A bad patch

Hi All

I know its been a while since I last posted, but then again, it doesn't seem as if there is a lot of interestes in this blog anyway. For the one or two of you who may have been reading without posting and for Kathy, lets just say, thanks for the support, for what its worth.

It has been a while since I last posted and I have to admit it has been a difficult time. In my last post I reported that I was not being so good and in this last time I have been even worse. I have always had the diet on my mind, but I have not been following it at all. You see, I went camping with some people and obviously they took the food that they wanted to prepare with them. Unfortunately this meant that I ate a lot of bread, which is one of Candida's favourite foods.

The thing is that once you go back to carbs, you start developing cravings for carbs all over again and for this reason I have been drinking coffee with sugar and milk (allthough only about three cups a day) and eating a lot of sweets. This is where the support network, that this blog is supposed to be, comes in. When times get tough, you need someone to support you, so please tell your friends about this blog and then perhaps we can start helping each other.

Needless to say that with going back to sugar, my mood dropped immediately and I have been quite depressed ever since. In fact, it has been rather bad and I can't remember the last time I felt so depressed. I have been fighting it, but part of being depressed is eating all kinds of things that you are not supposed to and thus starts as vicious circle.

Anaway, I am back on track today and will start afresh, because if you've slipped once you have to start all over again.

Best of Luck and God Bless

Rian

Not so Good!

Hi All

It's been a while since I posted and I have to admit that during this time, I have been rather bad. I had a number of special events and parties to attend and obvioulsy, you don't want to be a drip and spoil the other people's fun, because of your special dietary requirments, especially if they are paying!!

Needless to say, it was not a good thing. Initially it takes the stomach a while to adapt to the anti-candida style of eating and then when you go back to eating the old stuff, you suffer again. And I have been suffering!!

The question is, how does one go about this diet then? How do you tell your friends that you can't eat the food they have arranged for you, because of your anti-candida diet? The problem is that most people still think of Candidiases as a myth, rather than a real disease and I suppose it is becasue so many people use it as an excuse for other things. But if you have had a positive, scientific diagnosis, you know that you have the disease and how difficult it is to get rid of.

I suppose that one really has to start treating it like a the real disease it is and adapt your lifestyle accordingly. I mean if you have diabetes you will change your lifestyle, so why not for a disease that can have just as negative an effect on your health as diabetes.

Well, from today on I am committed to being back on my diet again. I have also now incorporated, plain, unsweetened yoghurt, but with real live probiotic cultures. To replace probiotics in tablet or capsule form, you will have to eat a whole lot, but it is good for you and makes for another alternative to introduce into your diet.

Keep it up and God Bless!!

Rian

Beef Jerky

Hi All

I hope you have had a pleasant weekend and that your are well rested and ready for the week ahead!

I have to say, that I have been doing well on my diet. I have cheated very little (no cheating is the optimal result of course), but over all I have been doing well. My cheating consisted of having some milk with a cup of coffee. I don't see myself as cheating for having had the cup of coffee, because I am still weaning myself, but the milk was cheating!

Any form of dairy is bad for you when you suffer from Candida overgrowth, but especially cheese, so please stay away from cheese!

One thing that I have been eating a lot of this weekend and which makes a perfect snack is Biltong. Now for most of you the term would be unfamiliar, because it is a South African delicacy, but I believe your equivalent of it is beef jerky.

Yes, it is dried meat with some spices. It is a good snack, as it is rich in protein and contains no carbs. Just be careful though that you try and get beef jerky that has been seasoned only with salt and pepper. A lot of the time, beef jerky and such products contain MSG to enhance the taste and even other preservatives. Preservatives and MSG are all very bad for you, not only if you are on an anti-candida diet, but always. So try to prevent it if you can.

If you need more information on the dangers of the foods we eat, you have to get Grocery Warning. It is a book that explains the dangers of everyday foods we think are harmless. Okay, so some of the information in the book cannot be verified and sounds like conspiracy theories, but a lot has been well-researched and you might be shocked at what you find - definately a great read that you can get here: http://www.grocerywarning.com/

Well best of luck for this week!!

God Bless

Rian

Ohhhhh Coffee

Hi there

Have I written about coffee yet? Well, even if I have, I have to again. You see, I love coffee, strong sweet coffee. Before going back onto the diet I was up to as many as six cups a day. Now I know that to your coffoholics out there this is nothing, but for me it is a lot.

So I had to give up coffee for this diet. According to my doctor, one cup of decaf a day is allowed, but come on, one cup and then decaf - that's just not coffee!! Be that as it may, I am now down to two cups of real coffee per day (black with no sugar of course), as I am slowly busy weaning myself off the stuff. I realise that I was almost addicted to it, as I find it very difficult to function without my regular java jolt, but I keep telling myself that it's all in a good cause! I will keep this two cup thing up for a few days and then try to go down to one and then to decaf.

For me sweet cravings have not been as bad as coffee cravings and I am starting to think that the more sugar you consume, the more you crave it. Test this theory for yourself.

Interstingly enough, one of the best treatments for Candida infection is said to be a coffee enema. Yes you heard right - coffee enema. I have of course never had the guts to try it, but they say it is quite effective as if flushes the colon more effectively than other enemas. You can read more about coffee enemas here: http://www.ineedcoffee.com/01/01/enema/. There are also a lot of people against coffee enemas if you suffer from candida albicans, so I would suggest that you do some more research yourself or try it once or twice and see what the results are.

