A confession: I recently started eating meat.

Why Eat Meat?

Earlier this month, I mentioned I was going to try the GAPS diet to try to heal myself from long term antibiotic use for Lyme Disease. This was a difficult decision for me because I've been a vegetarian on and off since I was fifteen and for the entire last year I avoided all meat and eggs. The GAPS diet calls for a lot of meat and animal fat.

I struggle with feeling guilty over eating animal products. I am an animal lover. But how can I call myself an animal lover and be a meat eater? This is my own personal battle. Apart from that, I struggled with this decision because it goes against everything I have learned about health and nutrition. (More on that in a minute.) I was convinced that vegetarian was the way to go for me.

I don't believe any one diet is the perfect fit for everyone, so I do not judge anyone based on what they eat. I also know that vegetarianism is huge in the yoga world. A part of me is scared to put it out there that I'm eating meat. Can someone live a yogic lifestyle and still eat meat?

I believe so, and it's not just because the Dalai Lama eats meat.

Health Problems

I have been sick since 2010 when I contracted Lyme disease. It hasn't always shown on the outside. Indeed, for the majority of the months between 2010 and now, I have looked perfectly healthy. But in the aftermath of the Lyme disease, I struggled with extreme, unpredictable joint pain that I always blamed on the weather. I battled through constant stomach aches, indigestion, breakouts, hair falling out, depression, eczema flare ups and hormone imbalances. All in all, I have seen five different doctors to try to figure out the cause but the problem is that general doctors would refer me to specialists. And specialists would only look at the body part of their expertise. No one was looking at my health issues in their entirety. So when you have been that sick for that long, in a constant struggle, and have sought help to no avail, and then you find the GAPS diet- something that might work even though it goes against how you feel about meat, you suck it up and try it.

Because you're desperate.

And because in a strange way, eating meat does follow ahimsa, the yogic principle of non-violence because it means nourishing yourself, rather than continuing what wasn't working. If continuing what you're doing (in my case, following a vegetarian diet, supplements, seeing a bunch of doctors) isn't helping, then you're causing more harm to yourself than good. Time for a change.

The GAPS Diet

There are two parts to the diet - GAPS Intro and Full GAPS. Each part has many different stages you should move through. In each stage, you add more food. It is a complex diet, and if you're interested, I highly recommend reading the Gut And Psychology Syndrome book. It explains the clinical research behind the diet, and goes into great detail about what to eat, how to implement the diet, and how to introduce new foods. This is a healing diet (not meant for long term) with the goal to heal and seal the gut lining. Through her clinical work, author Dr Campbell-McBride says that the gut is destroyed by the crap we do to it - constant antibiotics every time we're sick, long-term medication of The Pill, antibiotics, and other drugs, too much drinking, poor Standard American Diet, and, wait for it - vegetarianism.

I know.

This goes against everything I have ever read, but in my case- everything she mentioned- from the various deficiencies, to the digestion problems were things I experienced. The following are excerpts from the book that stood out to me on the topic of vegetarianism:

-Plant foods are generally hard to digest. If a person already has a weak digestion, moving to a plant-based diet is dangerous. As the digestive system becomes more and more damaged, it is less able to nourish the person, and so nutritional deficiencies develop quite soon. Vitamins B12, B6, B1, B2, niacin, essential amino acids, zinc and proteins are the first nutritional deficiencies a beginner vegetarian usually develops. As malnutrition sets in, the immune system cannot function well, leading to endless infections and courses of antibiotics. Every course of antibiotics damages the gut and immune system further.

-Plants DO have a lot of nutritional value, but the human gut has a very limited ability to digest plants and to extract anything useful from them. Nature has created herbivorous animals to eat plants and in order for them to be able to digest these plants, nature has equipped them with a very special digestion system: it is very long with several stomachs full of special plant-breaking bacteria. The human digestive system is similar to the gut of predatory animals, such as wolves and lions: our digestive system is fairly short and we have only one stomach with virtually no bacteria in it {when we are born}.

-When you stop eating meats, the first two deficiencies to start are in protein because the easiest-to-digest proteins for humans come from animal foods - meats, fish, eggs and dairy, and zinc, because zinc comes largely from meat.

-The low-fat vegetarian diet leads to deficiency in fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K, which especially affects the immune system. The result is constant infections. And constant infection, if treated by antibiotics, damages the gut flora, which impairs the immune system even more and a vicious cycle begins.

