Urgh. Everytime I am to put on the vinegar I feel like throwing up. It smells so badly.

But, the good news, is that my face beams and looks healthier. Maybe it's the sun, too, but it's just so striking to see it look so fresh. Whee!
Bad news: I'm hungry and a bit weaker than usually. My legs constantly feel numb.
I'm using the Nivea Baby Panthenol Moisturizer for my morning regimen instead of the emu oil. Hoping to find one today in the town.


My skin is so soft. I'm glad I took this regimen.

Natawa, I'm SO happy for you! Maybe dilute the vinger in more water if it smells so strongly; however, as long it does not sting or hurt when you apply it and you are experiencing good results, it should be safe to gradually work the dilution ratio down from vinegar:water 1:6, down to 1:5, then 1:4, and so on down (after about 1 month if your skin is responding well) to 1:1, using a teaspoon measuring cup (i.e. 1 teaspoon vinegar to 6 teaspoons water in a bowl, dabbed on with cotton pad). At any rate, 10 minutes of a strong acrid smell are OK for good skin the rest of the day!

Are you also doing the supplementation regimen with all the vitamins, dermacleanse capsules, etc.? This is a really big part of it.

Also, did you do the liver flush with the olive oil and citrus solution after the apple fast, and did you see the floating greenish-brown gobs of cholesterol from your gallbladder and liver?
The good skin-clearing effects you are beginning to experience are even twice as powerful when you repeat the fast-flush 2 weeks after the first. I know that might seem like a bit much because you've only just finished your fast-flush and can now (finally!) eat REAL food, but the thing is that if you do the fast-flush again in 2 weeks the second time will be TWICE as powerful as the first. After then, you should do the fast flush every 6-8 weeks for several months, and then just 3-4 times a year.

You are probably feeling hungrier and weaker than usual because your body is adjusting for the first time in your life since a baby to not eating so much sugar and refined carbohydrates. You may be a bit run down for a few days or even a week or so, but then your energy will pick right back up, especially with the supplementation, flaxseed, etc., and after 1-2 weeks you will have MORE energy than EVER before! Quitting a primarily commercial/processed food diet is kind of like quitting smoking: you feel pretty crappy for a few days or even weeks as your body goes "cold turkey" and suffers withdrawal symptoms, but then once you've cleaned out your system you feel better and sharper than you ever did while smoking-- also, like quitting smoking, weaning yourself off a processed diet to when with more natural whole foods like the menu I've given you is (a) actually a lot cheaper, and (b) so much healthier that your skin will clear up and GLOW.

Also it is possible that a mild yeast/candida overgrowth, which most people used to high-sugar diets often have, is dying in your digestive system and bowels as you are starving it of all the sugar that it is used to have. Don't be scared! Candida is a totally naturally occuring bacteria in everyone's digestive tracts but it can and often does overpopulate your digestive tract when too much sugar is present. When the overpopulation dies out and is cut back down to a healthy size by having a healthier, lower-sugar diet like the one you are now adjusting to, it releases toxins into the blood that can make you a little woozy and queasy sometimes-- this is good because you are cleansing your system. The best way to speed up and manage this extermination of candida from within is by also supplementing with acidophilus and the garlic tablets I mention as well as minimizing your sugar intake as much as possible.

Keep it up Natawa and good luck!!!

But I didn't finish the fast yet.

Eeek! I totally forgot about the Epsom salts. I went to the cinema, stupid me. Urgh.
I guess I'll take a bigger dose before bed... I hope it'll work, or should I wait another day?

*Ahh, there is no way I can do the flush tonight. I have to purchase ingredients for Brunch and make the juices, get everything ready. I guess I'll go on water tomorrow.

**As I'm attending school and I cannot just take out my breakfast in the middle of the lesson, I'll guess I'll have to shift the meals back an hour. Or an hour and a half.

*** You say the dermacleanse capsules are very important, eh. If so, I can ask my dad back in Texas to buy them and send them to me, but that can take a few weeks, or even a month. So yeah, I'll carry on with the things I have, I think it's perfectly okay to add the capsules and so on, plus the emu oil I found on a Polish website, some time later.
Clumsy me. I should have gotten ready before starting this program.

