This is the first post in a whole series, which I call the ntandme.com story. This first post will be the about section, the introduction or preface. You get the picture about the intention of that site, its intended goals and why at all start a new nutritional site.

How it started

What I needed was an application that allows me to keep track of my Anti-Candida Diet, which I started a couple of month ago. This requires a pretty rigid diet with no sugar and simple carbohdydrates. That was my starting point, a tool to track my nutrition intake, a tool to help me plan my diet upfront. A little plus of course to track how many calories I used to eat and how many to loose while exercising. During the first versions (you can alway have a look at www.ntandme.com to check its current state) I implemented these basic functionalities, but soon found I needed a lot more. And so I changed some structures and made it as precise as possible with regards to nutrients and the calorie turnover in my diet. During that phase I learned a lot of new things about nutrition due to input from my Naturopath and other diet websites. Have a look around on this blog to read about my experiences of this specific diet. I also checked out some other websites such as calorieking.com and thedailyplate.com, but they were – at least at that time – mainly considering the weightloss side of diets.

Once you get your mind in a specific direction and actually start talking with friends about nutrition, you find how many people do suffer from nutrition related diseases, some becoming quite common (such as Diabetes, high blood pressure and food allergies), some not as common but with really heavy influence on your life style (such as Crohns Disease). And there is the biggest reason for our modern health problems, obesity. Today it is easier to eat industrial foods than to have a healthy and nutrition rich diet. Industrialized foods and dishes, which often are high in sugar and fat, are mass-produced to be cheap and enhanced with artificial ingredients to please our ill taste. So it became really easy to have a too high calorie intake and therefore unhealthy life style.

The education process

During my sessions with the Naturopath, the implementation of algorithms and the search for food information I learned a lot about nutrition. Since than it is, that I as well developed a natural feeling for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. It was like an nutrition education course, that actually was not hard to do. The hard thing is to overcome habits. Cos these habits are driving you to what you are used to (the easy choice)instead of looking for healthy alternatives, which are more than plenty once you start looking for them. Just one simple example from my past month is the exchange of the beloved cookies in the afternoon with rice crackers and guacamole (self made Avocado spread). I love that stuff and still do not take in as many and especially not as ‘empty’ calories as before.

And there is one very obvious reward: The shrinking fat pads and better body feeling. I lost about 6kg in 2 month time (my BMI went from close to overweight 24.7 to  a nearly perect 22.65), very steady over time and constant since. I now eat way more vegetables than before and try to cook my food as often as possible.

The goals for ntandme.com

Since I found it helped myself, I thought what this tool could do for others. This has become somewhat my general road map and I hope (depending on my spare time) I will be able to implement the according tools sooner than later.

• Help people learn about good nutrition
• Give true information about the contents of food (not for example based on some unrealistic small portions)
• Show nutrition information for a wide variety of food
• Show alternatives to ‘not-so-good’ foods
• Guidance for people with nutrition-related diseases
• Day-to-day diary to assist doctors and naturopaths examining diseases and nutrition related issues

That is very rough and though I have quite some ideas, I am hopeful people will read this post and think it is a good idea, just missing this or that. If you can think of something that would help you and others reaching a better lifestyle, don’t hesitate to post it in a comment.

Two days ago I had a comment form George Jackson, encouraging me to keep on and offering me help. Well, first of all that was a very nice comment and he even liked the idea of the nutrition and health tool on ntandme.com. Since I’m normally skeptical I thought I have a read through his proposed booklet before I recommend or link to his site http://stopcandidafast.com/

So, what I did was to sign up for his site and after confirming my email I got the link to a PDF with the promising title “Candida Fix Report”. Since it is his intellectual property I won’t repeat everything he wrote (and bit too much for this article), but I can say, it is the most comprehensive introduction to Candidasis I’ve seen so far. It really goes a hundred percent along with what I got out of my Naturopath over the time, only it is summarized in 12 pages. And since I was impressed by that I will try and consider his tips, e.g. the use of INULIN (not Insulin), a dietary fiber found especially in garlic, chicory and leek. Read the Wikipedia entry for more information, but basically it is a poly-saccharides that is going deep down into digestion system before it gets split up (not to sugar level) and used. It has a particular good effect on the ‘good’ bacteria and is therefore really helpful in an Anti-Candida Diet. George Jackson has some additional reasons to suggest it. I can only say my Naturopath mentioned the danger of acidy foods as well and Inulin is apparently leveling that to alkaline advantage.

