Q:
I want to do a meat fast over the weekend. I really want this monthto be a big weight loss month and I want to get off to the right start.
What exactly do I do?

A:
The nice thing about meat fasting is that you don’t usually have any rebound weight gain, like with a regular fast. The bad thing about it is that it can give you some very serious candida die-off. I don’t recommend you do it unless you’ve been on MOVES at least 2-4 weeks.

I just want to make sure you are aware that you may experience nausea, headache or worse from the die-off toxins. You will probably also experience loss of appetite, but you should force yourself to eat all of your food.

To do a meat fast, start with calculating your calories. Multiply your current weight by 10 minimum to 12 max. So for example if you weigh 200, your calories would be 2000-2400, which ever will make you full.

Next get your protein gram calculation by dividing your weight in half. So if you weigh 250, protein grams would be 125. Increase by 10-20 grams if you lift weights or are pretty active. This is not a super scientific way of doing the calculation, but the way that I know that is more accurate involves knowing your body fat percentage and lean body mass, which I’m not sure if you know or not.

OK, now pick a meat you are going to eat, and it’s best if it’s fatty. Say ground beef or chuck roast.
Then add the amount into fitday until you hit your protein grams. If you need more calories still, add fat into protein until you hit your calorie benchmark.

Coconut oil is your best bet for additional calories as it boosts the immune system and metabolism as well.
Then just cook up your meat and oil, and eat only that as long as you can stand it.

I wanted to talk a bit about food and values, and doing a cost benefit analysis. Many people can see that the diet we recommend makes sense scientifically, but struggle actually following it. I know I sure did for a long time. I wanted to talk a bit about the shifts that I had in being able to eat this way consistently.

The diet information is pretty irrelevant if you don’t follow it because of personal challenges. Most people have several personal challenges, like food addiction, cravings, emotional eating, boredom with food, too much value on food, the wrong technical information and more.

Each person has to work on those challenges, and even “tweaking” the diet we recommend for themselves, and therein lies the challenge. I had mentors to guide me, and looked to others who were successful to see what behaviors to mimic.

I read lots of books, shared on newsgroups, did a lot of self-reflection. Simply put, there is no magic answer, it’s just a lot of hard work and some creative solutions. I had to figure out how to change my values with food, to change my attitude, to put my food as a priority, to really face how if I fell off the wagon, how hard it would be to get back on and
more.

I had to realize that there was no “end” where I would be able to eat pizza and ice cream and maintain my weight and health. I had to accept that I have to eat the way I do for life. The physical and emotional go hand and hand.

If you avoid the “alcoholic foods” (the ones that just make you want more and more) completely, then you are really able to have a physical peace with food. The diet we recommend will likely give you that peace.

Then there is the emotional and behavioral aspect of it. I find that if I deviate, I get cravings big time, and I really get set back, and I lose the peace I normally have. To avoid that, I have to always have my food cooked and ready to go, so I always have something appropriate to eat.

Many people hate this aspect, having to plan things out. But when you really get that just a little preparation makes everything easier, and puts your mind at ease about being able to stay eating the way you know works for you, it really helps.

Then there are lots of situations where it is really tempting to give yourself excuses to eat off plan, like parties, holidays, birthdays, etc. I look at this like I am an alcoholic with certain foods. Just like an alcoholic, I abstain from certain foods completely.

Just like a recovered alcoholic, there are no breaks, no holidays, no excuses. I have not cheated on my diet in almost 3 years. Not even a taste or a bite or a lick. Because I know, and have FULLY accepted that I can never have just a bite.

Just a bite will always lead to a binge, I’ve proved that over and over to myself. Just like an alcoholic can’t have just a drink. But many people will set themselves up over and over again with this scenario.

Oh I’m just going to have a little chocolate. Oops, I ate the whole bag. Well I am so ashamed of myself.
But you know it’s only XX number of rewards points, or I’ll exercise more next week, or I didn’t gain weight, or I don’t feel that bad, or it was my birthday, or <insert other reasoning here>.

