In the 11th week

This is quite a feat. I have been on this cleanse for over ten weeks now. I feel good about food. Wow. That's quite a statement for me. I feel good about food.

I decided I wanted to do a little clean up this week. I had been eating some dairy and quite a lot of meat. Both were fine; meat is part of the cleanse and dairy is not, but I didn't experience any resurgence of symptoms. I kept thinking, however, of doing a juice fast but that wasn't quite the right choice for me. I decided to do just veggies for a few days.

Yesterday, today, and at least tomorrow (maybe longer if I'm feeling it) I'm doing a liver flush in the morning and some flax seed, a vegetable and sunflower seed salad for lunch and juice in the evening. I've been having a lot of gas and bloating actually. Like I mentioned before, I'm back on the anti fungal supplements so perhaps the combo is killing off more predators.

My bowel movements (my ever-faithful gauge) have changed again. They have been daily, which is different, but they've also been hard and small. It could be because of the large amount of meat I ate before this clean-up. I'm happy things are moving though, even if it is slowly.

Speaking of, I think I have one coming on now. Alright, I'll check back later!

Update

Today I'm just writing because I have written in a little while. I wanted to check in with me and you about where I am in this cleanse.

First, I had forgotten what week I was on. That's a good sign because it means I'm not counting down the days until it's over. I feel like I've gotten into a groove here and can stick it out for a while. I did check the calendar, though. Tomorrow ends week ten.

I feel like I'm eating "normally" right now. I guess what that means to me is I'm not doing anything super strict with myself. I have some dairy here and there, I feel like I can eat out at a restaurant with no problem, but I basically just don't want any sugar or wheat or corn or any of that stuff that helps perpetuate addictive food behaviors. I even had some curried chicken yesterday and I could feel there was something addictive in it, so I tossed the rest away.

If you've been keeping up, you know I was constipated for a while on this cleanse. That's improving. My bowel movements are becoming more regular. I've been having gas these last few days actually, which I hadn't been having almost at all this whole time. I think that may be from the super fibrous coconut cookies I made (see previous post for recipe). Apparently coconut flour is filled with fiber.

As far as the hydrogen peroxide portion, I got to 25 drops three times a day. Then I took a few days off simply because my body seemed extremely disinterested in it. Then the last three days I've had one glass of water with 25 drops just in the mornings.

While building up with the H2O2 I had taken a break from my antifungals and whatnot. I started taking those again a few days ago as well as vitamin C and continuing with vitamin E.

After my three week weight plateau, I've dropped almost ten pounds in the last week and a half.

Those are my stats for now. From talking to a friend who has some familiarity with this type of cleansing, I have my eye set on the three month mark. Apparently that's around the time a lot of changes start to take place. Like I said, I feel like I'm in the flow of it, so I look forward to keeping going and seeing what my body is willing to let go of. I'm hoping it is willing to let go of years of accumulated shit, both physical and emotional. Cheers!

Cookies

I created another candida-cleanse friendly recipe and it's packed with nutrients: raw cookies

Again, sorry I don't use measurements. It is all to eye and taste

Coconut flour
Maca powder
Cacao powder
Macadamia nuts
Stevia powder to taste

Mix all dry ingredients evenly

Coconut oil
Raw almond butter
Water

Mix in wet ingredients-the amount of each you use depends on taste.

After all mixed, it should be wet enough to roll into balls.

Roll into balls. Put in dehydrator on low overnight. Then refrigerate.

Yum!

Of course you can add whatever spices you like. Eat and enjoy.

Recovery

Saturdays, lately, seem to be for recovering from some bad choice I made Friday night. Two weeks ago I wrote how I felt hung over from eating a large meal right before bed.

Last Friday night I chose to experimentally eat a bag of potato chips to see how I would feel. Ultimately, they resulted in a migraine by Saturday evening.

What did I do last night? Well, I decided to do an enema. That's fairly normal for me. I chose to do one with hydrogen peroxide. I did that one other day recently with no trouble. After all, I am drinking the stuff. It appears I did not dilute it enough. I experienced some mild burning. Then I added significantly more water and finished the enema-better to flush it than let it sit in the colon at that concentration. Then I did a bag of pure water.

Immediately, I had some bowel release. Again, pretty normal. Then I had some cramping and diarrhea-like release with tinges of blood. Wait a minute. This isn't right. At some point, this lessened. I went about my evening as usual. I can't recall if I had any other issues before going to bed.

I woke up sometime in the night. Almost immediately, I had to shit. I could also feel all the waste backed up in my colon. It was interesting. I went to the bathroom, had some more soft passing of matter along with blood and some severe cramping.

