Candida Diet Update June – How What I ate Affected my Health

Sunshine, Emotional Stress, Curries & Snack Bars

Since my successfully laid back stage 3 type Candida Diet last month I have re-introduced even more “normal” foods into my diet with the idea to transition out of the diet altogether – Well, that was a bit HASTY!

Just to recap: This is what I ate last month:

I overstepped the dietary boundaries A LOT (think cakes, tons of strawberries, cream…) I got away with it though – which made a nice change.
It definitely helped that I slept really well and was happy.

What I typically ate this month: (stage 3 stuff plus snack bars, ice cream and fruit smoothies – instead of the sugar free snacks that I used to enjoy)

Biggest change was that I ate much richer, more acidic and more protein rich foods in general.

Think spicy curries, meaty stuff like Bolognese sauce, and other not so easy to digest foods like split pea curry.

Is it just me or don’t those split peas get soft at all?! If 12 hours of slow cooking doesn’t do it, what does!?

I ate a good amount of hard goats cheese rather than feta (although that agreed much, much better with me), and salted goats butter (my latest find: delicious!) rather than coconut butter.

I also ate lots of millet and gluten free oats. I seem to have lured myself into thinking that it’s ok, because it’s gf free, so it must be healthy, uh-oh. But really, being a grain it’s still acidic and not easy to digest (hence it’s so nice and filling I guess).

Thinking about it, I actually ate tons of foods that I didn’t enjoy. I had quite a few dishes that didn’t turn out alright – yet I still ate them, duh.

Do you know that feeling, when you eat something because you just can’t let it go to waste…?

Like my latest attempt at baking the “perfect” gluten free bread, where I mixed so many different gf free flours that the bread came out with a solid layer of chalk in the center, nice! ?

Well, you can bet, that I am still regularly toasting a slice of this bread, nibbling the eatable outer rim of it… Goodness Gracious Me!

Breakfast:

Spelt & Onion Bread with Tuna & Sweet Potato Spread or Ground Rice Pudding with Apple Slices

Lunch:

Millet and Split pea dhal, veg and feta or Chicken Curry with flatbread

Dinner

Spelt bread with tuna, feta spread or scrambled eggs

What I snacked on:

Started putting more fruit into my green smoothies (1/3 banana, 1 small apple, half a pear, mango, blueberries) – no problem. So I also put some brown rice, rice puffs or gf free oats in to make it more filling – no problem.

Then I took it up a notch and made flapjacky-type snack bars with lots of gf free oats, almond, puffed rice and also raisins.

pear and oat snack bars

OMG, I’m eating dried fruit – the personification of sugar!
That must mean I can now really push the boat out and eat my beloved dried apricots, prunes, dates and figs again – Hey, that would be something!

For now I’m not that daring after last month’’s overindulgence. I’ll stick with a tiny amount of agave or apple and pear spread.

Drinks: water, dandelion tea, Pau d’arco tea, nettle/ mullein tea, yannoh (coffee sub)

Lifestyle/ Activities:

CIMG5477

Went to the beach a couple of times (gotta make the most of the little sun in the uk ? Yes, that’s my first G&T at Miss Peapod’s in Penryn after god-knows-how-long-on-the-candida-diet (very disappointing to be honest – might I have gone off alcohol, noooo!).
Lot’s of arguments & sleepless nights (neighbours and their cat and snore-grunt sounds right next to me robbed me of uninterrupted sleep).

Stress! Directly reflected in a Candida relapse. As quickly as it came, it left me again. I did take half an anti-histamin, just how I used to when I had hay fever. We live right in the center of a public garden. So there’s plenty of pollen wafting through my window – maybe that’s what tipped me over the edge?

And there I was thinking that because I eat so many healthy things my immune system must be invincible!

Biggest change: 3 fitness classes at the wkend, very intense, so I’m totally knackered all wkend but during the week I’m too inactive – only 15 mins walk in the morning then sitting at my desk all day – no good!

It’s majorly affecting my mood, my posture, my back and sadly, apparently my health/ candida levels.

I felt much better and was way more resilient when I moved moderately and regularly.

Also been super lazy on the guided meditation/ relaxation music front. Just going to yoga is not enough. I need something to direct my thoughts to something positive and chilled. I miss it!

Health Issues:

lady bits problems
air in my tummy
itchy eyes and nose (hayfever?!) (the irony of it all – after writing a blog post about remedies for it!) and 2 days of sore throat
Felt really tense, agitated and highly emotional. Took me about a good week to recover.

What Supplements I took:

Rotating olive leaf capsules (twice daily), oil of oregano drops (once daily 2 drops), goldenseal capsules (1 a day)
On days after extreme stress, symptoms or the wrong foods – took higher strength probiotic (50 billion organisms); on other days the soil based lower dosage ones.
L-glutamin, Colostrum and Slippery Elm on days when I felt low or my digestion was compromised (stopped taking it a few days ago to see if I’m ok without it; the costs for all the supplements are just getting out of hand a bit).
Extra magnesium after exercise.
Hardly any Kefir.

To recap what I learned:

frozen blueberry smoothie

Had to highlight my colourful smoothie again in case you hadn’t tried it yet (there were healthy moments, too, you know ?

This month has been a roller coaster. At first I felt surprisingly good despite last month’s dietary sins. Then I had lots of stress, arguments, sleepless nights – and boom! Hello Candida – As soon as my Immune system was run down for a few weeks on end – a whole host of symptoms reappeared.

I re-introduced too many “potentially harmful” foods all at once (like peanut butter, oats, pear spread, millet, raisins, dark meat…) as well as changed my lifestyle big style. That’s why I’m not able to pinpoint what exactly is going wrong in my body at the moment – highly frustrating. So I’ll have to retrace my steps and go back to a clean diet avoiding all the usual candida culprits.

Sleep deprivation totally undermines your immune system – so does being sad.

So How Does this Apply to You?

For long-term recovery from Candida you have to create a healthy happy environment for yourself so you can sleep deeply and make enough space in your life to balance things out with relaxing and fun things. Stress and worries keep you ill.

And if you haven’t been as physically active as you wanted to be, change that round tonight by going for a brisk walk. Small step, big impact!

It’s so easy to get obsessed with the foods you’re eating, non stop thinking, evaluating, being on tenterhooks… how stressful!

For healing to take place you need to fully relax (regularly!) and bring peace to your overactive mind.

Hot bath, Sauna, sitting in the sun, curling up on the sofa, listening to lush music, going to bed half an hour earlier, treating yourself to a hot stone massage….

What relaxy thing would you really like to do, but can’t do for various reasons?!

I challenge you to do it anyway. Now is as good a time as any – so do something nice tonight