The Why's and What's of the GAPS Diet

    So, I decided to give more background to the GAPS diet. You can skip this post if nutrition and gang wars amidst bacteria are not your interests. The next post will introduce Becoming a Fair Lady in Word, I promise, but the last post kind of left me hanging. And I wrote it! Thus, this explanation of the diet - why it works and how it works and what it means for me and this blog. 

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a doctor nor do I strive to council you in your medical and nutritional choices. If you implement anything I say and it backfires on you, too bad. Go sue someone else. Okay, so I should hunt for a better disclaimer. Bear with me.

What are Gut Flora?

    I mentioned critters, remember? And those cute little enterocytes? Yeah, we get to hear more about them. First, I shall give our critters names and set the stage for the saga of the stomach (and intestines, and liver, and, well, you know). 

    Gut Flora, aka critters, live all over your body, not just your gut. They live in the eustachian tubes of your ears, the mouth, and basically any surface tissue. But they mainly live in the gut. Scientists have distinguished three categories of gut flora: 

1) Indigenous - good guys your body uses

2) Opportunistic - bad guys which stick around but do not have a chance to grow due to good guys

3) Transitional - the guys you eat and inhale who pass through your body without bothering it

   Indigenous flora are bacteria, fungi, and various others of that sort which live and lodge in our body. God designed this symbiotic relationship between human and...critter which keeps us healthy and useful. Humans like indigenous flora.

    Opportunistic flora are those which dwell in our bodies, waiting for the opportunity to launch an attack on our little indigenous friends. They want to control the market, if you understand me. Humans dislike opportunistic flora - to a point. They do tend to balance the flora out, so we do not want to eradicate them, just not let them grow.

    Transitional flora are things we may eat or breathe into our bodies. They do not live anywhere, really, but are poor wayfaring strangers which we eliminate as needed. 

What Gut Flora Does:

    But what are these microorganisms doing in our bodies in the first place? They are very busy, actually. I tried to put their functions in five groups.

    First, indigenous gut flora protects our gut lining, and thus body, from opportunistic flora, entering viruses and bacteria, and toxins.

    Second, they attack the opportunistic and transitional flora. Not only do they protect our body from these microorganisms' deleterious effects, but they actively oppose them from spreading. Nice.

    Third, gut flora nourishes our body. It is the perfect example of symbiosis, we feed the flora and they feed us. You see, there are things we consume but cannot digest, like fibre. Fibre is important because it slows the flow of carbohydrates through our gut. But what happens to this fibre when we are done with it? We cannot use it in our structure nor metabolism. That is right, gut flora feed off fibre. Of course, we also eliminate it. This is just one illustration of the symbiosis, though. They absorb and digest certain sugars and proteins, too. That is why GAPS patients cannot handle these foods well; they lack the flora which absorbs and digests them! However, beneficial flora also make, or synthesize, vitamins we either cannot use from food or need during times we are not eating. The absorption of vitamins is a fast process. If we relied solely on our meals to provide these vitamins, there would be times during the day when areas of our body would be deficient. Gut flora, by offering a steady stream of select B vitamins and K vitamins, ensures our bodies always have what they need.

Fourth, indigenous gut flora do what I like to call nannying. I direct you to our buddies, the enterocytes. These cells are imperative for proper digestion and immunity. They live on the villi of our intestines and form its brush border, producing many enzymes necessary for digestion and absorption of food. Without them, we would not be able to use most of what we eat and starve, no matter what we shoved down our throats! Gut flora nanny these helping hands. They govern the enterocytes' mitosis (formation) and maturation, making sure they develop in to healthy, functioning units in the assembly line of our digestive system. 

    Fifth and last, gut flora detoxes our bodies. A host of unwanted substances enter our bodies through the food we eat and the air we breath. Beneficial flora are a first line of defense against those toxins by taking part in the production of lymphocytes and therefore immunoglobulins, like IgA. They also are somehow involved in processes of neutrophils and macrophages, which "eat" viruses and toxins to eliminate them. Plus, beneficial bacteria help produce regulators of immune response, without which our immune system would behave like a mob. All of these substances detox the body, and they would not exist without the help of gut flora.

What Happens during Gut Dysbiosis

    As we have seen, gut flora plays a major role in our normalcy. They do a lot to keep us going as we do. So what happens when our gut flora does not do its job, when the three kinds of gut flora get out of balance? Basically, we can look at all their benefits and turn these gifts on their heads. Just a peek of this reverse will show you the havoc gut dysbiosis can wreak. 

