The Steps to the Candida Diet, One at a Time
It is easy to be temporarily overwhelmed by the Candida diet. It’s important to remember that your goals with this diet are likely to include several different parts of your health. It is not just about losing weight or feeling better, it is also about reclaiming your health, eliminating yeast infections and changing your life. There are a total of ten steps, with five here and five on the next page.
Step #1 Avoid Carbohydrates, Alcohol and Sugars
Carbohydrates, sugar and alcohol are what damaged your system in the first place. These foods, while they certainly taste good, provide virtually no nutritional value and provide enormous amounts of sugars and carbohydrates. Real food is what your body needs to run smoothly and junk food is what makes it run slowly. As you quit eating the junk food with sugars and simple carbs, you’re likely to experience some cravings and this is when it may be more difficult for you. You’ll want to hang tough, though, because it will get easier very soon. In fact, the yeast overgrowth in your body may be the very thing that is causing your craving, because it will only continue to grow as you consume more, and that is what yeast overgrowth wants.
Step #2 Get Rid of the Bad Fats and Only Eat the Good Ones
There is a common misconception that everybody needs fat in their diet every day, and that is simply not true. It is very possible to skip a day here or there on consuming fats when you are eating an otherwise balanced diet. Many experts feel that it is a good idea to take a day or two our of each month and consume no fats of any kind. This gives your digestive system a brief break and is incredibly nice to your intestines as well.
The bad fats are Saturated and Trans fats. They will contribute to the fat that accumulates in the arteries and are a known risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. You are likely to find either of these kinds of oil in a variety of different fast foods and many red meats. If you are ever unsure about the kind of fat an item has, you can look on the side of the package that the food came in. In addition, most restaurants, including fast food, have the nutritional information for all of their food available if you ask. Commercially prepared foods are known to have bad fats.
The good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Both of these have the potential for causing very good things to happen in your body. They are found in many nuts, avocados and olive oil, and in appropriate amounts, help your body to maintain itself, including nerve repair. Although you don’t need fats every day, you do need some of the good fats in your diet most of the time.
Step #3 Eliminate Gluten
Gluten can do terrible things for your body. Gluten is present in all bread products, including wheat, whole wheat or oat products and virtually all pastas. It is present in so many different types of foods that when you are trying to purge your diet of it, you will really need to become a label reader. When in doubt, look for the labels that say “gluten free”, and there are more foods becoming available as gluten free options every day. You’ll also want to look for items that say “starch” on the ingredient list, because those are likely to be derivatives of corn or oat, which are…you guessed it, gluten.
Step #4 Say Goodbye to the Sweet Fruits and Booze
There is a huge difference between pulling an apple from a tree and opening a can of fruit that has been preserved in a sweet syrup. An apple is one of the original fruits and is a pure source of nutrition. Preserved fruit has been picked, cleaned, cut up and then placed into what is basically a sugar syrup.
Unfortunately, given how alcohol is produced, it’s going to be high in sugar as well. That means that it’ll provide a low amount of nutritional value and present with a lot of calories. It also means that until this diet is over, you should not re-introduce these trouble items into your diet and after the diet is over, you should still only have the items in very limited amounts.
Step #5 What to Do About Dairy
Dairy is a huge problem for many people, and a significant percentage of the people who have trouble with dairy do not know about it. If you like butter, make sure that you buy real butter, not genuine imitation margarine. In real butter, there is very little sugar and acceptable amounts of good fats, so it’s an acceptable item. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is usually a good idea to limit dairy, because of the sugar (lactose) that is naturally present in dairy products. At the very least, you can always eliminate it for the first couple of weeks, and then try to re-introduce a dairy product on a day with no other “new” foods.
These are only the first five steps of the Candida Diet. If you’ll note, the next page has the remaining steps, so scroll on over and you’ll see the rest. Optimal benefits will only be seen if you complete all of ten steps and stay on the diet long enough for your body to do the necessary changes. Once that changes, though, you’re surely going to love how you feel.