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It has been an interesting weekend. As I mentioned in my post where I shared the recipe for the mango smoothie, I have been having some anxiety over prices rising. I was doing great with not eating fruit and honey [affiliate link] and baked goods, and peanut butter [affiliate link] and other nutrient dense foods for about four days. These foods are healthy, good and legal on GAPS, but I seem to now be stuck firmly in “diet head” mode and would like to see weight loss as reward for my efforts so I have been trying to limit my consumption of them to none.

On Thursday at work the cook served eggplant with lunch. Large chunks, they looked delicious. I love eggplant. I haven’t had any for a while because I haven’t been able to find it on sale at the store for several weeks. I’ve been craving it. I asked the cook hopefully – hoping she would say no, “Does the eggplant have oil in it?” She said, “Yeah, and it has butter, too.” I said, “You mean margarine, right?” She responded, “Oh yeah, margarine.” That meant I couldn’t have any of the eggplant, which I’m sure ended up in the garbage since there was only 2 or 3 cups left.

I left work with hopes of finding some eggplant at a decent price. I decided to try Sprouts, because they usually have great prices on vegetables. They had cauliflower 4 heads for $5. That was better than $1.69 a pound so I got four heads. I didn’t see eggplant at all.

Next I went to Phoenix Ranch Market, a store that caters mainly to those of Hispanic descent, and they usually have fantastic prices on vegetables. I was shocked to see green bell peppers for $1.69 each, zucchini squash for $2.29/pound, celery for $1.99/stalk and lettuce $2.29/head. I was unable to persuade myself to buy any vegetables at those prices. I know that many of my readers only eat organic vegetables and likely pay far more than these prices, but I just can’t afford it. I did find cucumbers four for a dollar, so I bought four of those. I don’t think they had eggplant here either, and when I asked the produce guy he didn’t know what eggplant was (he didn’t speak English).

I started feeling like I’m not going to be able to eat pretty soon, and I was starting to feel a little bit panicky, to tell you the truth. With the prices of vegetables skyrocketing, and the price of gasoline jumping by fifteen cents a day, it is a little nerve wracking.

My husband has been storing some food, but I would say 95% of his inventory are non-legal GAPS foods. I guess in a worse case scenario I would just have to stop doing GAPS, and go back to eating “normal” foods, which I know in turn is going to make me feel horrid. I’ll start to feel higher levels of anxiety, and sink into the pits of depression. I’ll gain weight. My feet will probably start hurting and my back will ache and I won’t be able to sleep. My belly will bloat and I’ll eat until I’m stuffed again with no control over myself. I can’t imagine that I’ll be able to ever go back to eating like I used to.

After those two disappointing stops, I decided to go to Costco, and it really helped. I am sure I was imagining things, but the clientele that shop Ranch Market near 16th Street and Roosevelt (a section of town very close to the projects) vs. Costco in Ahwatukee (upscale neighborhood nestled near South Mountains) are very different, and it seemed to me as if there was a feeling of desperation and concern at Ranch Market. This could have been my own imagination, since that is how I was feeling at the prices. At Costco, there is a feeling of wealth and plenty and lots of baskets filled with large quantities of food stuffs. AND, the prices were the same as they were last week. I bought more onions [affiliate link] ($3.99/10#), 2 5# bags of frozen organic green beans ($5.99/bag), 2 packages of 24 ounces of button mushrooms ($3.99/carton), 6 romaine hearts ($2.99), 5 lovely ripe avocados ($5.99) and frozen cauliflower/broccoli/orange and yellow carrots. I felt much better once I left Costco.

But the anxious feelings over prices rising have continued to plague me. I have been very hungry with cravings for dense calorie items. I made cookies on Valentine’s Day that were very delicious, and I had cookie dough leftover that I froze. So I have been taking the frozen cookie dough, baking 2 or 3 cookies and eating them with peanut butter, honey and butter. I’ve continued to gobble down salami with nitrates, even though I vowed to stop – no wait, I resolved to stop buying it. I guess my brain interpreted that to mean “Go ahead and eat what’s left.”

