Paleo and GAPS experiences please….

I did GAPS for 4 months last year. I did experience less digestive pain (I’m prone to stomach cramps), but other than that it didn’t go great. I lost weight I didn’t need to lose, my blood pressure was so low that I couldn’t even go for a walk without feeling like I was going to black out all the time, and the depression that I’d worked so hard to get rid of came back with a vengeance. There were a few benefits, but overall I felt pretty crappy the whole time.

Recently, I did something similar to GAPS, but still included sugar, fruit juice, potatoes and sweet potatoes. I basically just cut out grains and ate lots of homemade stews (and some homemade ferments). That worked a lot better. No stomach cramps, but no nasty side-effects either. But, this was after having done the RRARFING for a long time, so I was in a good starting position, metabolically-speaking. If your metabolism is still weak, I would advise sorting that out before restricting your diet in any way.

I did GAPS for a couple of years with a few major chocolate binges along the way! Some of my digestive issues lessened (chronic diarrhoea), but then I would have major episodes of “die-off” that lasted days & sent me to bed. The symptoms were way worse than the original problem – cramps, pain, body aches, nausea, tremors, flank pain, alternating chills and fever etc etc. I pretended that it helped my anxiety, but I think that was wishful thinking and the loss of a food social life was very stressful. I was convinced it would cure me and was the right thing for my kids, relatives, friends, the whole world. I was terrified to go off it because I thought it was my last hope, but I started getting insomnia and horrible night time heart pounding and sweats. So,in February, I decided that nothing affects my health more than stress and the difficulty of the diet & the symptoms put me in a vicious cycle of stress. The answer to symptoms occurring according to GAPS is to go back to the earlier stages, start again, clear out the toxins etc but I just found I was in a constant state of extreme dietary restriction & felt like every time I had a symptom it was because I wasn’t strict or vigilant enough and that felt bad. Oh, and the food preparation time! My god, I never left the kitchen! I don’t want to rubbish it just because it didn’t work for me, but, well, it didn’t work for me. Started eating the food in Feb and implementing a few RBTI ideas (good, carby breakfast, big lunch, small dinner & watching sugar levels with a refractometer) and that has helped digestion, sleep, anxiety a lot, though I’m way too cautious to claim any miracles! But eating yummy food and sleeping well is really fun.
Sorry this is such a long post. Seems I needed to get that off my chest.

I ate a pretty paleo/primal diet for the last 3 years and it did not do me any good! I wish I never, ever started eating that way but I honestly think that I would have restricted my eating in another way and that wouldn’t have been good either. However, paleo is the most restrictive diet and lifestyle that I’ve ever encountered and I think it sent me on a path that has been life changing. It hasn’t been good but maybe it’s meant to be and I think I’ll be stronger and a better person for going through this. Before I get into all the bad things, there are a few good things: discovering raw milk and buying more raw ingredients in general, grass-fed meat, making my own broth, making my own beauty products (I love making my own face wash, deodorant, etc), my cooking skills and confidence in the kitchen have greatly improved!

When I first started paleo in 2010 it was great. I loved having the freedom to eat whatever I wanted as long as it was paleo. I didn’t have to feel bad about eating loads of chicken or having some beef jerky or fruit or nuts… I didn’t see any weight loss (I didn’t need to lose any but I always wanted to loose those 5 lbs to be really thin). I got really into reading paleo/primal blogs and listening to podcasts. I remember hearing Mark Sisson speak and feeling so smart because i knew exactly how he would answer every question. That was because it was all I thought about. I thought that eating so clean would cure my anxiety, depression and everything and I did feel pretty good when I was following Chris Kresser’s healthy baby code and eating liver, fermented foods and bone broths.

The big problem for me was that I stopped getting my period about 8 months after starting paleo. It was actually the time I took a break from paleo because I felt like it had main me gain a few pounds so I decided to do weight watchers. I was restricting my eating and then noticed that I stopped getting my period. Around that time I also had horrible, horrible stomach pains and thought it must be the gluten and other toxins. So back to paleo. Like many, I kept thinking I had to be even more strict. Then I began making all my own meals and many of my own condiments. I never, ever wanted to go out to eat and would get so worried about going to my parent’s house for Sunday dinner. If I would go out with friends sometimes I wouldn’t eat or I’d bring my own food and eat in the bathroom. My husband would run every restaurant by me and I’d look at them menu to see what I could eat. I’d have bad anxiety when the meat wasn’t grass-fed.

