271 replies to this topic

[tim12]

2 Green smoothies a day have really benefited me! I still haven't gotten a new active, which is flippin awesome. I noticed today that the scars have noticeably faded, only a couple major scars show up. I started writing in my journal nightly again, and I need to buy some kind of day planner as well. Procrastination is not good for stress, this is one of my worst points that I need to work on! Get to go grocery shopping with my fam on sunday, so I'll be sneaking in all the healthy foods when they aren't looking

[HelloLovve]

Hey, so I read through your posts, and maybe I missed it....but can you tell me what kind of tea you're drinking to clear your skin and where to buy it? Thanks very much.

[wicky]

all of you have provided great info on gluten/soy/dairy/sugar free foods. I've been doing this for 3 months now and am slowly and i mean slowly seeing improvement. I;ve lost 21lbs since November 1. Im 5'9 and now weigh 135lbs. As great as that is i would give it all up for clear skin. I have access to any supermarket, whole food or trader joes stores but am completly overwhelmed when i go shopping for supplies. I need help and ideas on what to eat and recipes. This is what Im taking:

100mg of spironolactone
Propranalol for high blood pressure
Iron
Zinc
Tumeric
Im eating very healthy: salads, chicken, salmon, meat, veggies, fruits..I do have rice milk in the morning on top of my rice puffs with flaxseed. I stuggle with daily spots that arise on my jaw line and tons of clogged pores in my chin that have created such hyperpigmentation from picking. I dont know how to keep the pores from building up. I've tried everything as far as topicals..Paulas Choice Products, mandelic acid. I was on and off doxycycline for 1 1/2yrs. I did help with the clogged pores but i did not want to stay on it for long periods of time. I've been on spiro for 10months and am wondering if ii need to up my dosage. Im dry and flakey as well and cannot find any moistuizer that works well in controling dryness without breaking me out and clogging my pores...The oils were the worst for me. I've used seabuckthorn, jojoba and grapeseed. Ive also done OCM and it was horrendous!!! I get such cysts from jojoba and every once in a while i dont learn my lesson and try it again when i read all the fabulous review...I would appreciate any input or guidance you have...especially on the food thing

[Thehoper]

Well spiro messes with hormones. I'm a big believer in not messing with your hormones through artificial substances or supplements. Eating a balanced diet, exercise, and real sleep is what levels hormones.

And rice milk and rice puffs are high in soy, you may have an intolerance. I do and many others do. Those who react poorly to gluten 9/10 react bad to soy.

Just remember to eat whole nutrient dense foods. Foods with 1 ingredient are always best. Anything with more then 1 ingredient should be inspected carefully. I'm very strict on what goes into my engine.

Hey Tim I started taking MSM for my red marks, just started last night so it is too soon, but I'm excited to see if it helps.

[tim12]

HelloLovve,

Lol I don't blame you for not catching it, there's so much to read through on here! I drink Yogi Detox tea which has a lot of stuff like burdock in it that's good for acne, and also the Skin Detox which is similar to the detox tea but it has green tea in it. It doesn't really make you run to the bathroom or anything like that, so no worries there. I buy the Yogi tea from vitacost.com, but it might also be at a health food store. If you have a TJ max or Marshalls near you, there's another brand that I like called Dr.Stuart's, and their detox tea has lots of great anti acne ingredients in it. Hope you can find them! I plan on drinking "real" tea eventually, these bagged teas are great and convenient but a lot of the times they don't have the best quality of ingredients.

wicky,

I would check out Tangerine's website which has some gluten/dairy/soy free recipies, and there's some good stuff online regarding paleo recipes and stuff. Try adding more ginger and garlic to your diet, those are both anti inflammatory foods and are often included in herbal supplements for clearing the skin. Have you tried honey masks? They're super nourishing for me, and I like to just wash it off without a cleanser that way there's trace amounts of it left to keep my skin hydrated, and it's antibacterial as well as anti inflammatory. I don't know too much about Spirro unfortunately, but best of luck to ya!

Thehoper,

You were spot on with the cravings, they've started to subside now that I've been surrounding myself with healthy foods, and cooking stuff that tastes good too. I've only been seeing good things since increasing my green smoothies to 2x a day, but hopefully I can make mine more "green" like yours and cut down on all the fruits I add in to lower the sugar, but I haven't seen a negative impact from this. I'd just like to make it more green healthy etc since otherwise I find it hard to eat uncooked greens with a few exceptions here and there. And that's awesome that you got the msm, I hope it works out good for you! It's supposed to do a lot of other great things for you, help with nutrient absorption, shorten recovery time, to name a few.

[Thehoper]

Awesome. In the past couple days I've been back at it researching a ton for acne/nutrition. My younger sister is going through what I went through, and see wanted me to make her a guide. I made a guide that was over 7 pages on word LOL. And I emailed her a couple of those articles you sent me, so thanks again for those.

I'm glad the cravings are dying down. It DOES happen. Everyone thinks the cravings will never go away. They will only never go away if you keep failing into temptation and caving. If you stay strong they WILL die out.

