The last CANDIDA & PARASITES article you’ll need to read, Low Carb Diets?! Diet Recovery

Hello 👋 Welcome!

Struggling with Candida even after trying EVERYTHING without relief?

Want to finally heal your digestion, stomach, overgrowth and gut and know how to help and improve digestion, bloating and mysterious gut infections, once and for all?

Are you looking for answers on:

👉 how to get rid of candida overgrowth, yeast and gut infections in the gut and body, naturally without another elimination diets, for good & permanently 

👉 why can't I get rid of candida?

👉 how do I finally get rid of digestive issues, bloating, constipation, etc?

👉 What Candida (candidiasis) Infection Treatments That Actually Work

👉 How to Cure & Get Rid of Candida Overgrowth Yeast Infections, SIBO, Gut Infections, Parasites, Bloating, Constipation, food intolerances, etc, naturally and permanently (without eliminating and cutting more foods)

👉 What the best candida diet to cure candida is

...Then you're in the right place!

 

Hey there Kayla here, Holistic Nutritionist and creator of The Find Your Balance System!

In this post, I want to share with you briefly my experience with candida, parasites, food allergies / intolerances and all sorts of digestive problems.

And now I've been able to work with others to also heal as well, here's a few message's I received from a few of my clients below:

 

MY EXPERIENCE WITH CANDIDA & GUT / DIGESTION ISSUES

Alright so let me begin by sharing a bit about my experience, starting with some of the symptoms I was experiences, such as (but not limited to):

• severe bloating (to where I felt nine months pregnant), 
• severe chronic constipation, (eventually I had to rely on enemas every day to have a bowel movement), 
• food allergies & intolerances to too many foods to list (I was down to only eating 2-3 foods at one point)
• severe digestive pains,
• undigested food (to where the food came out the same way it looked coming in)
• chronic fatigue,
• fluctuating between irregular periods to no period at all,
• my hair was falling out,
• terrible insomnia
• strong food cravings, food obsession and binge eating episodes
• and so much more!

Can you relate?

In this post I'm going to share what I did personally to heal from all of this, YES, freedom from this all and what YOU too can do to heal finally as well.

Now, a little bit more about my background...

I always was doing (again, not limited to):

• parasite cleanses, and candida cleanses & fasting
• elimination diets (of EVERY kind ie GAPS, Gerson, FOODMAPS, Low Histamines, No Sugar, Ketogenic, Paleo, Body Ecology, raw veganism, etc..)
• low carb diets
• no sugar diets
• enemas
• bentonite clays
• clove
• diatomaceous earth
• oil of oregano
• all kinds of herbs, Blessed Herbs Cleanse, and other herbal protocols $$$ of dollars later
• water fasting, coconut oil fasting, juice fasting
• apple cider vinegar,
• and the list goes on and on...

Why?

Because of my mysterious health issues such as:

• extreme food "cravings" for "junk food"
• feeling that I was "addicted" to food
• my bloating to where I felt pregnant type bloating,
• my gassy-ness
• my severe constipation
• my hair falling out
• my brittle nails
• my brain fog
• my insomnia
• my nerve pain
• my heart arrhythmia
• my digestive problems
• supposed "food allergies"
• headaches,
• itchy skin,
• my fatigue,
• my insomnia,
• my shakiness at night,
• my mucus in my stool,
• etc., etc., etc.…

— with no relief.

NONE.

IT. ONLY. GOT. WORSE. 

All it gave me was a very, very limited and miserable diet…

I mean to where I was only down to being able to eat 2-3 safe foods...

My life consisted of always anxiously seeking, reading, researching, studying, getting a nutrition degree, and hopping on yet another health trend that I thought would be "the golden ticket" to healing my health issues...

Anywhere from a medically supervised water fast at True North Health Center, to zero-low carb diets (that the doctor encouraged),

...talk about a low-libido-low-energy-zombie-diet! (anyone who's been on a low-carb diet, you know what I mean.)

And while I'm on the subject — let's touch on the low carb diet, ketogenic or Atkins or whatever you want to call it...

These are the most popular diets for candida, gut and parasite cleansing/healing.

 

LOW CARB DIETS:

The truth is, when we go on these low-carb diets, we kill off any of the good bacteria left in our gut that is supposed to help break down those carbs.

