Many of my clients come to me suspecting that they have candida and yeast overgrowth; others have general IBS symptoms with no idea that they are running too damp and have Candida and yeast overgrowth. If you want to have excellent gut health and feel mentally and physically strong, you need to look at the balance of good to harmful bacteria in your gut.
We all have a degree of yeast, Candida, microbes, parasites etc., but it only becomes an issue when the harmful bacteria outweigh the good.
One such imbalance is Candida overgrowth. I want to stress the overgrowth because, like all things, it is about a healthy balance so you can thrive, not about long restrictive plans that leave you depleted and quite frankly depressed due to the lack of fun in your regime.
Candidiasis
Candidiasis or Candida overgrowth is a form of yeast-predominant dysbiosis, causing a gut imbalance between favourable and unfavourable microbes. We do not wage war on Candida at Rejuv. We do, however, help our clients get back into balance.
Candida Albicans
Candida albicans is the most common type of candida/yeast infection found in the mouth, intestinal tract, genitals, nails etc. When your immune system functions optimally, this yeast infection is not severe and is easily treated for your immune system was designed to deal with such things and keep you well.
Invasive Candidiasis
When the immune system is not functioning well, a candida infection can migrate to other body areas, including the blood and membranes around the heart or brain, causing severe candida symptoms. This is referred to as invasive candidiasis.
Common Candidiasis Symptoms:
- Oral and genital thrush
- Fungal infections of the skin and nails
- Digestive problems and IBS symptoms, including gas, bloating, leaky gut or anal itching
- Depression/anxiety
- Sugar cravings
- Weight gain
- Bad breath and a white coat on your tongue
- Brain fog
- Joint pain
- Reduced libido & fatigue
- Urinary tract infections
- Poor immune system
- Hormonal imbalances
Clearing The Candida Overgrowth
Clearing your Candida overgrowth is a game changer, and you can read about actress @milliemackintosh’s journey with us on her Instagram profile and in the Daily Mail. She also tweaked my granny’s Immune Boosting Chicken soup recipe and shared it with her 1.3M followers on Instagram.
As with any treatment, balancing your Seven Pillars of Wellness will help dissolve Candida overgrowth. It’s not enough to do a ‘Candida Diet’. and frustrated as the results are slow and the die-off can be very difficult.
In the short term, you may be on a diet where you remove foods that cause the overgrowth, but once your microbiome is back in balance, all my clients go back to living a healthy and fun lifestyle.
When I treated Millie Mackintosh and Elle Macpherson, they experienced only mild symptoms for a few days due to opening up their detox and digestive pathways to allow the harmful bacteria to flush out. This is a pattern I’ve noticed with thousands of clients over the last 25 years. You can read more about the symptoms of die-offs at the end of this blog and if you download the Free Gut Healing Guide.
To avoid the nasty die-off symptoms, I suggest you support your detox pathways.
Our Gut Healing Pack is best for you if you have gut issues. If you have gut and mood issues, then our Gut-Brain Reset Pack is best for you, and both come with a full protocol for the month, including an eating plan and how to support your Seven Pillars of Wellness.
The Seven Pillars of Wellness is the cornerstone of our naturopathic approach at Rejuv Wellness. This framework is often referred to as The Laubscher Method, as I created it based on 25 years of research and clinical experience.
My Top 5 Tips For Reversing Candida Overgrowth
By eliminating grains, sugars, fruits, starches and alcohol from your diet for a month, you will starve off the Candida. These are short-term eliminations, so while we are starving the Candida, we are reinoculating it with good bacteria and using herbs to fast-track the die-off so the client doesn’t have a tough time.
1. Remove Items That Weaken Your Gut Microbiome
Antibiotics, artificial sweeteners like sugar, and aspartame, and non-GMOs deplete your gut microbiome. Unfortunately, antibiotics destroy good and harmful bacteria in the gut, which can lead to many gut issues, including IBS, bacteria/candida overgrowth and infections.
Your gut microbiome is like an exquisite rainforest, and antibiotics are like a wildfire that ravages the ecosystem.
Artificial sweeteners, such as Splenda and Nutri-sweet, tend to enable an overgrowth of undesirable bacteria that can lead to sugar/carb cravings, brain fog, raised risk of obesity, eating disorders, diabetes and manifold other diseases.
Processed foods, non-organic and GMO foods, are risky due to the high levels of the pesticide glyphosate. Glyphosate can stimulate an overgrowth of harmful bacteria and impair the gut lining (causing a leaky gut). Chemicals in tap water, such as fluoride, chlorine and aluminium, can also diminish the microbiome’s delicate balance.
2. Increase Your Daily Fibre
Fibre acts as a prebiotic because this is your good bacteria’s preferred food source. Fibre also supports overall digestion and transit time, promoting colon detox and positively affecting your overall health. If your fibre is too low, your stool will likely be stinky and sink.
