First Step: Treating the Symptoms
Ack! I broke out again this morning.
It was that darned chocolate bar I had at dinner the other day. I can't blame the bar though. Before I did more research, I would have blamed a sugary junk filled diet for causing such blemishes. But after doing some more look-ups on the net (ya gotta love google), I found out the real cause of it was a weakened liver. Those sugary junk foods were just things that my body didn't like anymore, and breakouts and flareups was it's way of showing me it's disgruntlement. And even before I discovered the raw food diet, a simple question like "what foods strengthen the liver?" prompted me to do more research. After two minutes more searching I found the results-cabbage, almonds, garlic, and ginger! Two meals of cabbage salad later, my skin was softer and smoother and my flareups took only a few hours (versus weeks beforehand) to go away completely. Hallelujah! I cried. My skin is revived! (heh-ok I didn't actually say that, but I'd been dealing with this problem since junior high and I'm 33 now.)
I also have to say that research years ago on this subject had also shown that dairy milk from cows may contains hormones that are hard to digest for people like me. Actually, I hadn't even used the internet on that one-after years of going to a dermatologist and hearing him say "diet doesn't cause acne," the moment I got my first $200 bottle of medical treatment, it said on the instruction label "When taking this, do not eat any sugar, chocolate or dairy." Heh Thankyou pill bottle. So naturally, I started to cut out dairy from my diet in regards to that, and even after I stopped the treatment (I did end up taking the full treatment anyway, thinking it was the pills and not the diet that would clear up my skin), I noticed it came back when i tried to re-add dairy into my diet. Is it just because of this medical treatment that my skin stays clear on a diet without dairy? I think not!
But there's more to the story than this. I had recently read that a weak liver may contribute to acne as well. The liver is apparently responsible for converting all the standard processed foods we eat into actual nutrients the body recognizes, and if we eat too many foods that don't contain any nutrients at all (such as junk food) it has to work overtime to convert it, and the blemishes that arise on our skin is it's way of telling us that it's had enough.
This liver malfunction, combined with a hormonal imbalance and a genetic predisposition to get it, was what was the true cause of the acne. What needed to be done was take in foods that balance out the hormones and flush out all the toxins so the liver could replenish itself. Now, research on the raw food diet is teaching me that an actual diet consisting of pure raw vegetables (preferably in season) can help an acne condition even better than a dermatologist can. They say a lot of celebrities use this diet, including Demi Moore. And just look how gorgeous her skin looks! :)
I have had this thought recently that the human body is much like a little hamster that is poked and teased. If it is naturally happy and healthy with a calm disposition, it will take the pet owner's poking and prodding for a while. But too much poking and prodding will aggravate it and it will try telling you to stop doing it.
If you have acne, here are some natural, inexpensive things you can do to help you acquire a clearer more glowing complexion (believe me, I never thought it was possible either..but just after 2 days of following these tips I found a noticeable difference).
Until your liver gets better, it's a good idea to stop eating all the foods that it has a hard time converting to proper nutrients. This includes the following:
1. Dairy: This includes milk, cheese, and yogurt (well I personally never liked yogurt anyway so that was an easy thing to do). Possible substitutes for this are soy milk (which I've tried and like immensely) or Lactaid (which I've never tried but might also be a good substitute) Read your labels though-some of these products may contain sugar or corn syrup, which can trigger more breakouts. But generally, I had these with my cereals in the morning and it made it taste great if not better than with 2% or skim milk.
2. Refined Sugar: This might be a hard pill to swallow, but it is actually good if acne sufferers stay away from this. Refined sugar is granulated sugar (this includes icing sugar and corn syrup). This is usually found in your desserts, candy, potato chips and pancake syrups. Refined sugar is a substance highly processed down from the sugar cane, and as such is a foreign substance that the body cannot digest unless it takes nutrients from the body to attach to the sugar in order to disguise it as a nutrient itself. What ends up happening is the body leeches itself of nutrients to digest the cakes and candy we eat, and that's why we have cravings to eat more food. Not just more candy, but more of everything.
Natural substitutes for sugars are as follows (although I have yet to try any of them myself): Stevia (a sweet leaf plant), blackstrap molasses (the naturally nutritious sugarcane substance flung aside in the interest of refining sugar), and sucanut (another nutrient dense byproduct of the sugar refining process which can be used one for one in recipes asking for refined granulated sugar). Honey is commonly believed to be a healthy alternative to sugar, although a tiny bit of research proves that this is a misconception. Honey has only trace minerals in it and has even more calories per teaspoon than sugar, so it might be more beneficial to you to try the latter suggestions.
3. Chocolate: Not only does it have sugar, but it has fat too (and not the healthy kind). This can make the body freak out on how to digest it properly. The result-more breakouts.
Now, I know, saying this is easy, but doing it is quite another. If your diet consists of a lot of chocolate already, it may be really hard to get off it. I know when I first got off it, I did it cold turkey, and I actually got withdrawal symptoms, cravings like you wouldn't believe, that would make me tremble like a drug addict looking for her next shot of heroin. They actually say that the composition of refined sugar is one molecule away from alcohol, so it kind of makes sense to feel like this. (Look here for an article on this topic.)