Because those good bacteria starve with no foods

AKA: no carbs coming in = starvation for them...

AND starvation for us...

...but I'll get to that later...

The biggest point to know is that:

→ when we go on restrictive eating plans such as elimination diets, our digestive organs sense 'no carbs are coming in' (i.e. stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, etc) 

→ as a result STOP digestive enzymes from being produced (HCL, Pepsin, Bile, amylase, lipase, and protease, ALP (alkaline phosphatase), ALT (alanine transaminase), AST (aspartate aminotransferase), and gamma-glutamyl tansferase (GGT) - [the very digestive enzymes that are produced to digest carbohydrates and all macronutrients in general for that matter]

→ AND along with that, the good carb digesting bacteria dies off from malnourishment, as well as, again, our organs become weakened, from lack of sufficient energy intake via carbs and sugars (because carbohydrates feed every cell in the body, including the cells that make up our digestive organs and glands)

SO...

...when we try to eat carbs or sugar again after our cleanse or after we can't "maintain willpower" on this very restrictive low-carb diet, our digestive tract is ruined.

The carbs come into a system that is not capable of processing properly..

...so we often feel even worse now trying to digest carbs, because the system (metabolism, hormones, ecosystem and microbiome) is damaged, weakened and depleted.

...we call it "carb flu" or "sugar addiction," or other buzz words there are these days...

This is now why one thinks:

"oh, it is the carbs that are bad and making me feel bad because now I feel terrible every time I go to eat more carbs... So it's got to be the carbs… and on top of that, it's the candida or parasites that are fed by the carbs – so it's the carbs that make me feel worse and crave more sugar and carbs.. "

The reality is, you're not just starving the candida and parasites...

You're starving YOURSELF and your good gut bacteria, which also feeds off carbs.

Literally, when you do this, you've entered into semi-starvation, and with the bad candida and parasites taking over, you're handing over your power and protection, saying here you go, you win!

And things just keep getting worse, because you're literally feeding the candida and infections and starving your good bacteria and cells...

Now the bad overgrowth becomes stronger, feeding off your starved and decaying tissue.

While you lose and suffer, from not having your carbs that would strengthen you, with: proper hormone production, brainpower, metabolic power, digestive power, cellular power and so forth, to restore homeostasis and balance again!

Carbs aren't to blame...

...what you've done to damage your internal systems, which processes the carbs, is to blame (aka your elimination diets!)

Over time through the process of a "diet recovery," which is what I walk people through, if you continue eat and nourish your body properly and consistently and push through the unpleasant physical symptoms, eventually they start to go away as homeostasis is restored.

 

I know it's scary to let go and eat in abundance and nutritionally rehabilitate and truly go off this with faith.

But your faith is what will get you through when the doubts and fears try to sabotage you in your recovery journey.

Especially with all the beliefs we accumulate along our health journey about how so many foods are "bad for us and toxic" to the body...

 

WHAT DID I DO?

As mentioned I went through and completed a diet recovery process, or what I call a Restrictive Eating Recovery Process, which is a process of healing the metabolism and mind from the damaged done from restrictive eating.

(If you'e like a step-by-step guide on exactly what to do, from beginning to end, be sure to check out my program "Find Your Balance.")

I personally simply listened to what my body was asking for (aka cravings = the foods my body desperately needed) without any restriction despite any physical reactions that would surface.

(There was a sequence of other steps I took to heal the metabolism and mind, but that in a nutshell was the biggest point)

Although so scary and often painful and uncomfortable at times..

..over time (and I mean several months and over a year for most, not just a couple of weeks or a month), the symptoms started to go away, and my digestion slowly repaired and my hormones, metabolism, thyroid, cravings and all the other symptoms balanced out naturally!

When I started eating foods unrestricted, yes, I experienced a "flare-up," if you'd like to call it that.

But, after being recovered and reflecting back now, I wouldn't call it a "flare-up."

It seems as if people just wanted to label negative symptoms from malnourishment (from restrictive eating and semi-starvation) as candida, parasites, leaky gut, IBS or food intolerances...

And I'm not saying this is for everyone obviously, but I do see, for the majority of people that go down the rabbit hole and cross that fine line of "eating clean or eating healthy" of it no longer being "healthy" that do end up with multiple different types of digestive distress.