Good luck and God Bless

Rian

PS: Please let me know how you experienced the coffee enema process and if it worked for you.

Sugar Cravings!!

Hi there

The good news is that I have been on the anti-Candida diet for only three days now and already I feel tons better, especially with regard to the depression I was experiencing. I do feel a lot better in that regard!!

Today I will write a little about sugar cravings. Many people star craving things like chocolate, sweet coffee and other things, after a day or two on a no-sugar diet. The good news is that this usually goes away after a while, especially when your body starts extracting all the nutrients it needs out of the proteins you take in. If this sounds a lot like the Atkins diet, it is because it is very similar, though for totally different reasons than weight loss.

If you are however a big sugar eater, you may have trouble. In this case (but if you can avoid it don't do it) you can eat some orange vegetables like carrots (good amount of natural sugar) and also corn, although corn can be very bad for you, especially if you suffer from severe candida.

What you can do also, is to eat an apple every three days, if the sugar cravings start to get the better of you. Yes, I know it is really no substitute for a piece of chocolate, but hey, we are changing lifestyles here and becoming healthy, so that one day, perhaps we can again eat chocoloate.

I used to hate apples, but when an apples is the only sugar you can take in, you start loving them!! Later on, when your symptoms improve, you can even move to an apple a day!

Keep it up and God Bless

Rian

Day 1 Successful

Hi everyone

So I have finished the first day of my Candida diet and I can report that it was successful. One day without sugar has already made a huge difference. I have to admit that I am a bit hungry, because being on this anti-Candida diet of course means that there is very little by way of snacks that one can eat.

Some nuts or cherry tomatoes could be used as snacks, but let's be honest, those are not real snacks!! Well, its a choice one has to make. Either you eat whatever you want and feel awful all the time or you make not only a diet change, but a lifestly change. I mean, this is a decision based on more than just food, it is a choice for a better quality of life and a way to feel better and have more energy.

What really got me to commit to this lifestyle again, was the fact that of late, and for no apparent reason I have been feeling very down and depressed. On examination I came to the conclusion that it had to be the Candida, because every other aspect of my life is going well. I have experienced this depression before when my candidiasis was at its worst and it is usually accompanied by feeling so tired that you can hardly do anything.

So, if any of you out there are feeling really bad and think it might be related to Candida overgrowth, give this diet, described in my previous post a try and see if it doesn't work for you. I will go into more detail about the symptoms of the disease in a following post, but still recommend that you look for a medical diagnosis, based on clinical facts, because many of the symptoms can be attributed to other things as well.

Have a wonderful day and God Bless!

Rian

The whole diet thing

Hi again.

So the most important thing about beating Candida is diet. In fact many people believe that the only way to get rid of it is to starve it. There is a lot of evidence to prove this and I sort of subscribe to that theory too. The problem is that it is difficult to starve Candida, withouth starving yourself, because of the vast amount of foods you have to cut out, in order to starve the Candida.

In fact, you have to cut out most foods, but of the foods you are allowed to eat, you can eat as much as you want. It is just too much to mention all the foods you have to cut out, for me to mention them all, so I will rather just name the few basic groups to cut out and then summarize in short what you can actually eat.

Food Types to avoid completely:

1. All sugars and by this I mean all sugars, including honey, fruit, tea (poly-saccharides) and any processed foods that contain sugars. You will have read labels very carefully from now on to find out whether there is sugar in your foods. Sugar is one of Candida's favourite foods and it simply thrives on sugar.
2. All yeast. This includes all foods that use yeast in the manufacturing process as well. This means bread (almost all types, except for almond bread), beer of course (and all other alcohol) and any other foods that contain yeast. These first two groups are the favourite foods for Candida and avoiding these will go a long way to exterminating it.
3. All starch. Yes, white rice, potatoes, bread again and any other foods that contain starch. I know this is a bad one, because so many people like starch, but starch consists of carbo-hydrates and carbs are converted to sugar by the digestive process and before you know it, you have taken in sugar.
4. Carbs. Yes I mentioned it above, but you really need to make sure you curb the intake of carbs. If you are going to take in carbs, it has to be complex carbs, because they take longer to break down in the body, causing the blood to take them up as they become available and utilise them immediately. So if you have to take carbs, make it complex carbs. You can find a list of carbs here http://www.weightlossforall.com/complex-carbs.htm.

Foods you can actually eat.

If you thought that what I mentioned above, excludes almost all foods, you are almost right, there is very little left. So what can you eat? Well the guidelines are prette simple. All meats and proteins (except peanuts) and all green vegetables. My friend and I have done some research and found that if you take in any form of meat or fish and a large quantity of green vegetables each day, you actually get in all the nutrients you need, execpt for vitamin C. That is quite impressive, but boring. Below is a list of high protein foods that you can take in.

whey (supplement found in health food stores)
chicken breast
turkey breast
salmon
tuna
cottage cheese
swordfish
haddock
lean ground turkey
round steak
sirloin steak
lean ground beef
orange roughy
eggs
pork
crab
lobster
shrimp
buffalo

Be sure to eat as much oil-rich fish like salmon, tuna and sardines as possible as the Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids have been shown to be very effective in combatting Candida.

My diet consists of eggs in the morning, a can of sardines, tuna or salmon for lunch and meat or chicken at night, with spinach or brocolli. If you have any nice recipes you would like to share, please post them to this blog, as this diet is terribly boring and difficult to stick to.

Okay, so that's it for today, hope to receive some posts soon.

God Bless

Rian