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Shhhhh. It’s the middle of the night. No wait, it’s 4:10am; I usually get up to get to work at that time! But I wasn’t planning to get up until 7:30 this morning, so I’m going to say it’s the middle of the night.

I had a couple of things to say. First, when I woke up I felt hungry. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I simply cannot sleep. It is so aggravating. If it is a night where I don’t have to go to work the next day I might get up instead of just lying there, trying to sleep. And almost always, in about two hours, finally, my stomach demands food, and the hunger is quite strong.

I think that is because my blood sugar dropped and then there is some weird confusion in my body – because if I’m hungry, I should feel hunger. Also, I think I should feel some signs of being hungry, prior to being voraciously and “stomach hurting” hunger pangs all of a sudden. But I don’t. In fact, food doesn’t even seem appetizing, and the thought of putting food in my mouth is the last thing I want to do.

So, getting up to pee, and realizing I am hungry, is different. I have been getting rather low carbohydrates for these days while on intro I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I still have my big pot of soup and bones on the stove, on very low heat. There is no room in the fridge for this big pot and too much soup to try and cool it down without heating everything else in the fridge. I am curious to see how much/if it will gel for me. I definitely need to make a pot of soup for dinner and get my family to help me eat some of it.

I had a nice bowl of boiled chicken and some boiled carrots and onions [affiliate link] so I dropped some of that into another bowl and ladled on some hot broth. Mmmmm. Yummy goodness.

As I sat down at my desk, I had a stomach pain and some cramping. Not sure what that was about because it stopped as soon as it started, and I don’t typically get stomach cramps.

I am sitting at my desk and the ceiling fan is on overhead and causing the most delightful breeze which is soothing since I am now having a hot flash.

Last night I had a second bm, this is unusual for me to have more than one per day. I have had lemon juice in water a couple of times during the day, simply because it seemed like something special to have and a few minutes ago on the GAPShelp list I read that one lady says she knows of some elderly friends who make a habit of drinking lemon juice in water to help with regular bms. Hmmm.

Oh, my hubby found me two fish heads last night at the grocery store!

Unfortunately they are farm raised, but from the US. He didn’t think to check while at the store. I am going to use them to make some fish stock later today.

I have never made fish stock with fish heads! I wish we had someplace to go fishing, and I wished I were a fisherman! Only went a couple times as a youngster. My mom knew how to fish and kids can fish without a license, or at least they could when I was a kid. Not sure about nowadays.

Two years ago I would have gagged at the thought of touching or having a fish head anywhere near me. Now I’m planning to cook two of them.

Wow. How’s that for a constant stream of consciousness?

I had better get back into bed. See you tomorrow.

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

I decided since I had a few little mistakes that I would go back and start Intro over, but this time only do the first three stages in three days time. I plan to be on Stage 4 on Monday.

So today is my first day of starting intro again. I started a big pot of soup last night, starting out with two frozen chickens, cooking it super slowly all night long. I removed the meat around noon today and put all the skin and soft bits and bones back in to cook for a while longer.

I decided to make a concerted effort to take it easy today. I am usually going, going, going, going. And especially this being the weekend that income taxes should be complete, I would be stressing out about that. However, I already have decided to file an extension, and I already have an idea of our total tax liability and also what we have paid in for 2010, so I have an idea of what we might owe once everything is complete. So there was really no need to be stressing out about that, so I decided to purposely not worry about it.

Last night was a late night. I got home late after doing some grocery shopping, and  finally around midnight was going to bed, but I decided to go ahead and take a detox bath with a cup of apple cider vinegar. I seem to be fairly well acclimated to taking 30 minute detox baths without really paying attention to the time. I start the tub with hot water, put in the detox additive (Epsom salts, baking soda [affiliate link] or apple cider vinegar) and then once a couple of inches is in the tub I get in with my towel at the side of the tub, and the book I plan to read or my Kindle in its water protective case. I put my hands in the hot water as it is pouring from the faucet, that is so soothing to me. As the water grows warm, I turn the cold water down less and less until only the hot water is running. This means my hot water heater is nearing the end of its supply of hot water, and that’s just about a nice tubful of hot water for me. After that time, I get my book and lie back in the water. Ahhhhhh…. so soothing.

