Clear for Life

Recently one of my readers asked my opinion about an acne product. Here’s what she wrote to me:

The following company:
http://www.skinlight.co.uk/product_1_Acne+Kit.html claim
the following: The results from using this kit are excellent and immediate.
*The system will not only cure and prevent acne it will re-surface the skin
bringing it back to its original condition. *
* *
*Do you think this product really works? or is it a waste of money?*

I looked at it and…

Save your money.

There’s nothing new under the sun with that ‘Acne Kit’. Merely a collection of chemical based topicals to irritate your skin.

Let’s look at those claims.

The results from using this kit are excellent and immediate.

Maybe, but I highly doubt it. Sure it’s possible to reduce acne with topical treatments.

The system will not only cure and prevent acne…

I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘curing acne’. If you mean a temporary reduction or disappearance of pimples, with likely side-effect of irritating the skin, sure that’s possible.

But if you mean complete and lifelong freedom from acne, then I have to say…

Quack, quack, quack…
What’s that?
Oh, it’s our friend the duck.

…it will re-surface the skin bringing it back to its original condition.

Total and utter horse crap.

That statement implies that the creams and lotions would somehow repair and heal the skin. The only thing that can ‘bring the skin back it its original condition’ is your body. And it cannot do that as long as the skin is full of chemicals or that it has to eliminate toxins via the skin (because all the other channels of elimination are ‘fully booked’).

As you probably know the cause of acne is internal. In a more practical level, it’s the way you live your life.

The only thing that can permanently break you free from acne is a healthy lifestyle and periodical detoxification. I describe the nuts and bolts of all this in Clear for Life as well as simple and highly practical instructions to applying it to your life.

As long as you are willing to put in some effort and persistence you can get clear. The solution to clear skin is so simple and painfully obvious that nobody has to suffer from acne.

I got this email from one of my readers. I think this might be relevant for you too.

She wrote:

“I subscribed to a free newsletter about acne and now get emails from someone named Bob Grant about his CBS System. Just wondering if you heard of this system (he’s promising that he’ll clear you in just 7 days).”

First I want to say that when you subscribe to Acne 101 the system offers you additional newsletters. I don’t like it at all, but there’s nothing I can do to it. I use a third-party service to deliver these emails. All of them have something like this.

Those other emails are not from me, and I have nothing to do with them. Better just click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the end of them.

I looked at the CBS (Clear, Beautiful, Smooth Skin) System and here are my two cents.

Save your money.

I don’t mean to bash a competitor here, just to offer you friendly advice.

Here’s why I think you should hold on to your wallet and skip this CBS System.

First, I have to admit that I haven’t bought it. I only read the sales letter. But once you understand how to write sales letters and know a bit about getting clear and natural health, it’s easy to ‘decode’ the whole program from the sales letter alone.

I think it’s little more than a glorified ‘Acne Free in 3 Days’.

The CBS System starts you off with a ‘3-Day Cleanse’ (you already learned this from Acne 101 lesson 6) and then continues with some type of herbal cleanse in what they call ‘A Personalized System For Your Skin’. The rest of the program concerns itself with keeping you acne free and eliminating acne scars.

The CBS System is based on the idea that toxins cause acne. While it’s true that toxins play a role clear skin and health is much more than simply toxins.

I have no doubt that by following the CBS System some people get clear. It’s a step to the right direction. I’m just warning you that don’t buy into the delusion that you can permanently cure acne in 7 days.

It doesn’t work that way.

It took years, or decades, to develop acne. It’s going to take more than 7 days to cure it. Even if you fast 7 days with pure water and follow it up with 100% raw food diet your acne most likely comes back after the fast.

The healing process simply takes longer.

Yes, by combining a detox and medicating yourself with herbs it may be possible to get clear. But please don’t delude yourself into thinking this is real healing.

Please keep in mind there are no secrets to clear skin. Just like weightloss it comes down to the same old and boring story: healthy lifestyle. In both markets there’s no shortage of people who want you to believe they have finally, after years of backbreaking research and testing, and interviewing hundreds of experts discovered the elusive and long-hidden secret that gives you what you want easily and quickly.

They all play to the same human ‘flaw’ that we all want a quick and easy solution to our problems. Simply walk away when you see these kinds of offers.

