Today is day 401 of being on GAPS.
I lost momentum for blogging a bit due to the holidays, but I did step on the scale on the 1st as I usually do. My weight on December 1st was 181.2#. My weight on January 1st: 177#.
My weight loss in December, in spite of eating fruit and baked goods (using almond flour [affiliate link]) was 4.2#. I have now officially lost 54.6# pounds.
I believe the main reason for my weight loss is because I can now eat three meals a day comfortably (I lost more weight DURING the holidays than in the last couple of months put together!). Before starting GAPS, I could not go for more than 3-4 hours max without eating because I would get so hungry I would feel as if I were starving and I would get shaky and short tempered.
It is so wonderful that my body is functioning more properly. I am starting to think there is no reason to eat 5-6 small meals a day. If your body is functioning properly, then I think you should be able to go for longer times without eating.
However, if you cannot go longer than 2-3 hours, then you should not stress out your body trying to wait longer. That only makes it harder on your body.
I think a big factor is that GAPS is a low carbohydrate way of eating. I do have carbohydrates, just not as many as are available when one eats bread/grains/rice/pasta/potatoes.
Now to my title… I decided in December that I was going to do the Introduction part of GAPS again. One of the main reasons was because my hands were bothering me so much.
I was taking a large amount of Vitamin C, a pharmaceutical grade powder, which stated on the label that is contained no corn – hold on, let me just get the bottle so I can quote it:
We use only 100% pure pharmaceutical grade L-ascorbic acid USP-FCC (C6 H8 O6), which contains no corn residue, plant antigens, or protein impurities. Individuals allergic to corn or yeast can use this produce with confidence.
A couple of my readers told me this product was derived from corn, that all ascorbic acid is derived from corn nowadays and she had a very difficult time, actually I believe she said she had been unable to find a source for Vitamin C that was not derived from corn.
I don’t even know if I have a sensitivity to corn.
I had worked my way up to 10,000mg daily, because the book I have on adrenal fatigue says the adrenals cannot heal without massive doses of Vitamin C. The book said to keep taking more each day until reaching bowel tolerance, then drop down by 500mg and stay there. I do not know how long… I assumed eventually my body wouldn’t need so much and the bowel tolerance thing would happen.
It was kind of difficult to maintain that much Vitamin C. I could not drink that amount in water, as it was far too acidic. I worried about the enamel on my teeth and also it sometimes burned my stomach. So I bought gelatin [affiliate link] capsules and a capsule filler so that I could make up the capsules to swallow. I was always running out of my stash of Vitamin C so I would have to take a few hours every few weeks and load a bottle’s worth.
Anyway… for all that rambling, I knew that if I was going to do Intro, I wanted to be off as many supplements as possible. I do not know if I can go off the Glucosamine Chondroitin with MSM, so I am allowing that one, but I knew I didn’t want to be on that much Vitamin C, so I started backing down slowly.
Interestingly… as the days passed, my hands were bothering me less and less. I would not say they are perfectly healed, but they are much much better.
My main reason for doing Intro is because I read online that arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome are both caused by inflammation and that can often be food related. There are some books with dietary recommendations, but then I thought why not just do Introduction to see if I could get the pain to stop and then slowly introduce foods again and see if I can pinpoint what might be causing my pain.
It seems as if the Vitamin C was a big culprit… or… maybe the Glucosamine Chondroitin is finally taking full effect? I did read that it would take months of use before relief was found. I do think that is because people’s digestion is off so much that they aren’t getting the full benefit of the supplement because I found relief very early on.
I was up to eight capsules daily of the Glucosamine Chondrotin and have now backed down to six (three capsules 2x daily).
I’ll try to wrap this post up shortly but I wanted to say something about being on Introduction again.
It is a little bit of a mind drain because I have to keep remembering that I can’t have raw vegetables. I reached for raw celery today and remembered I couldn’t have it. I saw a banana and thought about that. And there is a very ripe pineapple that I bought on sale for only 88 cents and it really needs to be eaten.
I’m not sure how long I’m going to do stage 1 of intro. Oh, and I am also not foregoing butter. I already know I can tolerate it so I am not going to worry about it.
I’m thinking about doing the stages a bit slowly like I did last year. Maybe stretch Intro out for the duration of this month.
So how are you doing on GAPS?
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