Hi Antony

Just a quick question about the enema. If i didnt use it would this mean i would possibly get a temporary breakout becasue the body isnt able to excrete the inpurities soked up by the apple pectin through the primary channels temporarily but still experience the same longer term clearing and cleansing effects as if i used the enema. Im just asking becasue Gibson in the acne free in 3 days book seems to place much more importance on the enema for achieving significant results with the apple fast.

Enema is ideal but alternatively you can do bentonite/psyllium shakes http://sensiblehealth.com/gallbladder.html (scroll down to "step 2: intestinal cleansing") or 1 tblspoon cream of tartar in mug of hot water as recommended in program, but enemas are the most thorough and effective. it's really important to ensure optimal elimination of the toxins, cholesterol gobs from liver/gallbladder that are all a crucial aspect of flushing alongside the fasting, and so if at all possible you should do the enema. even with the enemas if you're especially toxic you might get a mild temporary breakout but it will heal very quickly and you'll clear up quickly after the fast-flush especially as you move on to the other components as completely as possible. i've found that saunas as detailed in the program really help with flushing toxins out of the skin with less risk of breakout during the fast-flush if the bowels aren't getting enough out the and body turns to the skin for excretion. however most important is a simultaneous or even prior intestinal cleanse so that the toxins can efficiently be excreted from your system and so your body can really do a thorough cleanse to give you as blank a slate and as a fresh a start as possible for rebuilding yourself acne-free, in a sense, from the inside out, by going through the program.
the site i've linked to you above is like "the original, professional's version" of gibson's get-rich-quick program he's selling to the layman. good luck!

natawa: just try to follow it as close as you honestly can and you'll be ok; when you have more time, like the summer, then you can try again following everything exactly, and you'll see even better results.

well, if nothing else I have to give you props. It seems your regimine takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work. Honestly, I didn't have the patience to even read the whole thing...got to the part about daily enimas and decided that wasn't for me but that could be why you're skin is now clear and mine isn't, keep it up if it works for you

Thanks for that. Just one other thing; Im on the regimen at the moment. Do you reccomend just swiching between using the full amount of BP to using no BP on your cleansing regimen because ive heard when you stop using BP like that u can break out pretty bad. I was thinking of just gradually reducing the dose over a period of 2-3 weeks

If your skin has become accustomed to a consistent BP-heavy regimen then this means that the sebaceous glands have become conditioned to produce even more oil in an attempt to lubricate the skin they sense to be so dried out by the BP, only you don't notice it because the BP is keeping your skin dry. When you suddenly stop BP your skin finally has a chance to "oil up" the skin it senses is over-dried, hence breakout. This is the great downside to a regimen that involves perpetually drying out the skin: so long as the underlying internal causes of your acne persist, the second you stop a topical regimen that works by drying your skin, your sebaceous glands will seize the opportunity to "fix" what they sense to be over-dried skin and will overproduce oil to compensate, thereby breaking you out. You've got the right idea: taper down your BP application gradually over the next 2-3 weeks while getting started on and phasing in everything else. Keeping your skin moisturized at all times during this stage will be especially crucial to ensure that the dermal sensors of the sebaceous glands do not "sound the alarm" to take advantage of the sudden no-BP opportunity to overcompensate apparent dryness by overproducing oil-- keeping your skin as moist as can be with a non-comedogenic moisturizer like those recommended will "trick" your sebaceous glands into thinking that their job of moisturizing the skin is "already done" so they don't need to produce as much oil themselves, minimizing any potential breakout as you wean yourself off the BP.

anthony,


can i do this while on a low dose of accutane? should i just go off accutane for 3 days since apples have no fat? also, what about an antibiotic, will this mess you up if you are on it?


how often should i take the p&b shakes during the fast [3 times a day??? ] and the 4th day???



can i take less than 200ml of olive oil, this is alot and VERY hard to get down -- what will happen if i skip this step and just do the apple fast / epsom salts / p&b shakes????



thanks for your hard work

eric, i think you should wait until finishing your accutane course and then start the program right away, as in the day after your last day of accutane, because your liver will be weakened by the accutane and this is actually a major factor in why people can breakout again in the months or years after accutane-- because not only do the underlying hormonal causes persist, but the weakened liver, despite its remarkable ability to regenerate, IS left to some extent less capable of carrying out its job of deactivating and eliminating from the blood the circulating excess and used hormones, which, when the sebaceous glands gradually re-enlarge and re-produce oil post-Accutane, will resume to overstimulate the oversensitive oil gland receptors to once again overproduce oil thereby blocking pores and breaking you out. This is conjectural and many variables are at play not just in acne in general but in acne's relapse versus remission for an Accutane patient, but I for one believe that a program like mine is, if it's EVER vital, then it is VITAL immediately after an Accutane course.