Finally remember that clear skin and health is more about how you live your day-to-day life than what you do once in a while.

Because Clear for Life teaches you the nuts and bolts of day-to-day life that gets and keep you clear, I believe into it so strongly. And, sometimes shamelessly, promote it to you. I know it’s going to rock your world and skin.

In an earlier post, How to feel good even if you have acne, I talked about a simple way to feel better with acne.

This post is going to expand on that.

What if you could stop the suffering and emotional pain acne causes? What if you could feel empowered instead of hopeless? What if all this is as simple as choosing to do so.

You are about to learn how.

I know that’s a mouthful, but give me few minutes and you’ll see it’s true.

So let’s get to it.

Let’s start by looking at why you suffer. And it’s not because of acne.

All suffering starts with attachment. If you didn’t give a damn whether you have acne or not, you wouldn’t suffer at all.

Now hold on there. I know this may sound stupid. But just hold on for a second and this will make sense.

So the emotional pain with acne is rooted to attachment. But there’s other side to this also.

You feel hopeless because you see no way to cure acne. It seems nothing you do works. Nothing you do takes you any closer to clear skin.

Let’s put those two things together and we’ll get this.

Attachment to clear skin + no way of getting there = suffering

I’ll show you how to break your attachment to clear skin and feeling hopeless.

First let’s see why you must do that.

The above equation is evil because it’s self-reinforcing. It creates more hopelessness and suffering.

Your brain is a goal-seeking mechanism. It takes whatever you focus on and brings you more of it.

Let’s say you feel downright miserable and keep thinking you’ll never get over acne. Your brain takes those thoughts and feelings as instructions. It’s almost as it would say:”If that’s what you want, I can make it happen”.

And it can. Trust me.

Your brain doesn’t care whether the thoughts and feelings in your head are positive and negative. It simply takes whatever you focus on and brings you more of it.

This may be hard to believe, but that’s how the human mind works. I explained this in more detail at lesson 5 of Acne 101.

Bill Harris, the Director of Centerpointe Research Institute wrote an excellent article that explains this principle in more detail.

Believe it or Don’t: How Your Beliefs Shape Your Results and
Experience of Life, and What You Can Do About It

So when you focus on acne and feel miserable, you send a clear message to your brain that you want more of acne and feeling miserable.

This is one of those great paradoxes of life. You are so attached to clear skin and want it so badly it makes you desperate. Wanting and despairing pushes clear skin further and further away from you. It’s like a rainbow. No matter how fast you run, it always eludes you.

This is why it’s important you accept yourself and your skin as they are. With pimples and all.

Of course this is easier said than done. But I believe the doctor has just what you need. These two approaches should help.

First, please understand clear skin is only means to an end. You want to get clear because you believe it stops the suffering and makes you happy.

However those two things are not connected. And you can find a way to be happy even with acne.

Acne doesn’t make you feel bad. Acne merely is. It’s just an event in your life. It’s the meaning you attach to it that leads to suffering.

Ask yourself:

• What does it mean to me that I have acne?
• How does it affect my life?
• What does it mean about me that I have acne?

Some common answers among acne victims are:

• Acne means I’m ugly.
• Nobody ever likes/loves me because I have acne.
• Acne makes me self-conscious.
• I’m embarrassed to go out because people just stare at my skin.
• Because of acne I can’t [insert your reason].

Take the time and write down few answers to those questions. It reveals a lot about you and what you believe about acne. Really, do it.

I mean really. Stop reading this and jot down few answers.

Great. Those answers are the real reason you feel bad. Those are beliefs you hold about yourself and acne. There’s probably more, but they give a hint of the way you think.

Imagine that these beliefs are like colored glasses. As you look at the world through them, they color everything you see.

The good thing is they are just figments of your imagination. And you can change them.

The bad thing is that because you believe them, they seem real to you. As you focus on them your brain either makes them real for you, or makes them seem like real to you. In either case you get to be right about what you believe.

Let me tell you something.

At this very moment there are thousands of people who will love/like/accept you just as you are. With pimples and all. And no matter what you believe acne prevents you from doing, you can find a way to do it even with acne.

You just never notice those people or opportunities. The glasses you wear only allow you to notice people and opportunities that match your beliefs. They make you practically blind to anything else.