I slept until around 8am and my husband didn’t have to leave before daybreak as he usually does, so we spent some time together catching up from the last few days. That was nice. I decided when I got up, and still felt tired, that I would take another detox bath, and then maybe go back to bed and nap. After my bath, my husband reminded me he had a couple of checks he really needed to get to the bank so I did the deposit slip for him. For breakfast I had some of the chicken (I picked out some dark meat) with broth.

My son had planned to watch a movie called Office Space and agreed to stream it on the living room television using his laptop, so we watched that movie together. There were a few funny parts where we laughed, but we both agreed it was a waste of our time. I hate when that happens.

For lunch I had zucchini squash sliced and cooked in chicken broth, with chicken hearts. After that I felt tired and decided to lie down and nap for as long as I wanted. Usually my naps don’t last longer than two hours, but sometimes I will wake up at two hours and fall asleep for another hour.

After I slept, I laid there trying to get my head straight that I was not to feel guilty or stressed for not having gotten anything “done” for the day. Taking care of me is getting something done.

Dinner will be chicken soup. I haven’t found beef bones… although I do have a source through our coop I have to buy at least 1/4 beef at a time, and have been unable to come up with the funds to do that.

My husband bought me some beets a few days ago, with beautiful green leaves. I am thinking about making some beet soup. I love beets.

Also, I decided to see if I could forego butter for this little redux stint with intro. So far today, so good.

Baden talked about what she’s seeing for herself and this round of intro in Day 5: Hanging out and ACV. One of the things she said, “Zero cravings”. That is one thing I had hoped to reset for myself is the desire for something sweet, which I think is why I have stopped seeing any significant weight loss in the last few months. I’ve been having little “snacks” throughout the day when I’m home for the day. One of my favorites is a spoonful of nut butter, sometimes with a dab of butter and honey [affiliate link], sometimes with some cocoa powder [affiliate link]. It’s yummy, like eating frosting. And legal!

I’m thinking about going through the Stages of intro but maybe staying away from the high carb vegetables and fruit. I would like to get through intro to the point where I can have salad.

I am really pleased that I am having a bm every day, as it is common for someone new to intro to start experiencing constipation. Sometimes people who have been doing full GAPS will experience constipation once going on intro, which of course constipation means gut dysbiosis, the gut bacteria are not there or working properly to form and move the stool. Most people in the United States are highly dependent on fiber to form and move the stool.

I have learned that I need to be highly aware of the need to go, as I don’t really get an “urge” to go, at least not like the loud urge one feels with large fiber laden stools. In the last couple of months it has been a bit of a challenge staying regular, as my stools seemed smaller than normal. But now, doing intro, I seem to have more stool but intro has less fiber than full GAPS. Does this mean my body likes being on intro better than full GAPS? Is the bacteria working better? Is it the avocado making my stool larger? I understand avocadoes are high in fiber (really?).

My husband brought in the three eggs [affiliate link] our hens laid, so I have three eggs for stage 2 tomorrow. I hope those girls get busy and start laying more eggs soon! We just bought a new batch of layers a few months ago, they should be about four months old now and should start laying soon. Hopefully by Easter as I have had a request for “Easter” eggs. We have Americauna hens which lay green shelled eggs.

I am feeling tired. I wish dinner was already cooked. I would love to take one more detox bath and go to bed. Maybe I had better figure out how I can make that happen.

Good night.

 

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

Okay, this will be a quick update. Nothing spectacular to report. I did feel better today, what a difference getting just seven hours of sleep does for me. Amazing. Today is my Friday and so I can sleep late tomorrow or take naps.

I actually just got home from work about half an hour ago. I did some grocery shopping and the yogurt starter I ordered on Monday arrived today. I am excited to try making coconut yogurt. Long day today… left home about 5:15am, and got home at 8:30pm.

I am planning to start two chickens in a big pot to cook slowly overnight so I’ll have plenty of broth to make soups with tomorrow and on the weekend.

I am pretty sure I am going to restart intro, but just do one day for Stage 1, 2 and 3, then maybe move right to Stage 4. One niggling problem… my oldest son’s birthday is on Saturday… maybe I can get by with having him hold off a week… or, I’ll just have to avoid any special dishes I might make.

Our hens are not laying many eggs [affiliate link], so it is hard to keep up with my egg consumption! And I keep running out of avocados.

