Silly Me!

You would think I would learn after my last episode with essential oils, to STAY AWAY, but it usually takes a few lickins' before I can get it in my head. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE essential oils, but for me, who is now incredibly cleaned out, they can have a strong effect.

If you start with the GAPS INTRO DIET, you heavily detox in the beginning, so your body becomes incredibly cleaned out. As you move along on the diet, you add detoxifying foods slowly, so your body can adjust, so not to become too overburdened by the toxins you are pulling from your body. For Example: Juicing is very detoxifying. We are suppose to start with 2 Tbl. a day, and slowly go up to a cup. If  you feel miserable, you can slow down a bit, or try again another time. Another example is sauerkraut and it's juices. My family is up to 6 tsp. of sauerkraut juice. This is a huge accomplishment for us. It took forever to be able to tolerate 2 tsp., so I am happy for our new number. Soon, we will start 1 tsp. of the actual sauerkraut, and move up to a 1/4 of a cup with every meal.

So back to ESSENTIAL OILS. Last weekend I went to my SIL's house, and she has a friend who can scan your body for the oils it needs at the present time. My highest oil was Lemon. Lemon is incredibly detoxifying, and a purifier. (Go figure!) So, I decided I would go slow, and only have one drop of the oil in my water a day. By day two, I looked 4 months pregnant. I was extremely bloated, had back and neck pain, and a headache to boot. Ok, so I went too fast on the oils. I know my body needs them, but here's the kicker. 1 drop of lemon oil, is as effective as 20 cups of lemon tea. So, since doing GAPS, and having to go slow with all of our detoxing foods, 20 cups of lemon tea was a slam to my body!!

Note to self: STOP PUSHING THE LIMITS. This diet is not a race, I will come out better in the end, so don't kill your body in the process, it is counterproductive. Go line upon line, precept upon precept, and quit trying to be tough!

Ok, I feel better now.

Note to everyone else: Essential Oils are fabulous! They are my new medicine cabinet. I haven't had to take my kids to the doctor in over two years, because the oils have taken care of the colds, flu, asthma, pink eye, need for stitches, burns, ring worm etc. They are very powerful, and work at the cellular level. I love them, just too powerful for me right now!

New plan: Continue the food course. When I am officially in the FULL GAPS DIET, and I haven't detoxed in a long time, start the lemon oil again, but dilute it, and use twice a week to start, and build up from there. Better plan!

Keep eatin' fat!

Brittney

Shrimp Scampi and a FUN story!

When I can find some WILD caught shrimp on sale, this is the recipe we make! My children lick their plates on this one.

(The picture doesn't do it justice. I didn't have my good camera. Bummer!)

 SHRIMP SCAMPI

2 lbs. of peeled and deveined shrimp

2 T. of Ghee or Butter

1/2 onion chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic minced

1/2-1 cup of chicken broth

2 medium spaghetti squash

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. I generally cook my spaghetti squash whole. Place the spaghetti squash in a pan, and cook it for about 1 hour. Peel and devein your shrimp. In a medium skillet, melt  the butter and add the onion and garlic. Cook for about 10 min., until the mixture is soft and translucent. Add the broth and stir til gently simmering. Add the shrimp, and cook for about 5-8 min., stirring til the mixture has thickened and the shrimp have turned pink. Salt and pepper to taste. Shred the spaghetti squash with a fork, and use as your noodles for the shrimp scampi. Butter and salt your spaghetti squash, and then top with the shrimp mixture. It's a yummy buttery, garlicky mixture in your mouth. YUM!

This weekend, I went to visit my sister-n-law. She took me over to one of her friend's houses. When we walked into her family room, there was a big CAT climbing all over the couches we were about to sit on, and weaving in and out of the curtains by the window above the couch. I knew I was going to sit on that couch, and I knew I would be in trouble. I have always been allergic to cats. Usually before I see a cat at someones home, I can TELL a cat lives there. My throat and eyes start to get itchy, I get stuffy, and start sneezing. I try not to touch the cats, or I'm in real trouble. I went and sat on the couch, and hoped that I wouldn't be too bad off. I think we were there for longer than an hour, and guess what! Not one sniffle, no itchy throat, and no watery eyes. I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe it! There's a theory out there that allergies do not really need to exist. Allergies just mean you need to work on your digestive and immune system. Once you get those working properly, no allergies. I'm hoping this is a sign, that things are starting to work properly in my body. Now I didn't exactly touch the cat, or roll around in the "cat-hair" couch, but I'll have to experiment with that next time! :)

Keep eatin' fat!