This may be hard to believe, but your behavior reflects your beliefs about yourself (the glasses you wear). Often we are blind to this, but other people pick up these subtle clues (the ‘vibes’ you put out).

So if you believe you are worthless it will come out loud and clear, and people will pick it up and treat you accordingly.

I found a great post about this from acne.org forums.

“I used to think I was just hideous. Guys didn’t hit on me or ask me out that much and I assumed it was because of how unattractive I was. Honestly, now I think it was just my whole attitude - I was terribly shy and off-putting to any potential suitors. I gave off a “don’t talk to me” vibe, I kept to myself. And of course I didn’t get too many offers.

These days, I still don’t think I’m a supermodel. I recognize that I’m not what’s traditionally considered “beautiful,” but there are definitely men who think I’m beautiful and have told me so. I’m happy with who I am. I have learned that I don’t have to be a supermodel to be sexy. It’s all about attitude. And there are plenty of guys interested in me - because I’m happy and confident, and people respond to that.”

keltron’s post at acne.org forums

The solution of course is to take away the glasses. Or to replace them with more useful ones. In the earlier post, How to feel good even if you have acne, I explained how to do this.

As you do that, you’ll notice your whole world changes. People start to treat you differently. And doors that were closed suddenly open.

Changing your beliefs is one way to accept yourself. Understanding the law of cause and effect is another.

The power of cause and effect

We live in a world based on cause and effect. And it may be the most powerful law governing our world.

It simply says that for every effect there’s a cause.

This means that nothing in life is random.

Acne is simply the effect of applying certain causes.

It may not be the effect you are looking for, but still it’s a predictable result of certain actions. And when you stop doing those things you stop getting acne.

Similarly clear skin is simply an effect of applying certain causes. Granted, those causes may not always be that easy to find. But they are there.

I believe anyone can get clear. Maybe you just have to look a bit harder for the causes, but when you find and apply them, you’ll get clear. It’s that simple.

Let me give you an example of why it’s absurd to curse acne.

Let’s say you are in Chicago and you want to go to New York. But you don’t know the roads and don’t have a map. So you’ll end in Detroit.

Ending in Detroit is simply the effect of the causes you applied (the road you took).

Now are you going curse Detroit because you ended there? And I’m pretty sure you are not going to think of Detroit as a monster that keeps you captive. And you wouldn’t be sitting in Detroit feeling sorry for yourself.

None of those things make much sense, as I’m sure you agree.

Perhaps you feel little stupid, but then you get over it and try again. You would simple accept the fact that you are in Detroit and use whatever means you have to get to New York. Perhaps pick up a map this time. Or a GPS navigation device. Or ask someone who knows the way.

Use the same approach with acne.

Just recognize the fact that whatever you have done so far caused acne. Then regroup, find something else to try, and just do it.

Wallowing in misery only keeps you stuck. If you do that, you need to give yourself a serious kick on the ass to break out of it.

Then use the law of cause and effect to get clear. Here’s how to do it correctly.

1. Decide on the effect you want.
2. Do you best to find out the cause that leads to that effect. The best way is to ask someone who already has the effect you are after. But sometimes you just have to guess.
3. Act on the cause; apply the information from the previous step.
4. Look at the results you get and use the feedback to adjust your actions. Be flexible in your approach. If what you do is not working, try something else.
5. Allow the process unfold and let whatever happens be ok. The effects are not under your control, but as you keep adjusting course you’ll get the effect you are looking for.

Finding the cause is often not a big problems. The causes to curing acne are not big secrets. In Clear for Life I explained one way to get clear.

I’m not suggesting Clear for Life is the only way to get clear, but it’s pretty damn good. Anyone with little dedication can get permanently clear.

Other books and other people can show you different ways to cure acne. I’ve noticed the ones that get the best long-term results are based on same or similar principles than Clear for Life.

Let is be ok that there’s a learning curve. Adjusting and fine-tuning to the exactly cause that gets you clear may take a bit of time. The same principles work for everybody, but you may need to tweak them a bit to fit your situation.

Let it be ok. You are learning a skill and it doesn’t happen instantly.

Once you find the cause you need flexibility. And this is where most people fall flat on their face.

