Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Made with LOVE

Whew, this GAPS birthday party prep makes cooking from "grocery store scratch" seem like drive through fast food service!

So far, we are making 2 flavors of Ice Cream and some kind of cupcakes with icing. Eric has been experimenting with the ice cream for about 3 weeks. We have been enjoying the practice. Today I started working on the cup cakes...still have some work to do in that department, but we are getting closer!

Here we are the day before the big day.... so far we have some ingredients ready to go:
  1. 10 cups of  home fermented cream (sour cream)- takes 24 hours and typically done in 4 cup increments
  2. Soaked, Sprouted, Cooked and now dehydrating Beans to make into bean flour....I hope. This is about a 4-5 day process. 12 hours soaking, 2 days sprouting, half a day cooking, 24 hours dehydrating, THEN I can Grind it into flour for the recipe. But the good thing....only costs like $1.70 per pound, instead of $8 per pound for the nuts.
  3. Soaked and Dehydrated 20 cups of Almonds which will be made into Almond butter for the cake batter (not all 20 cups thank goodness, that would make one very expensive, even for a GAPS recipe, cake.)
  4. Cooked down 1 lb of strawberries into Jam
  5. Made Butter
These are the steps to prep the Ingredients, so that tomorrow we can mix them up into the final recipes. Speaking of recipes...still working on the cake recipe. Looks like we might be having muffins for breakfast, lunch and dinner...again. (well not quite, but today we did have muffins for breakfast as well as for dinner tonight with leftover cold roast.)

This may seem like a lot of work, but I was just thinking....we source most of our ingredients, I don't have to go milk cows, or skim cream, or gather chicken eggs, or even pick strawberries (although I do have about 10 plants going and although I know the first year is supposed to be lousy, I still hope we get a few!)  I am really shocked how far removed Americans are from our food supply. I feel like I've come a heck of a long way when it comes to real food, but I'm seeing we are just at the tip of the iceburg  to reach self sufficiency!

Sourcing may be a bit of additional work, but there are still about 50% of our foods that either are mailed to our door, thanks to the awesome internet...or we are able to pick up at the local Whole Foods store, but I do hope there is a day that we don't have to count on them either....although I don't see myself mining salt and not even sure, what all that would even entail. 

Hubby took the plunge and as of today is a bee keeper. He built the hive this afternoon and a friend caught a swarm and brought the bees to us this evening! So cool, we might have our own honey someday!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Preparation Day #6 Ready or Not here I go!

Well, I started with 16 ounces of water and a drop of lemon oil and finished up my quart of freshly juiced apples (11 of them) by 11:30.

I was a little nervous about putting anything on my stomach after yesterday. I woke up with it feeling weak...but so far I've been okay.

Well, I started with 16 ounces of water and a drop of lemon oil and finished up my quart of freshly juiced apples (11 of them) by 11:30.

Colonic appointment at 1:30. She also is going to work with me on clearing emotional blocks that deal with constipation. She muscle tested me and we came up with , 15, Mom...so my homework is to meditate and see if I can come up with any "traumas" that might have been filed away and are keeping me stopped up.

I was a little nervous about putting anything on my stomach after yesterday. I woke up with it feeling weak...but so far I've been okay.

6:00-Drank the nasty 6 ounces of Epsom Salt
tummy felt weak, like it might rumble...but nothing and felt fine after about 30 minutes
8:00 Take 2 Epsom Salt drink
same weak, I think my tummy might get rumbly feeling

9:45: Mixed up the olive oil and grapefruit drink and prepared the castor oil pack

10:00 Stood by my bed and chugged the 10 ounce drink....it was gone in 30 seconds. I even got a somewhat impressed but dispproving head-shake from my husband, evidently guzzling isn't a talent he's proud for his wife to have. I"m a guzzler, what can I say? I was shocked the drink wasn't dreadfully awful and that I think that the grapefruit actually tasted good! Where are my tastebuds? I didn't know people could drink strait grapefruit juice and LIKE it...I thought Grapefruits didn't come with sweetener!

So I immediately laid down and hubby helped me with the castor oil pack, and I moved and talked the least amount as possible for 20 minutes, then rolled over and went to sleep.

I woke up just before 6...just in time for my next dose of Epsom Salt, I had another at 8:00 and the releasing finally started around 10:00. It lasted well into the late afternoon, by 4:00 I was feeling safe to stay out of the bathroom. I'd estimate I passed about 30-50 raisin sized stones and HUNDREDS of smaller ones ranging from sand-gravel sized.

