Last time (I was high raw - about 90%) for about 2 months and got systemic candida. (way too much fruit and dates and Agave).

I really need some advice. I think I could do much less fruit in my green drinks, maybe just one piece per drink but I really need ideas for breakfast.

I was totally a fruit eater exclusively until about 1pm every day.

I guess Raw nuts would be good but I need more breakfast ideas.

Does anyone have issues with Candida with lots of fruit?

(I was prone to it anyway)

For the last month I have been on the fence and can't seem to get over the fear of another onslaught!


I miss Raw.. I miss the community, the connection with the earth and the feeling of being good to myself but I am NOT wanting to deal with Candida again!

Thanks for any advice or experience you can offer!

Cary~

Hello dearest DaisyHair!

If you combined too much fats and too much sugars in the past times, I think The 80/10/10 Diet by Douglas Graham will solve your problems that you experienced before.

Welcome back by the way.

Hi there,

I actually have his book. I am just SO afraid of all the fruit now.
I did eat lots of Raw nuts and coconut and coconut oil.. made lots of "gourmet" raw desserts so I am sure I was eating lots of fat..

I will get the book out.. it's been a year since I have read it.
Thanks for the reply!

Cary~

Healthybun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello dearest DaisyHair!
>
> If you combined too much fats and too much sugars
> in the past times, I think The 80/10/10 Diet by
> Douglas Graham will solve your problems that you
> experienced before.
>
> Welcome back by the way.


This is what I was thinking too. You said all fruit until 1pm..what were you eating later? Nuts and avocados?

systemic candida is very rare and only commonly happens in those with severe immune problems such as AIDs and cancer. How do you know you have systemic candida out of interest?

you can have overgrowth of candida in the digestive tract, sugars dont cause the problem though, they can feed it.

If you believe you have candida, fermented foods such as water kefir, cultured veggies are the way forward for repopulating your good flora.

Then you must feed the flora via prebiotic fibres such as rice bran, oat bran, seaweeds, fos, inulin from fruits/veg etc.

Hi Back again,

Yes.. lots of nuts, avo, crackers made in my dehydrator with seeds/nuts. Alot of raw hummas and black sesame tahini on the crackers. I think just too much fat.

I did have green drinks often and think I will need to add more veggies and green drinks and eat less fat and gourmet raw (I loved all the amazing foods I could make raw but I think got away from the reason I was doing it in the first place.. to lose weight and help my health).

Powerlifter.
You know I never had an actual blood test but had my gastro has mentioned candida to me a couple of times (I have IBD – she thinks Crones but all tests have not shown exactly what it is so she Dx. Leaky gut – In a lot of my research of leaky gut I ran across Candida as the cause) I have issues over the years that seem systemic to me so honesty it was a self dx. I would have flare ups of eczema like patches in my hair and around my ears and nose and on my legs.. really serious abdominal pain and bloating. These symptoms always went away when I would go very low carb so I always related them to candida.

I HATE low carb.. all the meat just bothers me and it’s so very hard to do LC veggie and it's the only thing that seems to help for very long.

Additionally I would have severe die off symptoms when I would get back on very low carb or fast for any length of time.

So maybe systemic is not the term but it sure seems to be thru my entire body and especially flares on my skin at times and I always thought this was from systemic. What do you think?

Thank so much. I really need help and guidance. I think I will slowly add low GI fruits/ stay way low on fat and see how I do.

If you have IBD, or even Morbus Chrons (Crones?), I can recommend Self Healing Colitis & Chrons by David Klein. I had Chrons myself and all kinds of digestive disorders. It will take between 2-8 weeks until you feel good again IF you follow what he describes.

Digesting fats will be a much harder issue for people like us than already healthy people, so I understand it could be your problem.

Tho, listen to your heart: You do really need to WANT to change to come to your goal.

IBD as leaky gut aswell as candida are all from low levels of good flora. So what i said about the fermented foods above will help you alot if this is the problem. Go with this over any capsulated probiotics which most are very ineffective.