...Not to mention the extreme amounts of stress we inflict on ourselves to be perfect with our strict clean eating "lifestyles" and protocols.

You'd LITERALLY be a lot healthier eating burgers, breakfast, lunch, and dinner if that's what you craved and ride that wave until the craving passes, than stressing yourself out every waking moment out of the day, causing cardiac arrest from a molecule/gram of salt, sugar, oil, sugar or gluten that gets cross-contaminated into your meal.

Yes, I said it.

It's the truth

No matter how clean or healthy you eat, if you’re:

• stressed out,
• obsessive and neurotic,
• full of guilt, fears and anxieties around food, your body, the cleanliness or purity thereof, or if you’re doing it “right” or what’ll people think of I eat this food I desperately crave?

...And these kinds of mindsets and behaviors

— then no amount of kale, green juice, gelatin or parasite cleanses you do or paleo foods you eat, will make you healthy.

This is what turns into orthorexia, and it's no joke, which you can read more about in this post here.

People are suffering mentally, physically, and emotionally from stressing out day in and day out trying to be the healthiest they can be...

...hyper-focused and fixated on food and healthy eating, ironically destroying their health and stealing their sanity.

So that's why I'm here doing my best to help those of you who unfortunately followed some health guru online that led you to ruinning your metabolism, digestion, hormonal health..

and promising you healing, health, energy, great digestion, perfect body aesthetics, confidence, desirability (or whatever else you thought was to come from restricting foods).

RANT OVER..

As I was saying, all the symptoms that I mentioned earlier cleared as I went through my restriction recovery process, as I continued to eat without diet restrictions and WITHOUT daily enemas, herbal cleanses, fasting and cleansing..

 

THE BODY'S IMPAIRED INTERNAL BALANCING SYSTEMS

I want you to know that the body is constantly cleansing itself via the kidneys, liver, and skin

And when the body is malnourished and starved from insufficient energy (food) coming in (from starch and sugar, saturated and monounsaturated fats, AND protein), then the body cannot carry out these processes.

This is because the body begins to slow everything down and becomes unable to carry out normal processes, including hormone production, digestive function, metabolic function, as well as cleansing and elimination functions within the liver, kidney, bowels, skin and so forth.

Because again, these organs in which cleanse, are weak, depleted, and unable to function properly, without sufficient energy.

And I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole trying to explain why cooked starch, sugar, oils, and processed foods have their place...

...I mean HUGE place...

...in a healthy balanced diet in this article, so you can either read my book for more by clicking here. 

But overall, you'd be dead if it wasn't for the body constantly cleansing, and that's what we're doing on these starvation restriction diets, is slowly killing ourselves, and as a result, what do most parasites feed on?

Decaying matter...

As for candida, as you begin to nourish and feed yourself properly (we'll get into that in a bit here), your microbiome naturally and slowly balances out, on its own, because the good bacteria has fuel to feed on again and becomes stronger.

As a result your good gut bacteria becomes the thriving and dominant bacteria in your body and therefore the candida, in which everyone fears these days, goes back into balance, harmony, and homeostasis.

Candida has its place.

We all have some "candida."

It's part of the balance of life, good, bad yin and yang, God and Devil, positive and negative...

It's just that what we feed – takes over, whether we're conscious or unconscious of it. 

The so-called "negative candida" takes over because you become starved, malnourished, and slowly decaying flesh, in which the parasites and candida can thrive.

Your good gut bacteria cannot dominate in this environment.

Not to mention alkalinity is all the craze these days, "eat more alkaline and no acidic foods.." you hear...

But again, if this acid-alkaline pH is out of balance because we need acidity, especially in certain organs like our stomach and our bladder, this wreaks havoc on our system being too alkaline.

People always talk about acidosis, but we should now be concerned about alkalosis.

We need a balance of acid foods and alkaline foods, not all one or all the other.

And often times in diet recovery, most people need more acidic foods to counteract the alkalinity we’ve produced from alkaline diets we are coming from

(whether from just 3-6 months on a diet or 10-20-30+ years, the duration doesn’t matter, you can absolutely wreak havoc in your body and have the same symptoms of recovery no matter how long you’re coming from).

For example, if our urine is too alkaline, we can get urinary tract infections, and so we need to keep the urine acidic to kill off these bacterial infections.