I held out until Monday evening to do the clearing enema and I think there may have been a few more stones, harder to tell now.

Looks like something I will get to do every new moon for the next few months. Hope to notice some more positives other than knowing the stones that were in there are now not....I haven't really noticed any symptoms that have changed. Although I did not have any migraines and Guess who arrived today?! Cycle Day one here we are! And on day 27 ;) Looks like we are finding some balance maybe?!!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Preparation Day #5

Last night, I had a couple tummy cramps and thought I might have to "go". Nothing really happened though, but right before bedtime I had a small amount of diarrhea. As my body "pushes" I have some pain in my pubic area. My guess is weak pelvic floor....guess I need Eric to build me a squatty potty. I think that is the 2nd Time I've gone poop on my own in the past 3 months. I weighed before bedtime and was still at 127.

This morning I was down another .5 a pound. I seem to be getting more nauseated by the apple cider, I hardly want to drink anything at all after I've had some. I'm loading up the coconut oil and at least I haven't felt jittery...but then I"m just now finishing up my first 16 ounces. :/ I still have water to drink and some "real" juice with some actual nutrients to consume, more water and then MORE apple Cider...ugh. Oh well, tomorrow is day 6, I am supposed to drink all 32 ounces in the morning and not have anything but water after 1:30. I don't think I will have a problem with that. I will be switching to freshly juiced apples for this afternoon and tomorrow. Wonder if that will make a difference?

I had another round of Diarrhea this afternoon around 1:30, 2:30.

Finished my juice by 4:00

Ended up just finishin up my water instead of more juice...and another trip to the pot!

GAPS for Men



My First Guest Post: by Eric Johnson, Man of the house.


I was cheerfully minding my own business, drinking a nice cold beer when my wife said “So....are you ready to get all the processed foods out of our house and start the intro to GAPS”? I knew what it was, we’d been talking about it indirectly for months, I’d seen that little yellow book lurking on every horizontal surface in every room of my home. I’d kicked it under the covers as I’d slept. I didn’t know what this book had inside but whatever it was, had began developing a serious relationship with my wife and it was making me nervous. After seeing many problems in our children due to the results of eating the Standard American Diet. I committed, I said “ok......I’ll give it a shot”. As soon as my beer, ice cream, leftover pizza, fettuccine, and tortillas are gone, we’ll start, noooo problem........

Day one GAPS.....No problem?!?!?!? NO PROBLEM?!?!?!? Where’s my coffee? Where’s my bread to dip in my soup? Where’s my CHEESE?!?!?! I was getting angry, and I was getting angry very quickly. I was beginning to hate myself for being a moral man, a man who doesn’t back out on commitments even if it gets tough, I don’t want to be tough, I want cold beer, hot pizza, and buffalo wings!!!! I was depressed, angry, irritated and felt worse than I had in my entire life.....

And then. I got on our scale. “Hey honey!!! I lost three pounds”! And that became a motivator for me, every day I lost an average of one to two pounds until I had lost a total of 25 and could see the ripples in my stomach muscles I hadn’t seen in a decade. WOW, this is a cool benefit of eating food that makes me want to kill myself, maybe there are some positives. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Up until day 10 I was miserable, depressed, had major cravings for lasagna, enchiladas, cheese, and for some reason tiramasu was a common craving not to mention pizza and chicken wings and I wanted a peanut buster parfait from Dairy Queen so bad I literally dreamt about it and got mad when I woke up! I didn’t miss the beer much. Those cravings came and went for about 3 weeks before they slowed down and now they are ancient history because there are so many excellent replacements on GAPS that I just don’t miss it, there are no cravings I can’t fill with what’s available to me. Food begins to come alive after not eating processed or artificial sweeteners for a while, your body begins to recognize the REAL food and it becomes energized, strong, confident and I look in the mirror to see what I want to see of myself. I’m actually healthy.

THE coolest thing along the way was my wife running her hand across my stomach and smiling at me as she looked me up and down and said “You are hot!!!!”. Yeah, screw peanut buster parfaits, pizza, and wings laced with toxic chemicals and high fructose corn syrup Pshhhh, I’m HOT!! My wife said so!! Pass me another cup of chicken stock and a highly overcooked piece of broccoli please, mmmmm mmmmm!!

