What I’ve been up to — Candida Diet Update for June & July 🙂

Book Editing, City Trip to Budapest and Camping Trip with Friends in Hungary —  I have been busy!

Changes Since Previous Months — Big Blow Out & Repercussions from Stress & Diet Sins!

• Late nights working on my upcoming recipes e-book, bag with my sleeping bag and shoes stolen on first day of holiday (that’s me kissing my bag goodbye at Heathrow airport below!), worrying about what I’ll be able to eat in a foreign country — Strrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessss! 

• Can you remember the last time you spent any time on hobbies or relaxing things? I can’t! But I’m going to change that — I must CALM DOWN!!!
  
• About a week after my return from Germany (where I had spent ten days and had indulged in a fair amount of foods containing sugar) I had a Candida relapse. Interestingly it started after a day in the sun on the beach with a picnic of pre-packaged foods and greasy fish and chips in the evening. It seemed my body was super sensitive to artificials, conservatives and deep fried food.
• At first it felt like I had been struck with the flu, but then old familiar symptoms reappeared. I spent the entire June taking meds to speed up the die off or flu or whatever it was (slowed down by a couple of social events at the wkend where once again I ate some muffins and some restaurant/ food containing sugar and wheat).
• On the plus side I was a lot more physically active than the previous months which seems to have had a big positive impact on my overall health and Candida in particular (I’d say it took 2 months of regular exercise to really feel the difference; almost as if at first my body had to push out the nasties which made me ill, but once that was done I felt better than before).

TIP FOR YOU — START YOUR DAY WITH 5 MINUTES OF YOGA:

I have been doing this short yoga sequence from Jennifer Jarrett that I found on Pinterest – I’m going through the sequence every morning before breaky. It’s great to get stretched and focused for the day. It’s ever so short but makes a big difference to how the day pans out because you already start with an accomplishment. I’m also following the 21 days online guided meditations course from Deepak Chopra again at the moment – 20 minutes of peace & serenity every day = bliss (it’s FREE — join here if you like).

What I typically ate this month in the UK:

•  Breakfast:

• Mon – Fri: Hot Rice Cereal/ Ground Rice Pudding, My Healing Cabbage Stir-Fry (Recipe included in the upcoming e-cookbook ;-))
• at the Wkend: Gluten free Oat groats (they are super hard and need to be pre-soaked overnight and then cooked for 20 minutes, but they are very tasty, in a chewy, nutty kind’a way)

• Lunch: Potatoes, steamed green veg and tinned fish or eggs with Spelt bread
• Dinner: often late and fried, a fair bit of white rice with chicken

What I snacked on

• my latest savory craze: home made brown rice flat bread with tomato puree/ paste and garlic

How I felt:

• Felt as if I had a virus, literally the entire month after I got back from Germany — really run down, achy, listless, foggy thinking
• Mega sinus pain, blocked nose, allergy fits, itchy back of knees
• Feeling very low, anxious and hopeless

• Because we had a family commitment further afield we had a lot of stress, had to eat out and I had to take tons of Ibuprofen, Sudafed and antihistamines to be functional, which obviously only suppressed the virus symptoms so on our return they came back.

Then the camping trip and European festival abroad came along that I had halfheartedly agreed to a year ago.

It was fun. But emotionally, physically and financially exhausting. The timing was all wrong as well. All I wanted to do was publish my book (which I didn’t manage to do on the said date despite working 24/7 right until 12 at night and still having to get up to go to the airport again already at 4.30am the next morning). I felt drained.

Just to Recap what was going on the previous month:

I had visited my family in Germany, had enjoyed lots of Candida-unsafe foods and thought I’d got away with it

• It took 4-5 days after my return for the die off symptoms to kick in and then with a vengeance. I took high strength probios and antifungals to get it over with as quickly as possible. But I wasn’t quite prepared how ill I felt.

Health Issues before my Budapest trip:

•  Hectic, mega worry, no fun = cold sore just a few days before the book launch date and flight, just great.

• Super stocking up action on home remedies and over the counter meds followed. By that time I was in such a frantic anxious state that I bought even things for stuff that wasn’t actually wrong with me just in case it might go wrong… insane (I have the $200 meds bill to prove it, yikes! Rational thinking definitely turned off).

Result:

But because of this I tried tons of meds in hope to get me completely Candida clear for my holiday — and found some super effective remedies to free up your nose and to clear up yeast infections the natural way (more on that below). Not to mention the coldsore that disappeared after 3-4 days without help of an OTC drug. I got to say that was pretty awesome.

What I typically ate abroad (on my trip to Budapest this month):

•  Breakfast: 2 Fried eggs and bacon, , feta, cucumber and tomato with 4 slices of white toasts (WHITE WHEAT! In my defence: they had no other bread) or oat porridge (not gluten free!)
• Lunch: tons of falafel and chicken kebab (again wrapped in white flour tortilla)
• Dinner: greek salad; I even had a real pizza (not once, no twice!) — white, flour, yeast, mozzarella and all — a first in more than three years (you have no idea how I reveled in that Italian pizza, it was so good! Let me take that back — I think you DO have an idea what it was like!)
  
