I just wanted to post my ideas about the Candida Diet based on my research and experience. There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn't allowed on the diet. Of course, if you are following a different diet and it's working for you, you should keep at it. But, if it's not, please consider trying this to see if it helps you feel better. Perhaps a lot of this isn't new information for many people on this forum.
The diet is basically a zero (or almost zero) carbohydrate and no mold diet. It's basically a fresh meat and most fresh vegetables diet. You can eat any kind of meat. I avoid fish because of mercury concerns, but you may not need to.
Most vegetables are fine on the diet. Do not eat carrots, beets, corn or potatoes.
Avoid packaged and canned foods since there's no way to know how long the food was sitting around collecting mold before it was packaged. I have no trouble with frozen vegetables.
There's some controversy about things like mushrooms.
Avoid all sugar, including milk and fruit, and fake sugar. This includes yogurt. Unfortunately, there are many people who recommend that you eat yogurt for the probiotic effect, but you can get safe probiotics without the milk sugar. Some others suggest that lemons, grapefruits and cranberries are OK, but others suggest that lemons have
Sugar in them, for example.
Avoid all grains. Some people suggest eating brown rice, but I wouldn't because of the carbohydrates in it.
It's a
Rotation Diet for the vegetables. If you starve the yeast, it somehow "figures out" how to eat vegetables it couldn't eat before. That will make you intolerant to that particular food since you will have a yeast reaction whenever you eat it. The way to avoid this is to avoid eating the same vegetable for 4 days after you eat it. I can eat the same vegetable for every meal on one day, but then I mustn't eat it again for 4 days after that.
My typical diet goes something like this. I eat a combination of chicken, pork, beef and/or eggs plus a different vegetable for each day. Today, for example, is my spinach day. I ate spinach every meal today, and I'll eat it again about this time next week. Tomorrow I'll eat the same kinds of meals with green and sweet peppers. The fewer ingredients you use in each meal, the better. That way it's easier to keep track of what vegetable you ate and what you may have a reaction to.
Drink water. Tea, alcohol and coffee are all fermented. The fermentation process can allow mold into the drink. Most other drinks have some kind of
Sugar in them. You can juice safe vegetables and eat those, but I just drink water because it's easier. Green tea would be OK on the diet, but rotate it like any other vegetable. I was worried about being able to wake up without caffeine, but I wake up fine (much better than I used to) and don't miss caffeine at all.
A lot of herbal teas would be fine, but rotate them. Check the ingredients carefully.
I eat pork or beef with almost every meal because I find chicken by itself doesn't fill me up enough, and the fat gives me energy. I've been on this diet for some time, and I admit my cholesterol has gone up, but not catastrophically so.
The body takes some time to adjust to the new diet. You will likely lose some weight. You will have some trouble filling yourself up and some problems having enough energy at first. You will likely crave sugar. This can be handled by eating protein and/or taking vitamin C. These problems should go away not long after you start the diet.
Another problem is that the diet is boring. That bothered me at first, but doesn't bother me anymore. I have become used to it.
It's really important to be extremely strict on the diet in the beginning. If you want to try foods you're not sure about, do it later, after you feel better. It would then be easier to figure out if you react to the new food. It's important to be honest with yourself about how you react to foods. I know at least one person who was obviously reacting to a food he was eating, but denied he was because he wanted to eat it, even if it undermined his diet.
While you follow the diet, an occasional multi-vitamin would be a good idea. It's hard to get all of the vitamins you need on such a strict diet.
You should rotate herbal medicines like vegetables. They are, after all, plants with a different name. Many spices are OK too, but fresh is better and rotate them like vegetables.
While you follow the diet strictly, you should be taking a good yeast killer and a good probiotic (which doesn't come from a source with
Sugar in it). I recommend you use x-v coconut oil. It is a very effective yeast killer. Be prepared for some die-off side effects. There are other yeast killers out there, though, so feel free to try the one you like.
I take one spoonful of XV coconut oil with a meal every day. Then, when that doesn't seem to be having much effect, I increase it to 2 every day. Then I increase to 3 times. I wouldn't go higher than that. Take breaks from taking the yeast killer (but not from the diet) every once in a while. A few days would give your body a chance to expel the yeast poison, so you can relieve bad die-off symptoms.
Also, drink lots of water to help relieve die-off symptoms. Support your liver function since it will be under a lot of stress during this time. Foods which encourage the production of glutathione will help. Glutathione supplement is, by reputation, useless since it doesn't survive in your stomach.
If you follow the diet strictly and use a good yeast-killer, you should feel relief within 5 days. You should actually be able to see dark green flecks (dead yeast) in your pooh. My rashes pretty much disappeared after 5 days of doing the diet (along with my acne, canker sores and a host of other problems I had been having up to that point).
It's a difficult diet to follow. It's almost impossible to eat in restaurants while following it. Later, as a person feels better, they can, hopefully, break the diet with lessening reactions.
Look into the possibility that there is an underlying cause of your yeast problem (I believe mine to be caused by mercury from my silver fillings). If you don't take care of any underlying cause, you may be following this diet forever without the problem truly going away.
I'm sorry if I've overloaded you with information. I wanted to be as thorough as I could be, so you can try the program if you want (and, I hope, helping other people out there who may want to try this as well).