Another benefit was the allergy relief, mine cleared up almost completely for a couple weeks when I was doing all the things I was supposed to be doing and the whole season has gone pretty easy for me despite a few bad days of die off. I’m healing, I’m learning the crap I put up with didn’t have to exist, I thought I would never be able to camp due to allergies, that woodworking which is my passion could never be an option as a career, that I would be fat forever and there was nothing I could do about it outside of 2 hours exercise each day and a family man who loves his wife and kids doesn’t give that time with them up! But I was wrong, making the commitment to eat this food and stay on this diet for two years was difficult for about 10 days, I mean really difficult for 10 days, there have been other challenges but that first hump was monumental Mon-u-MENTAL because it is mostly mental, we want something, someone is trying to tell us to eat something we don’t want to eat. It’s a change, we don’t like that either. But if I’m the man of my house and my family is under my care and protection and I find a way to keep them healthier, stronger, happier, safer even, it’s my responsibility to step up and take one for the team. Dad, if you can’t do it, they can’t either, if you have sons (I have 5, one daughter) they will see your tenacity and strength. The one thing I want my boys to learn above all else is not to go with the grain, don’t be a sheep, don’t just follow the crowd or do what’s easy. The diet is hard work and you have to be tough to do it, you have to be a man of your word, you have to desire something better for your family enough to step up and make the change. It feels like the greatest sacrifice you’ll ever make until you step up and do it, and then it feels like success, it feels like courage, it feels like triumph because as men our greatest enemy is our own flesh. We like food and we like sex, those are pretty much the priorities (not necessarily in that order depending on how long we’ve gone without either) so giving those up for what’s better for our overall wellness, takes discipline and builds character, you know, real character, not the kind we like to pretend we have so we can feel good about ourselves.

Probably the greatest motivator for my starting this diet was listening to my son screaming and crying when he had to go to the bathroom, I went in to comfort him, he was shaking, arms stiff, tears rolling down his face, I looked in the toilet to see if there was any progress but all I saw was blood dripping into the toilet because he was so constipated he was being torn open. So screw this “eating whatever I feel like because it tastes good, am I really that weak? Do I have so little self control that I can’t do what I know is healthy for myself and encourage my sons to do the same? Nothing is worth your health. NOTHING. A man that can look me in the eyes and say he doesn’t care if he only lives 50 years if he can eat whatever he enjoys most isn’t a man at all, he’s ungrateful for the life he’s been given and he’s selfish, especially if he has a family to care for. I’m not one of those, I’ll do what I want, because I’m a man, men, I have responsibilities, I have a wife and children and no matter what society tries to create as truth, they are being molded after my actions. Lots of men say they want what’s best for their families, but not many will step up and follow through with the sacrifices required to benefit them the most. And really, after those first two weeks, it’s a breeze, I learned about so many cool recipes, tricks and new foods which was cool for me because second to woodworking, cooking is a passion.

My personal results are:

Weight loss, 25 pounds.

VERY high energy level, fast recovery and almost zero fatigue, I am more productive at work and have energy for my personal hobbies after the kids are in bed.

Allergy relief.

Asthma relief.

Soreness and stiffness gone and when I do hurt the recovery is FAST

Increased flexibility, BIG change here.

Body odor lessened by about 50%.

Better complexion.

I don’t drag for 30 minutes when I wake up, I just wake up in about 5 minutes.

Better concentration.

Not as easily irritated (this took more time, I am feeling a lot more patient lately).

No indigestion which I got several times per week.

No headaches which I also experienced several times per week.

No cravings for really unhealthy foods.

My wife thinks I’m hot.

My kids know how to eat healthy and are enjoying it, they ask for the healthy stuff now.

Bottom line is I feel better than I have in a decade and I just got started, I’m into this maybe 50 days and it’s not hard, and when you think you’ll be jealous and left out when the other guys are drinking beer, eating wings or sausage rolls, there couldn’t be a bigger lie, I celebrated my 35th birthday yesterday and my supervisor brought in donuts for the team to celebrate, he knows my diet, he brought me a banana and an apple, I didn’t feel left out, I felt energized, and if you lined all of us up, and picked the guy you would want to look like and share the energy level of, you wouldn’t pick the ones with the donuts in their hands. I made two repairs while they were still trying to get the energy to get up from their desks. This diet works, you have to be tough to start it but the benefits are INCREDIBLE, it’s like making the transition from Al Bundy to Leonidas, the Greek hero king of Sparta from 300. I feel great and won’t trade it for anything!! Especially a weak mindset that only cares about my next meal.

