26 replies to this topic

[josh1000]

I used to be moderate: painful lumps, face looked wrecked. I’m 100% clear. I’ve been 90-100% clear for about 1.5 years. When I slip down from 100% to 90%, I know what I’ve done wrong. I’ve done this naturally. I love looking in the mirror every day and seeing my perfect fresh looking skin. I WANT EVERYONE ON THIS BOARD TO FEEL THE SAME ABOUT THEIR SKIN TOO, I WISH THE VERY BEST FOR ALL OF YOU, WITH ALL OF MY HEART: IT'S MY INTENTION THAT THIS POST WILL HELP SOME OF YOU.
 
It’s time I put something back into the community, for free.
 
How?
 
First I’m going to tell you what is going to completely trash you. ACNE IS RELATED TO BLOOD SUGAR – THERE IS NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.
 Refined sugar: You might as well drink bleach, in fact at least doing that wont give you any spots. This is so bad for your body. Because refining strips the sugar of it’s vitamins and minerals, digesting it causes your body to deplete its own stores of nutrients. It COMPETELY SCREWS your body eating refined sugar, even in small quantities. Your blood sugar shoots up to an unnatural level, your pancreas becomes stress and secretes too much insulin to bring the blood sugar down. This slowly wears out your pancreas, adrenals and your liver. Eventually your organs find it impossible to regulate your blood sugar properly. NOTE: DRINKING FRUIT JUICE IS NOT HEALTHY. IT IS TOO SWEET AND STRESSES YOUR PANCREAS IN THE SAME WAY AS SUGAR DOES.
Refined carbs: white bread, pasta, white rice, some cereals. Refined carbs screws up your blood sugar just like refined sugar. If you are eating pasta or white bread or any other refined carbs you might as well just not bother doing anything to get clear and consign yourself to having acne for life. DO NOT EAT REFINED CARBS. Refined carbs stress the pancreas and wear out your adrenals.
FACT : Refining strips sugar or carbs of their natural nutrients. So to metabolise them your body must deplete its own stores of nutrients. This gradually makes you increasingly deficient in nutrients. The high phosphoric acid in soft drinks strips the vitamins and minerals from your bones. The huge amounts of sugar in refined sugar and carbs completely scramble your body's ability to naturally regulate its blood sugar and have an insidious and VERY DESTRUCTIVE effect on your health.
Alcohol: Screws up your blood sugar, just like refined carbs and sugar do! A beer and pizza = recipe for guaranteed acne.
Caffeine: Also wear out your adrenals. Green tea is the only exception, and personally, I would only drink that VERY occassionally.

Transfats/Refined oils: If you're cooking or frying anything using cooking oils, again, you are asking for acne. Same with eating margerine or any of that rubbish. “Vegetable oil causes hormonal inflammation that usually results in the nastier breakouts that you suffer from. That being said, it should be the first food you avoid, starting today! When I quit consuming vegetable oils like sunflower oil, rapeseed oil and soy bean oil, my skin improved so dramatically that people were commenting on how good my skin looked all of sudden!”

I'm not going to give you a science lecture: you can research all this, and you will find anecdotal evidence from hundreds if not thousands of people who have identified the links between refined sugar, refined carbs, alcohol, caffeine and refined oils between acne in their own lives. Refining anything is not a natural process and our bodies have not correctly evolved to deal with it.

Cutting these products out will not be enough. If you've ingested any of these things on a regular basis, you have done damage to your body.

So... HOW DO YOU GET CLEAR?

I use all of these techniques in COMBINATION, most of them EVERY SINGLE DAY. I continually find I break out less and less, from once every 2 days, to once a week, to once every 2 weeks, to once every 2-3 months. My skin heals so rapidly now.

WASHING

1)Don't put chemicals on your face. JUST DO NOT DO THIS. Your skin is supposed to have an acid mantle. This is a slightly oily covering with a PH of 5.5 that makes it impossible for bacteria to survive. Chemicals strip the acid mantle and may help in the short term, but you will become dependent on them to remain clear. They don't work in harmony with your skin and are not natural. I have not put a chemical near my face in years.
2)Do not wash your face under a shower or any other jet of water. This strips your skin of its natural oils. The way to wash your face is: splash cold water on it with your hands. Dab dry with a very clean towel. Definitely do not use hot or warm water. It's not necessary, acne has nothing to do with cleanliness.

EMOTIONAL

Do you look at your skin? Does it cause you emotional pain? Do you allow yourself to look in the mirror and hate yourself or hate your spots? STOP THIS. Look in your heart, and find the courage to love yourself as you are, to feel sympathy for your own pain and suffering, to treate yourself with love and respect regardless of how your skin looks. FIND THE DISCIPLINE NOT TO KEEP LOOKING AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR AND WORRYING OR FEELING HURT.

