Well, folks, buckle up because things are about to get real. You may remember that I tried a diet recently to help Malcom with his eczema, which, by the way, worked beautifully to clear it up (while it lasted). I determined that he does, indeed, have a food aversion to either gluten or dairy, so now I’m on a mission not only to keep his eczema at bay but also to heal him of his food aversion altogether. Enter GAPS. Have you heard of GAPS? I’m not talking about thigh gaps. GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and I’ll soon start this diet, along with my entire family. My niece Kayla is a dietician, and she’s also GAPS certified. And yes, this diet is complex enough that you need a certification to secure success. Kayla will live with us for a few months and work for me as our personal chef, all the while creating her course with all the details for how you can do it too and why you should! So stay tuned for that.
GAPS is not a lifestyle change; it’s a temporary, healing diet. We plan to stick with it for several months or until we feel better. The goal of this diet is to heal the gut, but I’m excited to see if it also helps with my ADHD and some of our allergies. Our entire family will be eating what Chef Kayla tells us to eat. I’m not concerned about my girls disliking anything because, with the exception of Eleanor, they are thankfully not picky. (Although I have high hopes that the diet will help Eleanor with her pickiness while we’re at it.) I will be clearing out my fridge and pantry of snacks, so if you’re my neighbor, prepare to find some random condiments on your doorstep.
The walls of our basement are made of fabric. Yes, I know that’s weird, and no, I don’t like it. But I also don’t want to tear the walls down, so in order to spruce it up so it looks nice for Kayla, I have painted them. But you can’t just slap latex paint on a fabric wall. I looked into a fabric medium to add to paints to help it adhere to fabric, but since we’re working with such a large scale, it would have cost way more than we want to spend to paint all of the walls. Fabric softener was the answer to my dilemma, and it seems to be working! Although the true test will be time. I’ll keep ya posted. Worst-case scenario, we rip it all off and replace it with actual drywall, but I think I’d try wallpaper first.
I have also ripped out the old carpet that was there and replaced it with the leftover Duravana flooring we installed throughout the entire main level of our home, which was pretty simple! You can catch the process in my stories, or stay tuned for a blog post with all the details.
Rug Pad Gripper for Hardwood Floors
Last year LL Flooring launched their new Duravana flooring line, and it’s awesome. It’s family-friendly, eco-friendly, waterproof, dent/scratch resistant, and we’re currently installing it in our basement… Read the entire post here…
We did the GAPS diet with our daughter. She was diagnosed with IBS and we were being told all the things to do to “deal” with her condition. I didn’t want to deal with it I wanted to heal it! I did some research and found GAPS. I read the book and was overwhelmed (I didn’t have a professional helping me!) but I made a plan. I also got her on therapeutic levels of probiotics. I determined her level from the book and used the brand the book recommended. I know we didn’t do it perfectly all the time (my daughter IS picky!) but we did our very very best and after 9 months we slowly began to reintroduce foods. By one year she was eating pretty much normal but still trying to keep sugar out of her diet. That was three years ago and she is still well today by the grace of God. We just took her college for her first year. She has no food allergies or restrictions. She even eats sugar. It was a very hard year (and our whole family wasn’t even doing the diet) but it was so worth it because she is well and her gut is healthy. Praise the Lord!
I’m so happy to hear a GAPS success story!