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I think I’ll only be one day on Stage Two. Today I added an egg yolk to my 2 cups of breakfast broth. I don’t think I had a reaction. Well. Actually I think I had just a tiny bit of a headache on the way to church. But that could have been caused by going to church. It’s been four months since I’ve gone and it always feels weird to be back and everyone is asking me how I’ve been. Thankfully, no one mentioned that I look like I’ve lost weight.

I had decided though, that if they asked me, I would tell them that I stopped eating all processed foods. I think that would be a good enough answer.

I was a little worried about what to do for food, since this Intro part is fairly restrictive. I didn’t want to overdo it on the eggs [affiliate link], or I could have made some hard boiled eggs to bring. Usually I have almonds [affiliate link] and a banana for times when I’m going to be away from home, but not to that stage in GAPS yet.

I drank my broth/egg yolk on the way to church, then I brought about 1 1/2 cups of cooked zucchini squash for when I got hungry. After Sunday School, I went down to my vehicle and ate the zucchini squash cold. It wasn’t too bad. It was far from delicious, but it was food. I was hungry not less than an hour later.

Our son and I went together, but he had to go to a training session with his IT mentor so hubby came into town to pick me up and we went to Whole Paycheck together. I now truly understand why they call it that. My heavens, they had green bell peppers for $4.99 each, and yellow and orange bell peppers for $5.99. EACH. EACH!! Good grief! I would stop eating bell peppers if they were that expensive everywhere! We aren’t thousands of miles from civilization, this was in Tempe, Arizona. Anyway… I was there mainly to buy fish heads as some on the list have mentioned they are able to get fish heads or fish bones for $1/pound. No such luck. I also looked for Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil, none at all. I guess I need to buy that online. I am hesitant to buy it, but I need to just do it!

I left the store with one item: an organic apple mint plant for $2.99. My hubby bought some L-Carnatine stuff. He says it helps to burn fat. Okay dear. I tried to explain to him, if your gut isn’t digesting your food properly, it won’t use supplements correctly either…

After we left there, I was really getting hungry. It was an hour drive home, so I couldn’t wait to get home either. I’d brought a frozen boiled chicken breast that was still mostly frozen and sounded totally unappetizing. So we stopped at Walmart to see if they had some of those roasted chickens. I know. I know. Almost as close to buying junk food as you can get, but I had to eat. I also bought two more heads of cabbage to I can start some Cortido and I needed more epsom salts for my detox baths.

I ate a good majority of that chicken on the way home, trying to avoid the skin since it had some flavorings on it. I gave hubby a few bites. I ate almost all of the thigh and leg meat, the wing meat and some of the chicken breast. It’s weird, when I was a child, I could only eat the chicken breast, now I am finding myself tempted to only buy thighs and legs from the store instead of the whole bird since I really don’t like the chicken breast boiled. I like it fried, but I’m not to that stage yet.

Yesterday I ate no meat all day long, until evening, when I cheated and ate the hamburger boiled in fat. 😉  But today was hungry for beef roast and hubby found one in the freezer and put it into the crockpot. It was almost done when we got home, he also put in onions [affiliate link] and carrots and celery and garlic cloves [affiliate link].

I decided to try the recipe I’d found in Elaine Gottschall’s Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet for Onion Gravy. I thought it was pretty darned good, although it received so-so reviews from my husband and younger son. Usually I would slather butter all over the roast with salt, but I’m trying to stay off butter for 6 weeks.

I am trying to convince myself to invest in a cream separator… hold on a second… the last time I looked, they were around $300-$400 but there is a new company at eBay selling them for $179.98.

I bought one. Once it arrives, we have fourteen days to try it out. I hope it works!! That would be so nice to be able to make my own raw butter. I could sour the cream first, and make cultured butter. Oh, I hope it works! There is a video on the seller page, they have over 400 ratings with 100% positives.

I guess tomorrow I get to have avocados and eggs. Delicious.

How is your GAPS day going?

I meant to move to Stage 2 today, and have egg yolk in my broth, but I totally forgot! There was only one fresh egg left, but I did gather some from the hen house when I went out to milk. The only problem is it seems the hens are not using their nests, but two other places and I wasn’t sure if my hubby was leaving the eggs [affiliate link] for a broody girl or not, so I left one pile. It’s still cool enough out that the eggs will be okay if they aren’t refrigerated right away. Some people don’t even want their eggs refrigerated at all. But I find they last longer, and I can’t help but think they have more nutrients when they are fresher.

Today was  a much better day. I got seven hours sleep, and thought I’d take a nap sometime during the day, but never did get around to it. I am feeling tired though and want to take a detox bath tonight, and get to bed soon. I’m hoping to go to church tomorrow.

I’m trying not to be stressed out about going to church. But I know the ladies are going to comment that I’ve lost weight. And I’m not sure what to tell them. Because it just seems so embarrassing to say “I’m on a diet”. I guess it’s like admitting that I know I’m fat, okay. I’ve jumped onto the band wagon that everyone else does, and it’s not going to work but I’m going to put myself through hell trying.