• On the journey day: again pizza & yeasty bread rolls for sandwiches (only on day I started to feel bloated from eating this, no wonder after eating 5 thickly filled bread rolls over the entire day!)

Snacks:

• Crepe with spinach and feta (white wheat again, boy were these delicious!)
• Ice cream (even bought ice-cream like Cornetto – uh oh!)

• Croissant (et voila white wheat)
• Fruit salad even with banana (it was included in the rip off Spa tariff in the relaxation area — I’m too much of a miser to let that free food pass by *sigh*)

Drinks:

• Cappuchino (with real dairy milk!) , herbal tea, water, gin and tonic (not alcohol as well I hear you think — yep, I’ve been driven to drink – scandalous!)

 What supplements I took (before/ on my Camping trip) & why:

•  Milk thistle (helps the liver cope if you eat late & enjoy a glass of wine…!), Vitamin C and Zink, Magnesium, Fish oil, Evening Primrose oil, Beta-carotene (good to prepare your skin for a lot of sunshine/ prevents sunburn), Uva ursi, L-glutamin

• 5-6 drops of grapefruit seed extract in a glass of water every morning (also great as mouth rinse and to clean toothbrush with when camping — I swear that’s what kept me healthy)

• 1 tablet Candiclear or Yeast Formula with every meal
  

• Nose spray with essential oils or sea salt and aloe vera
  

• Soil Based Probiotic morning (and evening when I remembered)

• Otc sleeping aid

• Awesome Tip Just for the Ladies:

I wish I had known about Vaginal inserts ages ago — they are definitely the way forward to healing chronic yeast infections. After taking a preventative dose for the last days of my period before I left for Budapest I had no yeast infection trouble while on holiday (and that even despite the humid environment in the Spa, the sweet foods and the stress and emotional up and down) — miraculous!

What Supplements I took (when I got back home):

• I’m still taking Gelatin with my green juice in the morning. I’ve also started adding Spirulina for energy and Colostrum for an extra immune boost
• Rotated oil of oregano and olive leaf capsules.
• Back to taking a fairly strong probiotic (CP1 probiotics), twice per day (at the time of writing this I’m back down to the soil-based ones). Other than that, the usual multi vit, Vit C, magnesium, chlorella, barley grass powder and Evening Primrose and Fish oil capsules.

What I did right:

• I walked miles EVERY day. I was outdoors ALL the time. I was in a warm, dry climate. I ate a lot of eggs, chicken and fresh veggies.
• I went to the sauna and steam rooms twice in Budapest (and I sweated non stop anyway as it was so hot in Budapest)
• Had cold showers to boost circulation (and because there were no warm camping showers haha!)

• Oatmilk baths (yep, it’s awesome for the skin — all you need is a muslin bag/ cheese cloth and a couple of handfuls of oats held under the running bath water tap, nifty huh)
• I drank tons of Kefir (fermented milk naturally high in probiotics) – why is it that Kefir tastes much better in Eastern countries?!

To recap what I learned:

• What you eat and how you feel isn’t always predictable. Judging from what I ate in Budapest (pizza, ice cream…) I should have had a fat Candida relapse. But even now (14 days after our return) I feel good. On the flip-side I did all the right things after my Germany return and I felt rotten for weeks and weeks. It just doesn’t make sense (or maybe it does and it’s just delayed). Either way I am super grateful that I feel fine.

• Stress and emotions play such a huge part in your healing. If you get that bit right you can get away with eating a few naughty foods here and there without repercussions. But if you’re stressed and sad you can get ill very quickly and once you’re run down you can then get a Candida relapse at the drop of a hat.

• You can’t think your way out of a depression — Emotions are the key to impacting your body and well-being for the better (not thoughts!). So if you use a lot of negative self talk or you have limiting self beliefs you must create new neurological pathways by focusing your intention on enjoyable positive things. Stop analyzing, start taking action!

• Be more active – work out regularly to become more resilient.

• If you don’t look after yourself no-one will. If you push yourself too hard in one area of your life it will create an imbalance in other areas and promote stress and illness. To be able to help others you have to help yourself first. I’ve been really rubbish at this. I spent all my time trying to please everyone around me and put my own needs last. That created much loneliness and resentment which almost killed my relationship and definitely put an extra strain on my health. It sounds really silly but I have to learn to do stuff for myself, to take time out and do the things I love doing (other than work and commitments! Here’s a snap from my recent Budapest trip What are you doing just for yourself this week?

So How Does this Apply to You?

• If you feel disheartened because you haven’t been able to stick to the diet as well as you had hoped for — don’t be, you’re in good company. And if even I get better despite all my drama, outrageously naughty foods and little setbacks then so can you

Onwards and upwards my friend. This is your chance to turn the ship round and use the rest of the summer to get truly well.

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