Most people want different results without changing the way they think and act. We are all guilty of this. As an example just think of how many years you wasted trying different topical treatments. They are more or less the same thing. Just packaged under different brands and endorsed by different celebrities.

The only way to get different results is to change the way you think and act.

There is no other way.

Unfortunately our beliefs often make us suspicious towards different ideas. Simply because they don’t conform to our beliefs. That’s why I keep saying that changing your beliefs and the way you think about acne and getting clear is more important than what you do.

And that’s one reason I think Acne 101 and Clear for Life are so successful in helping people cure acne. They make so much sense and feel so right it’s almost impossible to ignore the message.

They force you to look at things from a more useful perspective.

That’s why I believe Clear for Life works where other approaches have failed. I’m happy if you choose Clear for Life as the way to go and give me the privilege to work with you on this.

But no matter what you choose, remember the principles you learned here.

The only way you can suffer is if you make acne this invincible monster. This can happen only with your willing submission.

Don’t give acne that power.

Refuse to tell yourself lies that make you a victim. Change your story. Change the way you think about acne, getting clear and yourself. Find out or guess the causes to clear skin. Let whatever happens be ok, and remain flexible and keep adjusting course based on the results you get.

Do that and I guarantee you must get clear.

And if you get stuck, ask for help. You can always find someone who has gone before to guide you.

Get a bit of sunshine to clear away those pimples.

Despite what dermatologists say, sun can help to cure acne. Just off the top of my head I can think of four ways sun exposure helps with acne.

• Sunshine eases stress and makes you feel better. I’m sure you’ve noticed you feel happier on a sunny day than on a rainy day. Sun exposure triggers the body to release serotonin. Serotonin is known as the feel good hormone. Feeling better is good for your health, and thus also good clear skin.
• Increases vitamin D production. You get most of your vitamin D from sunlight. It’s produced in the skin when exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is one of the most important vitamins for overall good health.
• Sun helps you sleep better. In Wake Up To Clear Skin (comes free with Clear for Life, but the sales letter might not show it) I mentioned that sun exposure is one of the most important factors behind a good, healing sleep. If you don’t get enough sunlight your sleep suffers. Poor sleep almost ensures you won’t get clear. Because sleep is such an important factor in permanently clear skin I wrote the Wake Up To Clear Skin report that shows simple ways to sleep better and optimize your sleep time.
• Kills bacteria. Sunlight kills acne causing bacteria in the skin. Some people say that UV light penetrates the skin and even disinfects the blood and helps to take the stress off from the liver.

Of course it would be wrong to say sun cures acne. Sun exposure is one of the elements of health and indirectly affects acne. And sun is just one piece of the puzzle, but it’s a piece you must have in place.

A word of caution about sunlight. Though sun exposure is good I don’t recommend you burn your skin. That’s still bad, causes skin damage and possibly aggravates acne.

How much sun exposure you need depends on where you live and the color of your skin. 15 to 30 minutes should be enough for most people.

I mean unprotected sun exposure. Without sunscreens. Those things are full of cancer causing chemicals and can make your acne worse by irritating the skin. Those things block the beneficial effect of sunlight and cause vitamin D deficiency. Derms recommend them because they ‘protect’ you against skin cancer.

Hogwash, I say.

Sun cancer rates have went through the roof along with sunscreen usage. And vitamin D slashes skin cancer risk by 70%. It’s crazy to think you can reduce your cancer risk by blocking the nutrient that prevents cancer and applying cancer causing chemicals on your skin.

Medical lunacy at its best.

Yes, overexposure can damage your skin. But you have antioxidants to protect yourself against that. And when you follow the diet I recommend in Clear for Life you’ll get so much antioxidants it’s almost impossible to burn yourself.

So get some sunlight. It helps with your acne and makes you feel better. This cartoon my Mike Adams explains the true nature of sunscreen and what you should do with them. Mike also has a good article about the sunscreen-cancer link here: Sunscreen Causes Cancer!

Image courtesy of Naturalnews. Original source: The Sunscreen Myth (comic)

Here’s another home remedy tip for acne.

Wash your face with bananas.

Say what? That’s what I also thought. But one reader emailed me this tip after reading the potato home remedy post.

She said it helped her a lot.

Here’s what she advised you to do.

