In spite of the levity of my previous post, I do worry about my husband’s poor diet. I was actually, to tell you the truth, surprised at his honest response to my initial question. I know how difficult it is to be prepared when away from home and as a business owner, he is working many hours trying to keep his business afloat. This can sometimes mean he is away from home 12 to 16 hours a day. And I know how difficult it is to be prepared with that much food for that many hours. It is hard enough for me, and I work at a job that has a kitchen, where I can put my food into a refrigerator until I’m ready to heat it on a real stove (as opposed to no heating option at all, or having to settle for a microwave!).
It is definitely a problem, and I wish I could quit my job, because I think then I would have more time to dedicate to cooking.
The only solution at this time is to cook double meals for every evening meal. Thankfully my husband does not mind eating leftovers. Unfortunately, he is currently limited on some things he can eat, for example, boiled eggs [affiliate link] are a great quick and easy lunch or snack, but he cannot currently tolerate eggs. Eggs are another thing that causes him, as he said in the video, to be on the toilet for quite some time.
I wanted to speak a bit more to my first video, where I said I need to own my own intro. I realized that everyone is going to do intro at their own progression and what works for them. I don’t need to do intro within a certain time frame, or for a certain amount of time.
For example, I’m stuck on stage 4 because I want to work through some of the suggestions that I haven’t done yet.
I did make the squash nut pancakes on stage 3, but it was a pretty big disaster as I made twenty small sized pancakes from the batch and proceeded to stuff six pancakes into my mouth hot from the pan. They were divine.
I notice that compulsive and binge-like eating now only occurs when I eat vegetables that are high in carbs (and also with fruit). Butternut squash causes me to basically go bonkers and eat like a madwoman.
The pancakes were bread-like and I had hoped to make a “hamburger” using two pancakes, but alas, the twenty pancakes lasted three days.
Dr. Natasha says in her book’s instructions on intro, Stage 3 pancakes, to eat one a day to start with… okay, so I just decided to not make any more pancakes since I can’t stop with just one. It’s as if I literally, physically cannot. I don’t like that compulsive binge-like behavior.
Stage 4 says roasted and grilled meats, but not barbecued or fried. I know what fried is, but what is the difference between grilled and barbecued? I have baked some of my food, and I admit to eating a fried hamburger. UPDATE (the next day): I have done some research on the great Internets and it appears that grilling is to quickly sear meat at high temperatures. This means the lovely ribeye steak that I had for dinner on Saturday night, and failed to tell you about, was okay for Step 4. It seems that barbecuing is to cook foods for very long periods of time, and possibly with a concoction poured onto the meat, like barbecue sauce. I found several sites, but this resource seemed to explain it best: Are You Grilling Or Is It a BBQ?
I also need to juice carrots… I have organic carrots from Costco, but my juicer is subpar and I have not yet brought it out from where it is currently buried under the sink.
I haven’t done olive oil drizzled on my foods.
And, I haven’t done any baking with almond flour [affiliate link], since it seems anything breadlike I cannot control myself to eat just a small amount.
I suppose I could make one tiny loaf, slice it and freeze it immediately to avoid temptation.
I also am not sure if it’s okay to juice several carrots and then use the juice over several days. This juicer of mine is a bear to clean, and I don’t have that much time every day. This is why intro took me so long to get through the first time, because I lose three days a week when I have to leave my house and go to work.
This week though, I do have tomorrow and Tuesday off, and I will be working from home on Wednesday. So I think what I will do is set little goals for myself, and try to meet.
Monday I will juice some carrots, enough for a few days. I will also make another batch of squash nut pancakes, but this time I will eat only one, and freeze the rest for subsequent days.
Tuesday I will begin to use olive oil.
Wednesday I will bake one small loaf of almond bread, and slice it and freeze it in individual portions.
On the weekend, I will see how I did, and try to create another plan to move forward to Stage 5.
In the meantime, I will continue to have daily broth and soups. I have a pot of chicken stock going right now, I ran out yesterday and had no broth at all yesterday! Sacrilege!
Partly what happened is there was a discussion on the GAPShelp list about “burned” broth and “rancid” fat from cooking stock too long. Apparently I overcooked my last batch, so that got me all confused. When I get confused, I tend to do nothing.
I have been mostly eating meats and vegetables.
If you got to see my vlogs from Saturday, excuse me, Friday, you will see how cheerful I seemed with my husband. He makes me laugh and I love him for that. I noticed starting that day, how much happier I am feeling lately.
I haven’t yet determined exactly why. I want to say because of doing intro, which equates, at least at this stage to no fruit and not so many high carb vegetables.
Or, is it because I’m getting to take a few days off from work, and don’t feel that horrible pressure that I usually feel every single weekend where I feel I must spend every minute working to catch up. I do admit I am beginning to feel a little bit nervous, for even though I have Monday and Tuesday off, I have spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday taking it easy. Putting together the vlog with my husband was very enjoyable and gave me much pleasure. And with my son’s help, I learned a bit about video editing, which is a great tool to have under my belt. I need to work on our income taxes, I filed an extension, but I have no intention of waiting until October to file at the last second. My husband has several customers he needs to bill and we need to work together on that. And I have some accounting work I must do for a bookkeeping client that I have. Quarterly reports are due at the end of this month, so I must do those to take in to the couple that owns the business as the wife had a stroke not too long ago and is not cleared yet to drive, and the husband is legally blind and cannot drive.
I sometimes wish I could just drop everything, and, or maybe quit my job. I have to continue with both at this time, unfortunately.
I also can’t believe I passed my 500th day on GAPS without some kind of celebration, or at least a mention here at the blog.
I guess in closing, I just want to say I feel well and healthy. And it seems like I feel happier. It feels like I was starting to feel some depression before starting on intro again. And I do think it was having too many carbs. I want to point out that GAPS is not a low carb diet. Not at all. But some people find they do better on a lower carb version. Please see this post of Baden’s: GAPS and Carbs where she explains that GAPS is based on the Specific Carbohydate Diet, which selects “specific” carbohydrates to be used for the diet, rather than being low carbohydrate.
Okay, so I guess that’s it for today.
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