Friday, September 3, 2010

My Journey From Anorexia to the Candida Diet

I was introduced to a whole new reality when I was 13 and developed Anorexia Nervosa and later Bulimia. Food became my addiction and means of coping with family and everyday stresses a teenager feels. I was a perfectionist, lost in a sea of emptiness. I felt a hole deep inside myself, and I tried to console myself with the feeling of hunger and control for many years. Throughout the years I worked with psychologists, a psychiatrist, a nutritionist and in group therapy. Even after all of this, I found myself unable to live a normal life. Recovery is one of the hardest things I've ever had to face, and is still a great obstacle I continue to face daily. Living with an eating disorder for as long as I have, it made me start to consider the possibility that I would never be free from its tight grasp. I had tried to recover so many times without success, and every time was an epic fail! I am a person that sees things in white and black, so there is little room for in between. When I had decided it was time to try to recover, instead of eating healthy, I binged thinking..."I can finally eat now!" I wouldn't weigh myself for a week or maybe a few days thinking...."I was told to gain weight, this is good for me....I can handle this..."but then my eating disorder would creep back making me crazy, and I had to know what I weighed. So I would weigh myself, only to discover in horror the most awful number I could possibly imagine....I had probably gained five pounds or so in a week from eating so much. Then I would start the roller coaster all over again saying, "I'm not allowed to eat hardly anything tomorrow!". Needless to say, recovery didn't work too well for me, and I didn't trust anyone enough to share what I was doing to myself, because I was ashamed. I could talk about it as long as I was back on track and it was in the past, but I was never good about talking about the problems at hand. Anorexia controlled my life for nearly all of my teenage years.

About a year ago, when I was 19, I started to get more of a handle on my eating disorder. It was a struggle because all the years of starving had completely ruined my metabolism, so I had to stick to a low calorie diet just to maintain my weight. This was frustrating but allowed me to find some sort of balance. This was the first taste of normal eating I had had since I was very young. Although I worked out religiously almost everyday, and stuck to a strict calorie regimen, I was finding a plan that was actually manageable. During this time I did have my ups and downs with my eating, but they were much better than any other time since the start of my eating disorder.

I then stumbled upon a breakthrough called the CANDIDA DIET. I had never heard of candida or the candida diet, so I started researching it and discovered something very interesting. This diet is designed for people who have an overgrowth of yeast throughout their body (systemic), and thus are having many symptoms associated with it. It has a variety of different causes, but things such as long term antibiotic use (such as used for acne), birth control pills, toxins in food and air, and a sugar-rich diet are all contributing factors. There are numerous and diverse symptoms (feeling sick everywhere) associated with systemic yeast (leaky gut): abdominal gas and bloating, headaches, vaginitis, excessive fatigue, weight gain, mood swings, acne, low sex drive, difficulty concentrating, depression, cravings for sweets, diarrhea or constipation, itching, dizziness, athlete's foot, thrush, sensitivity to fragrances and chemicals and much more. Since I was experiencing many symptoms associated with candida, I made a command decision to change my life right then and there (black and white thinking) and went on the diet that day, as unprepared as ever. I would never recommend anyone else attempt this diet in this same fashion, I would suggest preparing for it and reading up on it first. After going on the diet, I was sick at first, because the diet is so restrictive, and I had been addicted to sugar, but after a couple weeks I started to notice a change, plus I lost a few pounds while eating more! I am happy to say that this is my 69th day of the diet....well, perhaps I shouldn't call it a diet, because for me it's more of a lifestyle change. I'm working to repair all the years of wear and tear I did from my eating disorders, and I'm happy to say I feel I'm finally on track!      

1 comment:

  1. you may want to also research on borrelia burgdorferi (commonly known as Lyme disease). The mechanism that is affecting you is that your body is storing toxins as a result of the bacteria (which can be passed from your ancestors), yeast overgrowth is a natural byproduct of the body to store these toxins. More importantly, there is a reason why you are affected by the bacteria, but that is emotional and spiritual in nature. Drop me a mail if you would like to know more.

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