Mindset of Food

We found that one of the first things that needed to happen was to change our mindset about food budgets. We have to realize that a processed food budget is unrealistic for nourishment and health. The whole reason that Americans are eating what we are is because our government wanted to make it CHEAPER to eat...we'll unfortunately they didn't consider NUTRITION when they started changing the guidelines (started as the Basic 4 food groups and then onto the "food pyramid" and now the food plate.).

Believing that properly raised food is expensive, is believing the stuff in the grocery store is a good substitute for Nourishment. I look at the food in the grocery store like looking at our children's play kitchen, that costs $150 and believing I should try to cook out of it, becasue a REAL kitchen would be TOO expensive. Then, trying to figure out how to only pay 1/10th of the cost, because we just need to find something that "looks like a kitchen".

When we decided to start reorganizing our budget we decided we should prioritize based on the basics of life rather than "bills". (this isn't an instant transition, but getting our mindset wrapped around the idea is the key, having a plan in place is the next step, then implementing it, is the trickier part!)

The most basic thing we need is a healthy source of WATER (we chose an Enagic Water Ionizer "Kangen Water"), then Food (Real, properly raised and grown food), then shelter...which can be hard to swallow, our ideas of what we need as far as shelter is often much more extravagant that what we can afford based on having "basics of life priorities" in mind. Changing our shelter and downsizing can make a domino effect when it comes to the rest of the "bills"

Back to Food....so the first food changes we made were with our Animal products....switched to RAW dairy, Pastured eggs, and 100% Grass fed/finished beef, and continue to work to find pastured poultry and pork. Switching these foods do not change much as far as taste goes (I mean, as far as "giving up" anything....its not like your having to give up something you want, like say the white sandwich bread that you love... I don't know of anyone who said man I wish I could eat those CAFO Animals again! (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, basically fed "well enough" to keep them from dying until slaughter, and continuously drugged because the food makes them so sick).

So, I guess part of getting my mindset changed started with watching real food documentaries, there are many on Net Flix...food matters, food Inc. Are great ones to start with. We have to learn that the stuff in the store, is not "real food" and get our mind wrapped around that before we can make highly effective changes.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Preparation Day #4

The Scale hit 127 this morning! 5 more to go to my "happy weight"
Started the morning with a shot glass of water with Lemon and Grapefruit Essential oil
and my 16ounces of water.....and a full 4 quart pot of 125* water and a quart of Coffee....its an enema kinda morning.

I only drank about 10 ounces of carrot juice and my quart of apple cider. Nauseated again this afternoon. I used about 3/4 of a cup of coconut oil today...still got shaky this afternoon. I really hope I don't have sugar issues when its time for this to be over!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Preparation Day #3

Well, I haven't had too much of a hard time with the fast, other than wanting to actually MAKE the juice....well its not making the juice that is the issue, but cleaning up the juicer!

I made myself 8 ounces of carrot juice this morning
I had 2 hot apple ciders and put about 1T of coconut oil in each of them YUMM...and I added Ocotea Essential Oil to my last 16 ounces of Juice. I didn't finish off my juice until about 6:00 tonight, the day sorta got away from me.

Around mid-day I was feeling a little nauseated, just yucky in general. I ended up taking a nap this afternoon. Maybe I'm detoxing. Still peeing a ton, but what should I expect drinking so many liquids.

At dinner, I had left over juice from last night's red cabbage, red bell pepper, celery, and pineapple juice. I bottled it up with "no room for air" I'm sure it wasn't the highest quality, but it was better than having to make something!

I'm on day 3 of no pooping....guess tomorrow morning I will have to do an enema.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Preparation Day #2

Well, the last time I looked at the clock it was 2:45...I think it might be safe to say that I fell asleep around 3:00. Eric's alarm went off at 4:30, he came in and said good bye a little later and Corban woke me up around 6:30. Took my Basal Temp....not sure how accurate it can be with such crazy sleep, but it was 98.2

Scale: 127.5 back down to my personal lowest weight of 2012....even if it is just lack of solid food, its still nice to see the numbers!

I started this morning with a shot glass of water with 2-3 drops each of Young Living lemon and Grapefruit oil. Then I slowly have finished off a total of 16 ounces of water

Time to start the apple juice....and I think I need to get some real nutrients in me, for sure will do some Carrot juice with some coconut oil in it.

