What I learned during my 8 month shootout with Candida

I hope that you'll read this post and learn from my experiences gathered from 8 months of war waged against Candida.. I really hope to save some people money wasted on supplements, and unnecessary pain and suffering, especially the pains that come with the low-carb diet that is so popular. I realize that this post is quite long, but I felt obligated to go into detail about what I discovered, in an attempt to contribute to the community of people that I learned so much from.

I'm writing this post to share the key things that I learned during my 8 month long fight against Candida, in which I did just about everything you could possibly dream of to rid myself of the nasty C word, including the strictest “anti-Candida” diet around, loads of anti-fungals, enemas, and the best probiotics that money could buy, including primal defense. I've read an innumerable amount of web sites, forum posts, and books on the subject of Candida, and here I was, nearly 8 months into my body's own personal war on terror, feeling like I had barely accomplished anything at all, completely miserable.. mainly because of how little energy I had due to the low-carb diet, and then I came across a post here on the curezone Candida Forum s that changed my whole game plan.

It was about an off the wall “fruitarian” diet for Candida, that many raw food eaters tout as the best way to eliminate Candida. The whole premise of this particular fruitarian diet, also known as the “80/10/10” diet, is that Candida cannot thrive in a well oxygenated environment, and that excess fat in the bloodstream is the primary reason that your cells don't get a sufficient amount of oxygen, which allows for an environment where Candida can thrive. The “80/10/10” diet method of dealing with this is by eating a diet comprised almost entirely of low-fat fruit, in which you get 80% of your calories from carbs, 10% from protein, and 10% from fat. This assumption that Candida cannot thrive in a well oxygenated environment is more than just a wild unfounded idea.. If you take a sample of Candida and put it under a microscope, and then introduce oxygen, you'll see that the Candida begins to die off immediately. Another case study is the hydrogen peroxide therapy that various people on this forum have tried, in which food grade hydrogen peroxide is consumed in order to oxygenate the bloodstream, although I've never tried this therapy myself. Anyways, this oxygenation theory really struck a cord with me, and after nearly 8 months of living off of hardly anything but vegetables, eggs, and meat, I did the unthinkable.. I took a trip to the grocery store and literally piled up my cart with more fruit than I've ever seen anyone purchase before.. it looked like I was pushing a vineyard on wheels.

I had mixed feelings about this.. of course I was worried that I would be throwing away 8 months of incredibly strict dieting, but at the same time, I felt like I needed a change. I felt like my entire body was clogged up, both physically and emotionally, and I felt like I just wasn't making any progress with the low-carb diet anyways, so I took the leap. The following morning I began a 30 day long 80/10/10 diet, and it helped me immensely, but not for the reason you would initially suspect. Sure... eating all that fruit was wonderful, and it really did improve the way I felt, and consuming approximately 400-500 carbs per day, rather than the 50 carbs per day I had previously allowed myself, was finally giving my body the readily available fuel that it so badly craved. In other words, I was finally starting to get some energy again. BUT the most important benefit of this 30 day adventure is that it shook the very foundations of the way in which I thought about Candida. It broke down my fears of trying methods other than the traditional low-carb, anti-fungals and probiotics approach, and opened the door to what would ultimately be the tool I needed to get rid of Candida.. and that tool is LIVER FLUSHING. Once you learn that the liver is even more metabolically complex than the brain, and has a huge variety of functions, this comes as no surprise. Having an impaired liver relates to Candida in three ways. (A.) If your liver isn't performing up to par then your food is not properly digested, which translates to tons of excess food for the Candida to munch on in your colon. (B.) If your liver is impaired, then theres a very good chance that your body has toxins circulating through it, and the Candida is there in order to protect you by slowing and blocking the absorption of these toxins. (which is why it's absolutely futile and completely counter productive to attempt to eliminate Candida, if the real underlying problem is your liver.) and (C.) If you have Candida for some other reason, then having an impaired liver will cause a shortage of bile, which is THE ultimate weapon against Candida. Forget about anti-fungals, which lose their effectiveness as the Candida strains adapt, and which aren't even that effective in the first place. We're talking about bile here! Your body's own anti-fungal/anti-bacterial solution which burns offenders alive like molten hot lava. No questions asked.

You may feel that you don't have stones in your liver because you've always eat a reasonably healthy diet, or because you've never taken large amounts of prescription drugs. But the sad reality is that if your living in todays modern society, you are being exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals which can come from a countless variety of sources, including carpeting, plastics, pesticides in your food, and even the air you breath, which has been polluted by car emissions, factories, etc.. etc.. and thats just to name a few. Your liver is responsible for filtering all of this garbage, and these toxic compounds get rolled up into stones.