I feel like I have to eat, eat, eat because soon I won’t be able to eat anything. It will be too expensive. Prices of vegetables are predicted to double and maybe even triple. I hear it is being blamed on the freezing weather ruining crops. Is that why the price of gas is skyrocketing, too?

Or is that because our country is in such trouble financially that we may never recover?

I am defrosting our big freezer today, and getting rid of all the food that is freezer burned. Thankfully the chickens love leftover food, no matter if it’s freezer burned or not. The big freezer has not been defrosted in a very long time and is half filled with ice, literally. My plan is to get it defrosted and get it stocked again.

I hope the prices will only be high for a few months like some are predicting, but I can’t help but think that the prices are rising due to our country’s economic troubles, and it we will continue to see rising prices.

I guess I’m thankful that I’m binging on GAPS legal foods… I could be eating candy bars, Oreo Cakesters (my husband’s current addiction), pasta, fast food and all the things I used to eat when overeating. I could have fallen off the “wagon”, but I haven’t. I guess overeating good healthy foods is better than overeating on SAD foods. And my clothes still fit as they have been, so it’s not like I’ve gained ten pounds over the weekend.

One more thing… my mom bought some Peter Gillham’s Natural Calm Magnesium Powder and she gave me a couple of tablespoons. I took some last night, because I have been having a bit of a problem “going” if you know what I mean. I understand it helps with that. I am also thinking about getting some of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride’s recommended probiotic, Bio-kult Advanced Probiotic Formula. I am doing okay at sticking to the full GAPS foods, but I am slacking on broth and probiotic foods. Just about the only thing I keep around is sauerkraut since I can’t have yogurt or kefir (I’m not doing dairy products).

One thing I would like to see improve for me in the next six months is my mood. I still tend to be somewhat morose. I’m not as depressed as I was before starting GAPS, but I still feel down quite a bit of the time. Like, on a scale of 1 to 20 with 20 being depressed to the point of feeling suicidal and needing medication, I would say I was at a 10 or 11 before GAPS. Now I feel maybe a 3 or 4. I also would like to have more energy.

In a couple of different books I have read that when the gut does not have the proper bacteria to digest food properly, the body expends too much energy on digestion. Basically it takes most of the energy to digest food, leaving little energy for anything else. This is one reason why I think I might look into Bio-kult. I think there is also some digestive enzymes that might be helpful, I just don’t know exactly which ones I would need. But maybe I’ll start with the probiotic.

Anyone out there?

Just a quick post today. I was preparing one for Valentine’s Day, to share the meal I made, but I guess that will have to wait, at least I won’t be getting it finished tonight.

One of my GAPS friends sent me the link to this post where a momma shared several videos of her son who has been diagnosed with autism… videos last year, and one from just a few days ago with just four weeks of GAPS Introduction. Amazing, miraculous, beautiful.

What a gentle little boy, how precious and how wonderful that his parents are helping him heal with the Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet.

SAHMVille: Autism Improvement on Video

GAPS is not an easy path to take, and many parents will not even consider it. This makes me very sad; especially when I see and hear of children being healed with GAPS.

I also found over the weekend that Dr. NCM has a Frequently Asked Questions page on her blog. I believe this is new, at least it is new to me. I do recall hearing on the GAPShelp list some months ago that a list with questions was being gathered to ask Dr. NCM. I see that has happened, and she has answered many questions that people have wondered about.

One question I still wonder about is the baking soda [affiliate link] question. She says to use bicarbonate of soda in this Q&A page, but it is supposed to be illegal. So I wonder if it is still illegal when used in baked goods. Especially if the amount is very minute, like 1/4 teaspoon in a recipe. I’m surprised that question didn’t come up. Hmmmm… maybe it has been addressed in the new updated version of the GAPS book.

