Posts by Nichole:
- Vitamin C – to help boost my immune system
- Quercetin – a bioflavonoid (often taken with Vit C and is an anti-histamine/anti-inflammatory)
- Zinc – to help with adrenal fatigue (which Candida sufferers most likely have)
- B-Complex – boosts immune system function
- Garlic (raw, minced and added to my foods)
- Caprylic acid (found in coconuts and I cook with coconut oil)
- Oregeno Oil (which is good for many other things)
- Grapefruit Seed Extract (which I alternate with the Oregeno Oil)
- Pau D’Arco (in tea form)
- Filters unwanted chemicals like chlorine
- Mineralises the water
- Alkalizes the water
- Is a countertop model
- Requires simple maintenance
Candida, and My Battle Against It
September 6th, 2010I hesitated about writing this post because it is so personal, but then I decided that people need to know about this, so if sharing my own journey can help someone else I’m willing to do it.
Candida
For those of you who don’t know, Candida is one of many fungi that lives in your digestive tract. More precisely, it is a yeast, and an overgrowth causes yeast infections, something I have suffered from for years without realizing. The first time I ever heard about Candida was through Total Wellness Cleanse.
There are several different ways to get an overgrowth of Candida, one of which is the use of antibiotics since these kill all bacteria, the good and the bad and, as most things go, the bad repopulate faster. So make sure to supplement with a good probiotic after taking an antibiotic to ensure the repopulation of the good bacteria.
There are also other causes such as diabetes, stress, fatigue, birth control pills, a compromised immune system, and the list goes on.
Diagnosing Candida
This can be tricky, but there is a simple at home test I used just to be sure. Although I already was sure, I just wanted to see if it would work.
Before going to bed, place a glass of water at your bedside and then first thing in the morning, before doing anything else, spit into the glass of water. Make sure to get enough to coat the top and then watch over the next half hour. If your saliva is clean, it should dissolve and the water remain clear. If it becomes cloudy, sinks to the bottom, grows “roots”, or cloudy specks are suspended in the water, chances are you have Candida.
For me, by the time I stopped spitting after a couple minutes (I wanted to be good and sure I had an adequate amount) it was already clear I had a problem. I didn’t need to wait a half hour, my saliva had already grown roots. Okay, now that I know, time to do something about it.
Conquering Candida
It isn’t easy trying to get an overgrowth under control. Sure there are treatments you can buy at the pharmacy, but they only treat localized symptoms, not the cause. If you want to treat Candida naturally, diet is the first step.
Fortunately for me, since I had just completed Yuri’s Total Wellness Cleanse, I already had my eating habits under control.
Candida thrives on sugar, and sugar is everywhere! It’s more than just the obvious sources like sugar cane, honey, syrup, etc, it’s in fruit and simple carbohydrates such as white flour that breaks down into glucose. In order to conquer Candida, you need to eliminate sugar from your diet.
No Sugar.
I know. It’s tough. But a vital component.
For me, the hardest part has been not eating the fruits I love. There are only a few “low” sugar fruits I eat, such as grapefruit, apples, pears and occasionally strawberries and cherries while they were in season, and I keep it to 1-2 servings a day. If I bake, I use Stevia, which I also was already doing.
Simple Carbs
This one was easy since I had already eliminated them from my diet, but I went a step further and completely removed anything with gluten. This helps promote a healthy digestive tract and many people are intolerant of gluten to begin with. If I bake, I use brown rice flour and I enjoy it. I also replaced my whole wheat pasta with brown rice pasta and quinoa.
I plan on adhering to this diet strictly for a minimum of six months, which will take me to the end of 2010. Two months down, four to go. I am looking forward to all the fruit smoothies I dearly want to try.
Supplements
I’ve never liked taking pills. Never. I was in my early twenties before I could even swallow them, which I learned to do after being put on antibiotics for an ear infection. In order to give my body a fighting chance, I’m taking the following:
This was added to the whole food based Multi-Vitamin, antioxident, and Omega-3 pills I was taking, along with probiotics and enzymes.
Sometimes my body rebels and says, nope, I’m not swallowing another pill, especially the horse-pill of a multi-vitamin I’m taking three times a day. Sometimes I feel like such a pill-popper. It’s been a month and it’s become easier. I’m looking forward to when I can cut back, but plan on supplementing for at least another month. There were even more supplements I could take, but I had to pick my battles and take the ones I thought would help me the most.
Killing Candida with Anti-Fungals
There are several natural foods and remedies you can take to help reduce Candida. The ones I’m taking are:
The Next Step
Following the program I’m on, the next step is a parasite cleanse. I’ve already purchased the kit, and probably in October I’ll use it. Then it also recommends heavy metal removal and a liver flush, both of which are further down the road.
