Kelsey Kinney: No, and that’s mostly because I’m actually not a huge fan. Really I say that because I’ve had a lot of clients who have been on GAPS and probably maybe been on lower levels of GAPS than they should be for too long, so they end up undereating, they end up not getting enough carbohydrates, and it kind of causes more problems than it fixes over the long term. I don’t have a problem with GAPS in the short term, like if it’s just a couple of months, but it’s just not something that I use all that often because a lot of what I do with people is taking people from a point of having digestive issues and they’re usually on a pretty restrictive diet already, and I actually want to increase the variety of food that they’re eating. So we typically look at the underlying causes of what’s going on, find out if there are any food sensitivities, take those out, and then typically they can handle a lot of these foods that they’ve maybe thought that they couldn’t handle.
So, no, I don’t really use GAPS that often, and just in my own experience, I’ve had a lot of clients that haven’t improved on it. Again, that might be a little bit more of their fault or whoever’s fault that they were working with before because they kind of kept them on this really restricted diet for far too long, and that’s more of the issue. It’s hard for me to know, but generally, no, I don’t.
Oh, you’re saying, “This is a person who lacks an entire colon.” Oh, gosh. Yeah, that’s a really tough case. How long has she been on the diet? How long has she been on GAPS at this point? “One week.” OK. I forget what Level 3 is, compared to Level 1. OK, “Targeting three to four weeks total.” Good, yeah. I wouldn’t go much beyond that, or maybe two months total. Really I would say anything super-restrictive like that should not be used for more than two months. It’s kind of the same thing that I would think about with, like, an elemental diet. I wouldn’t want somebody on that for more than six or eight weeks total because, at least in my opinion, you’re just missing a lot of stuff at that point. Yeah, I think three to four weeks is good.
Is she seeing any improvement at this point? “Yes.” OK, good. If she’s seeing improvement and it’s been a week, I would certainly go from there and just use it as an elimination diet of sorts. Once she’s done with the three to four weeks total of the GAPS Diet, I would then slowly start adding foods back in. I would ask her what she feels like she could probably handle or what she’s done well with in the past that didn’t seem to bother her stomach and go from there. Go with things that you think would be relatively safe for her to try, from her perspective as well as yours. Then just start adding foods in as slowly as you can, and see if there are any food sensitivities that weren’t picked up on before. She’s going to have problems in general because she doesn’t have a colon. I think it’s not entirely reasonable to think that she would have a totally normal digestive function, but you’re saying she’s down from 10 bowel movements a day to four, in a week. That’s really awesome.
Yeah, I’m not opposed to GAPS if it’s working for someone, but it should be short term, it should be therapeutic, and I think the problem with it is that a lot of people just think that it’s something they should kind of be on forever, and that I have an issue with, unless you’re being super-careful about it being calorically appropriate, you getting the right amount of macronutrients in terms of the ratios and everything like that, particularly with carbs is what I tend to get most worried about. Yeah, it’s saying, “It’s very hard to implement.” I agree. Oftentimes that mental toll that a restrictive diet takes on someone, it can sometimes be more problematic than the things that it’s helping, so you do really have to keep that in mind for someone, especially if it’s going to be longer term. But again, with the GAPS Diet, I would really recommend not doing it super-long, which it sounds like you’re not. And if you are doing it for longer, making sure that you’re progressing… I don’t remember how many levels there are with GAPS, but I assume it goes up a couple levels, and making sure that she has a good amount of variety in her diet, she’s getting the appropriate amount of calories for her, and she’s getting enough carbohydrates to kind of fuel whatever she’s doing, and making sure she’s not totally starving her gut bacteria for months and months at a time.
Yeah, that’s really tough, but it sounds like you guys are on a good path here. Obviously, it’s a really difficult case to deal with, and like I said, I wouldn’t necessarily expect total perfection when it comes to digestive health. Obviously, there’s a big piece of that missing, so as long as she sort of has that outlook as well and knows that things may not get back to completely normal, but they can be better than they are right now, I think it’s important to kind of let people know what you’re expecting from working with them as well. It sounds like you guys are doing really great with her, and hopefully the GAPS will help. Especially if you have gotten that much of an improvement in a week, I would think that three to four weeks total would give you a lot of improvement. Then you can see if there are any kind of food sensitivities that maybe were missed before. Yeah, good luck, guys. That’s really tough.