-When the abnormal gut flora produces toxins, they flow through the "leaky" gut wall and into the blood stream and get distributed around the body. If and when these toxins get into the brain, they can affect mood, behavior, learning, concentration, etc. (Side note: This is why many of the children I taught in school who were on the Autism spectrum were following a GAPS diet. One mother told me that before implementing the diet, her child had never been able to speak or express emotions, which I almost found difficult to believe because I knew her son to be a talkative and funny middle school boy.)

-Vegetarian diet includes a lot of rice, quinoa and other carbs which require a lot of magnesium to be digested and metabolised, so magnesium deficiency follows.

Implementing the GAPS Diet

This is a pretty restrictive diet, but I hadn't been eating processed foods and refined sugar, so cutting out grains and adding meat didn't seem too difficult. And quite frankly, I have been sick for too long to care what lengths I had to go to if it meant it would help.

The difficult part has been eating enough. Grains fill you up, so when you remove them and just eat meat, veggies and broth (on the Intro Diet) you're hungry again in an hour and a half. So learning how to prep a lot of food at once so I can quickly heat it up when I'm hungry has taken some time to get used to.

1. Ghee, an Ayurvedic food, is simply clarified butter.

2. Coconut oil, is excellent for high temperature cooking.

3. Full fat butter.

The diet calls for a lot of fats. Animal fats and coconut oil are, according to the diet, the best fats for people with poor digestion. This blew my mind, because everything that's been hammered into my head from advertising and whatever else promotes fat-free or low-fat everything. The book goes into detail about cholesterol (more mind-blowing claims are made), but I've been doing what was written because I know for sure that how I was eating before was not helping. It was difficult, however, to mentally be okay with eating so much fat, but I learned how vital it is to the body.

When my hair started falling out in the shower, I figured I was deficient in B12, so I got B vitamins and started taking them. While they did help a bit, my hair continued to fall out. Not clumps like before, but still more than normal. In the book, it's explained that when the stomach wall is compromised, there is a poor absorption rate to both regular food and supplements. No matter how much biotin I took, my stomach wasn't going to absorb it well in the state it was in. I'm no longer taking the supplements because I'm focusing on healing my stomach. As my stomach gets better, less and less hair is falling out. It's now back to its "normal" fall out in the shower. (I'm not the only one, right? Does your hair fall out a bit in the shower?)

There are, however, a few supplements that are recommended on the diet. Therapeutic grade probiotics like VSL 3 are advised first thing in the morning on an empty stomach to populate the stomach with good bacteria. This is the brand I took while on antibiotics for Lyme and I like it, but it's pretty pricy. One bag takes me three days to go through, though.

Also recommended are cod liver oil, fish oil, and juicing- which gives a great absorption rate. I'm still waiting for my fermented cod liver oil to arrive...bet that will taste lovely... :)

What to Eat on GAPS Diet

With so much restriction, it's easy to make the claim that there's nothing to eat. There is actually a lot to eat, but nothing is quick. Here are a few recent meals. I generally eat 4-5 full meals plus a snack of "pancakes" (eggs, and squash) per day.

Has It Worked?

I've only been on this diet since October 1st, and I had a set back in the second week. So it has been a slow process, but that is to be expected considering how long I've been on meds and how long I have been sick. The good news is that my stomach issues seem to be subsiding, and my hair has stopped falling out, my hormones seem to be in balance again and my skin is clearing up. My joint pain is still there, though. But I am really, really hopeful that this diet will help.

What Happens After?

The recommended time for someone very sick is 2 years on the diet, or at least six months of no symptoms. Afterwards, you can slowly reintroduce foods like grains and other foods not allowed on the diet. The idea is that once your stomach wall is healed, it will be able to handle healthy foods you put into it without any issues.

Why Share?

I wanted to share this because I know so many people who, like me, have been to a number of doctors yet remain constantly sick with various things. Ear infections, migraines, reoccurring yeast infections, stomach issues, autoimmune issues, mental health issues, hormone issues, etc are some of the things that I hear about a lot. I did everything I could get my hands on to try to help myself, and when this found its way into my life, everything seemed to make sense for my case. It has only been a month but I am seeing improvement (though there is room for a lot more), and I am, for the first time in a very long time, feeling hopeful. I know the frustration that comes with being sick for so long without answers, and I remember just thinking to myself that I'd have to live the rest of my life in constant pain, but for the first time in years I think that is probably not the case. I am hopeful I will get better, and I wanted to share this in case it could help someone else out there.

PS- I am writing an eBook filled with GAPS friendly recipes, yoga sequences, and meditation prompts. Sign up for the YBC Newsletter and get the eBook delivered to your inbox when it's finished in December.

Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: I Eat Meat