    For one thing, your lining is no longer protected so it is attacked by viruses, toxins, and opportunists, some of which embed themselves in the gut wall, causing it to deteriorate and leak. This leads to a "Leaky Gut" where food passes into the bloodstream partially digested. Yikes! Your body does not recognize these macromolecules of food as at all good for the body, so it starts attacking them. This is a way allergies (really they are intolerances) develop.

     Beneficial bacteria no longer keep the opportunistic flora at bay, so they take their chance to raid the gut, releasing a slew of toxins and poisons and other not so pleasant things. On top of that, when E. coli or Candida albicans or Clostridium dificile, to name a few, grow in number they destroy the gut wall even more. It is not a pretty sight. 

   Then, because good bacteria are no longer producing vitamins you need nor aiding in the absorption of foods and care for enterocytes, you become malnourished no matter how much you eat. You no longer have the resources to fight assailing disease! Invaders are just a smidgen of the problem, though; the overgrowth of bad bacteria and fungi crave foods for themselves (like sugars) rather than what would restore gut balance. It becomes a vicious cycle of cravings and reactions followed by more cravings and more reactions.

   Then our gut develops its own orphan community. As mentioned in passing, instead of happy homemaker bacteria nursing enterocytes, we have bad bacteria attacking these cells so vital for digestion and immunity. 

   The impaired immune system now stages a counterattack. We have two branches in our immune system, but, due to handicapped and dead gut flora not protecting us, they become unbalanced. Th1, the branch which is known as the first line of defense against invaders, gives way to Th2, the branch associated with allergic reactions, inflammation, and autoimmunity. Thus, this latter set of defense mechanisms becomes hyper-active, resulting in the myriad allergies, intolerances, and autoimmune diseases we have today. 

   In short, damaged gut flora leave your body open to invaders, malnourished so it cannot combat the invaders, and results in compromised immunity which tends to maniacally attack its own cells or otherwise normal substances. What is more, the gut is leaky, so toxins and partially digested food leak into the bloodstream, unleashing horrible reactions and toxicity. This results in many of the disorders and intolerances we see today, like autism, celiac, etc. Who knew it could all begin in the gut?

What Causes Gut Dysbiosis:

  But how did it go wrong? What led my body to the dilapidated state in which it now is? There are a few factors leading to the demise of anyone's gut.  Disease, antibiotics, toxic environments, and diet all play a contributing role to Gut Dysbiosis. Usually, the sorry state of things cannot be attributed to any one factor, but to a variety of each. Say you get really sick and weak, and you need to take antibiotics to strip away disease, all the while eating hospital haute cuisine of toast and jam and ten percent apple juice. This would leave you pretty much done in. Or perhaps you returned home from an exhausting day at the mall, full of its cleaners and perfumes and who knows what else, to pop inscrutable microwave dinners into your little microwave oven. And you have a cold. These situations put a lot of strain on your poor gut flora and enterocytes! If you make this a habit, they may well throw a fit and go sit in the naughty corner!

   However, diet is on my mind. It is the hard-to-digest polysaccharides (or large, complicated sugar molecules), the processed foods replete with chemicals, and poor quality fibre that make your gut a play house for bad bacteria. As we saw, they feed off fermenting fibre, settle down in the glue-like abodes so happily produced by processed sugars, and relish a fine snack of polysaccharides which you are too compromised to use. But you do not help. You continue to eat foods your digestive system can no longer handle, and they leak through your gut, invoking all sorts of mayhem and withholding from your gut the chance to heal. 

What Cures Gut Dysbiosis:

    Well, no more! There are three components to restoring your gut flora and thereby curing Gut Dysbiosis. Imagine it as three legs to a stool: take out one and the whole piece crashes. First, there is a need to detox. You must rid yourself of all those poisonous substances accumulating in your body with every bite you eat (no matter how "healthy" that bite may be). But this must be accompanied by a drastic change in diet, one which starves the bad guys, feeds the good guys, and cleans up the crime scene. This diet is full of nourishing animal fats and cartilages, grass-fed or pastured meats, non-starchy vegetables, very ripe fruit, and lots and lots of soups. All starches and grains are eliminated to let the gut heal. The fats, cartilage, and broth restore the gut lining while the meats and vegetables provide much needed building-blocks and energy. To aid these two legs, we have a third: supplementation. This is not permanent. A healthy body should be able to live from food, not pills. However, so many of us have gone astray that we need a little help to get back on track. The main supplementation comes from probiotics. They are just good bacteria we put in our stomachs via fermented foods and encapsulated strains. 