But GAPS isn’t hell. Okay, yesterday was a bit rough, I was really missing my butter.

Let’s see what did I have today…

For breakfast I had two cups of stock with 1 clove of raw garlic. Did you know Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride recommends trying to eat one HEAD of garlic a day, she specifically states not a “few cloves [affiliate link]” but an entire HEAD. Goodness! I eat a lot of raw garlic, and I love it, but I don’t know about an entire head. I wonder how big of a head she’s talking about. Anyway… I bagged up my stock that I made last weekend in 3 cups ziploc bags, that has proved to be a good move.

For lunch I had the leftover broth, with a tablespoon of coconut oil [affiliate link], 1 pound of frozen peas and some onion all warmed nicely. It was filling and good.

I must have had something else to eat… oh yes, I cooked three good sized grey zucchini squash and ate about two cups of that with coconut oil and sea salt [affiliate link]. Not too bad with the coconut oil. It’s not as delicious as butter, but satisfying.

I noticed I was not wanting to eat meat today, so I had mostly vegetables.

Then my husband made himself hamburgers for dinner, and he left one in the skillet… even though I am not supposed to have fried foods, especially not with “brown bits” I caved and ate the one left in the skillet, floating in the grease. Oh… heavenly… then I took about a quarter head of cabbage, sliced it and put it into the grease with half an onion and about 6 ounces of hamburger. Cooked that thoroughly and had it for dinner with sea salt and a few shakes of Tabasco. I felt very satisfied.

Today I put up another jar of sauerkraut, we are almost done with the two jars I made weeks ago. I poured some of the sauerkraut juice into the newest batch, hoping it will help to ferment it nicely.

I have been having teaspoonfuls of sauerkraut here and there.

Tomorrow, I will have some egg yolk in my morning broth. And going to church is going to be a challenge to keep myself fed, I had better think about that. My mainstay for staying fed while out and about is almonds [affiliate link] and a banana and I’m not there on my stages yet.

I am hoping to go to Whole Foods tomorrow and ask the butcher if they have any fish heads or fish bones. I wonder if the butcher even works on Sunday? I also want to pick up some nut butter so I can have that on Stage 3. I should be at Stage 3 by Monday since we only have to stay on each stage 1-7 days or longer if you have serious digestive problems, which I don’t seem to have.

How was your GAPS day?

Today is day 89 for being on GAPS. Days 1 through 88 I have been on full GAPS. No dairy, except for butter.

Today I started Introduction. I don’t really think I have serious digestive problems, so I could probably get by with doing Stage 1 for only one day. I think I might give myself one more day on Stage 1.

Last weekend I made stock using five chickens, in my new 16 quart stock pot, in preparation to begin Intro today. I ended up with 33 cups of stock. I put three cups of stock into quart Ziploc freezer bags.

This week I upped my broth (stock) for breakfast from 1 cup to two cups. Two cups seems to last me longer.

I had my two cups of broth on the way to work as normal. For food for the day, I brought 2 more cups of broth, leftover steamed asparagus and broccoli, and two chicken legs and thighs (boiled last weekend, and frozen).

I ate cold asparagus when I started feeling hungry around 10:30 (I sipped on my broth between 6:10 and 6:30am). For lunch I warmed up my two cups of broth (I finally got over my worries about my boss getting annoyed with me for using the stove to heat my food), chopped up broccoli, and pieces of chicken from the thigh/chicken legs. Plenty of sea salt [affiliate link], and there was some fat in the broth. It was good enough. Satisfying. I am missing butter, big time.

For dinner I’m boiling some beef, with red bell pepper, and onion. I’ve steamed some green beans. I thawed a bag of stock. I didn’t want to boil the beef in the stock so as to not release glutamates, but I was thinking about putting the cooked beef and veggies into the broth. I think raw garlic is okay, maybe I’ll add a clove in to the mix. And plenty of salt.

I never thought I would miss eggs [affiliate link] so much. And avocados.

I could start on Stage 2 tomorrow… I don’t know yet what I’ll do. I am planning to try and take it easy tomorrow, sleep whenever I feel like it.

OH, I never got a chance to blog about this, but on Monday night I had a scratchy throat. My son said it sounded like what he’d had, so I stayed home from work on Tuesday and ended up sleeping most of the day. I took a vinegar detox bath in the morning, and an epsom salts detox bath in the afternoon. I took echinachea and Vitamin C (almost sure this contained “illegal” ingredients). I had to go to work on Wednesday, and was tired because I didn’t sleep too well the night before (not hardly having slept most of the previous day!). My throat still felt weird, but it never got any worse.

So I don’t know if this is a good sign? Did my body fight off an infection? Or is my immune system just not working?

I was VERY hungry on Tuesday. I had to keep eating every couple hours.

That’s all for now.