GAPS Week 3 Update

I don’t know why, but this picture just makes me giggle.  My little egg looks a hungry baby slurping up its yolk!  Okay, that sounds a little gross now that it’s out there…I’ll move on.  (But behold that beautiful, thick, deep orange yolk!  That’s a sign of a nutrient-rich egg!)

Week 3 rocked, with all re-introductions going very well!  In addition to my broth, sauerkraut juice, and cooked meat and veggies; I can now eat homemade yogurt, raw egg yolks, casseroles (meat and veggies separate from broth), and now – dunh dunh DUUUUHN! – soft-boiled eggs!  It’s a banner day, friends.

Now, I just ate the above-pictured egg, and although it went down with no pain at all (unlike the poached eggs I tried to eat at the end of my first week on the diet) I still need to wait and see if any symptoms develop over the next few days.

Number one symptom for me, oddly enough, is cellulite.  I always had cellulite on my thighs, all my life – even when I was at my skinniest with only had 130 pounds on my 5’10” frame.  It vexed and perplexed me to no end, being the primary reason why anyone rarely sees me in a bathing suit.  But three years ago I went through a period of cutting out a lot of foods as an experiment, and I found much to my surprise that cutting eggs from my diet also cut the cellulite from my thighs!  I later learned that this is a common reaction to food intolerances; not necessarily cellulite, but “false fat“.  It’s pretty fascinating, and worth a quick read.

This is exactly the kind of unexpected gift of my many food experiments over the years: a steadily growing awareness of my body’s signals with regards to its food.  Besides producing cellulite, for example, in the past I’ve also found that eating eggs produced fierce sugar cravings.  Strange, right?  But definitely worth knowing.  Some people take the attitude of “I don’t wanna know”, but really, I can’t tell you how empowering it is to learn to listen to my body, and choose to follow what it’s telling me.

So, what’s next?  Well, I’ve had trouble figuring out the fermented fish, the last re-introduction on Stage 2…and for now I’m going to skip it.  I did buy a beautiful piece of Sockeye salmon this weekend, and if I can figure out how to ferment it by today or tomorrow then it will go in the rotation, but otherwise I am, with cautious optimism, moving on to Stage 3 foods.

First up, actual sauerkraut and not just the juice.  I know, I know!  Let’s not get too overheated with excitement!  All kidding aside I am excited about this step, because it signals the first raw food I’ll have had in quite a while and of course many people think sauerkraut is just about the healthiest food on the planet, being so chock-full of probiotics and digestive enzymes as well as a host of vitamins that are enhanced by the fermentation process.  So sauerkraut goes in next, followed by avocado.  Avocado did not go well when I tried to re-introduce it in the first week, but l.ooking back I did it too quickly and ate too much of it.  So 1 teaspoon at a time will hopefully do the trick

It’s really helpful to summarize my progress once a week, so thanks for reading!  If you’re on the diet, let me know where you are and how it’s going.  I love the community that I’m finding around GAPS!

GAPS Tips: 5 Ways to Make Intro Easier

Have you started the intro diet yet?  Are you thinking hard about it, but not sure you’re ready to jump in?  Well, after a shaky start I finally feel like I’ve got the hang of things, and I’ve learned some tricks that are really making things easier.  I thought I’d share, and I’d love to hear your ideas too!  Please leave a comment if you have a trick that makes your GAPS journey less overwhelming.

Here are 5 ways to make intro easier:

Joy Pockets

Joy Pockets: always inspired by Holistic Mama

Strange, to have an edition of Joy Pockets in the middle of a so-so week here in west Texas.  But then again, maybe that’s the perfect time to count my blessings.  So here goes, my joy pockets for the week.

Embracing the "No Good"

 

Begin.  Ireland, September 2010.