Break out of the cycle of emotional pain that acne causes: becauses this emotional pain also causes acne. Guess what? When you feel strong negative emotions, it stresses your adrenals in the same way that sugar does. Your body pumps out stress hormones. Your acne gets worse in consequence. Learn to breathe deeply, and SNAP OUT OF REPEATEDLY FEELING HURT. Move on from acne.

COMBAT A BREAK-OUT

If you've had years of toxic eating, it may take a while for a fast to take an effect. However, if you've been avoiding sugar and stuff for at least 1 year, and have been on a healthy diet, here is the most surefire way I've found to combat a break out:

When you feel your skin getting painful, STOP EATING. Switch to drinking only green smoothies (NOT NOT NOT FRUIT SMOOTHIES THEY ARE TOO SWEET, AND ALSO STRESS YOUR ADRENALS AND MESS UP YOUR BLOOD SUGAR) Look up recipes for green smoothies.

I love this: I feel a lump in my skin, I switch to ONLY green smoothies FOR TWO OR THREE DAYS, and THE LUMP HEALS BEFORE IT EVEN BECAME VISIBLE. NO BREAK OUT, JUST HEALED, CLEAR SKIN.

Try fasting like this for one or two days of every single week, and the benefits to your skin will be incredible. You will not recognise yourself in one year.

SUPPLEMENTS

NO FLUSH NIACIN, INOSITOL HEX (WHATEVER ITS CALLED): THIS IS THE MOST POWERFUL SUPPLEMENT I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS. High quality source only – dont try and save on it.

VITAMIN C, 1000MG+: This helps your body reduce the stress hormones produced by worn out adrenals. It repairs and heals your body. It is anti inflammatory.

PROBIOTIC SUPPLEMEN: go for an ultra high strength one: the type that need to be refrigerated

These combined are the most powerful supplements I've come across. I ADVISE: DO NOT TAKE A MULTIVITAMIN: SOMETIMES MULTIVITS HAVE CERTAIN SUBSTANCES THAT SEEM TO MAKE ACNE EVEN WORSE. I ADVISE JUST VITAMIN C AND NIACIN, THESE WORK IN COMBINATION TO KEEP YOUR SKIN CLEAR.

DIET

I drink a green smoothie every day for breakfast, and have one piece of fruit. Light meals allow your body to divert energy into HEALING rather than DIGESTING.

I eat a lot of green salad and vegetables: spinach, kale, broccoli, carrots and other vegetables are your greatest ally in overcoming acne. Fruits may be eaten in moderation.

Omega 3: Lots of fish – aim for WILD salmon that has not been contaminated. I eat sushi every single day. Once again, you will find thousands of articles on the internet discussing how the omega 3 from fish can help your acne.

Fish, very occassional meat (once or twice a week some red meat is not too bad, not more often than this), vegetables, green smoothies, fruit. That is all you need to eat. Don't have anything more complicated than that, stick with these simple foods.

EXERCISE

This helps your whole body heal. It increases the power of your immune system. It increases blood flow into your skin delivering vital nutrients to it. It gets oxygen to all your cells helping them work better. It increases your ability to digest your food. It actually improves your nutrition because of this.

Exercise is perhaps your most powerful weapon, when combined with a good diet, fasting, and supplements.

SUNLIGHT

Your skin is supposed to get sunlight, your lungs are supposed to get fresh air. Spending time outside in the light and breathing deeply will help your body to heal. Sitting around in doors will hinder your body's healing. Don't get sunburned though, this will only make things worse.

Everything that I've told you, you can find backed up by others who've got clear, countless times on the internet. Nothing here is new, but perhaps you may not have tried all of this in combination: combine exercise, sunlight, the right supplements, fasting, right diet, exclude the 'skin destroyers' like sugar, stop stripping your skin's natural defences with chemicals or hot water, and most importantly: overcome the emotional pain of acne. Don't live in fear of it. Don't worry about it when it happens.

YOU CAN LEARN TO FEEL JUST AS CALM AND HAPPY WHEN YOU'RE FACE LOOKS TERRIBLE, AS YOU DO WHEN YOU'RE SKIN IS BEAUTIFULLY CLEAR. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I LEARNED TO DO IT PERSONALLY. I REACHED THE STAGE WHERE I STOPPED CARING ABOUT BREAK OUTS. I WASNT SCARED OF IT ANYMORE. CONQUERING YOUR OWN FEAR AND PAIN IS PERHAPS THE MOST POWERFUL STEP YOU CAN TAKE.

