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Today and yesterday I succumbed to my desire for something sweet and mixed together 2 teaspoons of almond butter [affiliate link], 1 teaspoon ghee, 1 teaspoon of honey [affiliate link], 2 drops of vanilla [affiliate link] and a small handful of walnuts [affiliate link].

It was very much like having candy. I think it would be delicious chilled, but I had it at room temperature. I have also had the same without the honey, but with a sprinkle of sea salt [affiliate link].

My hubby is not feeling well. He isn’t sure what is wrong, but he has a tickle in his throat. I am feeling tired myself, but it could be the honey! Our Internet connection has been horrible for the past few days. Our ISP has trouble with the main tower and is using the backup so it is intermittent and slow.

We are also on heavy water conservation as our community well’s pump is broken and they are replacing it. We discovered that on Friday when we had only 800 gallons of water in our underground tank. I watered the garden lightly, I hope everything will be okay until we can get filled up with water again. We only used about 200 gallons of water in the last couple of days. It is supposed to be fixed by tomorrow. We are already very careful with water since we have to haul our own, but now I am being even more careful like turning the water on in the shower and standing there waiting for it to warm up and get in, instead of brushing my teeth while it runs to warm. I should always stand there and wait for it to warm and get in immediately but I confess that I don’t. Also, no detox baths, and the garden doesn’t get any heavy watering. Dishes are washed with as little water as possible. It is a good reminder to be careful about our water usage.

I started beet kvass yesterday and today it has tiny bubbles at the top. I did not use whey, only salt and I used a couple of tablespoons of sauerkraut juice to help it get started. I actually used Celtic sea salt. I did not use our well water, but used water bought from the store specifically to make it. I tasted it and I already like the taste of it. I can’t really describe the taste, it is different. It is nothing like beets.

My coop order arrives on Wednesday, I am so excited to get my cabbage! I have not been using organic but the coop had it for $0.87 a pound and I had to buy six heads, but I went for it. I can usually get it $0.49 a pound at the store on sale, or $0.59 pound not on sale, although not organic.

I’m going to make four heads into sauerkraut and am going to try cabbage rejuvelac for the first time.

I also orderedBlue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil Cinnamon Tingle. I am dreading trying it, but I think it will help my health. I also need to get more serious about liver. I think I felt a lot better a couple of weeks ago when I was having it every day (for two days, hah). I read somewhere recently that we only need to have like an ounce each day? Also that liver has lots of B vitamins. I think I need to try the raw liver pills that people do which is basically just cut the liver into 1/4″ cubes and swallow whole.

Well, I should get to bed. 3:30 gets here very early.

Starlene

Thursday brought a few stressful situations where I think usually I’d feel a lot of anxiety and like I couldn’t handle what was happening.

I had to ask my boss about how to list a series of journal entries. Usually I am really stressed out just at the thought of having to talk to her. I know she gets loud and acts gruff partly because she doesn’t really know why things have to be done a certain way. I think she thinks by sheer loudness she can get the point across to me. Usually this stresses me out to no end. But on Thursday I was not affected by it at all.

Then my husband called me to tell me he was having car trouble and was stuck in the small town near where we live, with no way to get home. I asked him if he wanted me to come pick him up and I went and told my boss I had to leave for a couple hours (45 drive to where he was). Normally I would feel my stress level rise quite a bit at the prospect of the vehicle breaking down, having to leave work, and on and on.

But I handled it all very well. I attribute this calmness to GAPS.

I didn’t sleep well last night. That is because we are rearranging the bedding in our home. My youngest is going to try sleeping on a twin bed, instead of clogging up his room with a full size bed. My husband and I have a queen bed in our room and a twin. This is so our DOG could sleep on the twin bed, but he always slept on the queen with me, so my husband was sleeping on the twin. Well, pooch hurt his leg so he doesn’t want to climb up onto the bed and he’s been sleeping on the floor. So we thought in order to make more room in our room, we would remove the twin bed and sleep together in the queen bed.

My box spring is directly on the floor and I have two queen mattresses one on top of the other. They tend to slide around so my hubby spent the night feeling like he was going to roll off the bed since the mattress had shifted. So tonight before he retired for the night we got the mattress in place correctly. Since he felt like he was about to roll off the bed, he slept near the middle, which left me about twelve inches to sleep on and I wasn’t very comfortable. So neither of us got a good night’s sleep.

I talked with our accountant today and that was kind of stressful, but I was okay and didn’t have to take Kava-Kava like I usually do.

I had green beans for breakfast, I cannot recall lunch. For dinner I made carne asade burritos, although I did not have tortillas with mine. In fact, I ate my carne asade raw. I was cutting it into little squares to saute in lard and I love raw meat beef. It has been frozen for three months, but it was not grass fed. I hope I don’t end up with e-coli! I rendered some of the fat from the meat, and cooked the beef cubes in the rendered fat.