   So, this is what I am doing, and it is fun! With steady perseverance, I hope to be healed soon. Upcoming posts will probably involve recipes and musings. Maybe a few "I can't do this anymore" posts, too. It is hard work. But, all in due time. Now you ought to give your eyes a break. They have been reading blogs much too long!

Post Script

Here are some interesting writings on the whole gut flora idea:

http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/normalflora.html

http://www.ajcn.org/content/73/2/444S.long

http://www.wasamedicals.com/pdf/ref_smj_eng.pdf

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/ecol409_509/searsreview.pdf

My Story IV - Still on the Journey: An Introduction to GAPS

  Yes, there have been struggles and triumphs, but it is by no means over yet. I still have much to accomplish for physical healing; and spiritual healing, well, is it not a lifelong work of sanctification which God promises to complete? It is always helpful, though, to know where you are on the journey to have a better idea of what needs to be done and in what direction you are heading. So where am I?
    A picture may be of use. 

    You will remember from this post that I did not look healthy. Well, I think in this picture I look healthier. This is a good thing! Now, there are still problems to solve in my body, like more energy, less intolerances, and a pain-free back. The improvements in these areas abound so I cannot complain. But the road still winds ahead.

There are spiritual trials, too. I still confront control, specifically in the area of time. Head on collision! Yet I know what is right and what is wrong, and earnestly desire the right at any cost. That is half the battle. I could work on my tone when speaking to my dear family. Does it matter they love me unconditionally (as far as a human can)? Should I take advantage of that gift? Of course not. Why is it we are kinder to our waitress than our mother? It does not make sense, and it is certainly not in line with Christ, so making that change is on the top of my to-do list. These are just examples of the hurdles I have yet to leap, the habits I have yet to change. After all, the mountains loom ahead.

But there is hope for my journey, both physically and spiritually.

Let me introduce you to my physical problem-solver: the GAPS programme. GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome or Gut and Physiology Syndrome, depending on what your health difficulty is. I fall under the latter category, if you wondered. What on earth does that mean? Simple, really. The name connects the state of your gut (think stomach, intestines, etc.) to the state of your health, so the idea is to heal your gut which in turn heals your body. Not too hard of a concept to grasp, eh?

Now just how does this work? You see, we have these little critters living inside our guts which help digest food, eliminate toxins, protect the gut lining, and a host of other things. We also have these little cells called enterocytes living on our gut linings. Well, when a person has a GAPS dilemma, the little critters get out of control, turning to gang violence and covert operations, while the helpful enterocytes meet a tragic end, and are not replaced. What grief... Anyway, by repopulating our guts with good critters and eating in a way which perks up those sad, starved enterocytes, your gut dysbiosis will return to its state of gut symbiosis, and your body will thank you for it.

But what does this programme look like? GAPS Programme does sound a bit like a brainwashing squad, but it is actually quite wonderful! You take probiotics, cut out grains and starches, and eat all that scrumptious food you were told would give you a heart attack like burgers, butter, cream, gravy, bacon, and brussel sprouts (okay, okay, this girl really likes brussel sprouts). See, by eating these healing foods, you give your gut a break from breaking down complex carbohydrates, while at the same time, you nourish the gut to restore it to full functioning capacity. 

There is a much more scientific explanation coming soon, but I did not want to bog down uninterested people with alien-sounding terms. :) I know, I just used a smiley. 

Spiritually, also, there is most definitely a game plan. It is called Scripture. How can I become a Fair Lady without pursuing the only One who is fair? How can I pursue Someone I do not know? How can I know the Unknowable if not by His own revelation? Yes, my heart's desire is to make His word not just a light unto my feet, but the light unto my feet. It shall be my aim to listen to His voice amidst all the voices Satan uses to drown His. And God is powerful for this. He is mighty to make Himself heard, and hard hearts respond. I have already seen this in my life, and my Father will continue the work He began to completion. 

For everything, then, He deserves praise. No matter what means He uses to shape me, whether it be a food plan, a strong family, or crazy blogging homeschool mamas, all the glory goes to Him and Him alone. My prayer is that this lady will glorify her King. And that is my story...so far!

My Story II - Struggles on the Journey

  In the last post, I left myself undergoing a major paradigm shift. However, a shift is a step, a step is a process, and a process is hard. 