1. Wet a paper towel and rinse your face with it.
2. Get a piece of banana and rub it all over your face.
3. Wait for two minutes.
4. Get another wet paper towel and wash the banana away.

Not too difficult.

Finally eat the rest of the banana as a healthy snack.

After quick search it turns out banana is a fairly common ingredient in home made face masks. Here’s one that I found for oily and acne prone skin.

You need:

• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp honey
• Orange or lemon

Instructions:

1. Mix the banana and honey together.
2. Add a few drops of juice from an orange or a lemon.
3. Apply to face for 15 minutes before rinsing with a cool washcloth or a steaming warm washcloth.

Try them out and let me know how they work for you.

Does acne make you feel bad? Even downright desperate?

From the countless emails I get I know many people agree.

In this post I’ll show how and why this happens, and more importantly, how to turn this around.

Usually the story goes like this:

1. You look into a mirror and notice new pimples. Or perhaps you hear some remark about your acne.
2. Think of everything you’ve done to cure your acne.
3. You start thinking how unfair this is. No matter what you do nothing helps.
4. You feel frustrated, trapped and desperate. You feel like a victim.
5. When you feel really bad, you do something that makes you feel better. Watch TV. Eat. Drink. Surf the net. Check emails.
6. Feel some relief and comfort now that you’ve distracted/ drugged yourself.
7. Allow some time to pass and repeat from step 1.

The ’steps’ may look a bit different for you, but I’m sure you notice the pattern.

The general pattern/cycle runs like this.

Think of something you don’t like/want -> feel bad -> comfort yourself

This pattern is very, very common. Almost everyone runs some variation of this (maybe regarding their finances, job, relationship, health, etc). It’s highly addictive, but not very smart.

The reason it’s not smart is that it doesn’t fix the underlying problem. Comforting makes you feel better temporarily, but you are no closer to breaking the cycle.

This kind of pattern is very destructive. I know many acne victims go through this almost every day. If you don’t break it, you could easily blow years - even decades - of your life going through the same cycle.

Now, if you feel bummed, don’t worry. This story has a happy ending. I’ll show you how to break that cycle (and you don’t have to buy anything). So please read on.

You want to break this cycle for two reasons:

1. It makes you feel miserable
2. If you don’t, you’ll never get clear

I think you already see the first point is true.

Let’s see how this cycle keeps you stuck with acne.

First, feeling bad in itself makes it difficult to get clear. Negative emotions have an effect on the body. They can break your health. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘worry yourself sick’.

Second, and more important point. Your brain is like a high-tech goal seeking missile. It takes whatever you focus on and makes it happen.

So if you focus on feeling miserable and how you’ll never get over acne, your brain goes ‘ok, if that’s what (s)he wants, I can make it happen’.

And emotions turbo charge this whole thing. The stronger the emotions you feel the faster it happens.

Your brain doesn’t care whether you focus on positive or negative. It just takes whatever is going through your mind and makes it true for you.

I talked about this quite a bit at lessons 5 of Acne 101. In a nutshell your brain either causes you to behave in a way that makes what you focus on come true, or it ‘alters’ your perception in a way that it seems true to you. As far as your experience is concerned they are the same thing.

Don’t believe me? Look at books on NLP, certain branches of psychology or self-development. They all say the same thing.

You get more of what you focus on.

Most people believe external circumstances cause them to feel bad or focus on the negative. And it certainly seems like it, but again, it’s not quite the whole story.

Here’s how negative emotions happen.

Something happens -> your perception of the event -> negative emotions.

Your perception of the event is what you think of it. What you say to yourself (or the voice in your head) and the pictures you make in your head. Your perception is also called ‘internal representation’.

The second step flies past so quickly that unless you look for it, you’ll never notice it. But it’s there and you’ll notice how this happens when you start looking.

Here’s the important part.

You have total control over your internal representations. If you choose to exercise it.

So it’s not the event itself that makes you feel bad. It’s how you perceive them.

Let me give you an example.

Say you get a new pimple. What goes through your mind when you notice it? I bet you immediately start to think of negative stuff. Like how it makes you look ugly. Or how again nothing you do works.

So it’s not the pimple that makes you feel bad, but what goes through your mind about the pimple and what it means to your life.

So all negative, and positive for that matter, emotions are self-created. You do them to yourself.