I wish you all the very best: and I know you will all succeed in your efforts. Write down each action you're going to take to implement this plan, starting now.

Love,

Josh

[Datura]

Thank you for the advice, Josh. One thing, though. You mention cutting out refined carbs, like sugar, white bread and pasta. What do you think of whole grains? Do you think those would be ok to include?

[HORSE The Man]

This post should be pinned lol.

Josh, one question though, what do you put in your green smoothies? Do you use bananas, mangoes, and/or any other high calorie fruits along with the greens?

So you just drink green smoothies and eat fish? Do you eat any chicken, legumes, gluten-free grains, or nuts?

Thanks

[Q_P]

Break out of the cycle of emotional pain that acne causes: becauses this emotional pain also causes acne. Guess what? When you feel strong negative emotions, it stresses your adrenals in the same way that sugar does. Your body pumps out stress hormones. Your acne gets worse in consequence. Learn to breathe deeply, and SNAP OUT OF REPEATEDLY FEELING HURT. Move on from acne.

This is one of the most important things I have learned in my years with acne, and you put it perfectly. Additionally, stressing too much about what you eat can be even worse for acne than eating "bad" foods, it seems.

[Drainer15]

Thanks for the post. Lots of good info in here, especially the parts about cutting out sugar and drinking green smoothies/eating green soups. Personally, I make soups blending spinach, kale, broccoli, and veggie broth.

[theComfyCat]

Thank you for the advice, Josh. One thing, though. You mention cutting out refined carbs, like sugar, white bread and pasta. What do you think of whole grains? Do you think those would be ok to include?

Whole grains are much better for you... they take longer for your body to process (since they are more complex), so they don't make your blood sugar shoot up as the refined carbs will.

Your body needs carbs (your brain needs them to function!), you just want to stick to the healthy ones

(By the way, examples of healthy carbs are: fruits, veggies, legumes, and unrefined grains... basically, low GI/ GL foods are what you're looking for.)

Edited by theComfyCat, 25 September 2009 - 08:45 PM.

[andersoj]

This is way excessive.

[josh1000]

hey,

Datura - whole grains are generally ok. Try to aim for gluten free grains if you can. There is a lot of evidence to suggest a link between gluten and acne. Lentils are a great replacement for grains, and very high in protein.

Horse the man - Nuts: this can be a tricky one. Eating a load of nuts can cause a break out. But just eating a few is good to boost up your calorie content. I reccomend soaking any nuts you eat overnight in water - nuts have an enzyme in them that inhibits proper digestion (put there by mother nature so bird eat them, fly away, and distribute them elsewhere after time). Soaking them counteracts this.

Green smoothies: Great combination: 100% organic apple, kiwi, pear, lime, cucumber, spinach & celery. I dont usually use high calorie fruits, no. A bit of ginger, apple, kiwi or lime always takes the not so great taste out the greens! Yes I do eat gluten free grains. I do eat legumes. Chicken - yes I think this is fine, try to buy organic though! You know cheap chickens are rammed full of antibiotics and all sorts of horrible crap, and kept in very poor conditions. Buy organic free range, avoid any cheap- pre-sliced chicken of the kind you find in some supermarkets.

QuirkyPixy - agreed. Don't stress out too much about what you eat! Dedicate yourself to becoming discipline and sticking to these guidelines, but if you mess up, the worst thing you can do is worry about it. Just go back to the drawing board and keeping working hard at healthy eating.

Drainer 15 - yum sounds good! love those kind of soups.

In addition to this, I do reccomend avoiding large quantitities of dairy. Occassional goats milk or goats cheese adds to your nutrition, but don't eat it every day/eat lots of it.

[wibble]

Good post, I'd sticky this also. It may not get everyone clear, but I think its a good concise base people should work from, before hitting hard meds to cure acne. Wish I'd had a bash at this many years ago. It's pretty much what I've been trying for a while now (1 month), and I think acne is improving (healing is anyway, never get many red spots now, sometimes some mild ones that are gone in a day or two). I find it harsh sometime as I swim a lot, so trying to find something to deal with the chlorine as well.

Does make me more inspired to do better though, think I need to switch to more organic than the cheap stuff. It does amaze me sometimes when I think what we eat depends on what that other animal/veg has grown from. If it eats/consumes rubbish, chances are we'll end up with that too. It's easy to forget about the big cycle.

Any inspiring ideas for good breakfasts ? (thats the one I always find hard to get really healthy, I tend to end up with oats or granola, but I'm not convinced they are great either).

