Thoughts on Fatigue

It is really interesting reading how Intro is going for you, Emily. I am wondering how things will be for us next week. We have scheduled ourselves to start just when C has to work 6 days in a row coming off a trip from the East Coast ... hmmmm. I really want to make sure he does alright on GAPS so he experiences some benefit and doesn't feel like he has to stop. We have some friends who followed GAPS and one member of the family ate fruit throughout Intro and still received benefit, so I am optimistic. Of course, fatigue is not my favorite thing, but perhaps better than other possibilities!

So I do understand that fatigue can be part of the detox process and also from the switch to low carb. I wonder also if it is just related to the healing process - sleep is when our body restores and rebuilds itself, so it seems normal that if your body was increasing in that capacity you would need more sleep.

I know you are not eating winter squash and carrots yet. When do you plan to add these in? I would think a small amount cooked might be interesting to try.

Reading your posts does encourage me to rethink some of our menu items to be sure to include more winter squash and carrots from the beginning since they seem to be foods we tolerate. I do have a good stash of squash in the pantry and freezer. I suspect I could benefit from leaving them out a while, but might have to go back and deal with that later on my own.

Fats are also supposed to help - the variety of animal fats, coconut oil, egg yolks, etc - so it will be interesting to see what happens when you add more of these in. I have read the more, the merrier and the faster the healing!

So a tricky part of this process to determine if you are having the "healing crisis" or a symptom of something else - learning to pay attention to our body's language or even learning our body's language is part of this. It is interesting how babies and small children are SO good at this - they know when they are thirsty, full, hungry, need to eat less because of illness or more for a growth spurt. And if you are feeding them a healthy, whole foods diet they often balance their meals throughout the day or week. Nursing babies even know which breast they last nursed from! It's hard when you've lost that skill and have to go back to relearn it, but I think it is not too hard to relearn. Our body wants us to.

I saw this post on fatigue while on GAPS and thought it had some food for thought!

http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2012/01/troubleshooting-energy-problems-while.html