I lost it completely over Christmas and cheated for almost two weeks solid. The funny thing is during and just after the cheating I felt so much better, some of my symptoms were barely noticable. I have now been back on the diet for a week and I feel terrible again! My symptoms are all back! Does anybody know why this could be?

Depends on what you ate mate. I've experienced this too.

One, it could be that what you ate interfered with your body's mercury elimination to a degree where you were no longer getting symptoms. Sugar and milk can do this.

Two, certain foods can significantly affect your biochemistry. Sugar can give you a kind of high, and anything like it which causes an insulin surge can also cause your body to convert a lot of tryptophan into serotonin. Plus, sugar affects your opiate receptors, and it stimulates endorphin production. It also raises cortisol, which could feel like a relief to you if you have adrenal exhaustion.

What a sweet deceiver sugar is. I keep falling into this trap myself. Sometimes the short-term relief is nice, when it comes (it doesn't always). Unfortunately there are always consequences to face.

Would you like to tell us what you ate, mostly, and how it was different from the way you normally eat? Maybe you've actually been starving your body of a certain nutrient it needs and it was telling you big-time.

I have had this. I don't know why it happens excatly, but I assume it maybe because It feeds the yeast, keeps it happier and slows down healing in the process, allowing for a temporary sense of "feeling relief". So you get a sense of remission of symptoms for a time until the sh*t hits the fan.

Then when you go back on the diet, you get hit by a ton of bricks sometimes from all the garbage your body is now trying to deal with again. That's the only explanation I have for this.

Going back on my cruddy diet long term would no doubt leave me in the state I was - suicidal. The short term cheats I've had do the typical and leave me feeling "ok"...so I think I got away with it for a time. But then you go back on the good diet and your body now starts to deal with the build up and you realise what cheating really did. OUCH, healing symptoms are not easy and they are usually not over quickly. Many times I"ve had WEEKS of it to deal with until there is some improvement.

It also depends on how bad your yeast is. If it isn't "too" bad, then sure you may get away with a looser diet and be "ok", apart from needing to chelate metals with a detox protocol. But I'd not bet on that too much, candida can really take a toll and it's only when you're treating it and fighting it, that you have to go through the healing process, which is not usually pleasant but at least allows the body to begin asserting itself.

So I would say going back on this diet for you and getting all those symptoms would be having to go through healing crisis and yeast die off. Believe me, you can feel better when you feed these guys (for a time). But things start to go wrong down the track that is far far worse than the temporary pain of die of and healing.

Like yourself, I cheated badly over XMas. It was triggered by something quite simple (a baileys coffee with milk) and from there I "treated" myself to anything and everything with the "what the hell" attitude, "It's xmas afterall".....well, the same senario hits. I feel ok, I think I"m dealing with it...in fact oddly I think I feel "better" and this is the trap. So you keep on going with it not realising the amount of sh*t you are storing up in the process and putting any healing completely on hold...actually regression if anything in my cheating experience.

To have to go through the entire process of getting back on track for me has been a long and painful painful process. Truly it has never been worth the cheats!!!! I can never say "well I'm glad I did that". If anything it's left me in total despair of how sick my body actually is and how long it takes to recover because my immune system is at rock bottom.

I feel for me, that cheating is nothing more than a slap in the face to myself. I always hate myself for doing it. I maybe a more dramatic case senario though. My issues are not just candida and mercury, they are deep infection related which is why I don't tend to make normal progress from efforts I make.

The most is a certain control of symptoms, but right now that would be enough for me.

Yes this has happened me too a few times,
I have noticed that if I had a square or 2 of dark chocolate,I would feel euphoric for a few hours.last year I did this every day for a few weeks and when I stopped one day I really paid for it.
felt really ill,phsically,mentally,felt so awful...
Strange thing is the last time I ate a few squares of dark choc,I didn't experience the euphoria or the crash later,it's been 3 months since the last amalgams were replaced,I wonder if my body is more able to handle things now,maybe I'm finally healing.I was also able to tolerate a slice of rye bread last week,which is incredible,I could not tolerate any gluten or gliadin grains for years.

