OMG, I never ever ever expected to abandon my poor little blog for months!!!
Where I have I been? To sum it up in one word...healing.
Back in June I had what I thought was a severe allergic reaction to something. I broke out in strange hives that were very very itchy and I could not find any relief at all. After many many visits to my family doctor who didn't have a clue what it was and a couple of visits to the dermatologist who's solution to my issue was to take Reactine every morning for the rest of my life, I knew I had to take matters into my own hands.
The hives lasted for weeks. Almost a month in fact.
Out of sheer desperation, I opened the phone book one day and started calling homeopathic doctors in my area. I lucked out. The first place I called was able to fit me in in two days. I knew absolutely nothing about the doctor I was about to visit. I had no idea if she could help. All I knew was that it couldn't hurt. I didn't feel like I could be in any worse shape than I already was.
When I first met Lovely Lily (her name is Lily, I added the "Lovely" part) I was very scared. I had no idea what I was in for. On my first visit she asked me a zillion questions. She looked at my tongue, my eyes, my feet and I forget where else. She seemed to have a diagnosis very quickly. Systemic Candida. She did a bit of accupuncture and I left her office with a bag full of natural remedies. And a lot of questions.
I came home and spent hours and hours and hours researching Candida online. It made perfect sense to me. I knew that was my problem and now I had to fix it.
Candida is a yeast-like fungal organism found in small amounts in the normal human intestinal tract. Normally kept in check by the body's own helpful bacteria, C. albicans can increase in numbers when this balance is disturbed to cause candidiasis of the intestinal tract, or yeast infections of other parts of the body.
In my case I think the Candida was triggered by years and years of taking antibiotics combined with a poor diet.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I have learned in the past few months about Candida, diet and nutrition. Having said that, I still have so much to learn.
The anti-candida diet is essentially a sugar-free, yeast-free, caffeine-free, wheat-free, diary-free AND sugar-free diet. What's left your thinking??? Not a whole heck of a lot, so I thought at first. But as time goes on, I discover more and more things I can eat.
I have to say. Cutting out sugar was probably the very best thing I have ever done for myself from a health point of view. I find when I'm not eating sugar (in any shape or form), I'm simply not hungry.
I no longer drink coffee or diet coke. And honestly, it was not hard to give up. I was a die-hard coffee drinker. I set my machine to brew just before I woke up in the morning so that I could crawl out of bed and have a fresh cup of coffee.
Now in the mornings I have a green smoothie. Yup. A smoothie made with spinach!
That was yesterday's smoothie. It had spinach, frozen coconut milk ice cubes, frozen pineapple, stevia, coconut oil, a spoonful of coconut flour and almond milk. Uh, a far cry from coffee with hazelnut creamer I tell ya!
This morning I roasted some chick peas for munching on and for salads.
I adapted
this recipe a little bit.
Anyways...I was inspired to blog today because I've fallen off the wagon a little bit. It took a couple of months to get the Candida under control. I still have a very long way to go until I'm "better". But I've been cheating lately and eating things I shouldn't be. I really need to get my head back into the space that it was in the summer and continue to beat the Candida monster.
I'm hoping that by using my blog and sharing my story I'll continue to be motivated to stick with it and get better.