Now hop over and meet Sam!

I was going to say “overweight” but I’m not talking about someone who is forever trying to lose ten pounds and thinks they are overweight. You know what I mean by “fat”… I’m talking about someone who could stand to lose sixty or seventy or a hundred pounds.

Anyway, now that I have that explanation out of the way… today I heard something that just made me sad. I was talking with an acquaintance of mine, and she is on that has never been overweight. I would imagine she probably has trouble keeping weight on, partially because she has a job which requires her to be physically active, and she doesn’t eat very much anyway. I would say she’s underweight, if anything. She could even have gut dysbiosis which causes her to undereat.

I was showing her a sweater I bought at Savers that is just so adorable. It cost me $6.99, it’s black, has long sleeves and is most likely machine knit but it has this adorable scalloped edging around the entire sweater, and ends of the sleeves. It is a half sweater, and I just think it looks so cute. I told my friend that I have been enjoying buying clothes lately just because there is such a large selection and I lamented that there just is a lack of pretty clothing for the larger sized woman. At least that was my experience in thrift stores which is where I prefer to shop for clothing.

She said, “Well, maybe it will give them incentive” and she said it in the kindest way, she wasn’t trying to be mean spirited at all. I doubt if she has a mean bone in her entire body.

This is just the way some slender people think. They think it’s easy to stay slender. They do it. Most slender people think they control their weight, when they are simply naturally slender. They don’t understand how difficult it is. They can’t. They have never experienced it.

I read a book one time that really shed some light on the situation, and it did say that people who are naturally slender think they are doing it and they think they have control over themselves. In all reality, it would be impossible for them to gain one hundred pounds and if they could accomplish the feat, it would be very difficult for them to keep the weight on.

I now believe that this is all related to gut dysbiosis. A naturally slender person who is at a healthy weight likely has healthy gut flora.

I say it has been relatively easy to be on GAPS, but it hasn’t been simple. I have had to give up entire food groups to lose weight. And that made it easier to avoid those foods.

I am attempting to stay off fruit again. I ended up making two dozen cupcakes and ate ten of them by myself over two days time. Four of them as soon as they left the oven. They were sheer heaven, I can’t remember tasting anything quite so good in I don’t know how long. Utter delight. At our little party at work, four people chose to eat my cupcakes and cashew nut ice cream instead of the ice cream cake. That was neat.

Today I did manage to not eat any fruit, and also no peanut butter [affiliate link].

Since I pigged out on the cupcakes (made with almond flour [affiliate link], sweetened with honey [affiliate link], and one illegal, no make that two illegal ingredients, baking soda [affiliate link] and cocoa powder [affiliate link]) I have been craving peanut butter, honey and fruit. Today I finally did not eat any peanut butter or fruit. Although I dearly wanted a banana from work. I did bring some home, but I did not eat any.

I still don’t want GAPS to be about losing weight, but I am finding myself wanting to be “successful” and lose more weight. I guess I am also still experimenting to see how this works. I think when I get to a weight that is right for me, I will not have a problem maintaining it, as hopefully I am right in thinking the addition of fruit and nut butters will supply enough extra calories to keep my weight steady. We’ll see when I get to that point.

Well, so those are my thoughts for the day, along with a bit of a daily report. I should also mention that my hands feel wonderful and seem to get stronger and healthier every day. Although my nails now seem brittle, which I feel means I need more calcium, but maybe I just need to step up the chicken broth. I have also been having some elimination issues and I’ve missed a day every few days, which I was thinking today could be partly why I’ve been feeling some depression. I was also feeling anxiety yesterday and took Kava Kava. I was also very tired this past weekend. Just worn out. Okay, enough of that.

I need to get into bed. 4am comes way too early. I was very late for work this morning, got there around 9am and worked until 5pm. Getting to work late, then working late, means I get home late, I get to bed late and increases the chance that I will be late for work the next morning and start the cycle over again.

Good night, and best wishes on your journey.