Whereas certain diet mindsets (raw veganism, alkaline or die, and other clean eating trends) think the urine should be alkaline and all of the body, which can create infection systemically throughout the whole body.

Now I won't go much further deeper into that but keep that in mind...

 

WHAT DO YOU EAT TO HEAL AND RESTORE HOMEOSTASIS?

A lot of people who are deeply entrenched in the health communities, think this method is buzurk..

If I would've heard it when I was deeply in it too, I 1000% would've thought the same 😂 

But then, I felt like such death, tried everything and had no other option but to do this...and it's what worked lol

A very humbling experience indeed...

So if you find that resistance coming up, just ask yourself, "well, how's what I've been doing working for me?"

Case and point.

Anyways...

So it's not about eating cleaner foods, eating less sugar, eating less starch and stressing about if your food will "feed" the candida.

It's truly about simplicity and getting back to the basics of nourishing traditions.

» Eat a balanced wholesome diet,

» Recover from past damage during the diets and disordered eating,

and later on, you will be able to tune into your body better to determine for yourself through your recovery what "balance" and "sustainability" looks like for you...

» Eating foods that you crave and not eating foods that you don't crave.

Who would have thought it was so much easier than we thought!

Literally, eat a balance of:

• sugar,
• starch,
• protein,
• fats,
• from all sources of food, including bread, eggs, etc.,
• and don't forget salt and oil,
• Your body will guide you if you tune in, listen and trust yourself

and you'll see with time, as hard as it is to see while suffering, that there is a way out.

That's why when we go on extreme all-or-nothing clean and eliminations diets, and we cut more and more foods (that we crave), our symptoms only get worse!

They don't get better.

Often it can feel like our symptoms initially ease, but long term they come back and get worse with time...

...so we have to cut more and more foods, and we end up miserable, weak, and binge eating or having extreme cravings for the "off-limit bad" foods.

BUT JUST A REMINDER...

These symptoms isn't from the candida or parasites...

it's from the restrictiveness in our diets,

The restrictive elimination diets, slowly weaken and shut down our digestive organs and our digestive enzymes, and as a result, lowering our metabolism, hormone production, and making us either lose our appetite altogether or feel obsessed and out of control around food with extreme cravings for high calorically dense foods to make up for the caloric and energy deficit quick! 

So it's not that the candida and parasites have created binge eating disorder...

...It's that your body is screaming for carbs, fats, and sugar because it's so weak, depleted, and malnourished, and those foods will help you heal as quickly as possible!

 

HOW DID I SUPPLEMENT

I want to mention that I did use digestive enzymes and magnesium at the beginning of my recovery to help with the uncomfortable physical symptoms while my body healed and strengthened from simultaneously nutritionally rehabilitating.

I'll link those which I used below if you're interested in checking out for yourself some of the digestive enzymes I personally used to help alleviate the initial:

• nausea,
• digestive pains,
• acid reflux, heartburn and GERD, indigestion,
• gastroparesis (stomach paralysis),
• and just overall help while my body healed and strengthen the digestive organs enough to work on its own slowly;

I took the dose on the bottle with every meal:

I took digest all by Mrm and HCL and pepsin by Thorne (click on the links below to view)

1. MRM – Digestion
2. Pure – pancreatic enzymes
3. Digestion GB - Ox bile OR Nutricology – gallbladder/liver
4. HCL & Pepsin OR Thorne – Stomach

Also, as your body continues to balance out your hormones, metabolism, and digestive organs, use magnesium CALM.

This magnesium supplement will help with the stress load and high cortisol from chronic depletion as well as the transition if you rely on enemas laxatives or if you just have had a hard struggle with constipation.

Take either 2x a day, once in the AM and once in the PM or only 1x a day at night can help at times of constipation:

Magnesium Calm

Again, as you may know, I am a holistic nutritionist.

I'm not your doctor, but these are just things I used personally which worked for me and what I know has worked for many of my clients.

Lastly, I will suggest a live concentrated probiotic like Yakult or kefir.

I tried every brand of probiotic pills, but the live Yakult or kefir worked the best.

**An Important Reminder: the enzymes and probiotics DO NOT work if you're not simultaneously FEEDING your body, nourishing, resting, healing, and getting your vital organs to work properly again.

