The McCombs Plan

So today (Tuesday, 8/18/09) is Day Six of a sixteen week Plan that Husband and I have embarked upon: The McCombs Plan. The photo is of the supplements (just for ME) that the plan uses. With Husband's schedule, he's just following the eating part of the plan as best he can, the supplements would be impossible for him to keep up with.

The Plan has four elements: 1. Supplements, 2. Drink Water, 3. Sweat, 4. Eating Plan.

The goal of the plan is to kill off fungal candida overgrowth, re-establish proper intestinal flora balance, and discover and eliminate what foods you are sensitive to. We all have candida, it's part of the normal intestinal flora, but with our modern diet and overuse or misuse of antibiotics, it grows out of control, causing a multitude of problems.

1. The supplements help to kill fungal candida, flush it out of the body, and re-establish proper flora. You take a detox supplement for the entire 16 weeks. This is primarily megadoses of Vitamin C, along with some other immune boosting herbs like echinacea. You take a candida-killing supplement for the first 8 weeks. After 6 weeks you add in an acidophilus supplement. There is no point to adding the probiotics before then, as the candida is too strong still and will overpower it.

2. Drinking water (1 quart per 50lbs of body weight) also helps to flush it out. We all know this is good for us. I actually already drank about this much water every day, so it's just a matter of accounting for me.

3. Sweating also helps to flush the toxins (that you are killing off) out of your body. You are to do this 6 times a week. This, to me, is the strangest part of the plan. I mean, it makes perfect sense once you read the explanation, but when I first heard about it, I wondered what on earth it was about. You see, exercise sweating doesn't count, it has to be in a bathtub or sauna. Hunh? More about this in a minute.

4. The eating plan limits what the candida feeds on, and as it's also an elimination diet, it helps you figure out what YOU react to. The first 8 weeks are the most restrictive, but it's *quite* a reasonable diet. You may eat: All meats except pork. All vegetables, including starchy ones. All fruits except oranges. Eggs. Brown rice (any form). Coffee, Tea. Olive oil. Coconut oil. (If you are not hip to coconut oil, read up on it, it's a remarkably health-giving substance!) Not a bad diet at all! It's sort of what I "claim" to eat anyway, but this is forcing me to put my money where my mouth is, as it were. After 8 weeks, you add back classes of food, one at a time. This way you are able to isolate your reactions and see what exactly you are reacting to.

So anyway. They send you a checklist to keep track of your supplements, water consumption, and sweating. I have mine on the fridge, and have been doing really well so far. On Day 2, I had a brain fart and had an iced latte at Starbuck's, but have not fallen off the diet wagon other than that. I've taken all my supplements and drunk all my water each day. The one thing I have not done is the sweating. On Day 2, I did my 30 minute bath, but as I have yet to figure out how to incorporate this into my daily routine, I have not been doing the sweats. Uh oh. See, here's the deal with the sweating, quoted from the book that accompanies the plan:

The major detoxification organs of the body are the liver, lungs, GI tract, and skin. Fungal Candida increases the toxicity of the entire body and thus overloads the detoxification system. Therefore it becomes essential to detoxify the body through its largest detoxification organ - the skin. ... Please Note: If you fail to follow the sweating protocol, your body will experience what may look like a cold, sore throat, etc., due to its attempts to detoxify the body through already overloaded systems.

... the sweating that results from [exercise] is not the same as the sweating that occurs during a dry sauna or a hot bath. The sweating that results from a hot bath or sauna involves conducting heat from outside the body to the core of the body, and toxins stored deeper within the body are released. Only sweating that is induced with a sauna or a hot bath will work to efficiently and effectively detoxyfy your body on this plan. If you avoid this step, you will likely develop a sore throat and cold symptoms.

I keep looking at my checklist and saying, "Oh my goodness, I have GOT to do that sweating!" but not doing it. Guess what? Last night, I realized my sinuses were filling up. And I woke up this morning with a sinus headache. It's by no means the worst I've ever had, but it's a great reminder of why the sweating must be done!

I have wasted my "bath" time making this entry, but I am on my way to the gym, where there is a sauna, so I will investigate that for the first time.

So there is my life for the next 15 weeks... Wish me luck! ;-)

*Update*: I took the plunge and did ten minutes in the sauna at the gym. It was fairly pleasant. The time went pretty fast because there was another gal in there to chat with. Interesting: I had sweat running down my leg from my operated knee. My other knee just had a few drops on it. I noticed this one day at physical therapy, too; that my working knee was sweating, but I chalked it up to isolating that leg in the exercises. This is different, my whole body was sweating, but more from operated area. I'm totally, totally fascinated by this!