Then the same thing happens over and over again..
lather, rinse, repeat.

I know, because I did this dance myself for a long time. Until my mentor really showed me, got me to take a good long hard ugly look at my self destructive pattern, and showed me how beautiful it was to stop that dance.

How I could make consistent good choices, see consistent good results, and get off the emotional roller coaster with food for good. I can still remember my own dance with those foods. Oh I’m just going to have one piece of chocolate.

It’s low carb, it’s not that bad. I am PMSing, and I really need chocolate. Chocolate is not that bad for me. Oops, I ate the whole box. Well, I’ll just do better next week, can’t beat myself up over this.

So yes, I have never been perfect, will never be perfect, and have danced the dance with food. I’m just done being in denial over my issues with food. I’m done expecting it to make me feel better when it never does.

I’m done trying to have a party in my mouth because I’m bored because I’m too fat and sick to have a real life. I’m done feeling guilty because I ate too much or I made bad choices with my food.

So what does it take to have lasting success with this IMO?
The right candida diet that is going to take away your cravings and your health issues and give you good results.

Combined with being *done* with your expectations and values with food, and having consistent behavior with food that is devoid of backslides the vast majority of the time.

When you realize and understand and accept that chocolate (or other unhealthy food) is only going to be enjoyable for a few minutes, but that the emotional and physical impact of that choice (guilt, weight gain, getting sicker etc.) are going to last days, weeks, or longer, then making good choices consistently is going to be a lot easier.

Food is for fuel, to make your body healthy. Not for entertainment, soothing, socializing, etc. It does not do the things we want it to do, as much as we wish it did. Do your own cost benefit analysis of food and you’ll probably see what I’m trying to say.

Q: Don’t we need to have antioxidants to improve the immune system? I feel like all I am hearing in the candida diet section is saturated fat, saturated fat, saturated fat. What about antioxidants? If we are not eating fruit or berries and we are not supposed to eat a lot of vegetables, how are we supposed to get enough? I thought these were supposed to be great for the immune system? I understand that the fats in omega 3 fish and olive oil are healthy, but I am just finding it hard to believe that the fat in butter and red meat can actually be healthy. I am sure it is, but it is just so hard to believe. Also, there was this naturopathic doctor who was really big on coconut oil and he died suddenly of a stroke at a young age. I just have to wonder whether or not it was from all the coconut oil. How can I be absolutely sure that all of this saturated fat is really good for me. I would really hate to go on believing this and then drop dead in a few months of a heart attack.

A:
Antioxidants are CRUCIAL to the immune system. Vitamins C and E really help to keep us (or get us) healthy. Saturated fats play a huge role too though. You can’t have one without the other.

And lets define “a lot” here when we’re talking about veggies. There were times when I’d eat several pounds of veggies a day because I thought I needed all that to be “healthy”. My antioxidant nutrient values were quite high when I did this, but like I said, I could easily eat 3lbs of veggies in one day, and that only added up to about 70-80 carbs.

If you choose nutrient-dense veggies and you supplement well, you’re getting superior nutrition and not just adequate nutrition. How many of us ate that many veggies and fruits in a day before we tried to be healthy? Most of us didn’t. Most of us had a diet based on grain/legumes/unhealthy fats with the occasional pieces of fruit and servings of veggies thrown in for color. So even eating “not a lot of veggies” on MOVES still has a lot of us better off than we were when we were much sicker.

And with respect to fruit, we do allow some “fruits” like tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. And of course there’s lemon and lime for those who can tolerate it. While some foods are higher in certain enzymes than others, you can have a perfectly varied and nutrient-dense diet if you limit your foods to the ones we recommend.

It IS hard to believe that fat consumption is necessary, because we’ve been conditioned by this whole “low-fat” thing that started in the late 70s. Did you know that the incidence of heart disease has gone up significantly as we’ve reduced our fat intake?