16oz water
4oz apple cider/12oz carrot juice
120z apple cider
16 oz water
8 ounces of celery beet juice/8 oz cider
8oz hot cider with 1tbs coconut oil.....finished by 3:30 YUMMO! Can't wait for more tomorrow!
16 oz water
dinner juice- cabbage, celery, bell pepper and about 1 ounce of pineapple juice
80z water

56 ounces of water
32 ounces Apple Cider
28 ounces fresh vegetable and fruit juice
1lb of carrots
2bunches of celery
1/2 small beet
1/2 head of red cabbage
1/2 bell pepper
1 ounce of Pineapple juice
2Tbs of coconut oil


Plan to use the same oils as last night, plus adding ocotea to help balance blood sugar.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

I'm Blaming the Apple Juice

Well, we did get to bed late tonight. Just after I laid my head down, I checked the clock and it was 11:20. UGH....

Well that wasn't the worst of it! I laid there and laid there, tossed and turned. Couldn't warm up. My feet were really the only thing that was cold, but somehow even with our extra warm blankets (micro-fiber, so NOT "crunchy", but very cozy and warm) even after an hour I was not warmed up.

I thought maybe I will take a detox bath, hopefully the epsom salts will help me sleep and hot water will warm me up...but I laid there a little longer, and I did finally get warmed up, but I was still awake. I decided to go ahead and get up and take a nice warm 1am Bath.

I took my temp just for curiosities sake... 98.1...which is considerably lower than I've been running during the day. I've been taking my temp 3 hours after I wake up, 3x every 3 hours...usually 10, 1, and 4:00. My temps have ranged from 98.4-99.7, mostly in the 99.5 range...seems odd to me!

So I dumped in what was left of the epsom salt...have no idea how much probably only 1-2cups (I was too lazy to go out to the garage and drag in the 50lb bad) , and 4 cups of baking soda and 4 cups of hydrogen peroxide. Soaked for 30 minutes and finished reading Chapter 10 of One Thousand Gifts....you can read my blog about it here

Took my temp after my shower just for kicks... 99.6, ahhh, that feels better, but why I"m running so warm...I have no idea. I thought for a moment that maybe I was cold because we left the windows open in the baby's room, maybe he needed them closed and I experienced some kind of physical maternal warning....I shut the windows just in case.

So here I am 45 minutes after my soak, still not cold anymore, but NOT TIRED either....UGH, stinking sugars! I"m blaming the apple juice!

Its 2:18 A.M and here I am, but signing off hopefully to get some rest.

Preparation Day #1

Today is day One of Preparation for the Gallbladder and Liver cleanse. I'm following the instructions from the book by Andreas Moritz.

He suggest eating no animal products/dairy...and since I"m on GAPS that leaves me with veggies, fruit and nuts. I decided to give a juice fast a try and see how it goes. The full cleanse is 7 days, I don't think it will be too big of a deal to do a juice fast. We have several fruits and veggies that need to be used up, so this will be a good opportunity to take care of those. I just hope I have the energy to do all the juicing and clean up. Totally dreading cleaning the juicer up several times a day

I must drink 32ounces of apple juice every day for 6 days. We purchased 150oz of jarred apple cider that I will drink over the week and finish off juicing apples.

I started the day with 2- 2liter salt water high enemas and a coffee enema. I could have used more rounds with the water but it was getting late and we had a busy day ahead of us and I didn't want to get the coffee in too late. I finished around 11:00.


Starting weight 131PM/130.5am
Sleep- woke up several times, dreamed strange dreams.
Basal Temp (not sure I got 3 hours of continous sleep before taking temp. 98.5
Average Daily Temperature 99.1
No supplements

32 ounces of Apple juice finished by 7:30pm
48 ounces of Kangen Water
(no juicing...the kitchen was a mess and I didn't want anything else to clean up! Mtostly laziness.

I felt pretty good today. I got some of the housecleaning caught up...nothing miraculous but much better than I've accomplished in the past few days. Could have been the Coffee enema partially, but I haven't had that much sugar (from the juice) in my system for a while either. It was WAY more fluids than I've been consuming...between the 4 liters of water from the enema, 1 liter of coffee enema, 32 ounces of juice and 48 ounces of water, I've been peeing a lot!


Used Young Living Oils before bed
Sandalwood: 3rd Eye and back of neck
Cedarwood: top of head
Release over Liver
Digize under tongue

Monday, April 9, 2012

The cycle of life takes a lot out of ya

Cycle Day 14. Been crampy for 3 days now. I woke up early this morning with a slight headache. 2L Salt water+EO (marjoram and peppermint) and a Coffee Enema at 6am....by 2pm headache progressed to a migraine, tried a couple rounds of water enemas (3-4liters) with salt and EO (marjoram and peppermint). Nauseated but never got sick. Ended up taking a Tylenol 3 and a nap. Woke up at about 6:00 felt better, had some dinner. Still crampy

I just randomly fed the kids whatever I could pull out of the fridge an hand to them.
They had meatballs, almond butter freezer treats, boiled eggs, yogurt, apples, dilly carrots, sunbutter with butter and honey and a shot glass of weak stock. Some of the things they had a few rounds of...breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack all sorta blended together.