Brittney

Detox...it's a Love/Hate Relationship

I've been missing for a while. What have I been doing? Detoxing, and detoxing HARD! It's been a while since I have detoxed, and I almost forgot what it felt like for me.  The last two weeks, I have been incredibly fatigued, I've experienced intense back and neck pain, foggy brain, some insomnia and a new one, some major ANXIETY. The anxiety was the worst part about it. I felt so out of control, and I wasn't sure how to deal with it. I feel bad for people who have chronic anxiety, it's awful!

I started looking back at what I had eaten. The only connection was a new brand of coconut oil. (Coconut oil is incredibly detoxifying and has to be approached slowly when doing the GAPS diet). I thought maybe this coconut oil was more potent. So I stopped eating it.  2 1/2 weeks later, I was still detoxing hard, so I decided it couldn't be the oil.

I kept thinking, what else could it be? Then I realized, that I had started using Frankincense Essential Oil. I had been to an Essential Oils class recently, and I remember them saying, "Just start using the oils, start getting them into your body." Most of the oils I had, I used from time to time, but not frankincense, which is revered as the "gold" of all oils. So, I started about 2 1/2 weeks ago to apply it on my body or throw it in my bath every once in a while. That's when I started to get sick. The frankincense was detoxing my body. I didn't realize it at first, and kept using it sparingly. I forgot to use it for about three days, and noticed I felt much better. The next day, I remembered about the oil, and used more than normal, to catch up on the days I had missed. BAM! Another "no good" detoxing day. I finally made the connection. Thank goodness!

Frankincense can do so many things for the body (even fight against cancer), so I'm not exactly sure what it is trying to target in my body, but it was definitely powerful for me. I've liked the results of the frankincense (not the detoxing part), so I will continue using it, but maybe just twice a week, one drop, and work my way up to a higher dosage.

Detox, (or for GAPSTERS, we say die-off) has been very interesting for me. The first several months on GAPS, I experienced non-stop:

exhaustion
body aches
headaches
nausea
dizziness
heart palpations

I was trying to decide when it would ever end! Then we decided to back off a lot of the detoxifying protocols, and go slower. Things got better! Over the summer months, I experienced

A couple Kidney Stones
Pink Eye
Hair falling out
Major BO ( I know it's not very lady like to talk about your BO, but before gaps, I never sweat, I never smelled, I rarely had to wear deodorant.) Guess what, not good! We need to sweat, to get rid of junk in our bodies. I remember sitting one night, and actually my husband and I both stunk and he said, "In the 10 years of marriage, I've never smelled you before, and now you stink!" We both started laughing hard, because I did, and I showered like three times a day, with no avail. Luckily it went away!

(It was a mild summer, thank goodness!)

As I started upping my detoxing protocols, I started detoxing EMOTIONALLY. I had no idea I had crazy emotions locked up way down in my body reeking havoc. I've gone through a few emotional cleanses, and there kind of scary, because you don't really know what is going to come out, but I always feel so much lighter and better when they are over.

So now, lately, the detoxing is definitely more spread out. When I feel good, I feel REALLY good, like a brand new person. It's awesome!! That's why detoxing for me is a LOVE/HATE relationship. I love it, because I know it's helping me purge junk out of my body, but I hate it, because it's no fun going through it. I guess, NO PAIN, NO GAIN!

As I was really struggling through this last detox process, I stumbled upon a website that a lot of gapsters recommend, called healingnaturallybybee.com. I felt like this was a little "tender mercy" from the Lord. Her protocol is very similar to GAPS, but she has detailed papers written specifically about what detoxing/die-off is, what is considered a healing reaction, and how are body will retrace through old symptoms and emotions that have already occurred in our life. I felt a lot of comfort as I read through her pages, that I would not feel horrible forever, and that I need to push on...slowly. I do want to relate one story that was told, that painted a good picture in my mind, of what retracing is.
One doctor wrote that when your body is going through a deep detoxing protocol, it will retrace through past symptoms. If you think of a staircase, and Health is at the top, the next step down might be headaches, then the next step down might be fatigue, the next arthritis, the next an ulcer etc. As you start to heal your body, you start going back up the stairs, experiencing even more intense arthritis, then gone, you take another step up, and you go through fatigue, and so forth, until you are at the top again with good health! It's totally weird and crazy to me that this is happening to me, but it is, so I go with the flow as well as I can!

Although I'm getting good at seeing my kids reactions, it is easier to see my own healing. This gives me hope that my children's bodies are changing for the better as well, and that's all I can ask for! :)

Keep eatin' fat!

Brittney