There were many physical obstacles to overcome. You recall I feared fats like the plague. Protein was a "good" thing, but in my thinking, I did not have enough calorie dollars to spend on meat. Running a cost-benefit analysis on my calorie bank account, veggies were the only food which fit my budget. All that had to change, and fast. 

See Jenn sit down. See Jenn place peanut butter in bowl. See Jenn add coocnut oil to said bowl. See Jenn dump yogurt over described concoction. ... See Jenn gag. Calories! How on earth could any Western girl justify eating fats she was not going to use? See how out of it I was? 

Aside from they very powerful gag reaction, my body had also been damaged enough to create some aversions of its own. Food intolerances, with which I have always struggled (another post for another time), grew powerful and multiplied like rabbits. One day yogurt was fine, the next it had me clutching my stomach. Eggs, dairy aside from a certain brand of yogurt, and anything containing them had long left the scene. Then nuts flew the coop. Then grains. Then tomatoes. And on it went! 

What is more, my body had wasted away. I hurt everywhere. Due to a car accident a few years ago, my neck and back were misaligned. Now the pain reached oppressive levels. You see, without enough fats, nutrients, and proteins, your body cannot repair on a normal basis. That is why seemingly simple issues worsened rather than were resolved. Brain fog clouded my cognitive abilities. Leg cramps inhibited walking. And on it went again!

The biggest physical obstacle, though, was what I call the Skinny Hump. I could not get over the fact that I could not and would not be thin like the media said I should be. The mirror about killed me. If I noticed any "extra" weight, the reaction was at best mixed. Yay! I am doing well in becoming a Fair Lady. Sigh. Why must being a Fair Lady imply not being pretty? (Note: My concept of pretty was still pretty skewed. Remember, healing and sanctifying are processes.)

 

All these physical obstacles floated atop a mess of spiritual ones. The most obvious issue was that of control. I liked the driver's seat best, thank you very much. However, I knew God's control far surpassed mine. One blessed, the other destroyed. So every day I died to self. Well, maybe not every day. There were instances when Jenn thought she was God and tried to snatch the reigns from her Maker. It is enough to say those times were miserable. Little by little, it became easier, more natural, to live in His paradigm rather than the sinful one I created. It should make sense, considering His Spirit, through His Word, crafted me a new nature with each passing moment. Is not His grace beautiful? But I digress....

There were social problems through which to sort, too. For a while, I had been receiving compliments on my looks from people whose concepts of pretty were just skewed as mine were. Now those folks saw me in a different light. I was being odd, not living according to their perceptions of normal, and it made them uncomfortable. Mayhaps my change pricked their own consciences, but that enters speculation. Whatever the cause, loose friends and acquaintances turned up their noses at a girl who actually wanted to gain weight. For someone used to making a living out of people-pleasing, that was hard. 

The difficulties did not stop there, however. I. still. craved. control. There were morning where I would freak if I did not find a certain spoon with which to eat breakfast. It was a control thing. (Actually, I think certain family members - ahem - hid my OCD spoon. Good for them.) Thankfully, that is over now. Another control example is timing. I had my routine down to the minute - on all our house clocks. If I missed by a minute, it ruined my day. That, too, has eased, thanks to the diligence and patience of my family and faithfulness of my God. 

These freak out sessions, naturally, put more strain on my relationships with father, mother, brother. Sigh. I was a bother, was I not, Josh? Since my family openly fought my idol of control, it was second nature to fight back. I had done so for years, but I knew I had turned the page to a new chapter of working with them instead of against them. Again, this transition seemed awkward to me, even repugnant. At first. 

Quite a few valleys to cross, no? The underlying problem was my refusal of grace because it conflicted with my perfectionistic control. If I ranted because of that lost spoon, I sunk to a depressed state, firstly because I had lost control over that spoon, and secondly because I had lost control of myself. If one does not understand grace, those failures are unacceptable. My family  gently yet firmly walked me through these thought processes, exposing my wickedness and need for grace. It was painful, and there were nights without sleep when I wrestled with assurance. Was I a Christian? Did I love God more than myself? More importantly, did God love me? Once reality struck - that I behaved like a bonehead whenever I cheapened God's holiness by imposing my rules - He softened me and I relinquished. 

Yes, there is a pattern of me shaking my puny fist against the Almighty and He putting me back in my place. It was a bitter, yet so sweet, surrender.

Next post will be a little more happy, doncha worry!

