1) Water - I must drink at least 3 litres of water a day to feel healthy. It sounds like a big amount but it's totally manageable - I drink a big glass in the morning before I leave for work (that's 500 ml), two 500 ml bottles of water (yes, I refill the same bottle from the tap) at my desk before lunch, another bottle in the afternoon, and two more big glasses of water in the evening. Often I want to drink more than this. I try to only drink one in the afternoon at work, otherwise I have to pee the whole way home. I suspect that I drink about this much liquid anyway - but since on this diet I can't drink anything but water and herbal tea, I'm really noticing the large quantity. I go the bathroom a lot, so if I have a meeting in the morning I don't drink much so I'm not the jerk constantly leaving the room, but then I have to make it up in the afternoon so I don't get dehydrated.
2) Cacao nibs - I found these in the health food store, and what they are is plain cacao beans (which is what they make chocolate out of) but broken up into bits. They don't contain caffeine (I looked it up) although I think they do contain a stimulant that is related to caffeine. I can't find anything that says you can't have them on the Candida Diet, but just in case I will make the amount moderate. Anyway, I'm excited - they taste sort of like a cross between chocolate and plain coffee beans, so they're helping with my coffee cravings. The desire for coffee, I should clarify, isn't caffeine addiction - I don't want it for energy, I have lots of energy. I just like it and miss it.
3) I'm really craving oatmeal. I eat a lot of it normally, probably 2-3 times a week. I make it from large flake rolled oats (the least processed kind after steel cut) and mix it with raisins, cinnamon, toasted almonds, ground flax and whatever else I have around. I usually put about a teaspoon of maple syrup in it too, and some milk. I miss this breakfast, which I think is quite healthy, as long as there's enough protein in it. However you are not supposed to eat raisins, oatmeal, or milk on the Candida Diet, so I have to forego it for another 5 weeks.
4) A decision regarding apples - I was in the farmer's market yesterday, and walking past all the gorgeous fall apples nearly killed me. (Not to mention berries.) And so - even though in Phase 2 you are only supposed to have green apples (which are less sweet, I think) I am not going to do that. I am going to eat a small portion of any kind of apple I want. The reason is that it is September, and it is the best time to get the most flavourful, lovely apples in Canada, and I'm not missing it. I will wait until Phase 2 though, which is in one more week. A couple of years ago when I was on the elimination diet in June, I said to my naturopath that I just couldn't stand to miss June strawberries, and she said that was okay as long as I made sure to get ones with absolutely no mold. This leads me to believe that sometimes, it is okay to modify something slightly and you have to use your own judgement. Nigel has done the same thing this past week, adding blueberries into his diet even though they are not allowed in Phase 1, to help his sugar cravings and help prevent him from losing weight, which no doubt he will talk about in his own blog post.
5) Just read the book "Real Food" by Nina Planck, which I thought was great and it outlined what I think is a pretty good eating strategy for when this diet is finished. Basically she argues that if you look at the three major diseases caused by poor nutrition - heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, they didn't really exist until more or less the 20th century (with exceptions) and still don't exist much in cultures that eat very traditional foods. Her argument is that a nice balance of traditional foods (meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, and traditional fats such as olive oil, lard, chicken fat and butter) are good for health whereas industrial foods are killing us. It is not butter and eggs that cause heart attacks but margarine and refined sugar. She explains it much better than this and if you're interested, I recommend reading it. I think that I will aim to eat like this 90-95% of the time, and only allow myself to have things like refined flour and sugar as treats 5-10% of the time, because you really can't live without having pizza, chocolate and ice cream once in awhile. In practice, if you eat three meals a day, seven days a week, that is 21 meals a week - which means by this rule you can have refined food at 1-2 meals out of the whole week - I think that, for me, is probably something I can do.
I read somewhere that the amount of weight you want to permanently lose dictates the amount of your life you must permanently change. That would be a pretty big change for me - and I think it's something I can do permanently. We will see.
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