How I got off it from then on was in reality, very gradually. First I'd look at the junk food food group and cut out anything that was chocolate, but allow myself to eat anything that was vanilla flavored. However, this posed problems too, because eating straight sugar this way made me prone to bouts of irritability that bordered on violent behavior. These reactions would happen sporatically and without notice, and I couldn't tell when they were going to occur because they would often happen hours after the sugar was consumed. As a child, it used to baffle me that I had these reactions after my parents rewarded me with gooey chocolate brownies. It baffled my parents to, because the reactions wouldn't just come directly after eating the dessert: there would be a sense of delight and happiness from eating it, and it was only hours later that I would start snapping at them for no reason, sometimes yelling and screaming. It was only through doing some internet research in my later years that I found out that there's such a thing as delayed reactions to food allergies that can cause these exact types of symptoms. It was easy to trace it back to the sugar though because I wasn't taking any other kinds of medication or drugs. I didn't drink (either alcohol or milk), didn't smoke, and exercised every day. So sugar was the last suspect to question. And it was the sneakiest of suspects, for commercials on TV often tied the act of offering it as a sign of appreciation, and there wasn't much talk in the mainstream media about it causing irritability. This, coupled with the fact that it was a delayed reaction, made it a very cyclical and hidden cause that I didn't find out the truth about until decades later.
After I cut out the vanilla flavoured foods from my diet, I still left in condiments and spreads that were a traditional staple of my food (like ketchup and peanut butter, which also contains a bit of sugar) because I didn't seem to have any breakouts or other reactions from eating it. I also left in fruit, because fructose is a natural sugar and is easily digestible. Although, if you are REALLY intolerant of sugar, you may find that anything can set you off, including too much fruit. I had a few canned peaches one time and even this caused another irritability reaction. It could have been the syrup it was canned in; some canned fruit is canned with heavier syrup juices than others, and it's questionable whether these syrups have had some refined sugar or corn syrup added to them, so it's important to check the labels when buying it.
4. Fried foods: Once I cut out dairy, sugar and chocolate, fried foods were the next thing to go. This should be common sense, for they have a lot of fat and grease in them which can cause oily skin and blemishes. But I found that if I even cut out all the other things and just had one chicken burger, I would break out. Suddenly, I had a great excuse to start cooking from scratch. I'd eat chicken only if it was roasted, cut out anything breaded, and pass on fries that were boiled in hydrogenated oils.
I'm not a big fan of cooking though. And once I realized that, I found that there were some fast foods out there that would not give me any breakouts or food reactions. Usually the safe foods were hamburgers, roast chicken sandwiches and chicken salads. Some fast food places even sold whole potatoes, which had a great advantage over the french fries because they weren't boiled in oil.
5. Fatty nuts: It's just recently that I've linked this as a possible contributer to acne flare ups. Once I got on the raw food diet I started looking to nuts as a possible product to snack on. But after consuming a bowl of raw almonds I found that even they were too fatty for my body to digest properly.
6. Eggs: Apparently, eggs are a common food allergy. I found this out after eating an omelette one day. I couldn't believe it. After I'd cut every other acne factor out of my diet, I got a blemish. So..more research. And lo and behold, eggs. So, no more yolks, folks. At least until the second step of this process is dealt with. (More information on food reactions and allergies can be found here)
Second Step: Eating Raw Food to Help Improve the Liver Function
So here we are back to eating foods that strengthen the liver. For two days, I decided I would eat cabbage salads with carrots, celery and zucchini. Not that I was forcing myself to have it--I believe that no matter what diet you're on, you must enjoy what you're eating--but I believed that it was best to start the day off with something high in fiber. Since it's not good for me to eat fruit on an empty stomach, I figured vegetables were the way to go. An ordinary salad made of lettuce would work too I suppose. But after finding out that cabbage had liver improving qualities, it confirmed that maybe I should keep on eating it-but of course raw, because cooking it lowers the amounts of it's natural nutrients. And besides, I never liked cooked vegetables anyway.
Now what I am about to tell you, you may find a bit shocking and only heard about on infomercials toting books for natural cures. But two days after I started eating raw, my skin was almost completely cleared up. My skin was softer and not as scaly as before, and I looked and felt much more healthier than I had even eating and exercising as I was. It was incredible. Really.
I'd like to say that I lived happily ever after eating like that, and now I have a glowing and radiant complexion, matched only by supermodels under strong halogen lights,. But I actually don't.
Why is that? you ask.
Because, in the interest of finding all natural recipes to substitute ordinary desserts, I splurged on health food bars containing sugar, and made a pumpkin pie with soft tofu, eggs and honey. I broke out, wouldn't leave well enough alone, and my facial blemishes got red and prominent all over again.
It is almost the end of week 2 of my raw food diet and I am now back in cabbage-recuperation time.
What can I say? It's a learning process.