Eczema is thought to be from part adrenal gland dysfunction not outputting sufficient quantities of anti-histamine epinephrinem and corticosteroids. The second part is thought to be down to mild liver toxicity and stagnation. In which case bitter herbs on the back of the tongue will get the liver cleansed.

> I HATE low carb.. all the meat just bothers me and
> it’s so very hard to do LC veggie and it's the
> only thing that seems to help for very long.
>

I've done low carb/raw before..used to like Keto and wanted to go raw and just combined the 2. Basically I just cheated by using hemp protein for "protein" instead of meat. Salads were easy for fat..high fat dressening.

I didn't last though. Felt too heavy and just kind of fatigued.


I think per Dr. Graham's style.. it takes around 2 weeks before the fat is out of your blood and you feel good. I'd say download it and read it and then decide if you'd want to do it and if it makes sense to you.

Healthybun!

I just ordered that book yesterday. I ran across it in my reading about IBD and Raw. It's good to get that confirmation. Thank you.

Powerlifter,
I do feel like I need to work on my liver. I am taking milk thistle and a few liver juices. Can you talk more about bitters. Anything in particular?

BackAgain,
Reading 80/10/10 right now thank you!
I do know what you mean about Low Carb feeling heavy. That is the perfect description of how I feel about it. I do believe it helps my blood sugar and really controls cravings - just all the fat seems "off" to me in my body.

I am throwing some fresh green beans in my dehydrator this morning. Those crunchy things are my fav. snack. With lots of sea salt!

I am going to be posting some questions in another thread about what can be made ahead of time and frozen for quick and easy meals during the week, for dinner.

I used to make "neat balls" and a nice fresh tomato sauce which did freeze well.
I am looking for more ideas.

I appreciate you all so much.

Any herb with bitter properties daisy, they must come in contact with the back of the tongue where the bitter receptors are located to cleanse the liver. Up your water as they cleanse the liver very effectively.

If you need bitter herb suggestions ill write back, most health stores have a bitter herb/digestive bitters formula most are swedish bitters though which i dont care for as they contain stimulant laxative herbs which long term can cause dependance. Chinese, grape or any bitter formula that doesnt contain these stimulant laxative herbs such as cascara sagrada, rhubarb etc.

If we came across a rotten cabbage in nature, would we be excited and say 'oh baby fermented cabbage YUMMO!!'

Fermented foods are only edible when we add salt to em, otherwise we have to force em down. Put salt on cardboard and you have a corn chip.

DaisyH, you just were eating way too much fat. Do a month of all the sweet fruit you care for, ie unlimited calories and no over fats and see how amazing you will feel.

Look at all us that are doing it...we are so manic its insane!

I wouldnt say that, water kefir is very edible, fermented food and no salt.

Great source of good bacteria and more.

Try fresh fruit instead of lots of dates, and I promise you'll feel a lot better!

I am also struggling with a potential candida issue, and have developed a "fruit phobia" because of the association of candida with sugar. I have made several attempts to go raw over the past few years, and I always felt good eating fruit, until my most recent attempt a few weeks ago. I was eating fresh fruit exclusively during the day, and eating a huge bowl of guacamole at night (with 2 or 3 avocados, carrots, celery, etc.) I lost a good amount of weight, was feeling strong (able to do one arm chin ups again), but was still not feeling "good". I still had muscle and joint soreness all over, fatigue all day even with 9+ hrs sleep, depression and difficulty concentrating, congestion, itchy/flaky scalp and skin, and so on.

With some limited online research it seemed very likely that I was suffering from a systemic candida problem. As a kid I was constantly on antibiotics (once seven courses in one year!), and I have had toenail fungus as long as I can remember, as well as all the other symptoms I listed above. It was clear that restriction, maybe even complete elimination of sugar and starch was the only way to kill the excess candida and get back to good health, but it seemed like such a terrible solution! I love to eat fruit. I just have a gut instinct that tells me humans were meant to eat fruit. It didn't seem right that I had to cut it out completely for weeks, possibly months, in order to get healthy.