The results of my test I can only tell in a couple of weeks, but hey, give his site a try and have a read, sounds logic and reasonable to me, it seems George has a big knowledge. Go and visit his blog subtlnrg.com.

For me personally I hope we will work on creating a tool to help with nutrition related diseases, I’m looking forward to feedback about ntanmde.com. I will set up a new post during the next week describing the current development direction. Hope this finds interest, helps me a lot to keep track of my nutrition.

After five weeks of diet with only natural and herbal medication I found my rythm. I know now what to eat, what’s good and still tasty for me. Some examples I will give here. Today it is a Pizza recipe, good for Anti-Candida diet and prepared from scratch in less than 40 minutes.

Vegetable Pizza for four people

Important difference here is the wholemeal base without yeast. Wholemeal flour simply because it still has all the nutrients in it unlike the processed white flour. For the topping use whatever you like: Broccoli, Pumpkin, Kidney beans, Peppers, Tomatos, Corn, Onions, Garlic and a bit of cheese. Even from fresh ingredients it is pretty easy and fast to prepare.

The Pizza base

Ingredients:

• 500g Whole meal flour
• 3 table spoons of Olive oil (or whatever oil you prefer), I for example like to use flavored oils (e.g. sun dried tomato)
• appr. 300ml Water
• pinch Salt

Preparation:

Fill the flour into the bowl, add the salt, oil and water and use your hands to mix it. Please wash your hands before. At the end it should be fairly soft, but not sticky. If consistency is not right, add water or flour. You will quickly figure that out.

On a even table or working surface spread some flour and start rolling out the base. Use an empty wine bottle or a rolling pin. Make it really thin (less than half a cm) as it won’t be as fluffy as usual due to the misisng yeast.

The topping

Simply place the chosen toppings evenly on the pizza. Since it has no tomato base use thinly sliced tomatos as first layer. Don’t use too much cheese. There is not much more to say, as it is your creativity that makes this pizza yours. Just think of your favorite Pizza and follow its topping list. Add some herbs, e.g. Thymian, Rosemerry and Parsley or use a ready made herb combination and pepper or curry.

Finish

Pre heat oven to about 200°C. Place Pizza into middle and bake it for 15 to 20 minutes. To the end check for the desired color of the cheese. Open a bottle of wine you like (well, not during an Anti-Candida diet) and serve it with some salad. Enjoy.

Optional: Tomato base

You can’t live without tomato base? Ok, try this. Ingredients used are

• 5-6 tomatos
• a hand full of olives
• 1 or 2 onion
• garlic. (your choice how much, I like garlic and use 3-4 decent cloves)
• parsley (this will neutralize the garlic smell)

Bring water to boil in a pot. Place 5-6 tomatos, and cook them for half a minute to a minute. Take them out and peel them. If you don’t mind the tomato skin, you can jump this step and save some time.

Put some oil in a pan and heat it. Put the small cut onion and olives into the pan and roast it till slightly brown, now add the garlic, parsley and the tomatoes. Mix and mash it with a fork till it has a nice conistency. Boil once and than let it simmer for 20 minutes to thicken the consistency. Let it cool for at least half an hour and place on your Pizza base. You now don’t necessarily need tomatos on it.

Availibility online: I soon will make this recipe available online on ntandme.com and than add the nutrient values. Be assured, it’s quite healthy and not that rich in calories.

I went to my naturopath Winona at Sydney Health Clinic last Friday again, to discuss the current development. Was looking forward to that as the diet started pretty good, the thrush did nearly disappear completely, but than came back again, so I was eager to know why. As I was a bit early, I spoke to her colleague specialized in eastern medicine (Chinese medicine) and I got some new ideas.

