I originally started following the GAPS diet a little more than a year ago. While it is fairly restrictive in the initial stages, I got a lot of momentum from the novelty of the experience: It was an experiment in the tradition of quantified self — although to be honest, I didn’t keep much numerical data, because my most important metric was how I felt.
The “GAPS” in stands for Gut And Psychology Syndrome. It was developed by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride as a way to combat autism and other types of psychological atypicalities. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if it had any effect on my Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It did, and on a physical level, it also cleared up a host of inflammatory reactions. (For example, I was able to start wearing earrings without irritation for the first time in twenty years.)
It’s right there in the title, but it was a delightful surprise to me when, one day after about a month eating this way, I felt its effect psychologically. My anxiety lifted like a veil being raised over my eyes. Of course I was still nervous about nerve-wracking things, but my general, low-level feeling of ickiness subsided. Yes, I was able to poop like a normal person, which was my stated goal when I started to follow the diet. But this was even better: I felt less shitty. Come for the bowel movements, stay for the mood enhancement, I guess.
I got off track with the diet also due to psychological factors: well, the uncovering of familial trauma that, besides my diet, is the largest source of psychological discomfort and general unhappiness for me. After an adolescence of indulging in sex and drugs to numb out these feelings and an early-adulthood of relying on a combination of Netflix, workaholism, and nicotine to keep me going every day, it’s devilishly hard for me to just put down one of the biggest addictions in the developed world: food.
Barely four months into the diet, some revelations about my childhood, frankly, caused me to lose my shit — and not in the “never feel constipated again”-type way. I struggled so hard last spring that instead of finishing a master’s degree this summer, I devoted myself almost completely to therapy to process my childhood trauma. It was a good start, but not something I could complete in the seven weeks I had between when my work at a public school came to an end in June and started up again in August. (There will be lots more posts about that journey at a later time!)
I tried to restart the diet again a couple of months ago when the new year began, but family conflict again got the better of me. It was all I could do to muster the willpower to go to work and function every day. Exercise and diet were, at that time, a bridge too far. (Not to mention blogging about them!)
But as a part of my journey of processing and dealing with the impact my upbringing had on me, I am working on self-compassion, which entails not beating myself up when I have hit an obstacle. Following the GAPS diet had such a positive impact on my body and my mind that I am determined to stat again.
This time around, I intend to keep better track of the numbers. The easiest of those will be things I can measure at home: my weight and my waist measurement, which are both dismal at the moment. (I had to buy new jeans this week because my “fat” jeans were so tight they were uncomfortable — I watched a whole musical Sunday evening with my fly totally unzipped and my coat draped over my lap!) The last time I ate this way, I didn’t keep track of my waistline, since my motivation was based mostly on curiosity and constipation, but I did keep track of my weight. Here’s a screenshot I took of my Happy Scale app about eleven months ago.
At the moment I am starting out weighing way more than 126 lbs. (Partially due to bad habits and partially due to good ones — I have put on a lot of muscle weight lifting lately. No, seriously! I have.) I am hopeful that the dearth of starch in the GAPS diet (especially in the initial stages which are designed to be pretty much starch-free) will help me shed the pounds and the belly fat!
Tomorrow is my official GAPS Diet (re)Start Day, so I’ll keep my belly measurement and scale information somewhere safe until I’m ready to report similar success as the picture above shows. I was also intending to do a blood test so I’d have my cholesterol and other numbers as well, but there is a snow storm starting in a couple of hours that will make it difficult for me to deliver my blood (ew) to the post office, so I’ll do that part in a couple of days instead.
Relying on the scale for motivation is hard, especially with a diet like this one that isn’t targeting weight-loss. Unfortunately this time around I have lost the novelty factor, which I think was an important motivator last time. Luckily I have the same wonderful, instrumental social support I had from my boyfriend, but the challenges of facing down cupcakes and candy every day at work won’t subside any time soon. Stay tuned for a lot of pictures of soups and bone broth, because I’m relying on the blogosphere to keep me going on the long journey into gut health.