CANDIDA RETURNS

I knew it was going to happen.  I've been going down a very unhealthy path with food and I knew it would catch up to me.  And it has.  My dear old friend Candida has decided to move back into my body and I am not too happy about it.  Not only do the symptoms suck, trying to cut out pretty much everything I love to eat is just horrible!  Next to impossible!  Without being able to stay home full-time and experiment all day in the kitchen.  And even if I COULD, my back and neck would never let me get away with that.  Cooking now consists of doing most things that I can sitting at the table and if I am made to stand, taking breaks every 10 minutes or so to rest my back.  It's ridiculous.

And the only way to ensure that Candida doesn't hold me down is to fight it.  By going back to eating yeast-free.  Which has HUGE benefits, but is extremely difficult to master.  In fact, I didn't master it last fall when I was diagnosed with it.  I did awesome.  For 6 weeks.  Then I had knee surgery and allowed myself to believe that while I spent just one week recovering it would be OK to eat whatever my husband brought to me, since I couldn't cook.  And once I was back on my feet, the healing process took WAY longer than it should have.  Top that off with out-of-control neck pain for the next several months, here I sit, having gained back all the weight I lost last fall, with a gut that is terribly sick.  I may even need to get antibiotics and an anti-fungal from the doctor to combat it in these beginning stages of trying to rid my body of it.  I was so miserable yesterday that I said "Enough is enough."  So it's back to a yeast-free diet I try to go.  :-(  I know that ultimately it will be a good thing.  A great thing.  I'll feel better physically and mentally, not to mention emotionally, so you wonder why I don't always eat that way...but let's face it.  Running through the drive thru or cooking frozen fish sticks or corn dogs on a school night takes WAY less time and energy after hustling four kids everywhere and working all day.  Yes, I realize that is a run on sentence.  That is how I intended it to be!

Anyway...so today I went back through my "files" of gluten-free web pages to try to find a casserole to make.  We're having movie night at church and the theme is casseroles.  Needless to say the fattening stuffed chicken casserole I was PLANNING to make has been nixed.  So it left me having to create my own.  And I remembered that The Gluten-Free Homemaker had a post about creating your own casserole, so I'm being brave and experimenting, which usually NEVER goes well!  EVER...I have a small portion baking right now and IF it turns out, I will post pictures and the recipe later.  If it doesn't turn out, well I am sure I will be back later to whine about it.