In Conclusion
The above is hardly exhaustive, and barely touches the information available, including the many symptoms, remedies to reduce symptoms, the importance of sleep, stress reduction, alkalinity, and so much more.
Many of us suffer from Candida without even realizing it. If you want to know more about how to fight Candida naturally, I would recommend visiting to HowToCureCandida.com. It’s the program I’m following and will fit in nicely with your Eating for Energy lifestyle.
Best of Luck
Nichole
New Additions To My Kitchen
August 28th, 2010H2O aka Water
I finally purchased a water filtration system a few weekends ago.
One of the reasons I held off buying this was price. The model online I was looking at was very expensive, but this was something I didn’t want to compromise on since I would have it for a long time and would be using it everyday. Thankfully I found a reasonably priced one at a local health food store. It has everything I was looking for. It:
I really wanted to purchase some litmus paper and test the PH blanace of the filtered water compared to my tap water and show you guys in the photo, but do you think I could find any? Alas, it was not meant to be, so for now I’m just going to have to trust the claim that it alkalizes my water.
The second reason I delayed this purchase was that my tap water tastes good. Taste wise, I don’t notice any difference between the two. I know in the larger cities the tap water tastes awful, and I can’t even stand to brush my teeth with it, but where I live it tastes clean. But because I know it still has bad things like chlorine in it (even if I don’t notice) I bought the filtration system, and if nothing else, it makes me feel better.
Juicing
Another purchase I recently made was a food emulsifier. I liked it because I could make both smoothies and juices without any waste. Well, my first attempt at making a juice was a disaster, and I’ve discovered there is a definite learning curve to using this thing.
The emulsifier works differently than a juicer in that you put the whole vegetable in and it pulverizes it into a liquid. Following Yuri’s recipe for Green Revolution, the result was a thick goopy mess, so I added some water to thin it out. Then I added more water and ran it for several minutes. It worked, except the friction from the blade heated the juice! Trust me, warm green juice isn’t the greatest. So I put it in the fridge (the entire jug full) and let it cool.
The end result: I still didn’t like it (Sorry, Yuri.) I did drink most of it because I committed so much food to its making and I knew it was good for me, but never again. My emulsifier also sat unused for a week.
The next weekend I tried something simpler: kale, spinach and an apple. I also added water right from the start and didn’t run it as long. This time, I like what I got – a green juice that tastes like apple. I haven’t used it again, but I hope to utilize it more in the future and make yummy smoothies and juices to drink.
I bought some frozen berries to make some “ice-cream” instead of using frozen bananas. I’m looking forward to it.
Nichole
First Mid-Range Goal Achieved
August 2nd, 2010
Okay, this picture is a bit of a cheat. It was taken back in September 2008. The handsome guy in the photo is my oldest brother, the groom, and I was obviously part of the wedding party. This was after my first attempt at losing weight. It worked, for a time.
You see, I lost the weight due to a very strict, calorie reduced diet (no exercise) which I did manage to maintain for over a year. The moment I stopped (and it’s impossible to maintain such a diet forever) I quickly gained back 10 pounds. Then 10 became 15, and slowly kept creeping upward.
Part of the reason for failure was I had been stuck in a plateau for months, and it began to get frustrating and I gave up. My diet slowly became worse and worse until it was downright horrendous. I knew I needed to fix things quickly or I would forfeit every gain I’d managed from before.
I gave myself three months to be able to fit back into that dress, and this time I would incorporate some exercise into my regime. One month in I ran across Eating for Energy and Total Wellness Cleanse. I decided to try since after losing a few pounds I had been stuck in a plateau for several weeks.
I am happy to announce that five weeks after staring Yuri’s programs, and 10 pounds later, I fit back into that dress yesterday, one month ahead of schedule.
This time I managed with a food plan I know I can maintain long-term, and with exercise, which is vital to true health. I’m also confident that I can lose those last pesky 10 pounds I failed to last time.
In addition to weight loss, I gained more energy, I sleep better, and my allergy symptoms are less. I used to go through a box of tissue a week (and I’m not exaggerating.) That has been greatly reduced and I hope it can be eliminated in the weeks to come.
I’d like to say Thank You, Yuri, for helping me so much. Your programs, the emails, the articles, videos, everything has helped me so much, and I look forward to my future. I know you speak about the power of the mind so much, and my attitude has completely turned around from ‘why bother’ to ‘I can so do this.’
One of my brothers may be coming to visit in October for Thanksgiving, and it will be over three months since I saw him last. I want to wow him. I know he’ll be so proud of me. He was impressed when I visited him over the July long weekend when I didn’t cheat even once. (I also brought practically my entire kitchen with me, including a large cooler full of fruit and vegetables). I’m committed to this way of life. How can I not be after all the wonderful things it has given me.