Bruce Fife, N.D. is considered one of the most prominant experts on saturated fats and coconut oil, and I haven’t found anything saying that he died. And remember that a lot of things can cause a stroke that have NOTHING to do with how you eat (even if someone DID eat coconut oil and then died from a stroke.) This sounds like some kind of urband legend to me — the same kind that was stirred up when Dr. Atkins died. (He fell on ice, hit his head, and ended up dying 10 or 11 days later, but the people who wanted to discredit him said he died of a heart attack and he was
“obese”. He wasn’t even overweight when he went into the hospital after his fall, but he gained something like 50lbs from fluid in those 11 days of his coma before he died.)

My results speak for themselves. My cholesterol looks great, my blood pressure is perfect, and I’m losing weight. Best of all, my Candida symptoms are improving every day. No doctor in their right might would argue with the results (even if they can’t wrap their minds around HOW I got them.)

I’ve done enough research over the past 10 years and I’m quite confident in the way I eat. It’s hard to sort out the brilliance from the BS sometimes though, and I understand. The initial leap of faith was tough, but when I started digging and finding information that appealed to my scientific nature, the information was impossible to ignore. It’s a
learning process though. I learn EVERY day.

There are a lot of things that are great for the immune system. Things like lauric acid, found in coconut oil, and garlic, are also great for the immune system. Antioxidants are also found in meats.

I have read in the ‘Harvard Health Letter,’ Vol 32, #11, Sept 2007 the following (brief):

There are four varieties of saturated fat in our diet:
lauric acid
myristic acid
palmitic acid
stearic acid

Their effect on LDL cholesterol levels varies, so among the saturated fats, there are degrees of bad. Stearic acid seems to be the least bad because it’s rather quickly converted into a healthful monosaturated fat & doesn’t increase LDL levels very much, if at all. THAT’S GOOD NEWS FOR STEAK LOVERS: Half of the saturated fat in beef is stearic acid.

There’s a great chart in the newsletter showing the specific types & percentages of fat in common oils & fats: saturated, trans, monosaturated, & polyunsaturated fats.

From the looks of the chart, coconut oil doesn’t appear to be a good option over other oils like canola, olive, safflower, & sunflower oil.

Here’s an interesting twist:
The tropical oils in small amounts are okay, & they’re certainly an improvement over trans fat. Americans were scared away from them because of their saturated fat content. But REMARKABLY, COCONUT Oil & OLIVE OIL HAVE SIMILAR EFFECTS ON THE RATIO OF LDL TO HDL.

(This isn’t so bad either–When it comes to chicken, go ahead & leave the skin on. Because of the polyunsaturated fat content, says Dr. Willett, ‘a little bit of chicken fat isn’t such a bad thing.’ Besides, he says, ‘cooking chicken with the skin on makes it taste a lot better.’

Here’s a reply I have received from one of our readers after my post about coffee:

I quit drinking coffee almost 2 years ago, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend people start up the habit.

I guess what I was saying was that in comparison to many other things, I’d rather see someone drinking black organic coffee than say a milkshake or diet soda.

Definitely the idea here is to one by one refine and clean up your diet, but often if you do that too quickly, you are unable to deal with it physically or emotionally.

Being that coffee is so addictive, and in my experience not an issue with candida, it wouldn’t be one of the first things I’d cut out of someone’s diet who was on the opposite end of the spectrum from where they needed to be.

I spent 2 months weaning off of coffee and changing nothing else about my diet but that. It’s been my experience that the only way in some cases to make something a habit is to change it slowly and give yourself time to focus on that and nothing else, until it is second nature.

Sometimes cold turkey works for people. I’ve had some things I’ve quit cold turkey with no problem. Most things were more ingrained in my life, and slow changes have been the most effective.

On the other hand I have seen people do cold turkey, fall off the wagon, lather, rinse, repeat. That was me. I was in good company too. I’m done with that cycle now I believe.

Some people don’t think that coffee is that bad.. if you are drinking it black.

I have to respectfully disagree here.

