CANDIDA: SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
Bloating, digestive complaints, discomfort after eating
Thrush, dandruff
Craving for sugar and starch
Low immune system, frequent low-grade illnesses
Headaches, mild depression
Overweight
Every day, I meet people whose lives (and bodies) are transformed when they make youthing changes to what they cook. (All names have been changed.) I hope these case studies inspire you to change your life and body, too. If so, tell the person next to you. Then the revolution will begin.
DIGESTION
Good digestion is key to youthing. Working well, it provides an age-defying phytonutrient, vitamin and mineral feast that revitalises your system. When it underperforms, you’re on an anti-youthing rollercoaster and chronic fatigue, undernourished muscles, skin, hair and nails, headaches, a shaky immune system, weight issues, depression, high cholesterol and diabetes can result.
Coleen was 32, she had severe bloating and painful spasms within 30 minutes of eating and alternated between constipation and diarrhoea. Her skin was blotchy. She had colds every few weeks and felt run down. Her mood was low, sometimes volatile. She thought the symptoms had come on since she’d holidayed in Thailand a year ago. She’d had food poisoning there and, on her return, contracted a throat infection that required two courses of antibiotics.
It seemed clear that Coleen had candidiasis. It’s common after taking antibiotics because they destroy both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria, unbalancing the gut’s ecosystem and allowing candida to grow unchecked. She did a stool test and this was the case. The infection had travelled from intestines to anus, where it was causing itching. Coleen had also developed dandruff, which was connected.
We attacked in two stages. The first was to lighten the load on the gut with a 24-hour veg juice detox. After that, Coleen stuck to the anti-candida diet for one month, taking slippery elm, charcoal and psyllium husks to soothe the digestive tract; antifungal caprylic acid and oregano, milk thistle and dandelion for liver support and a strong full-spectrum probiotic. The anti-candida diet cuts refined and other sugars and boosts gut bacteria with nutrient-dense, high-fibre foods, killing off the fungal jungle with herbs. Coleen struggled with it at first, but when I gave her tasty recipes, her whole family started eating more healthily.
After a month she looked and felt revitalised. The bloating and spasms disappeared. She felt brighter, plus her sleep and energy levels had improved. She’d lost weight and people told her she looked younger, healthier and happier.
I’d advise sticking to this diet for six months and taking probiotics daily. Coleen didn’t see this as a hardship: her family were enjoying this healthy, youthing way of eating and were all feeling more upbeat. That’s youthing 1, candida 0.
CANDIDA: SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
Bloating, digestive complaints, discomfort after eating
Thrush, dandruff
Craving for sugar and starch
Low immune system, frequent low-grade illnesses
Headaches, mild depression
Overweight
COLEEN’S ANTI-CANDIDA DIET
Cut out coffee, tea, dairy, wheat, preservatives, additives, yeast, mushrooms, sugar (plus fruit and juice) and alcohol
Start the day with hot water and lemon
Eat vegetables and juice them
Include sprouted vegetables (broccoli, chive, cress, mustard, onion, radish), pulses and beans
Eat protein (though eat mostly plants with a little fish)
Eat antifungal garlic, cinnamon, fennel, lemongrass, liquorice
Drink water and herbal tea
Try my recipes; most are anti-candida, but avoid any with fruit, yeast or maple syrup
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
To keep brain and body young, I always advise people to alkalise. To recap, this is a way of helping your body balance to a slightly alkaline pH, so everything works at its youthing optimum. Eating acid-forming foods (the worst culprits are meat, dairy, coffee, cola, refined and processed foods) makes this harder, making the body susceptible to ageing. If that’s not enough, over-acidity also keeps you fat!
Stephen came to see me saying he was only there because his wife insisted. He said he was tired, but slept well; he had put on weight though he was eating the same food. He was beginning to feel his age (40!), but otherwise there was nothing much wrong. Could I ‘fix’ him? He was overweight and looked puffy. He had rings under his eyes, dull hair and pale, clammy skin. His eyes were bright and anxious. He was buzzing internally, yet his body was still.
It was clear he was suffering. He didn’t want to diet, in fact was resistant to making changes. So I told him what he wanted to hear: that he was in pretty good shape. However, he could speed his weight loss by taking dairy out of his diet (dairy is acid-forming and he’d told me this was a food he ate too much). And so he stopped. He didn’t want to juice, so took an algae and chlorella mix in the mornings (from health food shops). Within two weeks he had lost weight and most of the ageing ‘puffiness’ and came back for more youthing advice.
We discussed options and eventually he agreed to come off wheat and start eating 40 per cent raw food to boost his alkalinity. After a couple of weeks his energy levels soared, his cheeks gained colour, his skin was glowing, his hair was shinier. He felt happy, he said, for the first time in years. He looked 10 years younger (and a lot less grumpy). This, I thought, is youthing alkalisation at work. Sceptics make the best patients, because once they see results they ‘get it’ so completely and spread the word like no one else.
REINVENT YOUR SKIN
People always say how much better their skin looks after alkalising for a couple of months. It’s not just that pimples, acne, blotchiness and skin irritations disappear (though they do). It’s that the quality of the skin – texture, strength and softness to the touch – is vastly improved.
This is for two reasons. First, the body rids itself of acids through skin, so skin conditions caused by over-acidity (spots to rosacea to eczema) melt away. Secondly, an alkalising diet is low in the simple sugars that cause collagen fibres to break. As collagen strengthens, skin gets more resilient.
A GOOD WAY TO ALKALISE
STEP 1: for two weeks, stop eating dairy and meat, and start a daily green juice or take blue-green algae/chlorella with water and lemon juice.