Of course you can and should do the whole thing EXCEPT the apple fast DURING Accutane, and can and would do well to re-start the program from the apple fast from your first day off Accutane (though waiting several days if not a week or so before phasing in any Vitamin A supplementation). However I would not suggest any significant detox/cleansing program like fasting or a liver flush while on Accutane. This can and should wait until after, if you promise to do it then.

As for the liver this is essential for the liver flush as the fats in the oil trigger the gallbladder to stimulate and utilize bile flow for fat metabolism, and ingesting this with the citrus solution is crucial as the latter causes gallbladder contractions expelling the bile along with cholesterol and other residues from both gallbladder and liver out through the common and cystic bile ducts into the colon for elimination (usually frequent and voluminous the following morning!). As nauseating as it may be to swallow, this step is simply UN-SKIPPABLE, if I may coin a word. Just plug your nose and swallow it down knowing that this DOES work, especially if combined precisely in the way I advise with the other elements of the program.

Good tips on how to make the P&B shakes and when/how to use them can be found here http://www.sensiblehealth.com. 3 times a day is certainly sufficient to my mind.

even though your accutane is low-dose i still think you should carry it to term as the potency of dosage dissipates within roughly 21 hours (though its effects last long after), this means that you potentially set back your course unless you are taking it at least once, ideally twice, every day. some derms prescribe once-weekly "maintenance" doses even but this is by far the exception and in such a case this fast would be acceptable but not optimal. it is best to have as few synthetic agents in your system as possible for full effect, and this certainly includes such a powerful body-dominating drug as Accutane; also you rightly point out you want/need at least minimal dietary fat intake with your Accutane doses for optimal absorption. if you MUST be on antibiotics then go with it, but quite frankly if you are on these antibiotics for acne then especially after Accutane they are probably really doing more harm than good and you should really give your body a break, especially to regenerate the digestive tract (i.e. probiotics, maybe L-glutamine and/or aloe vera and cranberry extract) after the antibiotics' steady irritation of the sensitive intestinal wall lining, among other things. if the antibiotics are for something other than acne and you need them by all means stay on them.

hope this helps.

dude! ur before and after pics look amazing.. looks shopped but i doubt it u got soo white on ur after pic. good job. but i dont think i can do ur regimen too hard.

no it's completely genuine, i don't even have a program for that or know how to do anything like that anyway, and why would i bother it's not like i'm trying to sell this to anyone, haha!

i'm naturally quite pale, and i think that my skin tone and pigmentation seems so different because i had very inflamed skin before and my program really helps soothe the skin while clearing it, both from within and without. my skin was actually much worse before the "before" pic was taken-- maybe i'll add others if i find them lying around.

you can do just the few parts of the program that you're able to and you'll see great results, but ideally with time you'll get more into it.

cheers!

Looks like a very thorough regimen. I've been meaning to do some cleansing myself. But I keep hearing you shouldn't do a liver cleanse without during a parasite cleanse first. Because you won't get many stones out. But you're saying the liver cleanse you specify doesn't get rid of stones? I thought that was an importatn part of cleansing the liver.

Holy shit. Antony, you totally transformed your skin. I mean really really really changed it. That's amazing. AMAZING.

Where was the second picture taken by the way? I think the lighting makes your features look a tad bit different, as does your avatar picture. Your skin, nonethless, looks luminescent after your program.

Excellent job, once again. I'm floored, and oddly enough, proud of you.

High fives all around!

