Before I start, I want to warn you that you may find yourself questioning this advice because I’m not charging you $75 a bottle or $25 a book for it. I’m also not going to claim that you’re dying of a disease or that “toxins” (the internet’s favorite useless word for the science-illiterate masses) are the cause of your skin problems. What is recommended here costs no money, is promoted for general health by the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association, and has worked so well for me that I went from layering cover-up and foundation over giant, month-long boils, to wearing no foundation, and people barely being able to see the scars left by those boils (see the picture of me to the left. It was taken after about a year of following the advice below. That said, you should see great improvement within the first week of starting the diet). This will work for any skin problem and is backed by plenty of science.
Steps to Perfect Skin
First of all, the root of all skin problems is inflammation in your body. What I recommend are evidence-based ways of lowering the inflammation levels in your body by a great deal. This wont just give you healthy, beautiful skin; it will help you lose weight, lower your insulin levels, and prevent you from getting diabetes and heart disease! There is nothing not to love about this!
1. Eat a diet that consists of carbohydrates that are below 55 on the glycemic index. The glycemic index is a rating system for foods which is based on how large of an insulin response the food triggers and how quickly it raises your blood sugar. A list of low-glycemic carbohydrates and some other foods can be found here. In general, while you shouldn’t cut carbohydrates completely out of your diet, eating less carbohydrates per meal and balancing them out with a healthy fat and a large amount of protein (20+ grams of protein per serving!), will go a long way toward reducing the blood sugar spike responsible for skin problems. An example one-day meal plan is detailed at the bottom of this post.
2. Only wash your face once per day and do not scrub anything into it! I use one squirt Dr. Bonner’s castile soap into my hands, rub them together, and lightly touch them around the outside of my face near my hairline. Then I fill my soapy hands with water and splash it onto my face until the soap has been washed off. At no point do I rub soap all over my face; I touch the soap to the skin near the edges of my face and only rinse until the soap is gone. Doing more than this will dry out your skin. Do not use any other chemicals, such as vinegar, baking soda, or toners on your face! The truth is that most of the bacteria on your skin are healthy and you need to stop killing them off constantly by washing too many times a day and/or with chemicals that change the pH of your skin.
3. Put lotion on your body and then pat your hands, which still have a thin coating of lotion on them, over the sections of your face that tend to dry out. Do no use drying agents, such as tea tree oil!
4. Always use sunscreen.
5. Take 4-5 high quality fish oil pills per day. Fish oil is incredibly anti-inflammatory and will speed up the effects of everything else on this list. In addition, fish oil promotes brain and heart health and is a natural pain reducer.
6. Drink only water and green tea (and drink those in high amounts!) Coffee, alcohol, fruit juices, milks, and all varieties of fake, sugar-filled drinks will increase inflammation levels throughout your body and and contribute to break outs.
7. Get plenty of sleep. I didn’t realize how important this was until I entered graduate school and started missing more hours of sleep than I had since I was a teen. Suddenly, I started getting little break-outs again. One long night of sleep is all it takes to make these little flare-ups disappear.
8. Add some of these activities into your life. They have been shown to reduce your cortisol levels, which is the main hormone responsible for overall inflammation in the human body. Your skin will thank you.
Clear Skin Sample Diet
The idea here is to show you how to match proteins, fats, vegetables, and low-glycemic carbohydrates into a healthy meal. Basically, you should eat 20 grams of protein, a small portion of carbohydrates, a large portion of vegetables, and enough fat to make you feel full. On that note: do not ever try to eliminate fat from your diet. You need it to metabolize half of the vitamins in your body and it helps you feel full.
Meal One.
Spinach-Stuffed Chicken (as much as you want)
1 cup or less of Three Bean Salad minus the sugar (do not put the sugar in this recipe into your bean salad!)
Raw vegetable of your choice with lemon juice, salt, and olive oil dressing (as much as you want)
Green Tea and Mint Tea (this is a great tasting drink. Just pop a mint tea bag into the cup with your green tea and enjoy a calming drink that’s almost sweet without using a grain of sugar.)
Meal Two.
Green Tea and lemon juice.
This is a complete meal. If you don’t want to buy ground chicken, just put whatever cut of chicken you normally get in the food processor with the spices.
Meal Three.
Cilantro Shrimp with Green Beans.
Cheesy Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes.
Water with lemon slices.
I guarantee you that if you stick to this list and low-glycemic recipes, such as the sample one, for a week, your acne will disappear!
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