The boys had a pretty good day considering they woke up before 7 and had no nap....and a mama that could barely keep up with their requests for food.

I managed to get the roast in the crock pot before noon and vacuum the egg yolk covered part of the living room. There are Walnuts in the dehydrator that are ready to come out. Hopefully they will make it into a ziplock baggie before we hit the sack.


Eric saved the evening and prepared a proper meal.
Roast, carrots, cauliflower gravy and a baby romaine and cucumber salad. Banana cinnamon ice cream for dessert. Perfection.

Eric built our raised bed frame for the strawberry plants I plan to order.
Looking at the Azure list of plants that are available:

Here's our considering list
Cilantro
Sage
Basil
Thyme
Dill
Parsley

STRAWBERRIES!


Butternut Squash
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Bell Pepper
Celery
Cucumbers
Sugar Snap Peas
Shilling Peas
Tomatoes

Snapdragons
Marigolds
Borage

Friday, April 6, 2012

Day 41 Skinny Fingers



Nothing new added today.

Eric has dropped a ton of weight....or well maybe just 23lbs. He's at his lowest weight since I've known him and he's looking good! He noticed today even his wedding band is loose! My weight-loss has pretty much stalled out since the first couple weeks of GAPS. I still seem to be bouncing between 129-132, one morning I did hit 127.5, but that's my lowest so far.

I seem to be rather itchy today....I can't tell what is causing it either, there are no rashes or redness (except after I keep scratching) and its random places, like my palm of my left hand, the side of my face and the crook of my arm. Weird. I must be allergic to liver. HA.

Well I survived my first whole week on my own since Mid-January. I've been tapering off from my part time help for the past several weeks. I can tell my energy level is still not where it should be, but I am getting better at recognizing my limits....following them is more of a struggle.

Today's menu
Juice: Left over juice from yesterday + 1 egg and 2 extra yolks and 2TBS sour cream
Breakfast: Banana Carrot muffins and Cinnamon honey yogurt
Lunch: Liver and Onions and more muffins
Dinner: Scrambled Eggs (and Perry finished off the liver...hooray!)

Today's Prep
Spent most of the day working on the grocery list...trying to figure out what foods to add in next!
Also working on a plan to figure out what comes next as we journey further into full GAPS
Started a new batch of yogurt (1 1/2 gallons worth!)

I'm starting to lose track of the poop scoop. I don't think anyone went today...and no enemas for me.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Day 40 We Survived!


Full GAPS!

Weak Coffee (1tbs grounds/20oz water) for Eric,
I still take mine in the other end...full strength.
Cinnamon
Adult drink for Eric


Today's Menu:
Juice: red cabbage, celery, carrots and 2 apples
Breakfast: Yogurt with Apple Jam (1tsp)
Lunch: Roast and Carrots
Dinner: T-bones, Green Beans, Baby Romaine Salad with apples
Snack: meatballs
Treat: Apple Pie Ice Cream

Today's Prep:
Soaked Walnuts
Put Almonds in the dehydrator

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Day 38 &39

Well, I didn't record much at all from yesterday. Energy is pretty low. The boys are waking up when Eric gets up for work (1.5 hours earlier than normal.) I followed the advice of my colonic technician and did a "quickie" this morning and went strait for the coffee, not sure if it was quite as effective, but it was nice to have the process over in about 40 minutes instead of 2 hours. Oh I did use half the amount of coffee because its the bottom of the jar and looked like it was possibly stronger and the time before I got pretty jittery...so it could be the combo of the weaker coffee and not doing the cleansing enema before the coffee.

Day 38:

Lunch Roast and carrots
Dinner: Chicken Wings and Green Beans
Day 39
Breakfast: Banana Egg and almond flour muffins....ended up making a second batch, I added some carrot pulp to that one the boys gobbled them down.
lunch: scrambled Eggs
Dinner: liver and onions
Treats: I tried the Russian custard, threw some raw almonds in it. Eric is making apple cinnamon ice cream at the moment....guess we will get a taste in a bit.