I cycled through this several times in the night. Interestingly, rather than feeling like I couldn't go back to sleep, I fell right back into slumber each time, including the time I chose to sleep on the bathroom floor on a pile of clothes in case another wave hit me quickly. These cycles felt like they were working on my nervous system releasing even with the excruciating discomfort and passing of blood. There's something about dislodging shit of any kind that's been stuck in one place too long.

After the second cycle which happened at 3am I did call out of work for saturday. I couldn't imagine trying to give massages and run to the bathroom in the middle and lie on the floor for comfort. And I wasn't sure how long this would last. Upon waking, I have done some google research, including some medical articles. There is nothing to indicate a trip to the doctor would be helpful. All articles say there is nothing the doctor can do, it will resolve on its own and don't do I again. I hear that. Also, be gentle on your digestive system afterward. No problem.

I have had a few small incidents this morning, mostly with cramping. I'm going to stay close to home today, wear a pad and be kind to myself. I feel much better already. And my beautiful animals took good care of me last night. Love them.

Where did this all begin?

I may have mentioned in previous posts how candida may proliferate for others, but I don't think I've talked too much about how it proliferated for me.

This is mere speculation based on reading a lot of different viewpoints and finding the ones that feel truest for me. I have taken antibiotics, though not as much as many out the. My parents didn't believe in antibiotics for colds and whatnot. I remember as an adult three specific times I took them-once for bronchitis and twice for vaginitis. Antibiotics can add to the candidiasis because they kill off our good gut flora that keeps candida in check.

The main article I read that struck home for me said if the gut flora is out of balance and there is too much food in the digestive tract, the food will sit there and ferment. This will feed candida. I think about the nights after nights of eating potato chips and drinking beer and how much stuff has just sat in my intestines, not really moving. Sugary sweet things were not usually my biggest craving. Starches and yeasts were, though.

I don't really miss sugar. I have a mental craving sometimes, but then it passes. The craving to over eat is still there. I believe that's the piece I need to pay attention to if I want long term lifelong success with this cleanse.

I have a lot of people say they're surprised I've done it this long and still have more to go. They can't believe it takes months to work through this. I respond that if taking a few months to correct years of imbalance is required, I'm up to the challenge. I started on 5/20 and it is 7/19. That's pretty good. And I think I feel another bowel movement coming on....

Bowel movements

My body has decided to celebrate completing eight weeks and still going with bowel movements. This is what I have been waiting for.

If you've been reading this, you know my primary motivator for doing a candida cleanse has been constipation. Going days between bowel movements was, sadly, normal for me. I realized that was not optimally how a body is supposed to work and finally got down to business with this cleanse to get on track.

The last day of my eighth week, my body quickly and easily released a sixteen inch long and solid bowel movement. It was so exciting I almost shit myself (haha). Since then I've had two more bowel movements that have been pretty significant. They havent been as uniform as that sixteen incher, but clearly there's some important stuff being released. This makes me so excited to see the progress my body is making.

Just to remind you all, my current protocol has been meat and veggies, H2O2 therapy (I'm at 24 drops per serving right now), probiotics and vitamin E. this is while I finish up the hydro peroxide therapy and then I may go back to antifungals. I like what my body is doing right now, though. It's a thrill a minute!

Candida's personality

Earlier today I was imagining what Candida's personality is. I compared it to that friend you spend time with who always brings out your worst vices and sides of your personality that normally stay at bay but all come out at once when you spend time with that friend. And really, you spend time with them because you want to engage in those activities-you're not quite ready to let them go-but you hate that side of yourself.

Candida has an addictive personality.

Candida has low self esteem, or perhaps self loathing.

Candida loves engaging in all those things that make you feel like shit the next day.

Candida carries a dark cloak.

Candida is really fun, for a few minutes or hours. Then you don't want to see it again for a really long time, but inevitably when it calls you, you answer and agree to meet it.

Candida gives you terrible advice but in the moment the advice comes, it sounds perfectly reasonable in its extreme-ness.

Candida spirals out of control and takes those around it with it.

Candida is self-centered.

Candida is self-destructive.

If you cry and call candida, rather than listening, candida invites you to go out to get wasted and then spends the whole time out trying to find people to take home.

Candida sounds a lot like some of the people I spent time with a decade ago and wouldn't hang out with today. But interestingly, candida is still seductive.

This may seem silly or ridiculous, but these are the experiences I've had with some foods and drinks that promote this overgrowth. And the longer I'm on this cleanse, the more I recognize folks seduced by candida. I see people begin their day with a normal level of energy and then eat loads of sugar, crash, and wake up to get high on the sugar again. I see the same with wheat. Every person I know who's cleansed themselves, even for a short while, from these ingredients, gets cranky, moody, bitchy, achy and wants to go back. Usually they go back fairly quickly. It's often a secret too. We don't tell our other friends how much time we spent with candida. We don't talk about the sugary breakfast followed by the sugary coffee followed by the alcohol each and every night. We don't know they're hanging out with candida too behind our backs.