Today, one of my coworkers brought me in two pairs of pants, no wait, three pairs. One pair which was 10 Misses, didn’t fit. The other two fit like they were made for me.

They are size 8. But they are stretch jeans! So not a “true” 8. One of the brands is Gloria Vanderbuilt. Anyway, they just make me look so cute. I can’t wait until my hubby gets home so I can model them for him. 🙂

Well, I had better get something cooking for dinner.

Quick run down of my food for the day:

Breakfast at home about 5am: About 1 cup of soup (vegetables were broccoli and cauliflower, onions [affiliate link] and mushrooms, leftover from last night)

Mid morning snack: About 1 cup of the same soup with a few bites of boiled chicken thigh (I actually ate some of the fat from the thigh! Oh! I am getting soooo brave!

Lunch: More of the same soup, the remainder of the chicken thigh and a second chicken thigh

Snack after getting off work before grocery shopping: 1 avocado

I’m not sure what dinner will be yet.

Last night my detox bath was baking soda [affiliate link], since I ran out of Epsom salts (I have some, but they are outside in our shell camper where we store a few things). I was thinking about doing an Apple Cider Vinegar detox bath tonight.

I bought some more fish tonight to make some kind of soup this weekend. This time I found some wild caught fillets. Yay, me! Still looking for wild caught whole fish. My husband bought me some more organic chicken. Yay, hubby!

Boy, these update posts are choppy… it is mostly because I’m in a hurry because I’m hungry and tired and need to eat (ate that avocado at about 3:30!!) and get in my detox bath and get to bed! I think I will try to watch a movie this weekend for relaxation.

Are you doing intro? How is it going for you, if you are?

 

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

This is going to be quick.

I was still bummed out today, but I started to feel better toward the end of the day.

I had hoped to leave work right on time, but had to work half an hour later than I’d planned, and then I had to pick up some items we had processed at a printshop. I got home right around 5:20.

I had to wash two sinkloads of dishes. Did I ever mention I need a maid? LOL.

Anyway, I started some pork chops in the oven for my husband and son, and am going to toss them a salad.

For me I pulled out all the chicken stock I could find in the freezer and put it into a big pot to make some soup. Found four chicken thighs, put those in the pot along with a red onion, some broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms. I think that’s all legal!! I ran out and gave my garden some water, just enough to tide it over until tomorrow or Friday. I’ve got Swiss chard, collard greens, two lettuce, and three new baby squash plants out there. The gopher is methodically eating everything one by one. He’s already eaten all but two of the lettuce. I hate the gopher.

And now I have to run, but I wanted to thank everyone who is reading along with me and Baden and the others who are blogging about intro in April (Baden links to each one individually on that post).

Tomorrow is my Friday, so thank goodness for that. Now if I can just get to bed by 8:30 I think I’ll feel better tomorrow. I wish I was getting into bed at 7pm, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, or should I say, that’s how the soup boils.

Hugs to all,

Starlene

 

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

Warning:  Apparently one of my die-off symptoms is crankiness.

Today has been somewhat of a disaster with regards to intro. I’m still on intro, but doing poorly at it. I’m debating telling y’all the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or should I gloss over the epic fails or just omit them altogether?

Alrighty, honesty it is.

I realized one day, I don’t remember which one, and I don’t have time to go back through my emails to see when, but it was one day since I started intro that Dr. Natasha explicitly says to omit cabbage and celery from intro soups, at least stage one.

Well, in my meat stock there is celery blended into liquid.

And in my first pot of soup I made on Friday, I put more celery and cabbage. Last night I thought what the heck, cabbage is going into this pot, too.

I worked for about fifteen hours yesterday and finally got into bed around 10pm. No detox bath for me. No time.

I got up late this morning, rolled out of bed about 4:25am, went through the kitchen to the porch to retrieve my clothes that I put in the dryer last night, and noticed to my dismay that my soup I’d made the night before never got put in the fridge. You see, as the only woman in this household, there is only one person who knows how to put food away after everyone has eaten. Yes, you guessed it. That would be me.

I felt the pan… it was burning hot when I went to bed. I guess I thought maybe my husband, who got home after I went to bed would notice my soup on the stove and put it away. No. Why would I think that?

