As many of you know I am currently on a journey to be the
best version of Kelly and a huge part of that journey is to try and better manage
my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I generally cope by managing my activity and
getting early nights. I was recently asked if I feel I have improved or gotten
worse over the past two years. My answer is that day to day I am better but
that is because I haven’t worked for over a year, if I was working I think I
would be worse now than I was back then.
The only time I felt my condition improving was after
completing the Candida Diet. I started the diet in April 2016. I will summarise
the diet in this post, to find out more information on the exact diet I followed see https://www.thecandidadiet.com/
I tried the diet as the symptoms of Candida are virtually the
same as those of CFS and it is wise to rule out Candida when trying to tackle
CFS. Candida overgrowth is a body wide yeast infection. There is no test in the
UK as the NHS don’t recognise the condition. (There may now be private testing,
but I cannot confirm this.)
The regime is a strict exclusion diet that cuts out all
sugars and anything your body converts to sugar and so starves and kills the yeast
cells. As they die you will experience ‘die off’ symptoms, I didn’t so I believe
I did not have candida then and don’t now. So why do the diet?
During the diet I didn’t notice much improvement in my CFS
however I did feel so many other benefits. My nails were stronger, my skin was
clear of spots for the first time in my adult life, my hair felt in better
condition, my IBS symptoms disappeared, My eczema patches cleared and I slept better. My body and my immune system so thanked
me for this diet.
To summarise, I did phase one of the diet for seven days. During
this stage you can east just non-starchy vegetables and 2-3 eggs a day, plus
spices, herbs and garlic. My god is this stage hard. I had my green smoothie
for breakfast, recipe here. My egg meal for lunch, usually an omelette and salad
or boiled eggs and stir-fried veg or eggs in a spicy tomato and red pepper
sauce. Dinner was courgette noodles in an avocado and tomato sauce or cabbage masala
with cauliflower rice. I would have a snacks of broccoli soup, an extra egg or
a dip with vegetable sticks.
Phase two went on for fifty-three days. In this stage you
can add chicken, beef, oat bran (not oats), most nuts, coconut products, some
flours such as millet, the sweetener stevia, quinoa, swede and live natural yogurt.
I would make my Cajun
and fajita spice mixes (recipes here) and cook my chicken in them and serve
with salad, or home-made meatballs in a tomato sauce with salad, homemade burgers
(recipe here), swede fries, cauliflower rice or mash etc. I also made my own granola, (recipe here.)
I drank water, peppermint tea and red bush tea with almond
milk.
It is not an easy diet to do, not just because of the
limiting food choices but because everything must be prepared from scratch. It is
also hard seeing, smelling and sometimes preparing the kids and my husband’s
food. Last time I even had to break the kids up some Cadburys Easter egg, that tested
my willpower like you’ll never know.
Eating out was a nightmare, if I did then I would have steak
with salad or vegetables.
It is not a diet you could maintain long term. I saw it as a
detox, a reset if you like, that I then built upon by slowly reintroducing
healthy foods such as starchy vegetables, fruit, brown rice etc.
By mid July 2016 I had completed the sixty days and a
further five weeks of slow reintroduction and was seeing an improvement in my
CFS. It was so rewarding, especially as the diet had been the most challenging
thing I had ever done.
Then we went on a family holiday to Portugal. At first, I
managed to resist temptation and eat healthily on holiday. Until we walked to the
beach on the hottest day and everyone else was getting ice cream, I caved, I
had my first sugar (other than fruit) that I had eaten in over three months. It
tasted divine. I love food, adore it, I always have and once I had slipped that
was it.
I do think I could have gone back to my healthy ways on my
return home however within days I had been thrown into two stressful situations
with my employer that took over fourteen months to resolve and my diet and all
my progress went out of the window.
In May 2017 out of desperation I decided to try the candida
diet again. I did phase one for five days and then decided that instead of
commencing to phase two I would try to eat a gluten free and vegan diet. I
managed to do so for almost three months but felt it didn’t suit me at all. I
had spotty skin, was constantly bloated, put on weight and just generally didn’t
feel good so I stopped.
Since then my diet has had periods of being ok but mainly I
have slipped back into all my old habits. I think the only ones I haven’t slipped
back into are eating cereal and drinking squash.
I love food too much to cut anything out for good. Imagine
life without an occasional chocolate bar, bacon sandwich on white bread, cream
tea, afternoon tea, fry up, chips etc. I am lucky that I have concluded from my
diet experiments that I don’t have any intolerances so don’t need to cut
anything out forever. However, whilst I am not intolerant to certain things it doesn’t
mean they don’t do me harm. I am not intolerant to mars bars or Indian takeaways,
but I think we all agree my body would not thank me if I ate them in excess.
Recently my skin has been spotty, I am sleeping badly, have weak nails, patches of eczema, and have had a cold for three months as well as all my CFS symptoms.
I want to feel how I did after the candida diet, so I am
doing it again. I started phase one on Friday, 19th January 2018. I
am doing phase one for just three days this time (seven is just too hard) and
then plan to do phase two for between twenty-seven and fifty-seven days
depending how I am feeling.
This weekend I have prepared for phase two by batch cooking granola, a chilli, a bolognaise and a Mexican chicken dish.
I want to treat it as a detox and reset my system, relearn
my good habits and sort out my sweet tooth. Last time after sixty days of not
eating fruit it tasted like the sweetest treat ever and I didn’t miss things
like ketchup at all.
I so regret letting all that hard work go to waste. This
time I want this diet to be a springboard to a healthy maintainable diet and
lifestyle that allows for occasional treats.
Let’s hope it works.
You can follow my progress on my social media and in future
posts on here.
Many thanks for reading.
Kelly x
Your food looks delicious Kelly!! Ruth :-)
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