Why did we decide to do the GAPS diet?

In a word, desperation.

A few months ago we had to cut out a few more foods, which was a bit depressing. The realization that there's not that many foods left that we can eat was even more depressing. And frustrating.

LMS and I had a conversation about baking and I realized that in our current state of affairs, she'd never be able to learn how to bake, let alone eat, cookies, cakes, candies, pies, bread, etc. What a sad state of affairs.

Out of desperation, I took to the internets to see if I could find something useful and helpful. The first thing I read up on was leaky gut syndrome, which sounded like it could be what was going on with our intestines. As usual, no real treatment, other than dietary changes and supplementation. As I did more reading, I kept running across the GAPS diet, which I'd seen mentioned before in my googling over the last couple years. Previously it never caught my interest, so I never investigated it.

This time, I was willing to look into anything and everything. I borrowed a book about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) from the library, then bought the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride (our library doesn't have it).

GAPS is related to SCD, but with more of an emphasis on nutrient-dense foods. Here's a good comparison of the two, stated much better than I ever could.

The intro phase starts out with lots of bone broth (drunk at each meal), boiled meats and veggies (for easy digestibility), probiotic supplements, and detox baths (alternating baking soda, epsom salts, and apple cider vinegar). You gradually add foods in: first fermented sauerkraut juice, then fermented sauerkraut- small amounts that are then gradually increased if they are well tolerated. Fermented sauerkraut contains probiotics, so you don't want to take too much right at the start, to reduce die-off reactions. The next food you add is the yolks of pastured eggs- they're rich in nutrients and are less problematic than the whites. You continue to add new foods in one at a time, making sure they don't cause problems, and giving time to step back and recover if there is a problem.

What caught my eye was the assertion that bone broth and highly digestible foods could heal the intestines. Since our intestines obviously need help, I decided it was worth a try.

I bought an e-book describing how to do the intro phase of GAPS (it's only briefly mentioned in the GAPS book I mentioned above), and then.... we waited.

We saved up and bought a quarter of a cow, since we'd need the meat and the bones and we're almost out of elk.
I started making and freezing bone broth.
I ordered some strong probiotics.
I started talking up GAPS to LMS.

The last item was the hard part. While our diet wasn't that far from the intro phase of GAPS, we would need to cut out fruit for awhile, completely eliminate rice (no more GF rice crispies for breakfast), and we wouldn't be able to "cheat" and buy M&Ms when we did the grocery shopping (we shouldn't eat M&Ms for various reasons, but sometimes you just need a chocolate fix). LMS wasn't thrilled with the idea of giving up applesauce, rice crispies, and M&Ms.

I tried to get her on board by explaining that if we could stick with it, we should be able to start eating things we haven't been able to eat for quite awhile, like eggs, dairy products, and nuts. This excited her, and she agreed to give it a try.

In an effort to keep the detoxing symptoms to a minimum, we eased into everything by first starting the probiotics, then two days later we started drinking broth once a day.

I originally decided to start November 1- new month, new start, and all that. But it was the middle of the week, Halloween was the night before, and I wasn't ready.  I took the next couple days to get rid of the Halloween candy, do a bit more shopping, get more bone broth cooking, and get lots of broccoli, cauliflower, and squash chopped and frozen, ready to cook. Last Monday we jumped into the first phase of GAPS intro.

to be continued...