Anyways.. the morning after my first Liver Flush I released an estimated 150 pea sized STONES from my liver, and the day after that I was already feeling greatly improved. In fact, I felt so good that I jumped on the treadmill and ran for the first time in almost a year. Plus the coating on my tongue was starting to retreat, and let me just take a moment to explain the infamous tongue coating that we are all so familiar with.. It's not actual Candida yeast per day.. In reality it's bacteria formed by the improperly digested food in your stomach, which is almost always caused by a lack of bile from the liver.

Now days I'm eating a healthy high-carb diet full of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, and cultured dairy products like yogurt and cheese, and I feel better than ever. My body is more than happy to receive the readily available energy, where as on the low carb diet, it was forced to convert all of the protein and fats into sugars to use for fuel. Yes, thats correct, your body actually converts no-carb items like meat and fats into Sugar carbohydrates whenever it needs the fuel. Your body would literally die without sufficient carbs to use as energy, and forcing your digestive system to conduct this burdening task of turning protein and fat into fuel is very straining on your body, especially when you do it for an extended period of time like you do on a low-carb diet. This is a huge part of the reason people with Candida often feel so tired. It's not just because of the Candida! It's because of the strain your placing on your body. Talk about counter productivity. My point is, unless your a native Eskimo, who's body type has slowly adapted over thousands of years in order to effectively live off of a diet comprised almost entirely of meat and fat, than I suggest that you discontinue your low-carb diet. If you are allergic to certain grains or foods, than try to find suitable alternatives, but be sure to get an adequate amount of carbs so that your digestive system isn't unnecessarily taxed.

So to summarize, after all that I've learned and tried in my quest to conquer Candida, I have come to the conclusion that the optimum approach for ridding oneself of Candida, is a diet high in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and a moderate amount of meat and cultured dairy products, combined with the practice of liver flushing, and a little bit of probiotic supplementation in order to repopulate your intestinal tract as the Candida becomes a thing of the past. Refined sugars and grains should generally be avoided, not because your living in fear of Candida, but simply because they are unhealthy and they do your body no good at all. Don't be afraid to allow yourself treats from time to time though. :)
I think the best advice is that you bake your own treats, which beat the pants off of that store bought junk. Personally, I really like pumpkin and oatmeal cookies baked with whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and xylitol (a natural alternative to refined sugar) or a boiled raisin cake is hard to turn down.. the point is, find a good recipe book, and replace white flour with whole wheat flour whenever you see it.. anyways.. this post isn't about cooking or recipes, but I just thought I'd throw that little tidbit in.

The Liver Flushes should be done every two to three weeks, until no more stones come out, which very roughly translates to between 6 and 12 flushes. You may need more and you may need less, depending on how many stones are in your liver. If you don't see any stones after your first flush, this doesn't mean that you don't have any stones, but it is more likely that the stones are slightly stuck, and you can expect them to start coming out during the next cleanse. The most popular flush, which is the flush that I personally have been doing, can be found here on curezone at //www.curezone.org/cleanse/liver/huldas_recipe.asp or you can checkout a book called “The Amazing Liver Cleanse” by Andreas Moritz , which I had originally discovered by reading a post by a fellow forum member here, JohnG, so much thanks goes out to him for igniting my interest in liver cleansing. The curezone link that I just posted doesn't mention malic acid, but I believe this is a very important aspect of cleansing the liver. Malic acid naturally occurs in certain fruits, such as apples, and has a dissolving effect on liver stones , so that they may become slightly smaller and pass easier. Malic acid can be purchased in capsule form from the net or from a health food store for the very reasonable price of about $9 for a bottle of 100 capsules, which will last for about 4 flushes. You should take between 1500-2000 mg of malic acid per day, for 6 days prior to the actual flush.

Once you've done enough flushes to get all of the stones out of your liver, you should do two cleanses per year, as good maintenance. Having a clean liver showers you with benefits far beyond eliminating Candida.. it seems that cleansing your liver can cure more ailments and diseases than just about any other practice. I have found that my hay fever has vanished. Some people believe that it's just about impossible to get a disease as long as your liver is up to par and filtering your blood like it was designed to.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that the experiences that I have shared may help you in your own personal fight against Candida, and with your health in general. I encourage you to re-think the way that you view Candida, and if you feel that you are at a stand still, that you might seriously consider moving on to a healthy, carb rich diet combined with liver flushing.

Last, but furthest from least, I'd like to Thank God for guiding me on my journey towards health, and suggest that you too ask for his help if you haven't done so already.

If you have any questions about any of this, ask away and I'll try to reply to you with an answer, or you can send me an e-mail at hilfigersteve@yahoo.com - Thanks for reading through this lengthy post. :) Tweet