GAPS Intro Diet Stages

I wrote this up when I first started researching the GAPS diet. Items that are italicized are new foods for that particular stage. I hope it's useful!


Stage 1
• Homemade bone broth with meat and soft boiled carrots
• Sauerkraut juice
• Ginger and/or herbal tea


Stage 2
• Homemade bone broth with meat
• Uncooked gg yolks (add to soup)
• Well-cooked, non-fibrous veggies: add one at a time to see how they go
• Stews and casseroles
• Fermented fish/gravlax
• Added fats (ghee, coconut oil, tallow, lard)
• Ginger and/or herbal tea


Stage 3
• Soup w/ homemade bone broth, meat, avocado, egg yolks, veggies, etc.
• Cooked veggies
• Eggs scrambled with a lot of ghee, animal fat, or coconut oil
• GAPS pancake (eggs, nut butter, and summer or winter squash)
• Avocado
• Sauerkraut
• Ghee, coconut oil, tallow, lard
• Ginger and/or herbal tea


Stage 4
• Soup w/ homemade bone broth, meat, avocado, egg yolks, veggies, etc.
• Cooked veggies
• Roasted meat
• Eggs scrambled in ghee, animal fat, or coconut oil
• GAPS pancake (eggs, nut butter, and summer or winter squash)
• GAPS bread: nut flour, eggs, summer or winter squash, fat
• Avocado
• Sauerkraut
• Homemade coconut milk (this isn't official, I just thought it was where it belonged)
• Ghee, coconut oil, tallow, lard
• Cold pressed olive oil
• Freshly pressed juice
• Ginger and/or herbal tea


Stage 5
• Soup w/ homemade bone broth, meat, avocado, egg yolks, veggies, etc.
• Roasted meat
• Eggs
• Cooked veggies
• Raw vegetables starting from softer parts of lettuce and peeled cucumber. After those two vegetables are well tolerated gradually add other raw vegetables
• Sauerkraut or other fermented vegetable
• Ripe bananas
• Cooked fruit (start w/ homemade applesauce, then move to other cooked fruit)
• GAPS pancake and/or GAPS bread
• Coconut flour (not specifically mentioned but I figured it would go here)
• Avocado
• Ghee, coconut oil, tallow, lard
• Cold pressed olive oil
• Condiments: coconut aminos, fish sauce, sesame oil (same, not sure where these go but this looks good)
• Ginger and/or herbal tea


Stage 6
• Soup w/ homemade bone broth, meat, avocado, egg yolks, veggies, etc.
• Roasted meat
• Eggs
• Cooked and raw veggies
• Sauerkraut or other fermented vegetable
• Cooked fruit (homemade applesauce, pearsauce, fruit compote) and ripe bananas
• Peeled raw fruit
• Dried fruit (not on the list but I guess it can go here if you can start using it as a sweetener)
• GAPS pancake and/or GAPS bread (can start sweetening w/ dried fruit and/ or honey)
• Avocado
• Ghee, coconut oil, tallow, lard
• Cold pressed olive oil
• Spices
• Honey
• Ginger and/or herbal tea



I'm sticking with stage 3 because I'm hoping that it will have a weight loss effect; this is basically Stephan Guynenet's Bland Food Diet. I tried it once before but didn't really have luck sticking to it. I think I went a little too extreme. Also, my PCOS didn't help I'm sure - I'm not even sure if I even lost any weight! At any rate, as of last weekend I seemed to have lost something but now I'm not so sure. I weighed myself every day since then (yes, I know, it's dumb of me) and nothing that I can see. I'm going to give it until the end of the month to see if it's had any effect.

PCOS is a party pooper but I figure if anything can help me move the needle down, it's eating bland but deeply nutritious food. I'm going to treat this as one of my N=1 experiments and stick it out for the whole month. Wish me luck!