Tag Archives: candida crusher

Questions & Answers

What To Expect When You Give Up Junk Food

Let’s talk about junk food withdrawal.

I read an interesting study out of the Avena lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. This team discovered that when people eat highly processed foods, particularly those with artificial coloring, they can get quite addicted. These findings refer to foods like donuts, fast food burgers and fries, and deep-fried chicken. You know, the types of foods that are full of sugar, processed fats, artificial colors, and an assortment of preservatives.

When people come off of these foods, there is a certain element of withdrawal symptoms. Not unlike a cannabis withdrawal or a caffeine withdrawal. So remember, when you eat foods that are very sweet, colored, and man-made (rather than naturally occurring), there’s a potential for addiction. In my opinion, the strength of this addiction gets higher as more of these foods are consumed.

This may explain why yourself or someone you know keep going back to that can of pop, that half-eaten donut, or that bag of candy. It can be hard to give up those fake foods. My advice, especially if you have children, is not to get them started on processed food. Instead, please encourage them to eat healthy food. I’ve never seen people have withdrawal or addiction coming off broccoli, brown rice, fish filets, or eggs.

Further readings:

I’ve never heard of an egg addiction, but I’ve heard of donut addictions.
Be careful. When you start eating or drinking junk food regularly, and you try and break the habit, you may have withdrawal symptoms. There could be anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and other symptoms.

The key thing is not to go cold turkey. If you’re going to start a new healthy diet, I recommend warm turkey. My book Candida Crusher explains what warm turkey is all about. But in short, it’s about coming off of foods over a two to three week period rather than overnight.
My decades of work as a naturopath has shown me that when you eat natural foods rather than supermarket foods, you don’t end up with weight, fatigue, or sleeping problems.

Don’t fall into the junk food trap in the first place. You especially want to avoid brightly colored, highly processed foods that contain a collection of chemicals.

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Questions & Answers

Comparing the Keto and Candida Crusher diets

Which one is better, the ketogenic or the Candida Crusher diet?

Well, in my mind, one isn’t better than the other – they’re just different. It’s up to you to decide which one is right for you. Keto diets have one aim in mind, and that’s to lose weight. Years ago, ketogenic diets were used for medical reasons such as to help manage epilepsy.

The Candida Crusher diet that I created was designed to clean the diet up, particularly the MEVY (meats, egg, vegetables, yogurt) aspect. I like the comment by Dr. Eric Berg, who said healthy people lose weight, losing weight doesn’t make people healthy. I agree because when you have a proper diet and healthy lifestyle, you’re not going to gain weight.

What I think the ketogenic diet lacks is that it doesn’t address stress or lifestyle. It also remains to be seen what the long-term effects are of sticking to a keto eating plan. I also don’t like people thinking that they need to eat a certain way to lose or manage their weight. I prefer that people eat the foods they enjoy within reason.

Further readings:

I always had my clients look at how their gut what impacted by their diet. I also emphasized the importance of lifestyle to gut health. I’ve known many people who eat keto that still don’t lose weight or gain all the weight back again because of the stress in their life.

The Candida Crusher diet cleans up the gut. The first two weeks is about going “warm turkey.” The focus is on eliminating things from the diet that are barriers to gut health. I also encourage people to eat cultured and fermented foods and anti-microbial foods that can help reduce Candida. Eating things that help bust up the biofilms of dysbiotic flora is encouraged, as is the fiber which increases the production of beneficial lactobacillus.

The Candida Crusher diet also differs from the ketogenic one because it removes any potential allergens from the meal plan. This step allows the person to heal from leaky gut a lot faster. The focus of the Candida diet is not weight loss. It’s about beneficial microbes, improving levels of digestive enzymes, and improving digestion, absorption, and excretion of food.

The Candida Crusher diet doesn’t just result in weight loss. It brings back balance to the gut resulting in lower levels of anxiety, a decrease in brain fog, and increased overall well-being. People on the ketogenic diet avoid corn, wheat, rice, tubers, and cereals. They’re also advised to avoid all sugar and to have only blueberries and raspberries as fruit.

I agree with the ketogenic diets’ advice to avoid artificial sweeteners. And reducing sugar intake overall is reasonable. But I don’t agree with limiting tubers, fruit, and grains.Fruit can contribute to dietary control and contains ample fiber that can increase beneficial bacteria counts.

On the Candida diet, I recommend avoiding grapes, watermelons, other melons, and citrus fruits except for lemons and limes. I think that most people can tolerate oats and rice. There are several good types of rice to eat that provide fiber and help control the appetite.

By and large, the ketogenic diet is reasonable as a short-term plan, but I think it should be customized to your health goals and your gut. Having a diverse diet that includes grains, fruit, and vegetables contributes to a more resilient and balanced gut flora.

