HJ Waxing Moon

It took two weeks for the hefty restrictions of this candida cleanse to wear me down into the beginnings of a full-on breakdown, stalled only by me recognizing what was happening because it's not my first rodeo. The details of it are personal and largely irrelevant, but the big-picture effects are not. There's no chance I will say this better than others have before me. So-called healthy eating, clean eating, cleanses, dieting, and the like are not accessible to everyone. There are hundreds of essays available across the internet about the privileges of healthy eating, and the lack of access to fresh foods in poverty-stricken areas, communities of color, and by people with disabilities. We know for an unmitigated fact that dieting is bad for us, and leads to malnutrition, unhealthy eating patterns, and can trigger mildly disordered eating into full-blown dysphoria and eating disorders. It is a mark of privilege, of which I'm aware, that I even had the opportunity to try...

Power Balls One of the hardest parts of the candida diet is the sudden Hangries. Especially the first three days. Having something flavorful and filling to hand is a must. This recipe also helps sweep out the candida that's been starved & killed with supplements. I feel like the original recipe started with this one , but it's been perfected for our tastes since then. I had to double it, and it didn't work well. So, here's ours. --------------------- Power Balls (No-Bake) The Formula: 2 cups nut butter 4 cups binder 1/2 cup sweetener syrup 3/4 to 1 cup fun chunky bits Binders: coconut flour flax seed meal nut meal grain bran seeds Chunks: Nuts seeds dried fruits candy chips (chocolate, butterscotch, etc.) Mix nut butter, binder, and syrup in a mixing bowl, or using the dough hook of your stand mixer. Stir in chunky bits. Refrigerate 15 minutes, then roll into balls of preferred size. Candida-Cleanse friendly version! 2 cups almond but...

Spicy Shrimp Salad We like a lot of spice anyway, and I'm finding this cleanse has really made us crave spicy foods. So you'll see a lot of spicier dishes in this series. I'm not surprised by this; when I was super low carb before, my spice tolerance was at ghost pepper levels. Since I started eating sweets again, I noticed I have a much lower heat tolerance, and I wasn't sure if they were related. It's nice to get some more correlating data for my theory that the more sweets I eat, the less spice I can tolerate. I'd rather do spice. This as pictured, however, is surprisingly low on the spice despite the name. I've got tips for spicing it up as we go, what I'll do differently next time. Tip: Trader Joe's Mayo is candida diet friendly! It has no sugar, and the vinegar used in it is apple cider vinegar. Stock up, if you don't want to spend time making your own.  Spicy Shrimp Salad Candida Cleanse friendly! Salad greens Cucumber Tom...

In 2012, I did a 31 Days of Dinner blogging challenge where you pick a topic and write about it for 31 days. I enjoyed the idea, and while the original challenger isn't doing it this year, I'm going to do it again! With this Candida Cleanse, I spent a lot of time looking for recipes. So. MANY. of the recipes labeled anti-candida-diet-friendly on Pinterest are decidedly NOT (seriously, orange-maple candied carrots anyone? Every single ingredient was banned). And as a result I've struggled to find menu ideas that are both appealing and on this cleanse. I'll also be linking to these posts on Pinterest so hopefully it can infuse some helpfulness into those search results. --------------------- Day One: This cleanse is killing my counter space. But it makes me smile to see so many fresh veggies waiting to be used! Avocados, tomatoes, rutabagas, bell peppers, and a couple green apples sitting there too. Green apples are a quibbling point on this diet; some versions ...

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 birth...

It's been... a minute or two since I last posted. As I was telling my family on vacation, there's a lot going on, but none of it is terribly exciting to talk about and even less exciting to hear about. I got into coloring in like actual legit adult coloring books. It's a lot of fun, and definitely some nice stress relief. After June's failed attempt at the candida cleanse, we left it until after our vacation. And then I decided I needed a few days to recuperate before risking too much shock to my body. So, we're getting back at it tomorrow. In reviewing the rules, I discovered that it's a little less restrictive than I'd previously understood it to be. As in, it's not NO NUTS, it's no peanuts, cashews or pistachios but almonds, pecans, and walnuts are fine. It's not quite NO GRAINS, buckwheat and quinoa are still okay in moderation. That makes it quite a bit easier to manage, all things considered. Though what I did discover is that the r...

The five days of progress that we made at the beginning of this are proof enough to me that it's a good thing to be done. But for now, I'm afraid it will have to be on hold. My doctor who was supportive of the effort, isn't comfortable with me proceeding with this cold, since it's not clearing up as quickly as it probably should. I'm to redouble my efforts to kick it in the butt, without stressing my body further with any significant dietary changes and a cleanse. As most of the candida diet sites will (or should) tell you, doing a cleanse when your body is otherwise fighting a major illness is not wise, and can be downright dangerous. My focus right now is Not Getting Pneumonia (again). And that will have to do. With this revelation, it became apparent just how good a sport Mr. Moon was being about the "no alcohol" portion of this endeavor occurring over his birthday. As that's now been cancelled, he's pretty excited to go out for a drink and so...

[In case you're just jumping in, Parts One & Two are available at their respective links.] Today, or more accurately last night, the nasty cold I had turned into not JUST bronchitis, but an upper AND lower respiratory infection. Besides the antibiotics, the doctor at the urgent care clinic reminded me that dairy increases mucus production and thickness, and so should be avoided while this clears up (and if I'm entirely honest, all the time because asthma). How convenient that the candida diet doesn't allow much dairy anyway. I just can't catch a break. This really is going to get worse before it gets better. And I'm going to have to throw every ounce of creative energy at the problem to solve it. I'm surprised at how fired-up I am though, rather than feeling overwhelmed like I did two weeks ago. I'm ready to knuckle down and DO THIS.

[Just joining us? See part one here .] The quick & dirty of the Candida Cleanse is mostly the diet. No grains of any kind (even whole ones), no legumes or nuts (because high mold content), limited (specific) dairy, nothing made with mold/yeast including anything made with vinegar except apple cider vinegar, no caffeine (though I'm iffy on the science of that one). We decided that we'd go All Meat & Veg for the month of June, then add back in the low-carb items (like nuts & cheese) in July. Two months is totally do-able, right? Last time, I felt better after 5 days going low-carb, so 2 months should clear everything right up. May 31st came around and well, my period is not a fun time to be me. I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say, I should have gone to the hospital for fluids, I was that dehydrated. Getting fluids in me was more important than starting a new treatment plan that would only increase the stress on my body. Gatorade was my friend, but...

Feel free to assume there's TMI ahead, y'all. Skip to the break if you want some less-medical talk involving some intimate areas.  It's taken me YEARS to come around to this. I've always thought of the candida cleanse as hokey, hippy nonsense. Magickal woo. But after my first appointment with (yet another) new doctor, my brain got to noodling. I've been prone to fungal infections for my adult life. At one point I was diagnosed with a low-grade vaginal infection and was told that I'd probably had this FOR FIVE YEARS based on my symptoms and the resulting NERVE DAMAGE. I went through a year of physical therapy and lidocaine therapy to repair the nerve and muscle and tissue damage. It was awful. By some sheer happenstance, I also went low-carb around the same time to treat my newly diagnosed hypoglycemia. The fungal infection raged and died off, without as much sugar to feed it. I didn't follow the candida cleanse, but all of it together seemed to fix a lot o...