I used to be a HUGE coffee “user”. I had built up such a tolerance to caffeine that I could drink it like water all day long and go straight to sleep at night. I didn’t “use” it because of it’s stimulant effects. I “used” it because I loved how it tasted.

Then I did some research though, and when I became pregnant with my first child, I gave up coffee and caffeinated tea altogether. I didn’t have any withdrawal (even though I’d abused it for so long). I did start to notice though that I actually felt BETTER without the caffeine than I thought I would.

Now, I’ve come to realize that caffeine is a very potent drug that’s used and abused WAY too much these days. It’s hard on your circulatory system (heart and blood vessels), and I remember reading somewhere that detoxing from caffeine takes 4-5 days whereas detoxing from heroin take 2-3.

If I’m living naturally without drugs, why would I want that garbage in my body? Especially now that I don’t react to it well at ALL. When I drink a cup of coffee (non-decaf), I find myself breathing fast, feeling jittery, and getting this tightness in my chest that makes me feel like I can’t breathe.

Caffeine is BAD NEWS, and I think people are much healthier without it.

But if you’re like me and like the flavor of coffee, you can find naturally decaffeinated coffee (that’s decaffeinated with steam, usually, as opposed to solvents.) But since I used to drink my coffee (decaf or regular) with cream and sugar substitute, it’s just not appealing to me anymore without the cream.

Q: everytime i try to do the candida diet cold turkey my blood sugar crashes – i feel light headed, dizzy, shaky and i have to eat and eat and eat. is this normal? will it go away?

A: If you’ve never had experience with even a less-restrictive low-carb diet, changing cold turkey probably isn’t the best idea. I can say though that when you do that and experience those symptoms, I’m betting it’s not actually blood sugar related even though it feels like it is. (I’ve had those symptoms myself at times, and I’ve checked my blood sugar, and it’s fine.)

When you’re first starting out on a plan where carbs are significantly restricted, it’s crucial that you pack in as much fat as you can! As soon as your glycogen stores run out, your body’s got to learn to derive energy from fat and protein, and there’s a transition there that’s not always pleasant. You can make it go a little smoother though by cramming in the fat!

I agree with most who advocate making slower dietary changes (in most cases), but there’s something to consider. High fat in the presence of high carbohydrate is NOT healthy, so you don’t want to get stuck in that situation for too awfully long.

It’s tough, but actually, I HAVE to do things the cold turkey way or I never make the switch. And you only feel real yucky like that for a couple days (if you choose to do it that way.)

Q: With Baking Powder the ingredients are Disodium Diphosphate, Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate, Calcium Sulphate.
I’m not too knowledgable about what is ‘non-aluminum’. But are these ingredient ok to use?

A: I think it is important, which ever brand you use, to make sure they don’t use aluminum in any way, shape, or form. However, I would call the company.
It should say “aluminum free” on the package. That is your safest best bet – ensure you buy aluminum-free.

Eggs are always quick, but they get boring.

Remember that you don’t have to eat “breakfast food” for breakfast. I’ll often have left-overs for breakfast.

A protein shake made with 1 egg, 1T butter, 1T coconut oil, 3/4c boiling water, and a pinch of stevia. (Blend it in your blender and enjoy!)

If you can afford a reverse osmosis filter and you will add the minerals back in, this is way better than a Brita. Flouride is poison and a Brita won’t remove it, only reverse osmosis will. I haven’t researched the filters though so can’t recommend one. I will be buying one asap as I am tired of buying bottled water and the chemicals in the plastic I’m not thrilled about either.
Basically, you do what you can do with what you can afford.

FYI. Even though fluoride in water is toxic, if a person eliminates all other sources where it is added, i.e. foods, toothpaste, personal care products, dental treatments, etc., the small amount in water won’t cause problems.

However, reverse osmosis creates it’s own set of problems:
1) a lot of water is used up in the process
2) all natural minerals in water is eliminated
3) minerals drops can’t possibly duplicate Nature’s minerals found naturally in water