Active Low-Carber Forums

Hello everyone,

I found this forum a couple of days ago. Looks like a great bunch of people here! I am struggling with Candida and therefore am pretty much forced by that issue to go LC. But I am OK with that because I know now that LCing is healthy!

About 5.5 years ago I lost 90 pounds on a raw vegan diet. Nine months with no cheats. The weight melted off and I didn't even exercise. I will never forget when my nurse friend, who studied my food journal during that 9 month period, said to me: you're still addicted to carbs. Her words were like a hammer! They still ring in my ears when I get tempted to try that diet again. I can't believe I lost all that weight eating so much carbs. However, I realize now that I had candida back then but didn't know it. Looking back, I see that after eating certain foods that those yeasty beasties love, like nama shoyu (unpasteurized soy sauce), the next morning I would pay for it! I also had psoriasis (which is linked to candida) and it went away in about 2 months. It surprises me now, knowing what I know, that it went away while I was still eating so much fructose! Perhaps the fact that I ate nothing processed helped a great deal.

Anyway, I eventually gained the weight back. I only recently gained back to more than I was when I started the raw diet.

I have tried every diet and from a relatively young age, too, although I was not obese as a child/teen. It's overwhelming to think about sometimes. I wonder if I will ever lose the weight AND keep it off! I have never lost weight slowly like they say you are supposed to. Don't have the patience for it.

What brought me to this forum is I was looking through some papers and found some old OA grey sheet info. I remembered being on that plan. I had a very negative sponsor that I dreaded calling every morning. She and I didn't mix well, esp. with my caretaker tendencies. I finally quit because I hated the discipline of calling in my food every AM and then calling again if something changed and I was about to eat something different than what I called in. I also began to feel like it was a crutch, the whole OA thing. I'm sure I'm not alone in that soon after starting plan that works, I get bored and want out. I sabatoge myself. Anyway, somehow when I looked at those grey sheet papers I felt I could do it again (but without getting a sponsor etc). I did a search for grey sheet and a link for this forum came up, as some people had discussed it back in '02.

I decided on a modified version of the diet, cutting out the fruits allowed and adding in more fat and low carb veggies. I'm starting on Mon. (I still need to go shopping for food...plus, to be perfectly honest, I want to eat Mexican food before I start on Mon.) Really, what the diet is, is Bee Wilder's Candida Diet, which I have been on before and fell of the wagon. I couldn't think about doing Bee's diet again until I found those OA papers. Somehow going through the back door of grey sheet, I could handle Bee's diet again. I am really weird!!!

Well, I'm glad to be here. I will be posting a journal too and tracking my food etc. on fitday. I will include links to that in my journal as soon as I get started on Mon. I look forward to getting to know some more people struggling with candida. Also, I really like friendly competition, so if anyone is game for some weight loss competing, let me know! I try not to think about events to lose weight for anymore, but there is something coming up in November that I will be keeping in mind as I travel along on this journey. Also, as far as more long term goals go, my 20 year class reunion is in the summer of 2009 and I want to be fit for that!

Hadassah7
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