Anyway… so it sat out about six hours and it still felt lukewarm. Great. Great for bacteria to breed. Especially since this batch of soup was made with three day old stock. Just great. Lovely in fact! We have lost 8 quarts of chicken stock on two occasions for not cooling it soon enough, so I was really worried that it would go bad if I just set the whole pot into the fridge to cool.

I thought the best thing to do would be to hurry up and get it all into the freezer. I kept out enough to bring to work for lunch. I put that bowl into the freezer too, to get it chilling.

Notice I have really big dark circles under my eyes. That’s not normal for me. Either I’m just too tired, or it’s die off.

I scrambled myself three eggs [affiliate link] for breakfast. I sprinkled on some of my homemade jalapeno pepper powder. Whoops, that’s a spice. There I go again, failing. All right, no time to make more eggs, just eat them.

I get to work late, of course. That’s what happens when I get up half an hour late. I reset my alarm for 3:30am. Maybe I’ll be able to get up on time tomorrow morning.

I was hungry not too long after I got to work, but too busy to stop and eat. Thankfully I can do that now, without suffering the consequences of my blood sugar crashing. Finally at 11:45 I tell myself I need to go heat up my soup. My soup that has cabbage in it. And no meat. Just veggies. I guess I didn’t prepare well enough.

An hour later I’m hungry again. Too bad. No time to eat the remainder of my leftover soup. I leave on time, instead of working an hour late to make up for being an hour late.

I had to go to pick up the bookwork for the elderly couple whose books I keep. The wife had a stroke a couple of months ago, and is now housebound. Her husband is legally blind and she was the one that drove them everywhere. So now she is bored and depressed and lonely. I couldn’t just run in and grab their bookwork and leave. I visit for just over an hour.

Finally, I’m on my way home.

Realize I started some homemade salami (experimental recipe) marinating yesterday which needs to be baked for four hours today… call home to see if my son, whose first job was as a cook, could put the meat in the oven. No, it’s too complicated.

Okay. That’s okay. I’ll just start it when I get home.

Get home.

The kitchen looks like a small explosion hit.

Put the homemade salami meat (now dawning on me I cannot have it yet, not even sure how many days, which stage can I have baked meat?) in the oven at 225°F.

Realize that won’t work since I had planned to cook husband and older son baked chicken thighs. Yes, one of the things I cannot eat and love very dearly… crispy chicken thigh skin. Okay. I can do this. Remove the salami to the toaster oven, slide the thighs into the oven to bake.

Take the package of skinless thighs and place in an inch of clear broth with an onion. That will be my dinner, once I add in a couple more vegetables.

Really want a detox bath. It’s already 7:05pm. Really need to just go to bed.

Can’t go to bed. Dinner isn’t ready. Hungry. Very hungry.

Grumpy. Cranky.

Feel about two years old.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better. Can’t see how!No food cooked to eat!Everything frozen! FAIL.Epic FAIL.

Okay, maybe the boiled thighs will suffice for tonight and tomorrow. Think “I better the heck lose some weight for all this hard work.” Wish I had time to show you my two shadow photos. Gotta get off this computer.

Good night.

P.S. I’m probably actually still on Stage 2 since I gave my last avocado to my husband last night, and have had no avocado today. Just soup and eggs. Oh, and dinner was a couple of boiled chicken thighs with onions [affiliate link] and mushrooms. And now I’m going to bed. 8:12pm.

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

Well, it looks like I’ll be combining two days with this daily report… last night I sat down to make this entry, but suddenly our power went out.

And it stayed out for two hours.

I was right in the middle of making dinner… for my husband and sons I was baking hamburger patties. New experiment… wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I usually fry hamburgers but only four fit at once in my skillet so I thought I’d see how baking would work. I usually make enough burgers for dinner, plus more for my husband’s lunch the next day.

For myself I was simmering a bell pepper, an onion (both sliced) in clear broth, and I’d intended to add in some ground beef once they were done. The power going out effectively shot that idea down.

Earlier in the day I’d had soup; the leftover vegetable soup I’d made on Friday and the new soup I concocted, the Cod Fish and Mushroom Soup both with a raw egg yolk stirred in. I also had a small glass beet kvass and some sauerkraut juice. I was ready for something different, hence the veggies and hamburger.

