Breaking Bad

I recently canceled my cable. Who cares about regular TV anyway when there are incredible shows you can catch on DVD or download off the Internet? Breaking Bad happens to fall into this category. From the pilot episode, I. WAS. HOOKED. I know I said "Mad Men" was quite possibly the best show ever, I take it back. You've seen Don Draper screw one woman here, one woman there, it's no surprise. "Breaking Bad" however, keeps the viewer on its toes with the twists, turns, and adrenaline pumping action! The thing I love most about it, (besides Bryan Cranston & Aaron Paul) is that the line between good and bad is SO very blurred. Is making meth a true justification for a means to an end?

I absolutely adore Jesse Pinkman and Walter White! Their chemistry (no pun intended) is fantastic. The dialogue is very real and their interaction with each other is the real reason I love this show so much, plus the story line of course.

I am waiting for season 4 to come out... maybe in 2011?

Anti-Candida Diet - Day 10

I'm not gonna lie. This diet is very consuming, and I crave sweet stuff still. It's a lot less than before, but will you catch me longingly staring at that delectable bite sized chocolate going into my co-worker's mouth at work? Hell yes. Not having anything sweet makes me not want to eat my unsweet, boring food, so therefore I don't eat as much, which means I have probably lost about 2-3 pounds, which means I can fit into my pants again! Score!

BUT, this diet isn't all rainbows and puppy dogs... it's very difficult to do and is unrealistic if you have a busy social schedule which requires you to go out, drink, eat whatever, etc. I have skipped out on a few happy hours to stay on track. That said, I am really missing my bread and sweets. My solution? Scouring the internet for any bread-like recipes I can find that don't contain sugar or yeast.

I already had some coconut flour from before when I was experimenting with gluten-free stuff, so I decided to give it another whirl. I've made some pretty good unsweet bread that I can eat with raw butter. Straight out of the oven, I put some butter on it and it tastes almost as good as real bread, but of course coconut flour comes out a lot more dry than regular white flour. But it's good enough for now and it is fulfilling my mood for bread. I also eat it with organic almond butter... yum. I don't know if this I can consume TOO much coconut flour on this diet. Today I felt like I was going a bit overboard with the amount of bread I was consuming. Not sure if I'm supposed to limit this particular food, but I figure it has no flour, no yeast, no sugar... can't I have as much as I want?

Anti-Candida Diet

Yes people. I'm blogging about my dietary habits once again. After the marathon, I was probably in the best shape of my life. I was slim, eating healthy, cut out coffee, and best of all, my pants fit so nicely - even my tight ones.

Jump to 5 months post, and a combination of running only a few times a week (3-5 miles at the most), cancelation of my gym membership, drinking a lot more, eating out a lot more, and consuming chocolate on a regular basis, I was back to feeling bloated. I haven't gone on the scale, but I probably weigh 3-5 pounds more than I did during the marathon - which was 118.

I'm not so much concerned with the number itself, I am more concerned with health problems I may incur in the future, too much sugar consumption, caffeine consumption, and a hunch that I have what is called the candida yeast bacteria living in my stomach. Candida feeds off of sugar, so that explains why I crave it all the time. I also feel hungry and bloated all the time.

When I say "sugar," I am also including the sugars from fruit as well. Of course I'm not planning on cutting out fruit for the rest of my life since it's a natural food that is good for you, but only until the candida is killed off. For now, the only fruit I consume is a green apple chopped up in my kefir, but I'll get to the recipes in a minute.

Here are the foods I was eating almost every single effing day. As you can see, I am lazy when it comes to spicing up the foods in my life...

Morning: banana - [high in sugar], cereal (Joe's O's from Trader Joes or Cherrios) - [also high in sugar], yogurt - [high in sugar]

Lunch: sandwich - the whole wheat bread was feeding the bacteria from the yeast.

Snack: peanuts - [also feeds the bacteria b/c peanuts are considered moldy], peanut butter [same thing, and it has sugar in it], cheese [moldy and feeds candida], chocolate - my favorite is Dove Dark Chocolate.

Dinner - take out... fried foods... wine... beer... fast food... anything really along with some diet coke or sugary fruit drink.

All of these things I was eating on the regular explains to me why I was always craving something sweet. The more I ate it, the more I wanted more. At my lowest point I was eating 1-2 bars of Dove Dark Chocolate DAILY. I actually managed to cut out chocolate last July and have only cheated here and there. However, I can't say I stopped myself when there were baked goods lying around - brownies, cakes, any kind of bread. YUM! Needless to say, I can't even so much LICK the sugar off my fingers if I were to pass someone a donut.

So I am on day 5 of the candida cleanse and I feel great but tired. Did I mention I am also cutting out alcohol for the next month? Alcohol also feeds the bacteria. So much for socializing! The pants that used to cut into my ever growing muffin top now fit perfectly or are slightly big! I doubt I lost weight, I probably just lost all the "sugary water weight." If there is such a thing.

I plan to stick to this diet for 4 weeks, and then move on to phase 2 where I can slowly start to consume fruits - I can't wait to make smoothies! Thank God for Stevia. Apparently it's the only all natural sweetener derived from the Stevia Plant that doesn't feed the bacteria.

But for now... I'm stuck with eating:

-greens of any kind

-unsweetened kefir -> mixed with some chopped up apples and stevia... it's pretty good!

-almond milk (unsweetened)

-any kind of shrimp, seafood

-lean meats, chicken

-avocado

-eggs

-coconut & coconut milk (my favorite!)

-hummus

It's not SO bad. Sometimes I really crave some sweets, but knowing I've come 5 days without touching it really helps me to stick with it. Do a google search for the anti-candida diet and a lot of the recipes go hand-in-hand with the South Beach Diet, gluten free diets, etc.