Candida Cleanse 101 (Part I: Intro)

Candida Cleanse 101 - Everything you need to know about candida cleanse, this is intro to Candida cleanse 101!

Belated Happy New Year!

It has been a while since my last post. I had a friend visiting from Korea and all the holidays just kind of took over. But I’m starting 2020 strong by doing a candida cleanse (again)! If you read my bio, this is the cleanse that made me decide to be a vegetarian for a year because I felt like a new person after the cleanse!

I just completed 12 days of the candida cleanse. I started on the last day of 2019 and completed on the 12th of January (lunch). My husband actually did the cleanse with me and it has been absolutely amazing knowing that he was doing this with me and I wasn’t alone in this challenging cleanse/detox!

Overall, my cleanse was so much easier than the first time (March 2019). If you are not familiar with candida cleanse, the essential idea is to take control of overgrown yeast in your system. I have seen people do it with different diet but the core idea is to limit foods that feed yeast. 

I was first introduced to this cleanse by my yoga teachers during my Yoga Teacher Training and this particular cleanse involves more restrictions in diets than most candida cleanse out there (it is strictly vegan/plant based). 

Foods that I avoided during Candida Cleanse:

• Caffeine and alcohol (Bye-Bye, black tea and red wine. Until we meet again…)
• No fruits (Except avocado and tomato. Thank goodness! Lemon and lime are okay!)
• No added/refine sugar, sweetener of any sort (Except stevia, I use about ½ to ⅓ of a packet a day in my rooibos tea with soy milk)
• Plant based/vegan diet: No meat, egg, and dairy
• No fermented foods (no kimchi, no pickle, no mustard, no vinegar, no soy sauce, you get the idea…)
• Say good-bye to any sweet tasting vegetables and starchy vegetables (As healthy as sweet potatoes and winter squash are, none was allowed during the cleanse.)
• No yeast, no fungi. (No bread, No mushrooms…sad face)

I know what you are thinking. So what did I eat? 

Foods that I ate during Candida Cleanse:

• All the green vegetable (Kale, celery, green beans, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, etc.) 
• Other vegetable (garlic, ginger, cauliflower, bean sprouts, etc.) 
• Legumes, seeds, and nuts (Black beans, chick peas, kidney beans, soy products, quinoa, almond, cashew, etc.)
• Spices and oil (Any dried herbs, salt, pepper, coconut oil, olive oil, grape seed oil, avocado oil, etc.)
• I ate very limited amount of brown rice and corn products.

In addition to this diet restriction, for the first five days of the cleanse, I dissolved one teaspoon of food grade diatomaceous earth in a tall glass of water (12 ounces) and drank that upon waking up. And I drank it again before I went to bed.

Diatomaceous Earth for Candida Cleanse 101

What is Diatomaceous Earth?

Wikipedia states that diatomaceous earth is naturally occurring, soft, siliceous sedimentary rock that is easily crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder. It is a fossilized algae and food grade diatomaceous earth  is approved for use by the EPA, USDA, and FDA. 

What is the benefit of consuming diatomaceous Earth?

It is supposedly grabbing the “junk” from your digestive system and help you pass it in your bowel movement. It has not been proven in clinical study but food-grade diatomaceous earth is safe to consume. However, it has to be food grade and you should not inhale it since it can irritate or scar your respiratory system. 

It is very important to drink plenty of water while you are taking diatomaceous earth so that it can grab bad stuff in your system and help you pass it in your stool. I drank more than 60 ounces of water daily. 

After five days, I took probiotic in the morning with tall glass of water with fresh lemon juice (12 ounces) and did that again before I went to bed. This step is to establish good gut bacteria in your system. 

The first time I did the cleanse, my Die-Off response (also known as Herscheimer) was no joke. I had a horrible headache that simply won’t go away for like five days. On top of that, I was emotional and so very exhausted that I had to take at least an hour nap everyday.

This time on the other hand, everything was better! I have been cutting back my caffeine intake for a while. I cut out coffee entirely since September 2019 except occasional mushroom coffee from Four Sigmatic. The mushroom coffee has about 50mg of caffeine which is about the same amount in black tea. Instead of my morning coffee, I have been drinking black tea with non-dairy milk. So the caffeine withdrawal headache was very brief this time. I only suffered one evening. Although I really did miss my black tea in the morning during the cleanse, I found amazing replacement (I will share this in my upcoming Candida Cleanse Part II post).

During my first time of this cleanse in March 2019, I was living off on hummus, quinoa, roasted cabbage,  stir fried eggplants, and a very basic salad. This time, I had variety of delicious dishes - scrambled tofu with vegetables, breakfast burrito, falafel, cucumber tomato avocado salad, kale salad, overnight oats, lentil soup, quinoa and roasted vegetables, pasta, refried bean taco, and veggie bean burgers. 

I wrote down all the things that I ate during the cleanse and I’m so excited to share it with you. I also documented how I felt each day. 

In January, there won’t be any new recipe posts but instead, you will be seeing some wellness related posts such as this one and part two of this post including my daily menu and how I felt each day during the cleanse. 

If you want to learn more about the cleanse, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d be more than happy to answer your questions! 

Until next time, happy living, my friends!