STEP 2: for two months, eat 80 per cent alkaline/20 per cent acidic foods and also make 40 per cent of your food intake raw. Avoid wheat, cook only with avocado or coconut oils and eat eggs, fish or tofu a couple of times a week.
STEP 3: to maintain for life, eat 70 per cent alkaline/30 per cent acidic foods; easy if you eat 40 per cent raw.
My soul is dark with stormy riot, Directly traceable to diet.Jacquetta was 62 when she came to see me with severe arthritic pain in her feet. She was of Italian heritage, small and round, but with no signs of diabetes or high blood pressure. She had swollen feet – for which she’d been given diuretics by her GP – along with high inflammatory markers in her blood which showed ‘something was going on’, as the doctor put it.
She was in pain most of the time and so had started comfort eating: processed foods, cakes and biscuits. Being Italian, she also cooked tomatoes, aubergines and peppers almost every day. She’d fry these in processed cooking oils. Worried about water retention and swollen feet, she barely drank any liquids. As a result her kidneys were not able to filter or flush properly and acids and toxins were being deposited in her joints, hands and feet, causing increasing inflammation, and – it soon became clear – gout (where uric acid crystals accumulate in joints).
We needed to break the cycle. With chronic inflammation, the immune system is on constant alert. This means there are high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is linked to accelerated ageing (in skin, nails, hair, muscles, bones, memory and lowered energy) and to increased fat deposits around the middle.
Jacquetta tried an anti-inflammatory diet for a month (see below). Within a week she lost half a stone, but her joint pain was more intense. After three weeks, the pain started to lessen. It took six months before she was pain-free. I worried she might go back to comfort eating, but by then she had lost over a stone and had noticed increased energy; stronger joints; tauter skin; and better immunity.
Fighting inflammation is hugely important for youthing, because it doesn’t just happen in the joints. It can dispose the brain to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
JACQUETTA’S ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIET
Cut out aubergines, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes; common allergens such as wheat, dairy, soy or shellfish; refined sugars
Cook only with coconut or avocado oils
If you have gout, avoid bacon, liver, kidneys and alcohol
Eat a wide range of veg, fruits (especially berries), seaweeds, beans
Eat MSM-rich alfalfa sprouts, radishes, apples, bananas, strawberries
Get omega-3 fatty acids from oily fish, nuts and seeds
Add anti-inflammatory turmeric, ginger and garlic to dishes
Drink eight glasses of water a day
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
Dry, dull skin, hair and nails
Weight gain around the waist
Food cravings and/or allergies
Lack of energy
Muscle weakness
High blood pressure
Difficulty sleeping
Tension and irritability
Difficulty concentrating, poor memory
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.Ellie, 26, came to talk about her skin (spots, eczema) and how fat and anxious she felt compared to her friends, who were super-toned and gorgeous (she said). It didn’t seem fair as she went to the gym three times a week, slept nine to 10 hours a night, and ate only super-good-for-her foods. I was intrigued and asked for a rundown of them: Breakfast: smoothie of chocolate whey protein powder, with added green algae powder occasionally. Snacks: rice cakes, salami or carpaccio; daily energy or raw food bar (always after a workout); more whey protein in soya milk for an energy boost. Lunch and dinner: she’s not often hungry but eats high-protein, low-carb, low-cal foods: chicken with veg, steak with salad, sushi with rice. With the odd pud. Going out: Two glasses of white wine most nights. On big nights (twice a week), at least four vodkas with juice.
You can see why Ellie thinks she is healthy. But almost everything she eats has been mucked around with, bunged full of additives, put into packets and sold back to her as a healthy miracle. Except it’s not. Rice cakes, processed meats, energy bars, reconstituted whey powder and processed soya milk are in truth junk foods, best avoided. Even sushi rice is packed full of sugar.
It’s no wonder Ellie can’t lose weight: she is a sugar monster. I checked one of her energy and raw bars: sugars made up 37 per cent. Add to that her alcohol intake, which turns to sugar in the body. The foods were instrumental in creating not just her health problems, but also her anxiety. A high-sugar diet is an ageing time bomb. It is anti-youthing for skin. It whacks your hormones – which is why Ellie has spots and sleeps for too long – causes mood fluctuations and, of course, blood sugar swings. I told Ellie to junk this ‘healthy’ regime and eat foods as close as possible to their natural state; that’s brown rice, not rice cakes.
We came up with a youth-proofing plan that would set her up for a long and healthy life and make her feel awesome now. She cut the pseudo-healthy bars and powders (and anything else with more than 10 ingredients), and started eating plant-based, nutrient-rich and fad-free, but still high-protein and low-carb. She loved to snack, so I gave her some recipes (see here).
The amazing thing was that Ellie was able to stick to this new regime. The last time Ellie came to see me it was to say goodbye. She was happy: she’d stopped obsessing about her body and didn’t feel the need to compare herself unfavourably to anyone. She was a good 10lb leaner, with glowing, blemish-free skin, a mane of glossy hair and a new inner confidence that will set her up for life. My thought? You’re never too young to start youthing…
ELLIE’S NEW TAKE ON HEALTHY
Breakfast: grind hemp seeds and use in veg smoothies; make your own protein-rich nut milks; eat beans and pulses
Lunch: Cook high-protein whole grains (such as quinoa) at the start of the week and dress up with different salad/veg. Take a can of tuna, houmous or boiled eggs and Mixed seed crackers to the office
Dinner: When eating out, have fish or veg in Thai and Indian; anything (except tempura) in Japanese; the roast veg / beany option in Italian. Anywhere else, double up on protein ‘sides’ and whack in some greens, too
