Francesca is still on it. I am not.

She is still doing wonderfully. Along with a total of 32 oz of broth throughout the day, she had meatballs, ghee, fermented juice, tea, lemon and honey, snowballs and a glass of vegetable juice. She then asked if she could go on to Stage 3 tomorrow. I know she’s moving fast (only 2 days on each stage so far) but I saw no reason for her not to. And other than still missing fruit, she is as healthy and active as she has always been.

The reason I mention this is because I’ve read a handful of testimonials about children really struggling with this diet at first. Parents have written about episodes of lethargy, vomiting, fevers, refusing to eat, etc. I knew if that started, I wouldn’t be able to allow her to continue. No judgement from me for those parents who do, because their children were also suffering from other ailments and why they started the GAPS protocol to begin with. And these are common withdrawal symptoms of children that regularly eat processed foods, grain and sugar. I commend these parents for taking this brave step in trying to help heal their children’s digestive systems. 💕

As for me … 😔 … I woke up still not sure what to do. My chest was still in pain and now I had pain alternating between my stomach and gallbladder. The same thing happened last year. 😭 I started again with lemon water. No change. I then decided to have 3 eggs cooked in ghee. (This is allowed in Full GAPS but not Intro GAPS.) It helped. Afterwards I had ginger tea but didn’t know where to go from there. Thought about it, prayed about it and then by mid afternoon decided to have some yogurt with banana. This is my homemade yogurt I make from raw milk and I blended it with a spotty ripe banana, also both allowed on Full GAPS. Later on I had another cup of tea and more coconut oil.

And that’s it. That’s all I ate the whole day. The pain started to calm down but this isn’t ordinary pain. It’s the type that comes and goes in waves and when it goes, it’s never completely gone. So Intro GAPS and I have sadly parted. How I feel now and with all the research I’ve done, which I will write about in my next post, I’ve decided not to continue. And as much as this gut healing protocol has worked for many other people, if you find yourself in a similar situation as me, I suggest you don’t push through it as you can cause some serious damage to your digestive system. Rare, but possible.

Dr. Campbell-McBride even says similar words quite frequently in her book. She also writes that some of us thrive on carbs, some of us thrive on proteins and some of us thrive on a mix of both.

“We are all different; every one of us is a unique individual. Not only do we look different on the outside, but just as equally we have different metabolisms, biochemistry and even some anatomy on the inside. So, ‘one size fits all’ never works!”

Dr. Campbell-McBride

To better understand our nutritional needs, we need to look at a handful of things that are unique to ourselves because each of us is like no other person. This includes our heritage (people we descend from), our blood type, our metabolic type, our past surgeries and illnesses, our gene markers and the obvious one, our taste in foods! 😄 All of which I will write about in my next post. I’m going to share my own personal history to hopefully help others on a similar journey to heal their digestive system.

Today would have been Day 5 as I type this and just wanted to reassure everyone that I am doing MUCH better. So thankful!

P.S. This will be my last post on the GAPS diet unless anyone would like an update on Francesca, my 11yo, who is currently in Stage 3 Day 5 today and still going strong. 💪 🥰