My Story I - Beginning the Journey

Now comes the personal anecdote. It is all well and good to talk about society safe upon my high horse, but to actually be involved??? Battle...weight issues? Oh, yes, my friend. Here is one Fair Lady who struggled for years with this. Thus, I shall try to make this practical, bring it down to a concrete, real-life story, by sharing what I did. Friends who know me well can guess what I am going to say, yet I may as well give my little tale to the World Wide Web while we are on the subject, then I can drop it. I do this just in case someone else is where I was a few years ago: making a decision, whether they know it or not, to either be a tool of Satan by giving in to their own desires or to glorify God by being, well, not perfect (according to the world's standards). So, this may be a bit long, but in the future I hope to mince my words a little more...mincingly.

So, let's travel back about a year to see where I was in life. That would be October of 2010...I wore baggy clothes, mainly because I wanted to hide my shape and needed the extra cushion those sweaters provided. Otherwise, people would comment about how sickly thin I looked (I, to the contrary, avoided mirrors because I could never see myself as skinny) and it hurt to come in contact with anything hard, like a chair. My hair frizzled and limped from my head. My skin wavered between an ethereal yellow, sallow orange, and pale gray. Eyes hollow, fingers and lips blue from cold, hair bronzing from malnutrition. Let's just say that, physically, I was not the greatest thing out there. 

The Waif Last Year

Not the loveliest picture of me, I know, but it gets the point across! 

How about spiritually? I think I felt the same way as I did physically. Limp. Dank. Cold. Now, that was way, deep down. On the outside, I tried to be - and believe myself to be - vivacious, happy, and useful. I convinced myself everything was alright. Perhaps my body was ill, but I was being a "good girl." At home I clawed in a scarily OCD fashion for control, thus becoming snappish, exacting, and plain old obnoxious. Towards friends, I attempted to appear genial and relaxed. On the one hand, all the relationships within my family were edgy, while, on the other, I tried especially hard to be nice to outsiders. When it came to God, I also tricked myself. In the depths of my being, someplace where I had buried the person into whom God was molding me, I knew I had abandoned my Father. I knew, somewhere along the way, I had seized the reins from Him. However, I duped myself in to experiencing "heartfelt" yearnings for all things Spiritual. My devotions went on for hours and a good portion of my time went to counseling friends. At night, though, I couldn't sleep due to sobbing over my hypocrisy. And that is something I need to drive home to you: the two-facedness of living for man's expectations rather than God's expectations. All I was is a facade, and that is all you will be, too, if you decide to live for the approval of yourself and society rather than for the smiling face of God. And we slip in to it so subtly. That is why we have to be tenacious in keeping ourselves away from worldly thoughts. In the last post we saw how difficult that can be. But back to me, you can sum up my position by stating I was genuinely hoodwinked.

But God had gotten a hold of me long ago, and He was not about to go back on His word. 

I cannot really say what gave me a desire to relinquish control and live for God. I think it was a combination of things. First, I was so sick. Obviously, all the nutrition information I found online was a hoax. I followed the directions to a T, if not more severely. I stumbled across some blogging crazy homeschool mamas who touted fat as good for you, who said the "Diet dictocrats" were wrong, and who applauded a life altogether different from the one I had been living or seen encouraged. And they looked content, at peace, even beautiful! So, there was some portion of my Worldview being chipped away. 

Then, my family drew me to sanity, too. They knew what I was really like. Looking back, I see how they knew me better than myself because they saw me clearly, whereas I saw myself through a fog. Daddy stayed up many a night just talking with me, praying with me. My brother helped me get through the ups and downs of it all - you know, the muscle cramps, the mood swings, the insanity. I finally understood Mumsie's pitying looks and encouragements to eat more. It is as if I woke up one day and decided not to be offended at them. 

But it was not an overnight change at all. The main loadstone for this girl was her Heavenly Father. He used the means of my family and others, but above all, He used Himself. And I think that is what it takes to get over something like anorexia - or anxiety, or depression, or anything else we come up with these days. It takes an encounter with God. Not merely a one-time experience where you feel all warm and cuddly, but a true realization of Who God is and What you have been messing with when you try to put yourself in His shoes. Once that humbling takes place, He can mold you. He can make you His. That is what He did for me.

It was a major turnaround. Do you see how, in my case, eating that spoonful of fat is tantamount to surrendering myself to God? It is a relinquishing of all my values, rules, and desires, to His. Maybe putting it that way will better explain why this issue of food is important to me. Right now, it is the most obvious way I can conform to His will for my life. There are many areas which need conforming, to be sure, but this one is huge. Read on to see just how extensive the consequences of Food were, and are, in my life.