He checked the thrush on my tongue and explained the principle of Yin and Yang to me with an example of cold and hot water. They have to be in balance, the one can’t exist without the other and vice versa. His conclusion was that I have too much ‘heat’, meaning that the body is out of balance. Thrush on the tongue is apparently an indicator for that. One of the clues he gave me, was to not eat spicy foods as spices always heat up, it’s like throwing wood into a dying fire. It was a new concept to me, but I will consider this in the next part of my diet.

When meeting with Winona I got shown some further mistakes in my diet. They are minor, but since the candida had a long time to settle in my body, I will give him the least possible energy to settle further or resist its extinction. The one mistake was pumpkin soup, as pumpkin can be split into sugars fairly easy. It’s not bad once in a while, but should be consumed only fairly seldom. The other with respect to her colleagues comments was the chili. Rather no hot food and no beef. The digestion needs to have as little animal protein as possible, exception is resh deep sea fish without conservatisves or poisons floating around in the upper water spheres and close to the coast. So no more chicken and beef for the next two weeks.

The costat was empty already and so I got another antimicrobial herbal medicine to address another spectrum of parasite bacteria in my body. So, the diet will continue pretty harsh for another two weeks. But that’s ok, I pretty good adjusted to the diet. I am loosing weight all over the place, now I’m down to 81kg, that is about three and a half Kilogram in two weeks (see the stats in the screenshot from www.ntandme.com below). The soft middle is disappearing after a long time. So I do see the good things happening.

During the first two weeks I exchanged about 6 or 7 emails with Winona to discuss questions and concerns. This was extremely helpful for me as I could adjust my diet using her advice this way. My Nutrition diary on ntandme.com is helping me as well to keep track and often I do plan a day upfront so I am not stuck during the day trying to figure out what to eat, but rather have bought the good things already and just need to prepare them. I told Winona about the tool and she was pretty interested in seeing it, so I am looking forward to feedback. If you have a look, let me know as well what you think.

Day 10 of my candida and detox diet already. Have to say, the first 5 days have been the hardest, now I finally know what I can eat easily and know definetly the no-nos. Our friends actually take pretty care, went to Dinners twice and both times I got a diet-conform meal. Of course a bit of teasing and joking, but that’s fine.

The most important thing right now is realizing how much cool stuff there is to eat. Just nothing artificial, no frozen foods, pizzas or prepared meals. Rather a lot of cooking. So today I made ‘Chili con carne’, enough for the next day, the next will be Pumpkin soup. There are so many cool recipes, it’s not hard to find something nice. And I finally learn preparing proper meals from fresh ingredients. Once you start looking at the list of ingredients in the foods in your super market, you actually be surprised how much artificial stuff ends up in your body.

The headaches from the first days are gone. Though I realized, I have been a bit moody these days. I guess there are enough reasons for that with constant headaches and the all over adjustments to better nutrition. It’s getting better.

Honestly, it could be worse. But it could also be much better, as all of that stuff that I loved to eat, especially some nice treatments in between, is not allowed anymore. But I keep telling myself it will be worth it. At least the weight is going down already. Anyway, the detox with the herbal medicine Costat is now on full strength. I have a little but constant headache and feel pretty exhausted, but that might be due to the changed nutrition as well.

My practitioner answered me an email and cut down on some last resorts for nice stuff:

Yes sour cream is dairy so NO you cannot have it! Wedges are fine if you bake them and dont use any oil. Not sure what you will dip them in? your nuts should be raw, not roasted or salted…as for the pizza just make sure theres no cheese…Im not sure if you misunderstood me but the anti-candida diet is minimum 4 weeks!

sorry the gods leave the building during anti-candida diets

Oh no! I was in the god section to my nutrition god for some mercy. But no, nothing on the spiritual front. Now i know I will have to stick the Corn chips, which are not exactly good, but I got allowance from Winona to cheat a tiny little bit. I believe it will now become better anyway, as the first five days is the time to adjust to changes and see all the no-nos everywhere. Now I actually only look for the good stuff and still manage to get something nice to eat during the day. Yesterday was a good example:

Breakfast: Omelette of two eggs, with fresh tomato slices
Lunch: Did not really exist as I was in the town. But not really hungry
Dinner: Plenty here though. Oven baked chicken breast (just some pepper, salt and garlic on top), oven baked potato wedges (no oil, no salt) along with some pumpkin and Peppers. Pretty nice, leftovers will be my lunch today.