I’m not saying you do them intentionally. Or that you want them. It’s just that the internal representations fly past so quickly you don’t even notice them. They are on autopilot, and your past behavior programmed that autopilot.

But even if you are not aware of this, you still do it to yourself.

And because you do it to yourself, you can stop doing it. Or you can start putting a positive spin on this.

That’s when the magic starts to happen.

Breaking the pattern

You have two options for breaking the pattern.

• Catch yourself in the moment and refocus on something positive
• Schedule time everyday to think and imagine what you want

Let’s start with catching yourself in the moment. It simply means when you are focused on something you don’t want, such as how the new pimple ruins your life, you stop and force yourself to focus on something positive.

I’m not going to lie to you. Without meditation practice and reasonably good self-awareness this is difficult. For most people focusing on negative happens automatically. They are not driving the bus, simply sitting as passengers.

If you can do this, great. And you can with little practice. The way to do it is to keep it constantly on top of your mind. Let’s say you focused on the negative, felt bad and didn’t catch yourself. Just remind yourself to do it the next time. Maybe post notes around your house to keep this on top of your mind.

After the fact, it also helps to visualize (imagine) how you would have liked the situation to go. So imagine yourself in the situation and starting to feel negative. But instead of going down that path you stop yourself. Imagine focusing on positive and how that makes you feel better and how the situation turns into something positive.

By doing this over and over you train your brain to respond differently in the situation. You reprogram the autopilot.

Here’s another thing I recommend you do.

Visualize your life as you would like it to be. For example visualize how good your life would be without acne. Imagine all the things you could do. How much better your life would be. How much happier you would be. How you could get and do all those things you now can’t. See yourself with perfect skin.

Dwell on it. Obsess over it.

Don’t worry about practicality. Just fantasize. But fantasize in a particular way. Make it feel like it’s happening right now for you. Don’t project it into the future (so it’s happening at a future date). Visualize and feel it happening right now. Make it associated. See things through your own eyes; rather than watching a mental movie of yourself.

A good way to do this is to set aside 20 minutes every evening before going to bed. Do this sitting up so you don’t fall asleep.

Close your eyes or stare off into space, and think about what you want to experience in your life. Whatever you think about is fine, as long as it feels good to you.

The key is to find something that feels really good. Simply visualizing without emotions is not going to do you any good. So take as long as it takes to find something that excites you. Something that makes you feel good.

Bare minimum, do this exercise for 20 minutes at a time every day for a week. That’s seven days, not just five days. If you skip a day, start over from day one.

As you do this over and over you reprogram your mind. The autopilot that used to draw your focus on negative start to find positive things.

Your whole focus shifts. You will notice that you spend even more time thinking about what you want and less time worrying about what you don’t want.

Remember earlier we talked about how your brain makes the negative thoughts real to you? Well, it works in reverse also. Now your brain takes the positive images and feelings from your mind and starts to bring them to your reality.

You’ll start to get new ideas. You get attracted to new activities and things that help you move towards your goal. You may find books that contain solutions to your problems.

You start to get inspired to take action that moves you towards what you want. If exercise felt like struggle earlier you’ll do it happily now - as an example.

Whatever you do keep visualizing every evening. As you keep doing it, you’ll notice that life gently guides you towards the things you visualize.

So instead of instructing your brain to create more misery, acne and hopelessness you start creating hope, optimism and clear skin.

Clear Skin Coach has many more such exercises and takes this to a totally new level. It shows you how to build unstoppable motivation and eliminate struggle from getting clear. So the whole process is as easy and fun as possible. Clear Skin Coach comes as a part of the Clear for Life package.

But even this simple exercise, when done consistently, takes you long way towards permanently clear skin.

Apparently scrubbing raw potatoes on your skin helps to clear pimples and acne scars.

Cut a slice of a raw potato and rub the moist part on your skin for about 30 seconds. Leave the potato juice on your skin to dry and wash afterwards.

Some people report it dries the skin a bit. Maybe the vitamins, antioxidants and minerals in potato juice make it antibacterial also. Some people also report potatoes help to face acne scars.

Now I’m not saying this will completely wipe out your acne problems, but I searched through different acne and health forums and it seems this helps many people.

You still need to live a healthy life, such as described in Clear for Life. But this can be a great additional treatment because health takes some time to kick in.

