Well, as usual, Hashimotos Thyroidits is not what most people would call a simple health issue! And it continues to amaze me every time I “get ahead”, how quickly I find I am not….really! But what doesn’t amaze me are the awesome things I find out as I go through this journey! Enter: The GAPS Diet! I’ve hinted about this diet in a post or two in the past but now I can update you as someone being in the “heart” of this diet and the challenges that are faced within the diet. What I can also tell you about, will be the pure joy I have gotten from being on this diet! It is the absolute best diet I have ever been on for many reasons, but I will take one at a time as I post more about it. First, I will begin with a rather light-hearted post today, showing you how a desperate GAPS person thinks.
As seen above, I am NOT suffering on this awesome diet! But let me describe a little “blip” I went through this week. Okay, I’m “sailing” along on GAPS (now on the full GAPS plan) and then one day, it hits me! I haven’t had chocolate in over 6 months! What? Me? A chocoholic to the max? How could I let this happen? WHY would I let this happen? Well, let me answer my own questions. First, it happened because I was so intent on healing, chocolate was not even in picture. I was not obsessed with it for all those months because I was healing. Imagine that. Healing? Could it really be happening? Yes, it can!
It started a few years ago when I began taking an online class by GNOWFLINS on traditional diet food preparation which I am still subscribed to monthly and which I greatly recommend. I have even partnered with GNOWFLINS because I believe in learning these skills so incredibly much! (And by the way, if you sign up through my website links, it helps me earn a bit towards the cost of running this website so if you have been helped here at all, I would really appreciate you using these links when you decide to take the awesome classes I enjoy weekly myself!)
Then, I realized I had a gluten “issue”. Yes, I don’t like to call it an allergy but in reality, it is very much like an allergy. The body reacts to this substance launching an immune attack on my body. These are just the facts. If you have a suspicion you have a gluten problem (many of us really don’t want to know and ignore it), I can tell you now that it was one of the best moves of my health journey to find out. Especially considering my thyroid antibodies came down very close to normal after being on the true gluten free diet! And when I say “true”, I mean true! But that is another post!
Now, after having all that behind me, GAPS has been my focus and this one very powerful diet has been one of the greatest moves I have made since going gluten free. The even more important move was finally getting rid of my mercury fillings so the GAPS diet actually had a prayer to help me! But that story is found in my last post outlining my journey to that very important step. Please take the time to read the post explaining that emergency situation. It is a very important part of healing for those who may be struggling, without really knowing they may have mercury poisoning going on in their body.
Okay, I said this post would be on the light-hearted side so now I will get to that portion. I was talking about chocolate right? Well, a few days ago I decided I had healed enough to try a bit of GAPS allowable chocolate. To be honest, I don’t think I will eat it again for a while because I have a feeling it’s best that I don’t have it until I feel I am well on my way to full healing (in fact, I believe this is the advice of Dr. McBride too) but thought I’d experiment a bit and try a recipe I found on the net. I want to thank this Traditional-Foods.com post for the idea. I only changed a couple small things. I felt the “chips” were not sweet enough for me so I added a bit more honey to taste and used ghee instead of coconut oil since I, so far, haven’t done well with coconut oil. Here’s what they turned out like:
So, as you can see, these don’t quite resemble commercial chocolate chips! But who cares when it’s the chocolate you’re after anyway! My next mission was to make chocolate chip cookies. FAIL! But I gave up pretty quickly. If anyone knows of a recipe which uses GAPS friendly ingredients and not coconut flour, please comment below. I would love to find a recipe that can be used towards the holidays. But for now, I settled on a GAPS friendly muffin similar to these from GNOWFLINS but as a member, I got access to a GAPS friendly version.
Now, for a chocolate lover who hasn’t had it in over 6 months, those looked pretty inviting, if I do say so myself! And by golly, they were good! So don’t think you can’t have any treats while eating for improved health. They just need to have the right nourishing ingredients.
So, after having my now unusual breakfast this morning – a fast food type breakfast that looked strangely familiar to my prior gluten infested life, I sat down to write this post.
Okay, so they’re not going to win any awards in the gluten world, but for those of us on GAPS, these muffins hit the spot. But I have to admit, however much I used to like chocolate, I am now more interested in keeping it to a minimum probably because the addiction is finally gone. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the idea of having chocolate, but there are going to be many more days I will be very happy reaching for a beautiful “popsicle” made from organic, juicy, sweet and delicious watermelon and similar treats. Yum! And so I will leave you with a picture of this lovely sweet treat. And with many months of continuing my journey to go, I am sure I will be posting once in a while, other favorite creations I come up with or come across. Thanks to the book “Internal Bliss” and of course, the official GAPS diet book by Dr. Natasha McBride, I can enjoy these anytime I want. 🙂
I hope you will consider joining me on this journey of healing. Know that there is a lot of support for you if you choose to do so. I plan on continuing this journey for at least another year (have I mentioned this diet is a temporary one?) which will give me plenty of opportunity to share the healing along the way. I look forward to your comments. Here’s to better health!
Disclaimer: All posts are describing my personal journey through health issues and are in no way meant to guide anyone towards any method in particular. I am not a medical practitioner or have a dietary or medical license, and this blog is not intended to be taken as authoritative advice. Please see your doctor, or health professional before making any drastic diet changes! Also, occasionally I find others to partner with whom I have had tremendous help from and therefore, there may be paid advertisements and links to support them and help me financially run this website.
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