I also had avocado mashed. I made my husband burritos with the cooked carne asade meat, with avocado and a mixture of cilantro, tomato and onion.

My son found he’d brought home some celtic salt, so I got to try it last night. It is the exact brand I ordered in my Azure Standard order. It is delicious.

Did I tell you I ordered six heads of organic cabbage? I’m going to make several cabbage foods next weekend:  Cortido, Sauerkraut, and I’m going to try rejuvelac also. Everyone keeps saying how delicious it is, so I am anxious to see for myself.

Yesterday when I found that my son had found the TRIX (it was discounted to 50% off – I don’t know what he was thinking!) that my husband brought home, I felt anxious and responded by eating a banana. So I had no fruit for two days in a row. Fruit yesterday, but none so far today.

I am really wishing I could have a banana, or a coconut smoothie, or something sweet tonight. My almond flour [affiliate link] arrived yesterday. I wish I could make some cupcakes tonight. But I think I am going to hang on and try to stay off the sweeter legal foods.

Last week at work, I realized that my mind was clear. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, thinking it was just a one or two day thing, or just my imagination. But for days now I have felt like my mind is clear. I am able to concentrate, I’m not fumbling for words when I talk, I am actually catching up on tasks at work and home that I’ve been falling behind on.

My boss even made a comment to me about how I need to stop being so efficient!

I slept 10 hours last night. It has been hard to get up in the morning each day this past week. We switched milking from afternoon to morning, which means on my work days I have to now get up at 3:30 and get right out and milk. I seem to be able to tolerate getting up at 4:15, but 3:30 is just danged hard. Last night I felt so exhausted so I was in bed by 7:30. Asleep by 8, for sure and slept through the night (got up 2-3 times to pee) and finally got up at 6:15. The times I got up, I was only up for a few minutes and went right back to sleep. I have been sleeping very well in the last week.

I am happy to report I have finally been able to get off fruit. I guess I just needed to give myself persimmons, excuse me I mean permission to have fruit if I wanted it, and that made it easier for me to avoid it. Today will be the third day without fruit. I told myself that I just want to make it through one day at a time without fruit. That is my goal, and hopefully I can stretch several days together.

I feel that I need to cut down on fruit, nuts, nut butter and almond flour [affiliate link] in order to make more progress with weight loss. Remember I never wanted this diet to be about losing weight. So I am in direct conflict with myself. I want to lose weight, but I don’t want this to be “I’m on this diet TO LOSE WEIGHT.” If that makes sense.

I guess if I’m just on GAPS to lose weight, that makes me vain. My connotation of vain equates to my being just an airhead and all I care about is what my body looks like.

GAPS is much more than that to me. I think weight loss is a sign that my body is recovering. I no longer experience bloating, my ankles and fingers have not been swollen since beginning GAPS. I did not have bloating and swelling constantly before GAPS, but it would come occasionally. Sometimes my ankles would be really swollen, hugely swollen. Like I had sprained my ankle. It used to worry me quite a bit, so it is a relief that I no longer have this symptom to worry about.

This latest sign of healing – mental clarity – is a fantastic reward for doing GAPS. It makes the deprivation worthwhile.

Some days I just feel a little sad about the loss of “normal” food. For example, my hubby and I went to Costco yesterday afternoon. Of all the things in that store, there are so many that I cannot have. I ended up getting one five pound bag of organic green beans. Pre-GAPS, I might have splurged on a piece of pizza at their food area, or maybe even one of the low fat yogurt sundaes with strawberries.

Not one thing in their food court is legal for me on GAPS. Not one thing. I received a birthday meal coupon for Black Angus, and I can eat steak, thank goodness I’m not trying to limit my meat to grass fed organic, or I wouldn’t even have that option. But what else? A plain salad with olive oil and I’d have to bring my own apple cider vinegar. What fun is that?

I truly am one of those people who lived to eat, instead of the other way around, eating to live.

I am not going to church camp this year, one of the reasons being, What will I eat? I cannot eat from the camp cafeteria. Last year my son and I went together and we chose to go to restaurants in the area. Well, I can’t do that this year. I am scheduled to attend a conference for work this year. In past years, the lunches have been grand and delicious, and they always have one night where they feed us like kings. What will I do this year? Bring my jar of sauerkraut to the meal while everyone else dines on all the foods I can’t eat?

“Healthy” foods used to be things like tacos with corn tortillas, whole wheat bun with deli meat, corn chips with bean dip, I used to think eating at Panda Express was healthy! I used to think pizza was healthy. I used to think Taco Bell was better than Jack in the Box. But now all these places and foods are not legal for me.

I can’t even have fruit and nuts. But that is my own imposed restrictions, in attempt to lose more weight.

I wonder if my body, once I am down to a smaller size, will regulate itself so that I can have fruits and nuts and stay at the same size. That is my hope.

I am thankful that my mind is clear once again. As I said, the deprivation is worth it. I am not totally sad or depressed, I just feel wistful at times.

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