All Gobi Teas at my local grocery store are on sale right now 50% OFF!! Normally 3.99 now 1.99! Tomorrow I'm going back and getting at least 5 boxes. I love Gobi Tea.

But back to what I was saying before, through the more and more research I do, I've come to a conclusion. All these different types of diets don't matter. It's all about getting to the basics. Eat as many calories as it takes for your body to maintain your weight. If your trying to lose weight, well lucky you, because I'm starting to REALLY think low calorie diets result in an instant acne slaughter.

For me to maintain my weight I need 3,000 calories. So if I stay within 3k-3500 I'm good. I finally have just told myself I'm done with trying to get huge. I'd rather have clear skin, and incredibly ripped anyway. I'd also rather have amazing stamina with keeping up my cardio, and just being a quick kick ass mo fo. 170lbs all muscle is what I want to be. I keep going up and down from 160-180. But I know I still have SOME fat, my body fat is around 7%. But I want to be 3% or less body fat, 170 and totally cut. If you watch UFC, GSP is my perfect body look. He's at 170 and looks 220. It's because he is pure muscle.

But yeah, enough calories to maintain your weight or less, medium healthy fats, proteins. Medium-Low Carbs. HIGH fiber and veggies. Low to no fruit or sugar. Eating all whole nutrient dense foods, and taking the right supplements. It's the ideal acne diet IMO.

[tim12]

Dude I know what you mean. I've always been somewhat of an ectomorph. If I want to be buff like ripped hella huge, I'd have to follower some super bad pro acne diet and proteins with all this stuff that possibly exacerbates acne. I know it's possible for me because when I was eating a high calorie diet during the summer and taking protein I gained almost 10 pounds in like 2 or 3 weeks, but my acne was :/. So I'm just going for as cut as possible and slowly naturally building weight, but I know I won't get uber buffs. Bruce Lee is a big idol for me in that respect, super cut dude.

And man that's awesome you're doing that for your sister! My sister is a mean esthetician who yelled at me about all I was doing wrong for my skin, yet didn't give me any right information to follow. Hurray for free consultation -_-

And I've been seeming to transition fine without the caffeinated teas, but if it affects my skin or not idk. But I used to be hooked on caffeine so I'd rather not slowly build an addiction to it again, so I may only have things like green tea every once in a while, but I don't know if this will upset my hormones or anything. It'll take experimentation I guess.

As far as the status of my skin, it's doing perdy good! I didn't change my sheet for a week and woke up sleeping on the side of my face, and I had one pimple. But it's just one pimple so I ain't trippin yu'kno. haha It's healing fast too so I'm not worried, might be gone by tomorrow!

Edited by tim12, 07 February 2011 - 04:08 PM.

[Thehoper]

Bruce Lee is bad ass haha, that is a good example. And yeah I only have green tea only a couple times a week now as well, and I have the naturally decaf kind, but it STILL has 4% caffeine. I just drink herb teas. If I have green tea, it's in the morning, so I use the energy from the caffeine.

Hmm too bad about acne script. I was just thinking yesterday I can't wait to get off my supplements. I want to cut down to the basics. A great Multi, Digestive Enzymes, and a probiotic.

Everything else is just supplementary. I take A LOT of supplements.

Morning: Wake up and have my probiotic immediately with 1 liter of water. When my breakfast is ready I have one digestive enzyme. I think I'll always take digestive enzymes and multi-vitamins but that is perfectly fine with me.

Then I wait an hour after breakfast, have water, and take:
Reservatol, Milk Thistle, Niacin, Pantheotic Acid, Taurine, Zinc.

Then at night an hour before bed, I take:
Pantheotic Acid, Saw Palmetto, Vitamin C, Calcium, Vitamin D, Liver Aid, Aloe Vera, MSM.

I mean damn. Haha. When I look at everyone I see a purpose for everyone too lol. But I can cut down the C, D, Calcium, Niacin, and Zinc all into one multi. Soon I'll be cutting out the Saw Palmetto. Probably only keep Reservatol, Pantheotic Acid, Taurine and MSM then. Then eventually only keep the B5 since that does a lot for me. So yeah slowly get back to the basics..

Edited by Thehoper, 25 January 2011 - 09:38 AM.

[tim12]

GAH -_- I slipped up TWICE the past two days badly. I was studying and doing homework, and my mom brings me a sandwich, and then halfway through eating it I was like "WTF AM I DOING -_-" So I took a digestive enzyme and drank 2 extra cups of water. Then today at school my friend bought me a hamburger, and I ate like 3/4 of it because I was too busy talking and I said the same thing. By the time I got home, I had 3 or 4 more actives, some healing stuff refilled, and certain areas of my face looked redder, kinda like a flush and it made my scars seem more prominent? My complexion besides the scars prior to the past two days had been amazing. I guess it's important to not get caught up on this one trip up and keep on recovering!

I've been drinking tons more water than I already do, I pee between every class etc. I'm not sure if this can be bad in the long run, but I don't ever feel bad or anything (other than the fact that I have to pee a lot), and I wake up maybe once a night to go pee but with my normal water intake this isn't a problem.

