The first six weeks

The first six weeks of my journey, I had changed my diet drastically. I was eating about 1500 calories per day and consuming lots of lean meats, whole grains, fruits and veggies. I had discovered a little farmer's market right by the hiking trail where I hike every Saturday and the fruit there was so amazing. Living in the desert, it is hard to get your hands on such tasty fruit! I was doing the Insanity workouts Monday through Friday and then hiking on Saturdays with a rest day on Sunday. I was still drinking, but cut down to once a week and wasn't drinking in the same massive quantities that I had been drinking in the past.

After about six weeks, I just wasn't seeing any positive results. I had gained two pounds, was feeling bloated and all of my jeans were fitting tighter than they were before I had made the changes. It sucked. I had no idea what was going on with me. I got depressed, started to lose motivation. I took a week of eating everything bad that I could find and basically sulking. But during this time, I didn't give up completely. My mind was still partially in the game, I just had to figure out how to get past this hurdle. My sister had told me about something that she thought she had at one point, and I started to realize that I may have it too...it's called Candida Overgrowth. Basically, it is an overgrowth of fungus that lives in your bloodstream. It is normal for people to have some candida in their bodies, and usually the good bacteria in your gut helps to keep it in check. But, when someone has to take a lot of antibiotics the bacteria in your gut dies off which allows the candida to grow out of control and cause problems. What I found out is when you eat sugar, it feeds the candida and only makes it stronger and more prominent in your bloodstream. It was causing me many symptoms that I had been experiencing for years and never knew what to contribute them to. And, when candida is in your bloodstream and you are giving it a continuous food source (sugar) it will make it impossible for you to lose weight. After this discovery, I knew what had to come next, another change!