Oh, and I forgot to ask, why wouldn't anyone perscribe Accutane to you? Your skin at the time seemed to warrant it...

that depends on your definition of "stones" which for me technically refers to calcified sinking gallstones, whereas those purged in those program are floating gobs of bile, cholesterol and other impurities. the confusion about this is what leads to all the debate between those who defend and oppose liver flushing in theory-- what matters is thatt in practice it is very beneficial. whatever the actual nature and constitution of the excretion, it faciliates detoxing and rebuilding liver function with benefits for acne as well as general health

i want to keep my program as simple and accessible as possible while keeping it thorough and effective, which is why i've left something like a parasite cleanse. if you REALLY want to get into it that far then by all means do a parasite cleanse as well www.sensiblehealth.com or read the works of Hulda Clarke for ideas. but for most people the program is more than sufficient and effective while leaving out the parasite cleanse and a more prolonged and thorough intestinal cleanse.

i've tried to strike a practical balance in my program between being as comprehensive and thorough as possible while not being absolutely so thorough and overwhelming as to scare off 99% of people who might try it. as it is, i think it only scares off about 95% ! ! !

thanks, i wish my derm at the time felt the same way. i've got crap from some people here that i look "totally fine" in my before pic. i guess we judge people's skin releative to our own. actually, if you saw my skin just 1 month before starting the program (1 month before the "before picture") you'd REALLY have thrown accutane at me and run-- we're talking mad cystic shit! i don't know, i just COULDN"T find a derm anywhere willing to give it to me, even though I'd been through antibiotics and loads of topicals over many years.

i live in dublin where i think it's a lot harded to get accutane than it is in the US, where if you look hard enough you can always find a cosmetic-surgeon fashion-savvy style derm who's more than willing to prescribe accutane for even the very mildest imaginable acne.


* * * I want everyone to know that I'm not hiding the fact that I did eventually get Accutane and am currently on it as of 1 week now (see my accutane journal linked below).

my program alone did clear me to the level you see in my "after" pic, but i went travelling a lot for a while and took my skin for granted, and even though my skin was and still is really good i got a lot of pressure from my agent and everything to clear up for my acting stuff. i got put in touch with a derm who didn't hesitate to prescribe me accutane and seeing as i was offered it, having it researched it to death, i was more than happy to take it.

that being said, i continue to follow my program to this day and will continue doing so for a long, long time, because it's made me feel so good in my body and mind and not just my skin.

dude is it possible to use BP on ur regimine?

im not using too much, just a thin amount at night and a little during the day
maybe i can just use it at night?

sounds great, im gonna start this

You can use BP but the idea is to gradually get off of BP so that you no longer depend on it, while getting your skin to the point it's not breaking out in the first place so the BP becomes unnecessary. It's hard to "quit" the BP because your skin is always trying to overproduce oil to compensate for the dryness it senses because of the BP-- this is why if and when somebody suddenly stops regular use of BP, their skin either gets very oily or they'll even break out-- so you have to (a) moisturize heavily and frequently to "trick" your oil glands into thinking that their job of lubricating the skin is "already done" so they do not need to produce oil themselves, thereby blocking pores and causing acne; and (b) use less and less BP gradually over time. If you really want to use it, it would be best at night, a thin layer, using less with time, and always ensuring that you moisturize enough in the day time.

If you are not using very much BP as it is, then I would recommend dropping the BP entirely and getting straight into the program. You can still use BP for occasional "spot-treatment" but not the entire face, as this will have exactly the effect (compensating perceived dryness at the skin surface by overproducing oil, thereby blocking pores and breaking you out) that we are trying to avoid. What this program does is essentially remove your dependence on topicals by stopping acne from inside, while at the same soothing and healing the skin from outside with the most gentle and moisturizing topicals possible.

I think it would be best if you used the BP for the occasional individual spot, but otherwise replaced it at least during the day with the other topicals advised.

I really wish you the best of luck with the program Reza!

thanks a lot! i got a PM from someone that my "after" pic almost looks fake-- as if I'm making any money off of this. I guess that's a compliment! my after pic was actually a headshot for my acting portfolio, taken on the date shown, around 2 months after following my program.

the lighting was very bright, which would actually make any imperfections more obvious, and i wore NO make-up whatsoever.

thank you very much for the support, i.g.m.p. i'm proud to say that i achieved that on a program i created through a lot of research and trial and error. however, the program itself despite all appearances REALLY isn't that hard-- maybe for a week or two, but you really get used to it and takes very little time and effort as it becomes part of your day to day habits.

if anyone else gives this a program a sincere attempt, i'm sure they won't be disappointed either!

-antony