I have no judgement towards all of Candida's friends. I am just now getting the courage to say that I don't want to spend time with anyone like Candida.The side of me that wants vitality is getting stronger. The side of me that is genuinely not interested in waking up with headaches and mood swings is getting stronger than the part of me that wants instant short-lived gratification.

I am not out of the woods yet. I am eight weeks into my cleanse and I could certainly tighten things up a bit for better results. I do, however, have a much clearer sense of what is doing what to my body and my experience-what foods affect my mood, my pain levels, my energy levels and my overall sense of wellness. I'm keeping my radar up. I'm listening. I choosing me for right now. My emotions are growing up.

What is up with weight?

One of my jobs is in an office. With regular folk. When I say regular, I mean not the energy loving, chakra balancing, frequency listening, meditating, yoga-doing, nutrition-aware people that I've been around for the last six years. It's a change. When I started this cleanse over six weeks ago, I let my office mates know so they wouldn't ask me daily if I wanted partake in the eating out and office treats that often go hand in hand with office spaces. They sort of got it, I think. Their perspective, however, seems to come strongly from a place of weight. One person in particular still seems to think I'm on a diet I order to lose weight, and she'll still ask me if I want a slice of cake or a piece of pizza. I want to get mad about it, but I also understand she doesn't really get what I'm doing.

Weight, though, is a thing. It's a subject I'm sensitive to because I think of excess weight, particularly my own, as a symptom of other things. There are nutritional, emotional, societal, hormonal attachments being held there and it is a tangled web to unravel. I feel this cleanse is a huge thing for me in addressing some of these attachments. I also think that because weight is a symptom, the releasing of excess weight is a sign of moving toward success.

Before I began this cleanse, I was heavier than I've been in my life. That was not my motivator, though. It hasn't been a good motivator for me for a decade. When I try simply to lose weight, I yo yo a lot with my thoughts, foods, and ultimately my weight. There were other bodily things going on that felt unsafe for me and I wanted to move past them. That was my motivator. Still, I have released some weight-30 pounds as of now. Interestingly, the weight still fluctuates even when I feel steadfast. My emotions also fluctuate. There's nothing like releasing a few pounds to make one feel a boost of confidence, and nothing like wearing a swimsuit in a crowd to question the confidence again.

So, what am I saying here? Weight is a thing. It's a big thing, and it's in our faces all the time even if we don't watch the celebrity news or read gossip rags. I actually wonder, when it begins to significantly drop, what will come up for me. I'm disrupting my web of compensation and I don't know what is hidden underneath. I'm sure you'll hear about it, though.

Hung over

I believe I've mentioned that this process of cleansing has some benefits like an elimination diet. I've removed so many things that when I add something back in, it is pretty clear what that item does to me or how it makes me feel. I am my own science experiment.

I woke up today feeling hung over. Though I've been wanting a drink this whole Fourth of July weekend, I have not had one. I did have a large meal last night about an hour before bed. It consisted of cilantro jalapeño hummus (my first time eating beans since I started), babaganoosh and chicken from Pita Jungle. I found I wasn't actually into the taste of the hummus(which I used to love) and it seems like this was the first time I really stuffed myself in almost six weeks. My liver could feel it when I woke up.

One article I read about candida was saying that it forms from fermenting sugars in the digestive tract, which primarily come from food sitting in the intestines undigested. This can be from a variety of reasons, but one reason is definitely eating more than your body can break down in one sitting. I feel that today. I feel the tax on my liver. I feel the food still sitting in my body from ten hours ago. I also felt and feel the discomfort of eating a lot of proteins with carbohydrates.

Interestingly, I used to make this choice every meal-to over consume and feel pretty terrible. And there was no particular food I had that was "bad" for me last night. It was a combination of less than desirable circumstances of eating-too much, too late, not the best things to eat together-and again I get a picture of how candida has been able to flourish in my body for these years.

H2O2

5:00 am- 2 drops H2O2 in one quart distiller water

6:15 am liver flush and one tablespoon mulled flax seed in water

9:00 am spoonful almond butter

11:00 am 2 drops H2O2 in pint distiller water

12:30 salad with zucchini, rutabaga, onion, cilantro, cayenne, salt

5:15 pm 2 drops H2O2 in quart distiller water

This is an interesting process because the hydrogen peroxide can't be taken with food in the system. I have to plan it between meals carefully. Thankfully, cleansing is all about being prepared amyway, so I've gotten used to it.