Sugar

Hot creamy chocolate milk: it can be flavored with cinnamon, orange, raspberry, french vanilla, candy canes: any pick is a winner.  Especially when you can make it with milk and it is warm, and the flavor bursts on your tongue, and warms you up from the inside out. 
Add a donut, (or even better pan dulce), and it is the perfect winter treat.

Then you have the classic, never-go-out-of-style-even-if-you-are-freezing-to-death-treat.  (I'm referring to ice cream).  Creamy rich flavored goodness, sometimes filled with yummy surprises like chunks of chocolate peanut butter cups, or swirls of cookie dough/pie crust. Yum.

There are delicious cakes with rich chocolate mouse fillings, warm pies, cheese cakes, eclairs, cream filled donuts, cinnamon rolls.  There are heath bars, starbursts, skittles, rich foreign chocolate bars. The list goes on and on.

And suddenly the door closes.  Your doctor looks at you and tells you that your disease means that you can have no sugar whatsoever, EVER.  (Unless you want to hurt inside). And as you walk away in a daze you hear him call out "Don't forget! NO MORE HAPPINESS!"

At least, that is what it felt like.  Candida is an immune system disease, and pretty difficult to get rid of.  It is furthered/worsened by stress and by sugar (and white flour, rice, processed foods, ect).  It begins when your body's system of good bacteria (the stuff that your system uses to digest food and things) is de-balanced or wiped out. (Mine came because of an anti-biotic).    The only cure is to eat a strict diet of veggies, whole grains, unprocessed meats, and less-sugary fruit until your body has re-balanced itself.  Which may not seem so bad, but every time you give in and eat sugar (which your body screams for) you start over. Yeah.

So all these do-gooders who decide to share/offer goodies out of the kindness of your heart, you're killing me! Not literally, but it is funny how short my self control is.  I mean, when I'm feeling the pain, its pretty easy to say no. But if I've been good for several days, then I'm not hurting, and someone walks around offering gooey warm chocolate chip cookies and my short-sided (or forgetful) brain thinks hmmmm, i've been so good, just one wouldn't hurt..... And then I'm sick again. In fact, I've decided that the AA advice to stay away from others who have your same addiction is sound for that reason.  But I have a problem, we live in America. What am I supposed to do? Move to a poor village in China? I may have to!  I challenge the reader to look at the ingredients labels of things you eat, and I'd be willing to bet quite a lot that you never realized that sugar is in EVERYTHING!  I'm not kidding.  Cheese crackers, breads, lunch meat, chips...

The good news to this story is that now I must eat healthy by force.  So I suppose (if I can stop cheating) I could be an experiment to see if sugar is the cause of other diseases such as cancer, Alzheimers, ect.  Because I wouldn't be surprised!

Another good bit to this story is my amazing husband Tanner. When he found out that I had this disease (back when we were first dating) he said "hmm, I'll live the diet too."  And he has!  Can you believe it?  I can't think of a better husband out there.  Such a great man. 

But anyway, the next time you walk down the street and see something delicious (probably sugary). Think of me.  Maybe even take a bite in my behalf. :)