Blogging every day means that some days you really have to dig to find something worth writing about – and I guess that’s kind of the whole point.  Creative practice means coming to the page, the guitar, the easel every day no matter what, and writing, strumming, painting through all the crap, all the garbage that is No Good.  We have to throw all that No Good stuff out there, give it expression, let it fly.  It’s intimidating, and sometimes downright terrifying, but the alternative is worse.

Not So Clean & Simple: How I Gave Up the 'Poo-less Routine

Some of my most popular posts can be found under the tag “Clean&Simple”.  Here I’ve posted recipes as well as stories from my journey toward using fewer commercial products for cleaning my home and my body.  A lot of these stories have gone very well, and in fact when I get home from this rotation I’ll probably make up a big batch of this laundry detergent so that we don’t have to buy any more until, oh, around 2016.

One of the most popular posts over the last few months has been my confession that I stopped using shampoo last year.  The no-‘poo craze has really caught fire on the internet, gaining avid supporters at Mark’s Daily Apple, Simple Mom, and other sites that I frequent.  After reading about it at MDA last June, I bit the bullet and gave it a try.

GAPS Week 2 Update, and Homemade Yogurt Recipe

Well, Week 2 is over and it went much better than the previous week!  The key? Go slow.  Last week I took the time to let my body rest in Stage 1, soaking up the bone broths and a small amount of probiotics.  Near the end of the week I (re-) introduced my first Stage 2 food, ghee or clarified butter, and my body has responded very well!  The smooth introduction gave me some confidence to continue introducing foods, but I promised myself that I would only introduce one food every four days.  This structure has helped me to stay focused, and I even devised a chart to help me track my progress so I don’t forget where I am in the diet, reintroduce too quickly, and end up losing clarity again on which food is causing what symptom.

My 200th Post!

Yes, it’s my 200th post today!  You might have noticed that I didn’t post on Saturday – it was so this post wouldn’t be a Visual Sunday edition, but one where I could say HEY!  It’s my 200th post!! In honor of this auspicious occasion, I thought I’d quick-share with you some of my favorite posts over the last year.  Thanks to all of you who have visited and who keep coming back!

Favorite Nourishing Foods post: How I Met the Rock Star of the Raw Milk Revolution

Favorite Wandernest post: 76 DAYS IN EUROPE – Day 71: Missing the Boat

Favorite Keeping a Simple Home post: A Dining Room Table

Favorite Living On Purpose post: Become Attached to Your Stuff

Favorite Nourishing Creativity post: 76 DAYS IN EUROPE – Days 22 & 23: Creative Habit-Making

Favorite picture: Flying

As for the rest…well, feel free to click around and see what you find!

Do you have a personal favorite post on Maggie’s Nest?  If there’s one that really sticks out for you, I’d love to hear about it here!  If I don’t hear, I’ll just assume that you all. love. them. all.  🙂

Visual Sunday

inspired as always by SouleMama

Visual Sunday: a 2011 Maggie’s Nest tradition. A single picture. Maybe titled, maybe not. No commentary. Feel free to share a feeling it evokes for you, or a story it tells you, or a memory it sifts up into consciousness.

Homemade Yogurt: Preparation is the Key

 

 

 

Modest Goals in the Middle of Nowhere

It’s official: the next six weeks will be a quiet retreat.  There’s not much around here, and even where I’m working is unusually quiet.  Nice, and quiet.  Aside from a trip or two to the next nearest city (San Antonio) I’ll be here for the duration.  To give myself some structure, and in light of yesterday’s post, I’m going to lay out some modest goals for the time I’m here.  Maybe simply naming them out loud will motivate me to make them happen!

The Obstacles Or The Path

The Clear Way Ahead.  Colonial Williamsburg, May 2010.

I have been writing this blog post all day, and it just won’t come together.  It has something to do with goal-setting, which was inspired by the latest blog post on Rachel Meeks’ excellent site, Small Notebook (one of my very favorite blogs).

Well, it has to do with goal-setting, but something more profound within that realm.  You see, I think of myself as a pretty gutsy person.