I was near the end of a 3 & ½ month road tour for my “day” job. We were jumping all over the country: most of the time I had no idea what time zone I was in, let alone city, state, or hotel. Home on a Thursday or Friday night, back out on Sunday or Monday afternoon. Week after week after week. Every time the nice lady at the Delta ticket counter would ask me where I was going all I could come up with was a blank stare. Sorry, nice lady. I got nothing. Can’t you just look up my name in your fancy computer?

I was beyond burned out.

As if I wasn’t already exhausted and miserable enough, my stomach decided that this was the perfect time to freak the eff out. Just about everything I ate either blew me up like a balloon or went right through me. Delightful! I was starting to get food allergy symptoms and I couldn’t figure out why since I’d given up both sugar and gluten over a year ago and ate pretty clean, even when faced with buffet lines and chain restaurant menus day after day and meal after meal. Who gets sick after eating a salad with grilled chicken and oil and vinegar for dressing? THIS girl, that's who!

I was getting pretty desperate, especially since my daily schedule didn’t allow for a bathroom break until lunch and part of the day I was working in a small enclosed classroom. Let’s face it, kids. There are only so many times you can “crop dust” before someone is going to figure it out.

I needed help!

Shortly before all of this went down, one of my besties In LA had started a gut-healing diet. Her “tummy troubles” had been much more severe than mine and she’d been getting good results. I had heard of the GAPS diet before in my Food Nerd reading but it had never been something I’d paid a lot of attention to. But I was desperate, so I ordered some books, somehow made my way through the last few weeks of the tour, and started in on GAPS (the healing diet protocol) Intro.

The results were nothing short of amazing. Not only did my stomach problems disappear, but I lost weight—-nine pounds during weeks 2 and 3. A total of 13 by the end of a month. How’s that for a side effect?! Here’s another one—-my PMS, which I’d been dealing with since junior high, completely evaporated. Huh? I felt great, I looked great, and I was sold. The help I needed had arrived...in the form of a healthy, balanced gut.

Coincidentally, a few months earlier I had enrolled in the Nutritional Therapy Practitioner training program. My experience with GAPS, along with what I learned about digestion in the first few months of my program, cemented my desire to focus on gut health in my practice.

I’ll be sharing more about why gut health is so important on the blog, the great thing is that for most people, gut health is very simple to achieve. It will take some changes (and some of them might feel radical, so get ready to make friends with “different”), but it can be done. And the benefits are worth it, I swear...

To make the process as easy as possible for you, I co-wrote a cookbook that was published this year by Dorling Kindersley that is not only packed with the most amazing recipes, but is also it's own healing protocol for gut health...you're welcome. ;)

Here’s to your gut health!

xo,
Maya