I have a feeling we are kinda bailing on intro and headed for full GAPS. I feel like I may be having issues but I'm not sure what to cut out, it isn't anything major, so I don't know what to do about it. I'd like to see Wyatt and Clayts bellies not bloat so much, they both seem to get rashy outside, I really don't like that either, but it doesn't seem to bother them. I don't feel like I have the energy to figure it out.


I also want to take note that Wyatt has started cutting one of his molars...one little sharp point poking through on the top "B" tooth. So that throws in the question was the yucky poop and rash from teething?

Also just as we were going to bed last night Wyatt woke up ANGRY again! Screaming mad, nothing we could do to help him. Anointed him with some cedarwood oil and he started calming down. He woke up again, about an hour later but wasn't quite as upset. He let me hold him and give him his water bottle. I prayed over him and rocked him for a bit and put him back in bed. I also decided to put some Melrose on his jaw line and around his ears, as he kept rubbing th side of his face. Then anointed myself with some cedarwood and slept well until morning.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Day 37: Early to Rise


Stage 6
Baking soda (not sure that was legal move...but we did it anyway!)

Well, the plan backfired a bit.

Here is what the mental picture looked like...Eric wake up at 5, get ready for work, while I prepare my enema stuff. Then he cooks breakfast, I have my "coffee break" and the boys wake up at their normal 7:30 wake time after I have everything cleaned up and breakfast cooking.

Here is what reality looked like: Eric get up at 5, get ready for work and cook breakfast. I get up at 5:25 start preparing my enema stuff, Corban wakes up and has to poop at 5:30 (He says "my poop made a C" ....nice #4s by the way). I continue getting everything ready. Just as I'm all set up, at about 6:00 here comes Clayt...he's gotta poop too! So while my salt water and oils are quickly cooling, I, as patiently as I can, I wait for him to get his business taken care of (#5's by the way). I send them back to their room, hoping they will lay quietly in there (was I DREAMING? LOL....anyway, it works for about 10 minutes.) I try to not make the enema procedure a mysterious, panic guarded event....we call it my "bottom medicine" to help my poops. So there's a bit of an open door policy, there were several visits...but we made it through the whole procedure....and in record time I was done by 8am. Sadly, I was pretty jittery from the coffee...I am counting on it to get me through this extra long morning. I"m praying that the early wake time means they all take good naps today! (yes, they DID...all 4 of them!



After Juicing and Cleaning up the kitchen we have spent the whole morning outside. As wonderful as it has mostly been.....Corban and Clayt got into a bit of a baby brawl. There was screaming, yelling, throwing toys at each other, biting, pinching, pushing, shoving and more YELLING. I let them duke it out, then they started on me. I let them. While I was trying to decipher if their behavior was food related or just poor parenting.... I talked to the biter and pincher and told him that wasn't nice and he should say he's sorry....and he did, of course Corban wouldn't listen to him. That made him SO mad, but I told him he did his part, and it was okay. Corban continued to have short bursts of testing his anger, pushing over and throwing toys and sand. I didn't ask him to stop. I talked to him plainly about breaking things and getting sand in people's eyes. He asked about throwing it over here....away from the people. I talked to him about not having sand to play with if we throw it out of the sandbox. A few minutes later Corban (4) came over and sat on the step next to me and said he was sorry and gave me hugs and kisses. My normal reaction is to break up the fight, punish the "worst" offender, scold the other...all while misbehaving myself and letting my emotions control the tone and then demand that they apologize to myself and each other.

I'd say, after letting the episode play out, even though in the middle it was looking pretty bad, (REALLY bad) that just maybe it was the right thing to do. They are all happily playing again. Guess it wasn't the food, or poor parenting. WHEW.

Today's Menu
Juice: 1/2 head of red cabbage, 1 bunch of celery, and some carrots. Added Raw egg and sour cream and had a full fledged "GAPS Milkshake"
Breakfast: Fend for yourself freezer Meatballs
Lunch: Chicken Soup and Almond bread with butter and Sunbutter
Dinner: Roast, Green Leaf and Cucumber Salad with our homemade dressing, Fermented Beets, and apple Slices


Today's Prep
Made almonds into Almond Flour (2 cups), and the rest into almond butter
Yogurt in the Dehydrator should be done about 4:30 tomorrow, just in time for afternoon snack!
Eric peeled about 20lbs of carrots for me and Sliced about 3lbs into rounds, 5lbs into carrot sticks, and 5lbs into 4inch pieces...yes that is a load of carrots and we still have about 50lbs worth to take care of. I Grated 1lb of carrots to make into ginger carrots....the whole process took me 5min 32seconds. I timed myself so we could see if knife chopping or using the processor was faster. My time included putting the processor together and cleaning and drying it. Eric helped a ton in the kitchen...after all the carrot business, we had a fun afternoon of playing mad dessert creationists. The Almond butter I was making turned un-creamy when I added the honey...Eric tasted it and thought it would make a perfect "pie crust" We were immediately dreaming of apple pie....but then I added some butter and it turned runny...