Luckily I finished adding about 7000 foods to my personal nutrition tool web site. I also started tagging the foods I can have during my candida diet, so it will be easier to find good combinations and keep track and plan. I guess I will be able to upload it to www.ntandme.com in the next week for alpha testing.

The current stats:
weight: 83.8 (down 700g in 5 days)

I just re-posted my first experience with a Candida Diet two month ago. It wasn’t a full success, mainly due to missing supervision by a doctor, but at least proofed for me it was a candida infection, that I could reduce due to little medication and change in nutrition.

But now I finally decided to do it properly and went to see a docter, to get proper medication and fight this till the end. I went to a Naturopath in Sydney, it is a clinic of combined eastern and western medicine. I found them via google search and especially liked they have a price list online. So went there on Wednesday for a Candida test late afternoon.

The test (it’s a urine test) did not give any result, even not after more than twelve hours when I came back the next morning for a consultation and diet advices. Apparentely the test failed due to a ingredient in the “Inner Healt Plus, dairy free”  capsules (25 Billion good bacteria, half Lactobacillus Acidophilus and half Bifidobacterium Lactis, per capsule). From my explanations on nutrition, live style and previous medication it came pretty obvious along with the thrush on my tongue that it’s a candida infection and it needs a proper diet. My health practitioner is Winona, specialized in nutrition and luckily pretty cool and relaxed, it’s not as you’re sitting with a doctor anxious to what torture will come next, but a lot of explanations. So, here is what Winona got for me.

The diet

It’s quite a time this diet will last: 3 month! The first two week I will have to take a herbal medicine to get rid of unwanted bacteria and candida cultures. It is called Costat and contains 3.0g “Artemisia annua, leaf dry (Chinese wormwood)” and 750mg “Olea europea, leaf dry (Olive)”. It must be quite a concentration as it says “Practicioner only range”, so therefore don’t experiment yourself with the stuff. The Olive leaf extract will work against the candida and other parasites, bacteria and in combination with the wormwood clean my body. This I will take over two weeks. The first three days I had little headache, which is ok according to my health practicioner.

The nutrition is not as bad as I thought, Winona provided me with a nice documentation and some recipes and since they are part of her work, I will not spread details about it here. The for me most remarkable points are no dairy, simple carbs (we knew that before) and as little artificial nutrtients as possible. So. I went to the Macro Wholefoods shop in Bondi Junction that sells organic foods and got myself tomatoes, cucumber, wholemeal pasta and rice, rice milk, yeast- and gluten free bread and cereals. Along with some chicken or fish I’m quite able to get some good meals together, just can’t most of the stuff that is sold on the street. But that’s ok, there is still some choice, by accident I stumbled uppon a pizzeria that offers yeast and gluten free pizza for an extra $4. The thing with bread and pizza base without yeast is just it’s pretty dense and not as fluffy as you’re used to, but still tastes good.

After two weeks general detox and cleaning comes a liver cleansing period. I am not sure if allowed, but if possible I will do a fasting diet to make the whole process a complete and thorough clean. After three month I don’t want to look back and say “If I had been a bit better…” – no, it took me a while to do this step, now it will be done right.

Btw, some notes on current health values, this might be interesting how they change over time:

• weight at start: 84.5 kg
• blood pressure: 133/90

The blood pressure has to be better already as I am not drinking any coffee anymore, which is probably one of the harder tasks. I though had little alcohol on Saturday for the norwegian national day (we celebrated with some norwegian friends), no beer (yeast), but pure vodka in soda with some lemon. Could have been worse.

Originally posted on March 3rd

What I tried so far did not work out. It’s a couple of weeks ago that I switched back to normal nutrition and since than the Candida returned. Again, I still don’t feel bad, but it simply annoys me that I know it does not need to be that way.