Hi Sunflower, that is a really good sign. For me, the sickest I've been has been when "cheats" have given a false sense of improvement. When I wasn't as ill, cheating would bring almost IMMEDIATE bad responses because my body was asserting itself quickly and the recovery was fast too.
So at that time I barely cheated at all because recovery was quick and cheats brought on immediate symptoms. It was actually FAR better than it is now!

So now I get lead into unfortunate big cheating senarios because my body is so SLOW at asserting itself, and won't show there is a problem until I hit rock bottom and have to start again. Then healing is long and painful and the lesson is too.

The fact your body is beginning to do a turn-around in this area must mean the underlying condition is being dealt with and it is neither giving false sense of improvement or later crash symptoms. I hope this continues for you, it's GREAT when that happens. I was there too when I had detoxed enough mercury (before this virus).

Now I"m a mess and it's an ongoing process of battle.

I generally ate and drank crap, your typical Christmas food including takeaways, chocolates and alcohol. I also drank tea and coffee during this time. My 'normal' diet on Heshams advice is lots and lots of vegetables, whole grains (particularly Quinoa), Eggs, Natural Yogurt and nuts and seeds. Plus copious amounts of water.

It may also be worth noticing that I stopped taking my supplements during the cheating. The supplements I take daily are vitamin C, Selenium, Multibionta (vitamin/mineral supplement) and Calcium/Magnesium.

I agree with what you are saying Bex, it doesn't feel worth it when you go through the 'getting back on track' process.

The fungus & bacteria(bugs) that inhabit your digestive system actually live off the junk food, so when you eat the junk initially you feel good. Your bugs are happy because you are feeding them what they need to grow strong and thrive and get bigger. When you withdraw the junk the bacteria, fungus or whatever it maybe, is denied what it wants and it lets you know by making you feel terrible. The bugs cannot use the healthy food to live as well as the junk food. With the healthy food your body can fight off and kill the bugs which is called die-off or maybe just another on-going battle.

The bugs use up the nutrients that you intended for yourself which is why u need to get rid of them.

Hi Mark, your xmas binge sounds a lot like mine! But I didn't stop there, I continued doing it because I had already ruined it. Bad move. 3 weeks later with ideal diet and I'm still ill.....Sugar doesn't just feed yeast, it also lower immunity directly as well and does so much more!

I found that when I was including bits of sugar here and there and continuing to eat gluten in things, I was horribly sick, even though I was eating good food along with it. So unfortunately total exclusion is often necessary for those very ill with yeast problems along with good food. Gotta do both!

I wouldn't overdo the water, apparently it can be as bad as not having enough. A website I trust greatly advises against this. I will need to find the reasons, because I read them once and now forgot. But one thing is certain, this is something i never bought into. I think it's ok if you are doing it temporarily as a cleanse, but I would not do this all the time (just my personal opinion). Don't get me wrong, I realise fluids are necessary and I have them, but not too much of it. Just when I feel like it. I don't necessarily wait till I"m thirsty, but I don't guzzle them down daily either. I have a big glass of vitamin C with half a squeezed lemon, 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt (celtic or rock salt) and warm water (almost hot). I do that once in the morning and once in the evening and during the day I just have herbal tea, but not overboard.

How do you do on grains? I cannot eat any of them. Once I could eat them, but could only eat non gluten/wheat grains. Wheat apparently is treated with mercury fungicide too! And gluten is very bad in mercury toxic people, so that is one thing I steered clear of. If you can eat non gluten grains, you're lucky. I wish I could. I LOVE rice cakes, though some people think they taste like cardboard! I love eating them, but cannot do that anymore.

I eat eggs and meats mainly, yoghurt, nuts/seeds and vegetables. I guess I do ok on this, because anything else just feeds yeast in me. I eat a lot of good fats as well which is healing. Not the bad kind like toxic plant oils - canola etc.

The supplements sound really good. Perhaps they too can aid the process of die off and maybe cause extra symptoms too when you're healing?

Yeah, getting back on track is a bummer! I cannot believe so far it's 3 weeks and still no sign of improvement. Normally it takes about 2 weeks....so geesh, I must have really done it this time.

