GAPS diet journal one - the magic word

GAPS diet journal one.  Day 17.

So I am sure many of you are wondering - how do you feel when you're on the GAPS Diet?  Well, I'm sure it's different for everyone.  We all have different ailments, unique symptoms and individual reactions to healing.

I had to think long and hard about just how I feel on this diet.  The words fantastic, great, amazing and even fan-frickin-tastic just don't do it justice.  It wasn't until yesterday when my mom said the magic word that I knew it was perfect.  It sums up everything that is going on inside - and outside - of me.  It describes my instant hyper-activity when I start to tell someone about the diet and how it works.  It explains the way I feel when I get up in the morning, refreshed and light, after merely seven hours of sleep.  It is the epitome of how I feel after I've just eaten my second helping of dinner.  It is sublimely reminisce of how I feel about my future health.

Empowered

Sure, I've felt this way before.  When I was a child, I felt empowered when my parents let me pick what our family would enjoy for dessert when out to dinner together.  When I turned sixteen, I felt empowered when my dad taught me how to drive a stick shift so I could drive to school a few days per week.  In college, I felt empowered when I spoke out about the war and what was "really" going on over "there".  When I entered the workforce, I felt empowered by my passion for what I was doing and my determination to succeed.  All of these times [and many, many more], I have felt empowered and in [somewhat] control of my life, my future.  

But I have never felt empowered when it comes to my health.  Sure, I have felt hopeful many times - upon discovering the raw food diet, Body Ecology Diet, Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation, and learning how to ferment, soak, sprout, and dehydrate my food for improved digestion.  I was even hopeful each of the numerous times we found a new MD, ND, DDS, OMD, LAc, PT, chiropractor or [insert initials here] who was going to help me "fix" my ailments.  Yes, they all helped me.  They were all part of my journey.  But they never made me feel this way.  This empowered.

As I have told many of my friends [and randoms I don't know at all], starting this diet was not easy.  I could have taken the leap years ago, when my family first came across it.  But we didn't.  It was labeled too hard and we quickly moved on to easier regimens.  Today, I think about those years that I spent taking other routes, and try not to feel regret.  Besides, it was those routes that ultimately led me to here.  Better late than never. 

You may think that I am pretty confident in GAPS.  Yeah, I am.  Hopefully not overly so.  Read the book and you will understand.  It's like taking all of the jumbled information and knowledge about health that I have acquired over the past few years and putting it together to form clear, concise sentences.  Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride makes sense.  Answers my questions.  Breaks it down.  Explains exactly why A or B happens and how we can change that.  Not change by bandaging it up with a drug - but change by providing the body with what it needs to heal.  

Heal.  Not a word you hear too often anymore.  Well, add it back into your vocabulary folks.  Stat. 

I can feel the healing going on inside of me.

For the past two weeks, I have felt light.  For the first time since I don't even remember when, I have normal digestion.  Or at least what I suppose is normal - for most people.  I eat and feel full, but not bloated.  I could actually run a mile after enjoying a full meal [go figure].  I awake to my head feeling like its glued to the pillow no more.  I feel refreshed, energized, alive.  Ready to take on the day.  Watch out.  Here I come.

I can't wait for what tomorrow may bring.