Edited by wibble, 26 September 2009 - 05:36 AM.

[josh1000]

Inspiring breakfasts... hmm... granola often not much good. Always check to make sure you didnt get any added sugar in there! And honey is almost as bad as sugar if you're adding that to your oats.

I tend to have some hot lemon tea, a green smoothie and an apple. It's not inspiring, but it gives your digestive system a rest, and I really feel the "lightness" and "healthyness" has a positive effect on my skin.

[HORSE The Man]

Thanks for the reply man, it was pretty much what I was looking for lol. I'm currently eating fish, lentils, fruits, vegetables, and skinless chicken breast from this farmer's market I go to. And I stay clear of nuts altogether, they make me break out on my neck.

Thanks for the information, this really should get pinned.

[alternativista]

Please add your story to this thread which is a list of people who've cleared there skin through diet. This is the thread that should be pinned:

http://www.acne.org/...ea-t172158.html

[John Alex Worhopper]

one thing missing: get enough sleep, it does wonders

[alternativista]

one thing missing: get enough sleep, it does wonders

There's more than missing. There's all kinda of factors involved in developing acne. This contains most of the basics, but won't be enough for many people. Here's a list of the many factors and what to do about them:

http://www.acne.org/...an-t230714.html

Edited by alternativista, 26 September 2009 - 01:51 PM.

[leesett]

This is way excessive.

I agree, I drove myself crazy doing the whole diet thing to help my acne. I was miserable, I ended up not eating enough, I looked sick and unhealthy. I developed somewhat of an eating disorder, I was literally afraid of food + it didn't help my acne.

But if you have the willpower and you know what your doing (your being smart about it), I say GO FOR IT!!! "To each his own"


Oh and Green Smoothies are awesome. Still drinking them, very tasty

Edited by leesett, 26 September 2009 - 02:24 PM.

[cjb4390]

Josh, what about unrefined vegetable oils... any thoughts on those?

Thanks for all the info!

[whathavewehere]

Okay, I definitely don't have the time nor the patience for all that. I'm not planning on using topicals anytime soon either. Guess I'm stuck with acne, huh?

[masg]

seems like everything I eat is bad for me.. I stopped Meat..I stopped Dairy and now I need to stop bread, pasta, etc, etc, seems like the only thing I can eat.. is fruit..and potatoes..

[JayQ]

This is way excessive.

I agree, I drove myself crazy doing the whole diet thing to help my acne. I was miserable, I ended up not eating enough, I looked sick and unhealthy. I developed somewhat of an eating disorder, I was literally afraid of food + it didn't help my acne.

But if you have the willpower and you know what your doing (your being smart about it), I say GO FOR IT!!! "To each his own"


Oh and Green Smoothies are awesome. Still drinking them, very tasty

I am suffering from the same thing now. I dont have time all day to eat every 2hrs. I mean thats the only way to try to keep getting calories. Foods with no sugars, besides meat have hardly any calores. Smoothies and veggies and fruit you have to eat non stop. I eat meat everyday, twice a day because that is the most calorie dense meal of the day for me, so i do not see how you can only eat meat once or twice a week? That is crazyness. I am gluten, soy, dairy, and processed food free. I am living off green salads with flax oil or olive oil, brown rice, assorted nuts, and meats. This is all i eat everyday. Not really helping me, still getting the same acne in same spots i have always gotten. I have been on this diet for 3 months, now i am skinny and sick looking plus with acne now. Awesome!

Acne is just to complex for diff individuals to figure out for everyone, one system is just not going to cure everyone; its just not possible for we are all diff and our body reacts diff. I agree BS levels def do have an effect but again not everyone responds the same way. Thats what makes it diff for a lot of ppl, including myself, to find something that does work. My co workers can eat whatever they want and always devouring pizza and chips and soda for lunch and have flawless skin and im sure they just wash with soap and water. This is how i use to be but for some reason i am not anymore and it sux!

So no, not everyone can be cured from this regimen or any regimen for that matter because we all do react differently, what works for one may not work for another. Not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer;) Just a proven fact that our bodies react diff to what its being dealt with. I have developed food phobia and scared to go back on how i use to eat even thou i was getting the same acne as now, its just messed me up being so strict all the time and i am corrupted from it.

[alternativista]

seems like everything I eat is bad for me.. I stopped Meat..I stopped Dairy and now I need to stop bread, pasta, etc, etc, seems like the only thing I can eat.. is fruit..and potatoes..

Umm, how about fish, chicken, eggs, broccoli, spinach, sweet potatoes.... Real, actual food with nutrients and everything.