I think Hal Huggins nailed it in his book with his dietry recommendations of what to eat and what to avoid. He's been spot on with me!

From my experience and in my opinion it's not worth straying from the healthy diet.The suffering is too much & too painful!
I think it comes down to being careful,maybe indulge a little
if you really want ,but balance it out with something healthy.

Like a square or 2 of chocolate after a healthy salad is much easier on the body than just the chocolate alone.
Or a glass of wine with a healthy meal instead of a few drinks on an empty tummy or a tummy full of junkfood...

I know it can be a challenge to avoid/refuse all of these things
especially when family &friends are indulging all around you.

I am happy eating a raw carrot as they eat their sweets...I know my body will be better for it, function better, feel better and I won't feel ill later because of it.
It's just not worth it.

People call these foods "treats" I say they are "threats"

I continue to disagree with Bex on water intake. Large regular water intake has been an essential part of me getting better. 100pct essential. Was one of the first things I discovered I had wrong with me. I was chronically dehydrated.

This is just a small part of a long very interesting article about water from Tim O’shea (of vaccination fame) summerising Dr Batman work.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WATER
Without food, most humans will die in a month, if they have water. Without water, 10 days is about it. Water makes up 75% of the body, 90% of the blood, and 85% of the brain.
An odd little book was published in 1994 that made quite a stir: The Body's Many Cries for Water, by an MD named Batmanghelidj. A claim is made by this doctor that the cause of most diseases is simply dehydration. Dr. B provides the reasoning as well as dozens of case studies to support the cure of a variety of illnesses by simply drinking between two and three liters of water per day.
Doubting such a theory because of its overwhelming simplicity, the reader is shown that physiologically, it makes perfect sense. As Dr B points out, dry mouth is a late sign of thirst. Saliva is produced even in chronic dehydration, because it is a digestive enzyme. Thirst, or the need for water on the cellular level is something entirely different. Chronic dehydration brings its own symptoms, which we have been conditioned to cover up, either with food or with drugs. Here are a few examples of dehydration signals:
SYMPTOM ------- USUAL REMEDY
• peptic ulcer
• antacids
• craving sweets
• sugar
• depression
• antidepressant drugs
• allergies
• antihistamines
Dr B reports his successful treatment of 3000 peptic ulcer patients using water alone. Anecdotal? He explains how ulcer pain is really a thirst signal. It actually makes sense: if the intestine is too dehydrated to adequately refresh its mucus lining every time after the acidic products of digestion have passed by, the lining will become irritated and painful. The intestine is not protected from digestive acid like the stomach is. Antacids will only temporarily cover up the problem. Rehydrating the tract will enable to intestine to form adequate mucous lining, thus reducing acid irritation. (p31)
Similarly with depression, allergies, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, and addiction to sweets, Dr. Batmanghelidj shows how balancing the extracellular fluids and lowering the concentration of the blood to a more normal dilution can bring consistent resolution to these and many other illnesses.
It's almost too simple. But Dr. B takes the reader through the physiology of each illness. His premise is hard to deny.
Obviously such an approach is not going to gain the favor of the drug cartels; here's a guy telling people they don't need heart medication and diuretics and insulin and Prozac and Viagra and pain drugs any more. All they really need is two liters of water per day. What if he's right and people find out about it? The drug business is the foundation our $1.5 trillion medical budget. See the dangers?
http://thedoctorwithin.com/index_fr.php?page=articles/water.php

Well worth the long read. The Dr batman book is about 100 times better than the article.

Not going to mention Masaru Emoto? Or homeopathy?

Water is groovy stuff <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I don't think we understand as much about it as we think we do.

or the magic clouds?

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Crap, I'd forgotten about that completely. The brain fog is getting in the way of things a bit. I think I might buy that little book for myself and do my dispel-the-clouds trick for my husband as promised <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I fell off my diet too during the holidays and I have been craving sugar like crazy. I drink a lot of water but I will try a little more and maybe that will help. I read somewhere that just because your stomach growls doesn't always mean it's food the body is needing....could be water it's wanting. I also read chapped lips are a sign of dehydration.