Eric tasted it again and thought COOKIE DOUGH...So we threw in a few more ingredients and WE MADE COOKIES!

So the best I can give ya, is a Ingredient list, because we didn't measure anything!

Almond Butter <1cup
Salt
Honey 2T?
Butter 3T?
1 egg
Baking soda (1/8 of a tsp, best guess)
Cook 350* for 7 minutes

There were little people anxiously awaiting cookies while I took the picture.....they were hounding me with each flash!

I also put some of the batter into the freezer molds because the dough looked and tasted so much like caramel...I can't decide if I like the cookies or the "dough" best! You could say we are going a little apple-honey-nut crazy. But it is SOOOO YUMMY!


I'm pretty sure that Eric has decided to stop the peanut butter as soon as this last jar is gone. He's gonna try sunbutter instead. Although, I haven't given the little boys any peanut butter and both Clayt and Wyatt seem to be reacting to being outside. Not as much as it was before GAPS, but they tend to get a bit red, and Wyatt has had an intermittent rash on the back of his neck for a couple weeks.




Today was day full of Poopin! Wyatt woke up from morning and naptime with a poopy diaper and was really rashy. It was very sore. He would walk around with his legs apart for a while after I got him cleaned up...and I let him go in the buff so he could have some air-out time. I also applied some Animal Scents ointment, he cried when I put it on, but he seems to do that no matter what I touch him with...even coconut oil he acts the same. Soon after dinner he pooped as well....so, it seems there's something in there bothering him. Maybe it is the raw apples? I am not sure. Corban pooped 2x today....that is a first I believe! Clayt pooped 3 times, upon waking, after lunch and dinner. Nothing from me except for what happened this morning with the enema.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Day 36 Early to bed


Stage 6
No new foods





Well, hopefully we will be drifting to dream land at about the time I'm usually STARTING to type up our daily update. We had a busy fun day today. I took Corban to the JBF sale to get him some shoes and shorts....we came home with 1 pair of sandals for Clayt, 2 pairs of Skidders for Wyatt (and for only $10 for both! I got two sizes) 3 pair of shoes for Corban...water shoes, sandals and tennis shoes. Birthday Presents for 2 of my nieces, 6 Tshirts, 3 pairs of shorts, a game and 4 books. Love the JBF sale...but its a good thing it only comes around 2x a year! After Corban and I got home, Eric and Clayt went on a fishing trip. Fishing was short lived (about 30 minutes), but they caught 6 fish! After a bit of playground time they headed home. Eric and Corban left to go by Grandma and Grandpa J's house to drop of our nieces birthday present then home for dinner, a little bit of playing outside and off to bed. They were tired from not having naps, but still did not want to go to bed! Eric is changing shifts for April, so he will be rising and shining about 2.5 hours earlier than we have been for the past 2 months. Tomorrow shall be interesting!



Today's Menu
Breakfast: meatballs, quac-treats, applesauce +probiotics
Lunch: Leftovers from last night: hamburger, celeriac and onion. 1 slice of almond bread (with butter) Boys had sunbutter on theirs as well, and raw apple slices.
Dinner: Ribeyes, Salad with cucumbers, kraut and apple slices
Snack: Almond flour pancake bites with sunbutter
Orange Guac-a-honey pudding



Today's Prep
Searching for a GAPS honey ham brine recipe
Put Marrow Bones and Roast in the crock pot
Peeled carrots



Orange Guac-a-Honey Pudding
Blend together equal parts of
Avocado (3T)
Sour Cream
Butter
1T of honey
2 drops of orange Essential oil
1T of lemon juice (optional)


Serve in a bowl, or freeze in small molds

First thing this morning Corban asked to go poop...back to #4! Yay!
Clayt went this morning, after lunch and Dinner, all #5
Wyatt had a poo-ey diaper after lunch....wonder if it was the almond bread and apple slices?

I think I'm going to skip the enema tonight and give it a try in the morning, hopefully the boys will get up at their normal wake time! I've had a few tummy rumbles this evening. I'm also pretty tired....but its not 8:00 yet...SO kinda hoping that 2nd wind doesn't come.