GAPS Day 5

*Wrote this last night, but I'm posting it this morning.  Sorry for any inconsistencies this causes!  And here's a little spoiler: I feel MUCH better today!

Oof.  Everything had been going really well with GAPS so far, I was even commenting to Will yesterday that I felt really great.  Then I woke up this morning feeling shaky and dizzy.  I thought I was just hungry, so I had some broth, lamb, and butternut squash, but I was still feeling strange when the time came to take Emily to school so I pulled out the big guns.  I had about 1/2 cup of apple juice to get some carbs in, and that made me feel a little bit better, but not as much as I had hoped.

I had a busy morning of Zumba and taking both dogs and Charlotte with me to the vet, so I was worried I wouldn't have the energy to get through, but I felt slightly better as the day went on.  And of course today is the day that Will is gone on a business trip so I was on my own with no hope of being spelled before bedtime.  At least it's only for 2 nights!

The vet trip was harrowing as I had expected, but it was because of Charlotte.  The doggies behaved very well:

Resigned to his fate

Sigh

 and so did Charlotte at first.  She played nicely with the toys the vet tech nicely brought in.

The kitty had a splinter...

...and "snoot coming out of her nose"...

...and she apparently needed a tail-ectomy

However when it came time to give back the toys and go, she threw an INCREDIBLE fit.  It was definitely her worst tantrum to date.  She actually threw up from the screaming, and now she is hoarse :-(  It was a relief for Mommy once I got her down for a nap! To celebrate my break (I get a break again with NO kids for an hour or two per day now that Emily is at school!) I took my detox bath followed by a nap.  After that, I felt decent...kind of like when you've just gotten over the stomach flu and you're pretty much better but still feeling kind of weak.

Add to the equation the fact that I have lost 6 pounds...over the last 2 days :-/  I had a lot of thinking to do today!  And of course I am going to write it all out here in boring detail so you all can experience it with me.

For the first couple days on GAPS my weight stayed the same.  I figured I was doing a good job of making sure I got enough calories to keep my weight steady, but then when I weighed myself yesterday I was down 3 pounds!  I figured it was just my water weight from my time of the month finally letting go (that happens pretty often), but when I was down ANOTHER 3 pounds this morning, I couldn't believe it.  I've been putting more fat in my food today (blech) to try to offset my weight loss because the only thing I can think about is the fact that weight loss this fast is not sustainable!  The weird thing is, back in the spring these are the exact same 6 pounds that I put ON all at once in the week after my sister's wedding.  Maybe this particular chunk of weight just comes as a package deal?  And even though I don't really WANT to be losing weight this fast, I am pleased that I'm finally back to my lowest weight since having Charlotte!  3 more pounds and I'll be at my lowest weight since having either of the girls.  At this rate I should get there tomorrow.

I have read about "die-off symptoms" all over the place (feeling awful as the "bad bugs" in your stomach die off and release toxins into your body to be passed out), but I honestly didn't believe that they were actually what people think they are.  They were all things that I would expect my body to do if it wasn't getting enough of what it needed.  However now that I'm experiencing symptoms, I feel like they kind of HAVE to be due to die-off.  Between all the butternut squash, carrots, and apple juice I had today I've had at least 50% of my normal RDA of carbs, so that's low but not SO low that I should be feeling bad because of it, especially after only a couple days.  And since the bath helped more than the apple juice, who knows?  I'm going to go with a solid "maybe".

I've been having (mental) problems with eating straight FAT.  I've been reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, which is actually fascinating and has me fairly convinced that animal fats are a good thing, and if that's not enough then there's my own insane weight loss despite scarfing down meat and fat for the past 5 days, but I grew up in the 80's and 90's when fat was the bad guy and I'm just not used to it!  I've always taken the skin off my chicken, skimmed the fat off my broth and virtuously cut all the fat edges off of my steaks.  Now I'm not only supposed to eat all of that, but even put EXTRA fat on things.  I'm looking forward to when I can use dairy again, because that's where I actually enjoy eating my fat.

I decided to bump myself to day 6 in order to get back to carbs more quickly.  As long as you don't have any major digestive problems you're allowed to go through the first few stages faster so I don't see a problem with this.

I'm feeling pretty lousy tonight though, I haven't felt like eating anything since dinner time.  I tried to force myself to eat some squash but it made me retch a couple times so I spit it out.  I don't want to barf and lose more weight!

Everything I read assures me that these feelings are normal...I guess I will just go to bed super-early and try to stick it out!