Hotel dining

A short list of what I bought and ate during my stay at a hotel for a house hunting trip:

-Apple cider vinegar: (inexpensive!) salad dressing and toner
-Garlic and chilli flax seed oil: (expensive!) salad dressing - but still cheaper then restaurant salads
-Avocados:  puncture with a fork and squeeze on to salad
-Boxed salad mix:  bowl and salad in one!
-Smoked Turkey: another topper for salad
-Fruit
-Almonds
-Water

Moving, traveling, and visiting on GAPS

Good grief.  I am likely relocating across the country and as a result will need to do a great deal of traveling and depleting of supplies in the next few months.  The following is a quick brainstorm of ways I can do this and remain GAPS legal, or at least GAPS friendly.

Visiting, i.e., staying at someone's home 

-Massaged kale salad (see my post on being GAPS and Vegan) is a big hit with my family and has relatively simple ingredients.

-Date bars - lemon or brownie based.  See The Rawtarian's website for information.

-Pho - cheap, GAPS legal, and accessible in most major cities.  Could be a daily lunch item.

-Scrambled eggs.  Thank the gods for scrambled eggs.

-'Picnics' with grocery store roast chicken and salad.

Travelling, i.e., staying at a hotel and lunching with others

-Shopping trip on arrival - ACV, Baking Soda, Mineral water, fresh fruit, ferments if available

-Restaurant dining is no problem, as I've discovered on former trips.

Airplanes

Going there: 

-Dry chicken salad

-Crudités

-Lentil crackers and cheese.

-Cold cuts

Coming home:

-Nuts

-Dried fruit

-Fresh fruit from a local store

-Sugar snap peas from a local store

-Lara bars and/or chocolate with simple ingredients.  Perfect is the enemy of the good here.

Depleting supplies at home

-It occurs to me that broth/soup is actually a fantastic option.  I can freeze individual portions, warm them up, and eat them, using only a pot and a spoon.

-For plain broth, I could even use up the massive bag of peas that's been hanging about my freezer and some mint to make it 'summery'.  (Note to self, use glass jars that can be recycled immediately.)

-Again, Pho, at nearby restaurants.  Love it!

If you have other ideas, please please please comment!

Springing back into GAPS - meal plan!

I have not done GAPS with any regularity or consistency for about a year.  I've found for the last little while my health has been deteriorating.  The fatigue, brain fog and joint pain that drove me to GAPS have been creeping back, and my weight has crept up and up.

The problem with GAPS is that, for me, it seemed to result in energy problems after a few months, and it's so rigid that it results in total gluttony when you give it a break.  My solution for the next little while is to adhere to GAPS during the work week, and continue a gluten and dairy free diet on the weekends.  (During which I will keep a food journal to mind what I eat.)

With that in mind, I'm thinking through my Spring GAPS meal plan.  I found last year that the soups and stews that stand me in good stead throughout the winter just don't work in the warmer months.  Here is an attempt at a better plan, centered around one roast chicken (for one person...).

This meal plan, incidentally, ties together the GAPS, Harcombe and Blood Type diets.  We'll see how it goes!

Weekdays

Breakfasts 

• Fruit or chia seed cereal

Lunches 

• Caesar Salad - romaine and tomatoes dressed with anchovy and egg based dressing.
• Arugala Salad - walnuts, dried apricots and pear on arugala dressed with tahini-orange dressing.
• Asian Salad - chicken, onions, red pepper and spinach, with rice vinegar and sesame oil.
• Cucumber Mint Salad - tomatoes, cucumbers, chicken and mint dressed with olive oil and lemon
• Massaged Kale Salad - kale, chicken, sesame seeds and red pepper with rice vinegar and sesame oil.

Dinner

• Salmon with orange scented broccoli
• Roast chicken and salad
• Eggs (frittata, poached on a salad, or hardboiled with crudités)
• Watercress and pea soup (chicken broth)
• Trout with grilled radicchio

Shopping List

• Salmon
• Trout
• Whole Chicken
• Eggs

• Romaine
• Arugala
• Spinach
• Kale
• Radicchio
• Watercress
• Tomatoes
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Red pepper
• Orange
• Pear
• Lemons
• Fruit for breakfast
• Onion
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Dill 
• Mint

• Anchovies
• Mustard
• Olive oil
• Sesame oil
• Rice vinegar
• Tahini
• Walnuts
• Almonds
• Dried apricots
• Frozen peas

Dairy-free GAPS Food Processor Ice Cream

This is sooo easy and totally GAPS legal.  It's also dairy free!

Ingredients:

Frozen fruit (raspberries, mangoes, strawberries would all work really well)
Honey
Coconut milk

Combine ingredients in the food processor, blend, and freeze.

Harcombe Phase 1

I'm planning to start phase I of the Harcombe diet this week.  I've been on phase II for some time now and haven't lost anything, perhaps because I'm transitioning from GAPS.

I'm incredibly busy but I plan to use the simplicity of the diet Here is the meal plan:

Breakfasts:  Grab and go, hardboiled egg

Lunches:  Rice stir fry with veggies

Dinner:  Steak or salmon with veg

The biggest challenges: not drinking coffee! and not substituting coffee with dark chocolate!

Pretty and simple GAPS valentines treat

Mix halved strawberries and pomegranate peices with a few tablespoons of honey.  Top with chilled coconut milk.

Transitioning from GAPS to the Harcombe Diet

A year after starting this blog, I have decided to transition off of GAPS.  Reasons follow:

• Low energy on GAPS
• Tendancy to 'cheat' badly on GAPS - its better (for me) to eat a quinoa salad than order a pizza
• I have some weight to loose and GAPS isn't cutting it
• GAPS worked

What I will continue to do is:

• Avoid wheat
• Incorporate broth wherever possible
• Avoid dairy
• Take probiotics and cod liver oil

Below is my personal meal plan for the Harcombe diet, from January to March:

	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
	Fruit
Carb	Lentil Chilli	Roast Parsnips	Asian Veg & Rice	Steel Cut Oats	Butternut Spinach Quinoa Salad	Chia Seed Cereal	Chia Seed Cereal
Neutral	Crudités	Vegetable Soup	Kale salad	Vegetable soup	Green Beans	Salad	Salad
Fat	Chicken Curry	Grilled Chicken & Zucchini	Pho	Fish and Roast Butternut	Out	Roast Chicken & Eggplant	Steak & Peppers