I am encouraged by durianrider's suggestion that excess fat is a key factor in candida issues, not just fruit sugar by itself. I can live without fat, at least for a while, but even the idea of living without fruit makes me feel miserable. I saw freelea's youtube video where she talks about a 10 day stint eating just one kind of fruit, and claims it solved her candida issues. I would like to try this, as is seems like it would be a very enjoyable diet that would be easy to stick to. I was thinking pineapple might benefit me because it has antiparasitic properties, and I have eaten a lot of raw meat, fish, and dairy in recent times (a practice which I have since abandoned). Another option would be berries, as they are antifungal and should help combat candida.

After 10 days or so I would like to start including greens (including seaweed), nuts/seeds, and avocados. How should I go about doing this? My first thought is to mono-eat fruit during the day, and have greens with a fat source as the final meal. Say one avocado or a 1/4 cup of nuts? All food is organic, and all nuts are really raw (unpasteurized) and soaked.

I am also considering supplementing with probiotics and maybe fiber as well.

Thanks for reading!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2010 06:41PM by Jonathan Barlow.

Why not try the 10 days of mono-fruit with no fat and see what happens?

After that add the greens, fat (avocado, nuts), fiber, etc.


My favorite raw vegan

Yes, that is exactly what I am planning. Thank you for confirming.

Jonathan Barlow,

Sounds like a plan! as we used to say--good luck

When first going all raw, its worthwhile to put your daily menu into a nutritional calculator like fitday, nutritiondata, nutridiary, or Cron-o-Meter to see your fat intake. Most people just look at the volume of fat, and it might seem like volume wise, you are only eating 10% fat. But when you do a calorie analysis, you might find that a 10% fat by volume is actually 70% fat as a percentage of calories.

The Standard American Diet, which is a very high fat diet, is 40% fat. The Standard raw diet is in excess of 60% fat.

40% fat is very high fat.
30% fat is high fat
20% fat is moderate fat
10% fat and less is low fat.

60% fat and higher is just asking for trouble.

Thanks Prana! I was thinking it might be a good idea to use a calculator. I have a feeling that I will have to be very careful about minimizing my fat intake.

I do have a question about protein for the 811 diet. How do I get adequate protein while avoiding too much fat? I assume that nuts and avocados are the best sources for protein. Yet they have much more fat than protein correct? So I am having trouble understanding how to keep protein and fat at the same level.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2010 02:17PM by Jonathan Barlow.

In 811, its maximum 10% fat, and maximum 10% protein. It is not necessary to hit the 10% number for protein. If you are eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables to meet your energy (caloric) needs, you will be getting ample protein. This is because with raw protein, none of the protein has been denatured like it has with cooking. A hamburger might has zero usable protein (except for the protein found in the raw iceberg lettuce and the thin tomato slice), but the protein in the burger, the bun, and the processed condiment will be denatured, and may be totally unavailable as a source of amino acids because of amino acids have all been damaged by heat.

Lets say you were a body builder, and you needed to build 1 pound of muscle per month. Aside from doing all the anaerobic exercise necessary to do this, how much protein would you need to eat? In a 30 day month, this is about 15 grams of protein in a day (1 pound = 454 grams, divided by 30 days). On a 2000 calorie a day diet, 15 grams of protein is 60 calories, or 3% protein.

OK, that's good to know. Then I'll just focus on keeping the fat low and have as many carbs as I want.

From a science stand point bodybuilder wise its generally accepted that 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight so not sure where you got the 15 grams is all thats needed prana.

Jonathan i wouldnt worry about systemic candida it is very rare and only occurs in those with severe immune dysfunction such as AIDs, cancer etc. The sites out there attribute every ailment under the sun to candida. You can get candida overgrowth though especially if you have wiped your good bacteria with antibiotic use. Fermented foods are the key to repopulating your good flora i prefer these to capsuled probiotics which many find useless.

Try testing your basal body temperature in the morning also to check you dont have low thyroid.