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Questions & Answers

What is The Impact Of The Ketogenic Diet On Heart And Brain Health?

Before you go on any diet, its important to understand the pros and cons. That includes knowing the impact of ketogenic or high-protein diets on the risk of heart disease and stroke.

There are people out there who advocate a healthy variant of the ketogenic diet, but the diet is still high in fat, high in animal protein, and low in resistant starch. A lot of different foods are missing from the ketogenic diet. I’m particularly concerned about the lack of starchy vegetables in that kind of diet.

The European Journal of Nutrition published a study that demonstrated a dramatic increase in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a toxic compound produced in the gut by a specific bacteria called Hungatella. Hungatella produces higher amounts of TMAO in the presence of a high-protein diet. TMAO is associated with a 62% increased risk of heart disease.

Further readings:

This study was focused on the paleo rather than the ketogenic diet. But I’m pretty sure that the findings would be the same for the keto diet.

Restricting resistant starch and eating lots of dietary fat and protein alters the gut microbiome. This alteration can trigger different disease processes in humans.

Don’t stay on the ketogenic or paleo diet for the long-term. If you want to keep off weight permanently, focus on lifestyle, stress, sleep, and a generally healthy diet, rather than a fad like paleo or keto.

The ketogenic diet will stabilize your blood sugars and reduce body fat, but I’d hate to see what the arteries are going to be like in the brain and around the heart if you stay on that diet for a long time.

Remember, my concerns don’t refer to the keto or paleo type diets that also include fruit and resistant starch. I think those foods should never have been taken out in the first place.

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Questions & Answers

Flavonoids And Weight Loss: What You Should Know

Can flavonoids help you lose weight? And if so, what’s a safe amount for somebody to consume daily?

Firstly, it’s important to know that flavonoids are protective factors found in plants, including vegetables and fruits. Flavonoids act to protect and strengthen plants, increase cell-to-cell communication, and stop sun damage. The bottom line is that flavonoids make plants strong and healthy.

Weight issues have been around for a long, long time. But they’ve exploded in recent years.
Flavonoids also have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

I read a fascinating study in the British Medical Journal published in 2016, involving over 124,000 people. The study followed men and women for up to 24 years. This study found that people who each a flavonoid-rich diet found it easier to maintain a healthy weight. This was true even after the study was adjusted for smoking and exercise habits. Even sedentary people were found to better maintain a healthy weight when eating a diet rich in flavonoids.

Flavonoids are found in a variety of foods, including vegetables like onions, fruit like pears, and tea. The top flavonoid in this research was the anthocyanin.

Further readings:

Anthocyanins are found in strawberries, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, radishes, black currants, and grapes. These foods are what I called “pinnacle” foods because of their high nutrient content.

I encourage people to eat berries every day to their beneficial effects on health.

Quercetin is a very beneficial flavonoid found in onions. That’s one of the reasons I eat onions every day. Red wine and chocolate also contain flavonoids. It’s easy to overeat chocolate, so be very careful and only have small amounts of high-quality dark chocolate.

The more flavonoids you eat, the less you’ll crave processed foods. These foods taste delicious and also have powerful positive effects on your immune and digestive systems.

Most people between the ages of 18 and 49 will gain one to two pounds per year. If you do the math, that can be a lot of extra weight by the time you’re sixty. By maintain muscle mass and eating healthy foods, including flavonoid-rich fruits and vegetables, you can buck the trend of gradual weight gain.

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Questions & Answers

The Ins And Outs Of Gastric Surgery

What are my thoughts on gastric surgery?

Gastric surgery is a drastic solution to a big problem.

Over the years, I’ve had clients who’ve had lap band surgery as well as ones who had their stomachs made smaller. In two cases, in particular, the results were outstanding for my clients.

One of the patients was so obese that it was difficult for her to even walk to my clinic. She was in her late forties and near death. In cases like that, when there aren’t any other options, then gastric surgery can be a lifesaver.

Several months later, the patient came back, and I didn’t even recognize her. It was a fantastic outcome for her, but it did leave her with massive amounts of excess skin that had to be managed surgically.

Further readings:

Still, I don’t think gastric surgery is the right fix for most people.

Is it a fix for many people? No, it’s not. I don’t think gastric surgery is a good option for 95% of people. Gastric surgery doesn’t cure the cause of obesity; it’s just fixing the end result of certain behaviors.

Should you consider gastric surgery? Look at your situation determine it’s severity. Are all other avenues shut for you? Is it impossible for you to lose weight? Are you physically at such a point where you can’t exercise anymore?

If at all possible, I recommend going for reversible gastric surgery over the irreversible options. Of course, the surgeon will have the final say on that matter.

If you can find a non-surgical way to manage your way, take the route. Reserve the surgical solution for when all other options have failed.

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