The reasons for the failure I guess are easy to find, the the yeast has settled and immunsystem is not able to fight it anymore. And the medication was not perfect as I did not go to a doctor. I though decided I wouldn’t go to a normal doctor but try to find a good Naturopath, someone helping me to get rid of the Candida and strengthen my health in a way that it does not return.

In general I’m in good strength and do exercise on a daily base. Just some pounds too much. And apparently those nearly been away after two weeks of ‘no sugar’ diet. These hidden calories are a pain.

So what will happen next? I will find a naturopath or at least some ways to stabilise my guts flora (still taking Acidophilus biphidus bacteria on a daily base and zinc). As well I’m developing a little nutrition tool that can be configured to give me a choice of foods without sugar and a way to tag food as good for yeast diet. That way it will be easier to find foods for a anti-yeast diet. If someones interested in or wants to contribute (e.g. adding foods), shoot me an email.

Originally posted on Feb 11th

So far so good, I realized I have Candida infection in my mouth and wanted to do something about it. This apparently goes along with a change of Nutrition, clearly no sugar – Saccharose, which is the sugar as we know as well as Fructose (fruit sugar) and Lactose (milk sugar) – and simple carbs as in white bread, pasta and even in cooked rice. There should be no potato as well, but it is said that in some sources, that you can eat them as they are scraping the yeast out of your guts. And my main concern is the yeast infection in the mouth, so the most important is “no sugar”. Of course I did it wrong and thought, yeah, Milk is alright, these can’t be used from the candida, but I don’t know why but Milk is not ok, but so are natural Joghurts and yeast-free cheeses. There is a nice list of do and do not foods. So, after four days I will know get rid of Milk from my Nutrition plan as well. Besides that, I am doing perfectly fine, we have a bakery that does that really black bread which I can eat with Avocado-Cream and many other sorts of spread. Over the weekend we had potato wedges with Chicken drum sticks and a vegetable casserole. I am quite happy as I don’t have to miss out complex carbs. And the infection is visibly less, guess another four to five days without milk will give it the rest.

Originally posted on Feb 7th

To solve a problem, you first have to know there is one. And sometimes this hides quite well, especially for health problems. Feeling well, one would never think there is a yeast infection in your body that affects you. Well, I don’t know how it is to be without it, not yet. But this will change soon. Today I started taking some pills called “Acidophilus Bifidus”, that contain Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium animalis. These are to reactivate a healthy gut flora (along with Zinc). This will take six to twelve month. And for one to two weeks I will take “Fungilin” four times a day. These contain Amphotericin B and that kills the yeast. The pills are not swallowed but sucked. That is because I found the yeast on my tongue, as a film of whitish-yellow colour. How did I found out I have this yeast infection? Well, I had a cold and during that I saw my tongue having this film. So I started looking up the Internet and found a lot of information about tongue diagnostic, some of these really interesting and scary. Apparently there is a kind of diagnostic based on the film on a tongue. But nothing really fitted the “look and feel” of what I had, so I went further and found some hints of Candida infections. Candida is a yeast everyone has in its body, but normally this is held under control by a healthy immun system. Well, in my case that has been weakened in teenager age due to antibiotics and my love to sweets. I remember this has been tried to be cured once, but not in a really good attempt. So I probably live with that for about ten years.

I was quite sure it is a yeast infection when I started to not have carbohydrates for about a week, which I’ve started two weeks ago. And the results have been there very fast and obvious – no film on the tongue. So today I went to a pharmacy in Sydney and had a very knowledgeable pharmacist, explaining a lot of the basics, what diet and how to address the infection. He also stated I would feel way better in about two to three weeks. We’ll see, don’t feel bad at all right now. I will keep on blogging about it, as I believe this is a very common problem, but not many talk about it. Last week I had a very open chat with a manager of mine. And let me tell you, it can hit you way harder. So, no sugar and simple carbs for me. That’s hard, but luckily sea food over here is awesome. Could be worse. And it hopefully will have a enduring effect on my nutrition. It already changed to the better the last two weeks, when I realized how many sugar there is in my food. Hang on for more.