/. Though the concept is sound, the GAPS foods aren’t optimal for many people during healing so we are following the Autoimmune Paleo food list instead. This seems to be a much better fit and doesn’t stress the adrenals as much.

      If you’re interested in learning more, you can read about it here: http://www.20somethingallergies.com/the-autoimmune-paleo-protocol-could-this-be-it/.

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