Detox, Detox, Detox

“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”

― Michael Pollan

Let me start off by saying that I am no expert and there is a lot of controversy around whether or not we as self-cleansing mechanisms should be detoxing or not. I will be writing from a personal experience that has slowly but surely been changing my life.

I have tried detoxes in the past, but nothing I really stuck with to feel much of a change. I wasn't put in a position I wanted to change my health habits, I was more forced. With all the pain I was in I was incredibly grateful everything happened. For almost a year and a half, I was ignoring an immense amount of stomach pain. It came and went with bloating, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, etc. I had gone to the doctor for the first time about it in November of 2020, sure that I would find some answers and I passed with flying colors. Which was extremely frustrating because I still felt like shit. The next time around was October of 2021 and this time came back with a high overgrowth of Candida in my digestive tract. Candida is a natural growing bacteria in your body but when overgrown can cause many underlying issues. I was so emotionally and physically exhausted I couldn't take it anymore and soon after these results a good friend of mine introduced me to "Medical Medium" by Anthony Williams. I dove straight in and I will never go back.

Anthony walks you through many different journeys to your health problems. One that specifically stuck with me the most was the overwhelming amount of heavy metals we ingest on a daily basis. Inhaling toxic fumes, cooking meats and veggies wrapped in foil at a family outing, mercury in seafood, makeup products, cleaning your tub with bleach and I could go on with a grocery list of toxic elements. A lot of these things we can't control as well. Heavy metals go as far as being passed down genetically from your ancestors. One of my grandfathers was a truck driver, and the other worked on a cargo ship in the hold, so I can only imagine what is flowing through my body.

Circling back to what I said earlier, our bodies are natural detoxifiers, but for simpler things. Your body does not have the capacity to break down 3 cheeseburgers a week, along with that Papa Johns's pizza you just had to have and throw in 3 orders of Chickfila for the convenience of not having to cook, and don't you dare forget the molten chocolate cake for dessert. Our bodies cannot uphold the amount of intake we have in our day-to-day lives. Between industrialization and artificial foods alone, certain organs are overworking themselves just to stay afloat.

If you are new to your health journey (like me), keep an open mind. There are many things you will not want to believe simply because of all the emotional connections we have to specific food groups. While skimming through Medical Medium, I could've shed many tears while ingesting all this information about my favorite foods. Eggs are bad for you?? I mean come on! By the end of it, you're asking yourself over and over, "Well then what the hell do I eat?" But do not be discouraged, he includes many recipes to incorporate into your daily life.

After a ton of research on Candida, I settled on a 4 week Candida diet, while incorporating Anthony's heavy metal detox smoothie. The Candida diet is a very low sugar, no gluten, no caffeine, no dairy, anti-inflammatory diet that promotes good gut health and eliminates sugars that feed the overgrowth. Foods included non-starchy vegetables, some low sugar fruits, millet and oats, fermented foods, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, etc.

The first two weeks were the hardest. Just settling into a diet regime and researching what to eat was the hardest part for me, but it got much simpler. Keep in mind at this point I had been living in Mexico for 3 months, and pulling off this diet was difficult. Mexico isn't always the easiest place to be healthy. But once you're in, you're in. Little things started to change for me. I finally had the energy to get out of bed and go to the gym, I felt more clarity throughout my days, my stomach started to subside after two weeks, and to top it off I became an overnight chef. Your body might be a bit confused at the beginning, you may or may not feel the Candida Die-Off. Candida Die-Off may give you heightened symptoms of anxiety, depression, diarrhea, constipation, etc. while your body fights off the bacteria, but it will subside.

I followed this diet for 3 1/2 weeks strictly and started to ease up and introduce certain foods back into my diet. I now eat an extremely limited amount of gluten and dairy but have upped my natural sugar intake. My diet consists heavily of veggie stews, curries, chicken, quinoa, monk fruit, greek yogurt, sauerkraut, coconut, blueberries, blackberries, gluten-free bread, millet, and oats. I plan on following this Candida Diet strictly for 1-2 months out of the year.

I want to also state that I will not deprive myself of a celebratory dessert or a pizza when I feel I deserve it. My health journey is a huge step for me to educate and hold myself accountable for the self-induced pain I was feeling. Because in the end, no one was spoon-feeding me the Taco Bell I ate 4 times a week, it was a choice.