When the power went out, I went to check the vegetables, thankfully they were done. But I was starving, and I was hungry for meat, so I checked on the hamburgers. They were floating in their own juices and I checked to see if they were done. The edges were, and I was so hungry, so I ate baked burgers. No brown bits, and the middle was slightly pink, but they were so delicious to my hungry stomach. I think they were probably okay, although technically they should have been boiled in broth, not baked in the oven.

The only die-off symptoms seem to be that I’m feeling more tired than normal, and having more frequent urination. Other than that I think I’m doing pretty good. I haven’t even been feeling too hungry… until I had to wait longer for dinner than I’d anticipated. Typically when a person starts on intro they are voraciously hungry. This is usually caused when they are coming to intro from a diet high in fiber. The stomach is accustomed to being filled with carbohydrates and fiber and there is often bloating. But since I’ve been on GAPS for sixteen months now my stomach is at a normal size rather than being stretched out of shape.

Which reminds me, I was thinking yesterday how peculiar it is that people actually go out of their way to eat carbohydrates and starch in order to “fill up” their stomach. People do it to infants who are much too young to be eating baby cereal. They think because the breast fed baby is hungry more often, that there is need for starches to fill the child up. Not necessary. And in fact fills the child with food that is not as nutritious as breastmilk.

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Yesterday I was very stressed out… taxes are due this year on the 18th of April, and I had already planned to file an extension, but I needed to at least have an idea as to whether the  estimated payments we made last year were enough, or did we owe more? It was very harrowing, especially since I have not closed last year’s books on three of our self-owned businesses. I was at my computer for hours on Saturday and yesterday nearly the entire day. I finally got to the point where it looks like we only owe another $30, that is my best estimation for now without having all the data in Quickbooks. I’m trying hard to stay up with everything this year so that tax time won’t be such a bear next year. One major thing happened last year which wreaked all kinds of havoc… in July, my son did a backup clone of my hard drive, but unfortunately he accidentally reversed the direction of the clone, and ended up rewriting my current drive with the backup from three months earlier. I just about died when I realized that had happened. I had to recreate a lot of data, thankfully I had emergency backups from six weeks earlier, so I didn’t lose an entire three months, but it was bad enough.

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Today I had more of my leftover soup made on Friday, this time with egg yolk and an avocado. For lunch I had a redo of last night’s failed attempt: clear broth, bell pepper, onion and hamburger. It was yummy. I shared with my oldest son, and he ended up eating the last of my Friday leftover soup along with his hamburger soup.

I’m tired again. I do not have time to take a nap. I would dearly love to take a nice long luxurious detox bath and crawl into bed, but I have to work tomorrow. If I nap now, I will not be able to get to sleep early enough to get up in time to get to work at 6am. Not to mention that I need to make another batch of soup (I already have clear broth and meat stock with the soft bits blended in prepared) and dinner for my husband and son.

I am not sure if I will stay on remain on Stage 3 tomorrow, or if I will move on to Stage 4.

All is well in the bm department. I don’t really feel the “urge” to go any longer, due to having a much smaller stool, I just have to be aware that it might be time to go. As long as I stay in tune, no problems with constipation. Thank you, Konstantine Monastyrsky for authoring Fiber Menace, for I would not have known this had it not been for reading your very informative website and book.

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True confession: I debated sharing this with you, as I would love for you to think I’m perfect, but then I thought… I am not perfect… I make mistakes and I fail sometimes. So here you go… at one point yesterday I totally failed on intro… my younger son had cooked some “bad” bacon (not nitrate free) and had it stashed in the door of the fridge. I was stressed out from doing our taxes, and wanted something quick to eat. I ended up eating two pieces of bacon.

I decided not to beat myself up over it.

I was proud of myself for stopping there.

I have been wishing to have peanut butter [affiliate link], but I have avoided the urge to grab a jar of it with a spoon and just start shoveling it into my mouth.

I’ve also wished for salad.

And fruit. And my younger son baked chocolate chip cookies! They smelled wonderful. But I know that I can make a GAPS legal version of cookies, just not right now.

So two pieces of illegal bacon was pretty darned good.

I feel guilty for eating bacon. I’m not someone to emulate. Point to me and think, “I don’t want to be like her!”  🙂

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Okay, enough of that.

Today is a new day, and I have succeeded today.

 

 

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.