How to Get Rid of Candida According to TCM

Hi Guys! We are going to cover the basics on how to get rid of candida. There are different diets to kill candida, but this post will specifically explain the TCM approach.

What is TCM?

TCM stands for Traditional Chinese Medicine. It explains how foods acts in the body and when used correctly can prevent and treat disease. Chinese Dietary Therapy is a system of TCM that teaches you how to evaluate one’s body and know what specific food can heal specific conditions. One example is if you carry excess toxins you want to eat more detoxifying foods.

What is Candida?

Candida is a yeast overgrowth called candida albicans. It feeds off sugar and stress.  Many people have this and don’t realize it. A few causes of candida include a diet high in refined carbs, drinking excessively, medications like birth control and over-antibiotic use, chronic stress.

Symptoms of Candida Overgrowth:

Candida can be the root cause of your leaky gut and many imbalances in the body. It could be the reason you have sugar cravings all the time. (it loves sugar and will make you go crazy for it) Other symptoms include: acne, eczema, bad breath, mucous in stools, reoccurring fungal infections (like ringworm), digestive problems, itching in the ears, allergies, brain fog, anxiety, and autoimmune disease.

In Chinese Dietary Therapy, they call the imbalance “dampness”.  CDT focuses on the energetic properties of food to use it as medicine.  For example: when you eat excessive mucous forming foods, too much sweet and salty foods, and weaken the digestive system, your provide the perfect environment for dampness where candida can thrive.

How Do you Know if you Have Candida?

You need to do a stool test. You may be reading this and have a lot of these symptoms. Personally, I don’t recommend a strict candida diet just because you think you have it. You could have other imbalances of bacteria and a stool test can show you all of this. You can apply some of the CDT principles to start to feel better. Note: you will not get rid of candida with just following a diet. You need to supplement with the right probiotics, anti-fungals, and anti-bacterials which you can find out from taking a stool test and working with a consultant.  

You can read more about my stool test results here if you want to see what they look like.

The Chinese Dietary Therapy Approach to Get Rid of Candida.

Next, I want to connect the dots with CDT and candida.  Flavors is one part of how CDT approaches healing imbalances.  It teaches you to look energetic properties of the body and then nourish the body accordingly with the flavors that restore balance.  

The 5 FLAVORS of Chinese Dietary Therapy:

The goal is to eat all 5 of the flavors and use them to keep the body in balance. For example, a weak, thin, dry person should add more sweet foods to build and strengthen the body. Sweet foods provide quick nourishment and energy.  But eating in excess can lead to sluggishness and create an environment for dampness. No flavor is good or bad. It is just about looking at what your body needs energetically to re-balance!! Let’s dive into each flavor so you can start to see how each flavors supports you. 

1. Sour

This is a cooling flavor. It has an astringent effect which brings in fluids and firms up the tissues. This flavor is most active in the liver.  It is used to breakdown fats and protein, support assimilation in the body. You want to avoid if you are damp and feel heavy in the mind/body, feel tight, and/or constipated. Examples: lemon, lime, sauerkraut, vinegar, fermented foods

2. Bitter

This is a cooling flavor. It brings the energy down, dries fluids and excess. It helps to drain dampness. It helps to lower blood pressure and toxins out through the bowels. This flavor helps those with excessive heat and dampness. It is used for conditions like yeast overgrowth, mucous, acne, cysts, swelling, parasites, and lethargic/overweight people. Examples: dandelions, bitter melon, celery, romaine lettuce

3. Sweet

Sweet helps to build up and strengthen the body. It helps to relax the body and brain. It warms up the body.  Sweet is very helpful for low energy, cold, thin, dry, nervous people. Too much causes sluggishness and damp conditions. Examples: all grains, legumes, beets, apples, carrots, potatoes, honey, cherries,

4. Pungent

Pungent helps to move energy up and out. It circulates blood or qi in the body. It helps to stimulate digestion, get mucous out of the lungs. This is helpful for those who prone to dampness. Too much can be drying. Examples: spearmint, rosemary, garlic, onion, cinnamon, dill, fennel, black pepper, horseradish, peppermint, radish, turnip, taro root

5. Salty

Salty brings the energy down and in. It helps to moisten and soften the body. It supports digestion, detox, and bowels. It can be used to increase appetite, sore throat, constipation, and lumps in the body. You don’t want to overuse for dampness, excess weight, edema, and high blood pressure. Examples: sea salt, soy sauce, pickles, miso,

Tips to Building a Plate to Get Rid of Candida:

The focus should be intentional on bitter and pungent foods. You shouldn’t avoid all the other tastes, but you should be aware of the eating patterns (too much sugar/salt/sour) that got you to the imbalance.

• Drying foods include: mung beans, millet, quinoa, chickpeas
• Bitter foods include: leafy greens, radish, celery, romaine lettuce
• Avoid damp foods.
• This includes: greasy, deep-fried foods, excessive sweet foods, alcohol, over complicated meals, dairy (mucous forming)
• High quality protein, grass-fed and organic

Note: TCM states to limit meat from your diet and stick to more vegetarian. I don’t agree, but I do agree that you need to get rid of poor quality anti-biotic meats. High quality grass-fed beef is very nutritious and is helpful to strengthen the body while detoxing to get rid of candida.

In conclusion, include on your plate bitter and lots of non-starchy vegetables. As well as, high quality protein that is 100% organic and 100% grass-fed. And should limit starchy carbs (mung beans, quinoa, starchy veggies) to 1-2 servings a day to start. I recommend avoiding fruit as well. A few berries are okay, but you should not be eating handfuls and handfuls. You must be intentional on limiting sugars/carbs to let the candida starve. As it is very easy to accidentally overeat on the sugars.

Side Note:

YOU SHOULD NOT EAT LIKE THIS FOREVER. Carbs are essential to building up the body, keeping us warm and fertile. This is in no way telling you to avoid carbs. The goal is to strategically avoid carbs for a short time to get rid of the candida that is harming your body and causing you to feel like crap and if you let it continue can cause chronic disease or an autoimmune condition.

A full candida protocol will be much stricter and specific to your body and constitution.

Issues with the Candida Diet:

A candida diet can turn into a life-long diet of under eating. You must be intentional to eat large meals because it can be hard to get in enough food.

I do not recommend just doing a candida protocol that you find online. You want to follow a plan that is catered to your body and your life so you can get faster results. You don’t want to keep eat this restrictive and than find out, you could have done it a better way…

Ultimately, the goal is to be so healed that you stop thinking about food and your body all the damn time. And doing the candida diet for the 10th time does not achieve that!

My Personal Experience:

In past posts, I share about my gut healing and quitting sugar for 90 days. This time it was different.

After I got my period back, I knew my digestion had to be fixed. And I did functional testing and worked with a practitioner to get a specific protocol for my body. I never thought that my sugar cravings would disappear when I healed my gut and got rid of candida.  Healing from candida can give a lot of freedom. Overall, it helped me not to think about food all the time and it helped me to heal my digestion which ultimately gave me my confidence back.

Conclusion:

I hope this post gave you a good taste of TCM and how understanding its principles can help you restore healing. And if you are looking for a personalized healing and functional testing to get rid of your candida for good! – Click here to apply to work with me 1:1!

And/Or if you are interested in learning more about the TCM principles, leave a comment below and I will create more posts about it!

To personalized true healing!
xoxox