(which all will come with time as you feed yourself starch, fats, sugar, and protein as much as you crave) 

I can't emphasize this enough.

 

 

DIGESTIVE DISCOMFORT:

To help any pain and extreme bloating, eating LESS fiber and water-rich foods helped astronomically.

So sourdough bread rather than whole-grain bread, baked potatoes, chips, cereal, white rice, instead of brown, baked and fried food instead of steamed, raw and watery foods.

But that's a topic for another day, so I'll leave it at that.

 

EXERCISE & REST

An exercise rehab process will be very important as well.

Remember to rest from exercise completely for several weeks or even several months, and some, a year or more, honestly whatever it takes to nurse you back to health as exercise is too stressful on a weakened, malnourished body.

Exercise is not healthy at this point for you, and you have the rest of your life to move your body once you build a steady foundation.

 

THE END GOAL

The goal, though, is to nourish your body to where you can eventually get off the enzymes within a few months or six months or more so (depending on your situation and level of malnourishment) until your body begins producing its own HCL, pancreatic enzymes, bile and all other enzymes and digestive juices again.

Which will happen.

Again, it DOES HAPPEN.

Like what happens with the organs and glands shutting down due to malnourishment and restrictive dieting...

well, who produces digestive enzymes and HCL and hormones for the digestive system and metabolism?

Glands and organs!!

So as that heals, so will the metabolism and digestion.

 

ENDING WORDS

It took me to get to near death several times to wake up and be forced into healing my body through diet recovery and just letting go of my diet restrictions, my body over-ran my mind at one point.

Still, luckily it happened when it did because I wouldn't be here today if I didn't recover!

I spent too many nights feeling as if I was dying literally for years.

And even with all my good intentions to heal my body and be healthy or be vegan for the animals..

with all these clean eating diets and lifestyles, like low fat, or high fat ketogenic, paleo, sugar is the devil, saturated fats are bad, carbs make you fat, eat less exercise more, and all this nonsense

– the reality is they are not healthy but are restrictive and health sucking and cause the human body to shut down from malnourishment. 

So ask yourself, and be honest with yourself...

• When did the digestive problems begin?
• Did the painful bloating that felt like you were pregnant, joint pain, edema and swelling, hair falling out slowly start and slowly progressively get worse after  you embarked on a "clean diet" cutting out a lot of "unhealthy foods?"
• Or after your ten-day or 30-day juice cleanse or water fast?
• Or after your extreme exercise regimes and bodybuilding diet?
• Or after losing weight on a low-calorie diet?

And you may say

"well, I went on these diets because supposedly all my symptoms started BEFORE the dieting, and I wanted to heal them!"

Well, I said that too… which is why I stayed in denial for so long...

I had to dig deeper and look back and see that it all started as a teenager for me, and no matter if it was the first diet, I embarked on using my Adderall for school and just "naturally" skipping breakfast and lunch because my appetite was suppressed from the Adderall

...or from the levels of stress and trauma at that time,

...or the birth control I was on all at the same time period,

...the fact of the matter is, these totally can all contribute to these problems,

...and more so that I continued with the dieting and overexercising for almost a decade after.

And each restriction I added, each new diet or extreme exercise regime I tried, only made things worse as I continued to back myself into a corner-cutting out more and more foods, feeling more guilt and shame as time went on...

...and whether it's the migration theory, Minnesota starvation experiment or diet and beauty culture, or whatever to blame or reason with of "why what happened, happened.."

...what I know now, is the way out of it was to recover physically, mentally, and emotionally through going all in on a diet recovery process.

eating unrestrictedly,

resting as much as possible

healing underlying past traumas, limiting belief systems, grieving, attachment issues, learning to truly trust myself and my gut and so forth…

...and did I mention eating and resting?!

...And never dieting again.

So ask yourself these questions.

And then REALLy ask yourself what is the TRUTH.

And FEEL the answer rather than just trying to intellectualize the feeling.

Be completely honest with yourself.

Then go from there.

I hope this article and video above have helped you.

Thanks for reading! ❤️ 

Xx 

Kayla Rose

Holistic Nutritionist

P.S. I'm hosting a free masterclass specifically for people who want to stop feeling obsessed around food and truly heal their metabolism, and you're invited! Click here to sign up.