Candida Cleanse: Week one in review

For starters, I can't get my printer to work, so I can't print off the motivational sheet I made, nor the food list & cleanse plan. Frustrating.

We did not, by sheer happenstance, do the CandidaGo! pills or detox tea or ACV baths for the first three days. We just plum forgot, but I imagine the die-off associated with those extra steps would have made it even harder to deal with. 

In accordance with the prophecy, the first three days were the worst. We started Monday morning bright and early, and spent until Wednesday afternoon with what seemed a constant, gnawing, hungry ache in our bellies. Despite plenty of food along the way. By Wednesday dinnertime, however, it started to ease up and the rest of the week has been, if not a breeze, easier to handle. 

Mr. Moon managed not to absently eat an oatmeal cookie that was sitting right in front of him for the duration of a conversation at work, and I successfully navigated a surprise party for our neighbor's birthday full of people I didn't know with a growing sense of hunger and one of my favorite foods sitting right in front of me. Admittedly, I only stayed for an hour before I went home to cook dinner and eat a huge bowl of broccoli. But still. I did it. And I'm SO stinking proud of us both. 

Thursday night I was craving pizza so badly I buried my face in Mr. Moon's work shirt to smell the lingering aroma of an entire shift in an Italian restaurant. While he was still wearing it. One of my silliest, if not shining, moments. 

This week we're trying something a little different than we've been. Saturdays are his double-shift day, a full 7 hours at the retail job and then a full 6-ish at the restaurant. The last couple shifts he's worked, we accidentally skipped breakfast. And I'm pretty bad at remembering to eat when I'm alone that long. So aside from remembering breakfast today, when he packed his lunch, he portioned one out for me as well. It's not in a cute lunch bag or anything, tempting though that would be, but it's ready for me at least. The fact that he's not taking sandwiches right now helps immensely. 

Still working on food prep, avoiding the hangries, and having a variety of foods on hand for both snacking and meal plans. 

We got a squishy kitchen mat, to help with the additional hours of food prep, cooking, and dishes that this cleanse involves. I'm glad for the opportunity for a mindful break from the last couple months of way more takeout than I'd like. It started with Boy Scout camp in late July, then 5 weeks of brutal 6- and 7-day work weeks including multiple double shifts, during which we were actively trying to whittle down our fridge contents, eating up cleanse-banned foods, and not doing much grocery shopping. Then two weeks on vacation in my home state, visiting my old haunts and favorite restaurants. After all that, being basically forced into full-time home-cooked food again is actually a relief. I KNOW that relief makes this cleanse easier to deal with. 

Though I'm admittedly worried about December. Usually Thanksgiving through New Year's is a mad dash, and the only predictability to the scheduling is that it will be longer days and more of them. No promises of starting at 3:30 at the earliest, due to daytime holiday parties. I'm hoping by then we're well enough to be reintroducing some more foods and sufficiently in the groove of menu planning & food prepping to manage without the excessive levels of takeout we've relied upon the last couple years. Of course, if I'm not seeing any great improvement by then, we may have scrapped this project altogether. 

I was so excited to get the menu plan up this week and it SO never happened. Sorry about that folks. I'll try to do better tomorrow!
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Edited to add: I'll spare you the details of the non-hunger-related physical symptoms, except to say: My dandruff is going absolutely bonkers right now, and I hope that's a good sign!