So for anyone who may be wondering if Eating for Energy is right for them, give it a try. You will be amazed. And you don’t have to be perfect in following the plan. I know I’m not. But even small changes can lead to amazing results as long as you stick with it.
Eating for Energy is more than a diet, it’s a way of life – a wonderful way of life.
Nichole
Vive Le Tour
July 25th, 2010Okay, that’s the extent of my French.
Is anyone else a fan of the Tour de France?
For those who don’t know, it’s a three week bicycle race across, you guessed it, France. It is the race for these athletes, and winning the General Classification, the rider who has the lowest overall time after 20 stages of racing, is the crowning achievement for any of them and only a handful of the participants have a hope of achieving this dream. The rest of the participants (and there are nearly 200 altogether) are domestiques, the workers who help their team leader achieve his goal.
I’ve been watching this for about eight years now, thanks to my mom who got me hooked. It has always amazed me to watch these athletes.
There are the sprinters who sprint crazy fast for the finish line of the flat stages, flirting with disaster as they seek the stage win.
And then there are the climbers (these are the guys who have a chance of winning the GC) who propel themselves up the mountains at amazing speed. The mountain climbing has always impressed me the most, probably because it is something I consider impossible for someone like me.
The Tour ends Sunday (and now I’ll have a whole bunch of free time because it takes up a lot of hours watching this bike race) and the winners of all the different categories will be determined. As much as the winners have to be incredible athletes, I’ve noticed over the years that the teams with the best support to offer their leader produce the winners. No one man can win the race by himself.
That same concept can be related to our own lives. While each of us has to put in our own individual effort to achive our goals, alone it can be a challenging, or even impossible, task to complete.
Surrounding ourselves with supportive people and role models, while limiting our exposure to negative people, is key to being successful in your Eating for Energy journey, and anything else you may want to achieve.
I’m blessed with a supportive family. They are impressed that I can keep up the lifestyle changes I’ve made and they can see my results, which speak volumes. My dad is proud of me, and that means a great deal to me.
So I guess in my long-winded way, I’m asking: do you have any domestiques? The people in your life that support you and urge you forward; that pick you up when you fall and help you continue on even when you don’t want to.
I do, and I hope you do too.
As for bicycling, who knows, maybe a long term goal (as in next summer) can be bicycling up a hill near where I live. It is a far cry from one of the mountain passes in the Alps or Pyrenees, yet I know if I make it to the top it will be incredible. I suppose that would mean getting a bike (I don’t own one aside from the stationary bike sitting in my living room). Maybe I could borrow one.
The more specific long term goals I set, the more I have to look forward to and strive for. Something else to consider.
Nichole
PS – A Canadian is going to come in seventh overall in the Tour. Go Canada!
The Ideal Day
July 16th, 2010
I suppose, when it comes to food, the ideal day would be eating 100% raw. It’s doable. Definitely doable. Yet I have yet to do it.
Breakfast is easy: fruit and/or a glass of Greens+.
Snacks are nuts, seeds, fruit or raw veggies. Yum.
Lunch is a large salad of greens and whatever vegetables I happen to have. (See picture – some staging for presentation may have been taken into consideration.)
Then supper hits. Another salad? More vegetables?
Don’t get me wrong. I like eating raw foods, but after eating raw the entire day, I feel like something else.
Maybe it means simply eating my salad in a wrap, or mixing my vegetables with some warm quinoa, or sautéing the greens in coconut oil. I also purchased some brown rice pasta I hope to eventually try to replace the whole wheat pasta I was eating before (and wondering why I always felt hungry and tired).
So while eating 100% raw is doable, I don’t do it.
And that’s okay.
My goal is not to be a raw foodist, or even a vegan, vegetarian, or anything else that you want to label it as.
My goal is to eat healthy. To feel good about what I put into my body during the day.
Changing my eating habits has changed my perspective.
Even on a “bad” day where I might eat something not normally on my meal list (such as my Mom’s lasagne, yum) I don’t feel guilty at all. I look at my food diary, something I’ve always kept when I get serious, and think, Wow, I am eating so much better than before.
So while I think Eating for Energy is wonderful and has taught me so many valuable things I think every single person on the planet should know, if I deviate a little, I’m okay with that. If I tried to be “perfect” it would drive me crazy and I’d quit. I know I would. (And kudos to anyone who can go 100% raw.)
I was thinking I should buy some gold stars and put one on the calendar for each day I eat 100% raw. Maybe that would give me some extra motivation. I wonder how many I would collect in a month.
(I just checked my food diary, and I actually have eaten 100% raw twice during the past three weeks since I started.)
Nichole
