Weight Problems

[CODACatWoman]

Hi there...

This is my first time posting. I have recently been dx with gulten sensitivity as well as very high levels for Candidia. I have been pretty successful in avoiding gluten and barley. My ibs stuff is way better. My issue at this point is the weight loss. I have dropped quite a bit, I'm down to about 105 and hating it. Any one else going through this?

Cat

[saintmaybe]

Hi there...

This is my first time posting. I have recently been dx with gulten sensitivity as well as very high levels for Candidia. I have been pretty successful in avoiding gluten and barley. My ibs stuff is way better. My issue at this point is the weight loss. I have dropped quite a bit, I'm down to about 105 and hating it. Any one else going through this?

Cat

I was rapidly losing weight, but made a concerted effort to address the issue since my doctor freaks out about it every time I'm in her office. If I've lost even a few pounds, I get a stern talking to.

What have you replaced your "gluten" diet with? You need to remember that you still need nutritionally dense foods off of gluten. I've found I had to reorder how I thought about food, and eat for nutrition instead of fullness. Also, many celiacs have a fat malabsorption problem, especially in the beginning of their healing. We still need fats in our diets to help us function, so focus on getting good fats from sources like fish (mercury free if possible!).

Also, I personally supplement with Boost, twice a day, fairly religiously. You may want to look into sublingual multivitamins, or other liquid nutrition, since tablet forms are ineffective at the beginning stages of healing.

In addition, for the Candida you should be eating at least one yogurt with live cultures a day, and be following what's called the Candida diet. Google it, there's tons of links out there. There are even people on this forum following it. It involves mostly restricting a lot of sugars from the diet until the yeast are under control, but believe me, I know from personal experience, you will feel a million times better once you have your infection under control.

Finally, you should check with your medical practitioner about getting on a six month to year long anti-fungal treatment of nystatin or diflucan. Yes, it does need to be that long. I had a very deeply ingrained systemic candida infection that is under treatment right now, and it is very difficult to get rid of. Also time consuming. It is my opinion that these infections are intractable without antifungals. I have done every herbal, every OTC, EVERYTHING. Save yourself time and heartache, please, and get the medication.

Hope this helps!

[thleensd]

It's a struggle for me to keep it on, but I've been successful - coconut, coconut milk, nuts, nut butters, avocado, lots of smoothies. I eat often. Even though I'm a fan of eating plenty of raw foods, I couldn't break them down for a good year, so lots of soups and stews worked well. Anything in a blender, also! I had to eat about 2x the recommended calories for my size/weight, but now I'm back to a fairly normal calorie count and maintaining weight. For a while, I was taking protein powder, which some people recommend, too.

If you have candida, yes, check out the diet... and stay away from sugars and white rice.

I have to go against the "boost" recommendation, here are the first few ingredients: Water, sugar, corn syrup solids, milk protein concentrate, vegetable oil (canola, high oleic sunflower, corn oils)... The LAST thing you need with candida is to chug down a bunch of sugar and corn syrup.

Add healthy oils to your diet, and keep at it. There may be some other sensitivity preventing you from gaining.

[CODACatWoman]

Hi there...

Thanks for the replies. I know my 1st post was general at best so I will try to go into a little more detail w/out boring you. My candida is 177 ...should be 100... I have made a conscious decision to focus on the gluten stuff. I had an endoscopy in March of 2010 and my upper gi is "smooth pink & healthy"...some doctors are not worth my time. After a lot of head,stomach & heart ache I was finally directed to an allergist who basically saved my life after taking 1/2 my blood.

I am lactose intolerant (have been most of my life so that was no big surprise). I cannot tolerate casein, whey, barley and oats. There are a myriad of fruits, veggies and nuts I have to avoid and that doesn't even include cocoa and vanilla.

He has given me a vegetable based protein powder that I admit I haven't tried yet In the meanwhile I eat chicken like it's going out of style; a ton of avocado; lots of poco de gallo with a ton of garlic. I am not a lover of fish...come to find out I have a sensitivity to white fish so that works

The idea of counting calories never crossed my mind..I will try that approach. I have always been hypoglycemic and have had low blood pressure w/a sky high metabolism rate. I am finding that I am starting to come out the other side with this mess after several years of frustration and thinking I am a hypocondriact going crazy. I even started therapy a little over a year ago.

I'm gonna be 40 in a couple of months and have never really had any health issues until this. I know it is manageable but dang it is a royal pain. Now they (doctors) are thinking I may also have fibromyalsia. My father and sister have it so am not too terribly concerned ... its just another thing.

I just don't want to be a walking skeleton anymore.

Thank you so much for y'all's patience and replies ... it helps knowing I am not the only one.

Have a great weekend!

Cat

PS..sorry for typos am doing this on my phone.

[Katrala]

I'm not familiar with Candida, but I did lose a lot of weight (approx. 70 pounds) before being diagnosed with Celiac and it's taken me about 6 months to put on 10 pounds.

This may just be my body, but I found it helpful to eat dinner (or a snack) later than I was used to, just before going to bed.

Nuts, nut butters, etc. are also really good for helping to gain some weight.

[rainer83]

I have the same issue. I used to be a very overweight child, up until I was about 19, then for 5 years I was about average, then gained 50lbs again, then lost it again. As I was losing it, I noticed I was having trouble keeping weight on. I had stopped going to the gym at this point since my membership ran out, but was still eating relatively healthy, but I was never gaining weight despite lack of physical activity. I've been the same weight for the last 4 years, gaining maybe 5lbs here and there, then losing it again. More recently, I've gone quite a few months since I've last really exercised, and only noticed a slight change of maybe 5lbs of weight gain in maybe 5 months.

Some things I did to even gain 5lbs was eat late at night before bed, even changed my workout routine to gain muscle mass instead of more cardio, and vegan protein shakes in the morning.