So, the McCombs Candida Plan is finally over (read about this adventure from the beginning). I didn’t do it because I was having bad candida symptoms, so I can’t report any drastic improvement in my health. I had hoped that 16 weeks of restricted eating and eliminating the overgrowth of candida albicans in my body would cause weight loss, but it didn’t. Well, it did, but losing 11 pounds when I needed to lose 70 felt like failure.
But if we review the stated goal in my first post about going on this plan, it says I was determined to kick my sugar addiction. That was the priority. So did I?
No.
But what I did accomplish was reminding myself that I can get along without sugar, wheat or dairy. That’s a damn good thing because it turns out that as I heal my body, it becomes increasingly intolerant of wheat and I need to go off it for good. Yeah, my life just keeps getting more fun.
I also noticed — once again — how much better I feel without sugar and wheat. I feel better every time I do this diet (which I’ve done a few times throughout my life), so noticing it does not mean I’m going to swear off sweets forever (at least it hasn’t happened yet). But along with the other changes I’ve made since last summer, it’s possible that could reach a new low in how few desserts I let back into my life.
One thing I definitely got out of this round of doing the Candida Plan is hot baths. The Plan requires a specific diet, dietary supplements, massive water consumption, good bowel activity and almost daily sweat baths. This time around I really liked those sweat baths. Dr. McCombs recommends sweating for about 15 minutes, which means I’d be in a steaming tub of water for a good half hour because it would take a while to get hot enough to perspire. Then I’d drain the tub a bit and add some cold water to start the cooling down process. In all, the process would take the better part of an hour and I found it very comforting.
Yes, comforting, not relaxing because relaxation wasn’t what I needed this past autumn. I had a bad season of autophobia (fear of being by oneself) and loneliness, but I found the sweat baths helpful. At the end of October I read that hot baths can remedy loneliness and I took that seriously. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but I found that if I was feeling autophobic or my day felt particularly empty and lonely, a hot bath made me feel better. Those baths continue to make me feel better, so I’ve kept them up, although I’m down to one a week.
And that’s how the McCombs Candida Plan turned out. I got a couple of good things out of it, but it didn’t change my life. I recommend it if you think a candida albicans overgrowth is causing poor health. If you don’t think that, but want to figure out what foods are causing you problems or just want to get really cleaned out, then I’d say do the diet part without the rest of the Plan (sweat baths, etc). It felt like a kind of reset, after which I could choose how much junk I wanted to let back into my life. Reaching the end of the 16 weeks was kind of anti-climactic, but I’m glad I did it.
Previous post on this topic: Wars of the Buttercream Roses
27 Feb 2021