Six Month Reflection: Ten Reasons I’m Grateful for my Candida Diagnosis

This may be an unpopular opinion but embarking on the candida diet has actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the most part. Although 2020 has been quite a year, I’m very grateful for learning about my dysbiosis this year and beginning to treat my gut imbalances.

Realizing you have or being diagnosed with a candida overgrowth can be such a disappointing event (did anyone else spend the day they read the foods restricted on the candida diet crying and lamenting all the delicious food they would have to give up??) It was a rough adjustment and like most people I felt HORRIBLE in the beginning.

However, to anyone feeling discouraged this holiday season, with just seven months on the diet I’ve seen a massive improvement in my symptoms so far, so there is hope! (I was also feeling better WAY sooner than seven months into this btw

). If you haven’t seen the post prior to this, I also just recently found out about having SIBO, which is likely (hopefully

) why not all of my symptoms have cleared up yet. Overall I’m feeling much better and very grateful for the new leaf I’ve turned over with beginning to treat chronic health issues.

Ten reasons I’m grateful for the candida diet:

1. Taking the first step. This sounds very simple of course, but taking the first step is obviously necessary and if taken correctly can provide enough momentum to keep oneself moving in the right direction. Even figuring out that you have candida can be a challenge in itself so if you’ve done that much and begun treatment then you’re on your way to getting better.
2. Establishing long-term healthy habits. A lot of simple switches that really just require action to get them started end up becoming habits that will impact your life very positively in the long run. An example of this is giving up drinks at restaurants (for the most part). While I don’t intend to do this for the rest of my life, just rewiring the behavior of automatically ordering a drink with your meal like many people do will probably benefit you for the rest of your life.
3. I’ve cut out a lot of unhealthy foods that would cause me damage long term. Building off the above, there’s no question that the way I eat now is MUCH healthier despite some arguably healthy foods also being removed for a bit. The candida diet is very nutrient-dense if done correctly and of course I eat soooo many more veggies now than I used to.
4. Cutting out sugar is such a huge win. I’ve definitely been addicted to sugar for years and even though I ate pretty healthy before this, I always justified eating loads of sugar because it wasn’t an allergen of mine. I will probably do a whole post on the benefits of removing sugar, but even once I start to expand my diet a bit more I will probably never actually add sugar back in as now I am no longer addicted and really don’t miss it.
5. Thanks to #capitalism I’ve actually never felt deprived on this diet! Although more drastic, treating candida with diet is a similar shift to transitioning to being gluten free. When many people hear you’re gluten free they assume you’ll never so much as sniff another cookie again. Anyone who has been gluten free for any substantial amount of time knows that this simply isn’t the case due to the plethora of gluten free products and substitutes. The same is true with going grain and sugar free and there are so many great products out there these days that making this transition is much easier than in the past.
6. I feel SO much better. While I am not yet fully relieved of my symptoms, my energy levels are sooo much better than they have been pretty much my entire life and that is definitely something I’m very thankful for!
7. I actually enjoy eating this way. I have a lot of fun discovering and trying new products, thinking of new recipes to create/adapt for this diet and sharing them with others. Food has become such a central and fun part of my life!
8. Sharing this experience and journey with others has been such a treat. I’m always happy to engage and connect with others (usually via Instagram LOL). Sometimes my bandwidth is a bit short given my workload from my day job etc. but I always always appreciate comments/tags/feedback. These genuinely make my day every time! It’s also been so nice keeping in touch with other people going through the same struggles/health challenges so I am truly grateful for YOU if you’re reading this
9. Quarantine actually coincided very well with this diagnosis/life shift. I know that 2020 has been a very difficult and tragic year for many people so I do not wish to gloss over the hardship of this and my heart goes out to anyone experiencing the negative effects of the pandemic. For beginning a drastic shift like the candida diet, not being able to eat out as much and having to find new ways to stay entertained is one reason I’m grateful for discovering and dealing with this during 2020.
10. Before this I actually rarely (almost never) cooked/baked. Sometimes I made gluten free box mixes and eggs were definitely my specialty but eating this way has forced me to learn a new skillset that’s been very valuable not to mention fun!

I hope you enjoyed the above list and hopefully have drawn some hope/motivation from reading these gratitude snippets. When writing this list I actually had trouble keeping this to just ten reasons which just goes to show how important active reflection/thought exercises are.

With this I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that 2021 will be a much better year for everyone! Have you experienced any positives that you’d like to highlight from your candida diagnoses? Drop me a line:)