A healthy fibre intake creates a stool that will float. If transit time is too slow, food tends to ferment and rot, releasing harmful toxins and feeding your bad bacteria. The goal is to feed your good bacteria and starve your harmful bacteria.
Foods high in fibre and low in sugar include chia seeds, psyllium husks, quinoa, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut, avocados, berries, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts, green leafy vegetables, asparagus, cucumbers, apples, onions, garlic, chicory and artichokes.
It is best to aim for 30-35g of fibre per day, so around three/four teaspoons of psyllium husks per day or three cups of green veggies and three cups of coloured fruits and veggies per day.
If you struggle eating fibres, take one heaped teaspoon of our Rejuv Digestive Complex Powder in a glass of water 20-30 minutes before a meal.
Doing this doesn’t just feed your good bacteria and drive a craving for healthy food; it also balances your blood sugar levels to make you feel full. And you even lose unwanted body fat as a side effect.
3. Cut Sugar To Reset Your Gut Microbiome
Sugars feed your harmful bacteria, and fibre feeds your good bacteria. When your good bacteria is high, you crave healthy foods. When harmful bacteria are high, you crave sugar and junk foods, as this is their preferred food source.
High GI foods and sugars mainly feed Candida which exaggerates your sugar cravings and is linked to depression and brain fog. Cut the nasty sugar and use stevia or monk fruit sugar instead.
Alcohol is also high in sugar, so do a 30-day detox to support this process. If you find cutting sugar, refined carbs and alcohol difficult, you can add in two of our Blood Sugar Support Capsules to reduce your cravings.
4. Use Herbs & Essential Oils
Herbs and essential oils are potent in helping kill Candida overgrowth. I love Aloe Vera, Cloves, Grapefruit Seed, Thyme, Rosemary, Cinnamon and Oregano oil. You must have these daily and in relatively high doses to be effective.
After treating clients for so many years, the feedback was that this was quite difficult, so as a result, I formulated our Candida Gone capsules. You only need to take two capsules daily for 30 days and follow my top 20 tips to succeed.
If you have had gut issues for a while then your best call to action is our Gut Healing pack which comes with a full protocol to support all of your 7 Pillars of Wellness for long-term success.
5. Increase Fermented Foods & Probiotics
I advise my clients to eat fermented food daily, such as organic kefir, coconut water kefir, sauerkraut or spicy kimchi. The number of good bacteria these foods provide is extensive and tends to impact your microbiome significantly. Probiotics are also very convenient in supplement form, but I always combine the pre-and probiotics as the prebiotics are not only the preferred food source of your good bacteria.
You may have histamine intolerance and overreaction to fermented foods if you have many intestinal issues and severe bloating and IBS symptoms. Therefore it is best to start with probiotic and anti-bacterial herbs such as oregano and rosemary until your body can tolerate the fibre and fermented foods. It will also be essential to boost your good bacteria with a good probiotic such as Rejuv Probiotic Max or our Gut Repair which specifically targets Candida & other harmful bacteria.
Candida Die-Off Symptoms You May Experience
Rapidly killing off candida and microbes in your body creates a metabolic reaction that can release over 70 toxins lasting for 1-3 weeks. This is why we suggest not just doing a candida diet, for you need functional and digestive support to process these toxins out ASAP, so you have the most effective and easy result with symptoms for only a few days.
Symptoms of doing a candida, parasite and gut healing program can include:
- Brain Fog
- Headache
- Fatigue
- Dizziness
- IBS symptoms such as bloating, gas, constipation and nausea
- Sweating and fever
- Skin breakouts
- Flu-like symptoms
Candida & Mycotoxins
Candida produces mycotoxins that sometimes impair the apoptosis process (the body’s ability to detect and destroy mutated cells), allowing cancer cells to thrive unprotected.
Candida overgrowth also protects cancer tumours, acting like acid glue to hold cancer cells and tumours together. These little lavender cells may look harmless, but they are little time bombs waiting to destroy your health. So for long-term health and wellness, it is wise to get tested and to kill off any Candida overgrowth.
What Causes Candida Overgrowth?
There are many possible causes of Candida overgrowth, including;
- A diet high in sugar, refined carbohydrates and alcohol
- Regular use of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics
- Oral Corticosteroids
- Cancer Treatments
- Diabetes or poor blood sugar regulation
- Weakened Immune System
- High stress and worry, which impair digestion
- Binge eating/drinking
Tests For Candida Overgrowth, Parasites & Poor Gut Health
You can check your tongue for a white coat to see if you have oral candida but the most effective is to do our Free Wellness Quiz to see what your top 3 wellness pillars are to focus on for your overall health.
Next, you can purchase a Home Urine Test Kit to confirm your levels of Candida due to the organic acids build-up of bacterial origin. Contact us for a stool testing kit if you feel you have other gut or parasite issues .
Do You Need More Tips?
If you want to see my top 20 tips to clear Candida overgrowth and reset your microbiome – download my free guide here.
To build your free Wellness Profile, click here.