Also, because paleo never really resulted in weight loss for me, I would often not eat dinner. Especially over the summer I would restrict my eating and would look at pro-ana websites to inspire me. It makes me so sad to think that i did that but it’s true. It made me feel good not to eat like everyone else and to be the thinnest one. I got thin during the restricting times but never under weight. As I said before, I didn’t have weight to loose but I would feel awesome loosing about 5-7 lbs. Last Sept I started following a paleo meal plan and counting all my carbs, protein, fat, etc. Prior to that I was eating pretty much no carbs. This resulted in about a 5 lb loss but I found myself binging and purging again as I had one “cheat” day but that made me feel out of control. This happened more regularly as I followed the meal plan but wasn’t uncommon for me in my paleo experience as a few times I would find myself eating candy at halloween or a piece of cake at thanksgiving and then throwing up. This was especially sad for me because I had been recovered from bulimia for about 8 or 9 years at that point. I don’t think I would have stumbled back into that bad cycle if it wasn’t for paleo and how restrictive I made it. I always thought something was wrong with me and I needed to be stricter or just surrounded by a paleo community. I felt so anxious about my daughter eating grains, etc and bought every paleo kids book I could think of. My parents expressed concern but I just thought they didn’t know everything that I know and I worried so much about the effects of toxins in the food.

I always had a bit of anxiety before following a paleo diet but during the past 3 years this got to the worst ever and I had panic attacks while driving. My inability to get back my period even after eating so “clean” and doing everything imaginable was so discouraging for me and that coupled with the anxiety made me want to kill myself sometimes. Honestly, it was a very low time for me and to sum it up paleo did nothing good for my health.

I’ve seem numerous doctors over the past few years as I’ve been trying to figure out why I stopped getting my period (I never thought it had to do with my eating) and over this time I had high cholesterol, low blood pressure, low temperature, freezing hands and feet, hair falling out, dry skin, NO sex drive, and estradiol (estrogen) in the post-menopausal range. The lack of sex drive was a huge issue and I thought it was me and I went back to therapy and started working on all possible issues in our marriage and I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have any desire to be intimate. I even took progesterone to try and start bleeding (this was a hard decision for me as I was doing everything natural but after 6 months of acupuncture 2-3 times a week in addition to Chinese herbs I was desperate) and it didn’t work because I had Hypothalamic Amenorrhea.

Since I started eating the food I’ve gotten my period back and my anxiety has lowered a lot. My husband says I’m much more fun and it’s like we have a new life.
Sorry for such a long post!

Cookin, I did GAPS for 1 1/2 years. At about 6 months I started getting the same symtoms you had–especially chronic dizziness to the point of black out. That’s when The Perfect Health Diet was new, so I did GAPS with the addition of potatoes, plantains, white rice, which I still ate very (very) minimally. The “safe starches” might have saved my life.

It’s been a year since I quit my version of GAPS, and some of my symtoms went away, but I still struggle with moderate dizziness which gets better month by month.

I’m just giving it time.

The Primal Blueprint turned me into an asshole :(

Oh my goodness, sorry everyone for such horrific experiences. Amoeba, your comment made laugh! For me it was wapf that screwed me, you just sort of tend to restrict grains naturally when you imagine all the work involved they recommend for preparing grains!
Anyhow, I never took it too extremely fortunately so I always had my periods. But for me I just always ate very little and never realised how it made me anxious. So to sum it up “not eating turned me into an asshole.” :)
Now that I eat, I’m much nicer to be around. And my husband will have to start eating for heat soon, otherwise he won’t be able to keep up with me. Sorry, too much info. :)

If I got anything out of this thread it was the Mighty M’s statement

Sexually, I was as dry as a Baptist picnic

I’m male, but I am definitely going to try to work that one in.