But honestly, I'm not THAT upset because my skin is still relatively clear, I mean at the end of the day right now I only have 6 ish pimples and they always clear up super fast now, and I'm using topicals that my face generally responds well too including home remedies so that's a plus. hopefully I'll get back on track asap!

Hoper,

yeah man I Bruce Lee was incredibly lean. He really emphasized the importance of your core, something I definitely need to work on. I'll still probably take enzymes, multivitamin, normal doses of fish oil, vitamin D, tumeric, teas, and possibly some other stuff. Hopefully I can get most of the stuff from my diet eventually!

Edited by tim12, 07 February 2011 - 04:08 PM.

[tim12]

Another new milestone! I started adding broccoli in my green smoothies. Nothing but a slight aftertaste, I find that for me personally blackberries mask the flavor of greens much better than blueberries, but I use both. Hopefully this will have a great effect on my skin as well as my overall health, since I won't lose any of the nutrients in broccoli over cooking it.

[tim12]

About 4 actives right now, one is at it's peak I believe and is like a big sensitive pimple, but it's not a cyst thankfully. The other 3 are healing. Acnescript still isn't here, and I'm sure my stuff will clear up eventually, but I really think the supplements dramatically increased the rate of how fast my skin was clearing. I tried a bit of my Murad Sulpher mask that was laying around, since that worked in the past and minimized pores. Let's see how this goes!

[tim12]

So I used a hot washcloth for about 3 minutes off an on to soften up the almost cystic like pimple, and it actually deflated quite a lot, and then I pricked the head and popped the mother sucker. What a satisfying feeling.

Yeah, idk what's going on with acnescript, but it's been two weeks since I ordered it and I haven't gotten it. I'm not too pleased with their inability to email me back and tell me what's going on.

[tim12]

The good news is that sticking to my diet has stopped any new actives from popping up. The bad news is that my current actives now heal as slow as they did before without the acnescript. I sent them a couple emails giving them 48 hours to at least say hello or something lol. Brocolli/Spinnach/Kale are awesome for green smoothies, too bad I ran out of Kale and Spinnach for this mornings, so I'll go grocery shopping again later for it.

Also, It may be that I mixed the moisturizer/mask/tamanu together and it worked on the scars, but I increased the dosage of my vitamin c to 1.5 grams and it seems that my scars faded a lot more over night, probably a combination of both.

[tim12]

So sticking to my diet and being strict has helped a lot, I'm basically back to just scars again. I wish my acnescript would get here sooner! 2 green smoothies a day ftw! Paleo Caribbean stew is awesome as well. I've been having beef every other day too, that's been helping me to not feel hungry. Chicken and some sort of seafood daily too.

[Thehoper]

What's the paleo stew recipe?

[tim12]

What's the paleo stew recipe?

Whatsup Ryan! haven't seen you in a bit. Here's the original recipe Here

I modify it by adding more garlic, 2 onions, 4 tablespoons of cumin (love this stuff), 1 blended chili pepper (instead of using the powder), and I add coconut oil to taste at the end. For the seafood, I use uncoocked frozen shrimp and peel it myself. It's cheaper this way, and less processed, but idk if this really matters. I use crab as well. I was about to buy those mixed seafood bags, but I saw that the imitation crab is made with wheat. This is FANTASTIC man, it tastes great, and it's healthy!

Edited by tim12, 30 January 2011 - 12:00 AM.

[tim12]

Well crap, I'm breaking out :/

Now I don't know if it's from having beef 2 days in a row, using only water, or not using acnescript, or skipping my morning vitamins, the paleo soup (it really shouldn't be since it's paleo), but I got 3 cysts on my forehead. I never got cysts in my forehead, I mean not 3 at a time all at once. I'm going to start taking 100mg guggulsterone 12 hours apart to help combat this, as well as curcumin and aspirin. Damn, I was really close to clear skin. Good thing is most of my scars are healing up, but I can't say that this hasn't hit my happy go lucky attitude :/

Positive thinking though! I'm sure everything will be fine in a week. I have to have synergy between my mind and body. wooo sah.

[pokemonster]

dude idk wuts that guggulsterone thing but r u sure its ok to take aspirin? :/ i know it can be benefitial for facials but idk if its that good to use it internally tho, if only for rare occasions n so, do u plan to use it like daily or something? how can it help breakouts anywayz? :/

[Thehoper]

That soup looks fantastic! Definitely going to have to try it.

Too bad about the breakouts. But I want to note this. It seems like you have really changed your diet now for the past month or two, really starting to change your body. I went through 3 tough months of what I think were "detox breakouts" where my jaw and forehead got really bad before they went clear. Be lucky you only have 3 breakouts! Haha but yeah, hopefully everything stays in moderation.

Keep eating right and try to not care about the breakouts, I swear not thinking about your skin is awesome therapy itself. Mirrors love to create acne.

[wicky]

ive heard that guggul has very similiar properties to tetracycline...I already take tumeric. Have you taken guggul before and if so, how soon did you see results?