But as an alternative to chemical-based treatments this could be an option.

Costs next to nothing and you can find potatoes everywhere.

Here’s one more reason not to take Accutane.

And this is a big one.

Accutane can permanently ruin your sex life.

How’s that for a bummer?

Here’s what Dr. Pezzi wrote about this

“Accutane® (isotretinoin) can permanently affect your sex life, reducing libido and sexual sensation. In some cases it may also induce sexual dysesthesias in which sexual sensations feel like “pins and needles” instead of being normally pleasant.”

http://www.sexualtips.net/accutane_affecting_sex.htm

If you’ve been on Accutane you know it can make your lips dry and chapped, dry your nose and cause nose bleeding and eye pain.

You know what’s common with all those situations?

They are mucous membranes. Your lips, insides of your nose and behind your eyeballs.

Sexual organs have similar mucous linings or membranes. And they are not immune to the effect of Accutane.

In rare cases Accutane may cause temporary, or even permanent, damage in those areas.

Here’s how one woman described her reaction to Accutane

“It has gotten to where I cannot have intercourse at all as insertion of anything feels like I am being stuffed with an extra large sandpaper dildo.”

http://www.sexualtips.net/accutane_affecting_sex.htm

In acne.org forums I’ve seen posts where people claim Accutane weakened their libido or caused other sexual problems.

So that’s one more to the long list of Accutane’s side effects.

Now I’m the first one to say these severe side effects are rare.

But even if you don’t get any severe side effects it doesn’t mean Accutane is safe for you. Your body just may be able to deal with the drug in a way that doesn’t produce acute symptoms. Poison is nevertheless poison - even if it doesn’t kill you.

And let’s not forget that Accutane was originally developed as a chemotherapy drug to ‘treat’ skin cancers. As you probably know chemotherapy drugs aren’t exactly harmless multivitamins.

To make things worse Accutane is often a temporary solution. Most people, like me, find their Accutane given freedom much too temporary.

Why would you risk Accutane when acne can be effectively and permanently cured with diet and lifestyle changes. Such as described in Clear for Life.

In the end acne may make it more difficult to have a sex life, but Accutane can make sure you’ll never enjoy it.

Dr. Pezzi has more on this. Click here to read about Accutane and sexual problems.

I got an email from a person asking what to do if they cannot afford organic food or organic is not available. Is eating organic food absolutely necessary to get clear? If you have a small budget are there some fruits/vegetables you should buy organic?

I’ll answer all of those questions in this post.

I know I have a tendency to rant and branch off topics occasionally. That’s why I divided this post into two section: the relevant part that answers the question and the rant about sustainability in agriculture and some problems with industrial organic foods.

Here’s the relevant part:

First, it’s not necessary to eat all organic foods to get clear. It’s better for you, but if you cannot afford organic you can still get clear. And by making smart choices you can significantly reduce your exposure to pesticides.

What can you do if you cannot afford organic foods?

The Environmental Working Group put together a ‘Shopper’s Guide To Pesticides In Produce’. They looked at 43 common fruits and vegetables and ranked them based on detected pesticide levels.

Here’s a list of the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables. As far as possible buy these organic.

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet bell peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Lettuce
• Grapes (imported)
• Pears
• Spinach
• Potatoes

The 12 least contaminated fruits and vegetables are:

• Onions
• Avocados
• Sweet corn (frozen)
• Pineapples
• Mango
• Sweet peas (frozen)
• Asparagus
• Kiwi
• Bananas
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Eggplant

According to the Environmental Working Group you can reduce your exposure to pesticides by 90% by replacing the 12 most contaminated foods with the 12 safest foods. The 12 worst foods exposes you to about 14 different pesticides a day. While the 12 safest foods expose you to on average less than 2.

You can download and print out a free copy of the guide. Keep it in your wallet. It’s a handy reference to have at a supermarket. Click here to get Shoppers Guide To Pesticides In Produce.

And the rant starts here… for those interested of these issues.

Second, I want to point out organic food is not the answer to all the problems in agriculture and food chain.

Yes, pesticides and chemicals are dangerous to your health, and yes, they harm the environment. Nonorganic agriculture is simply not sustainable. We take more from the land than it and the sun can support. Conventional agriculture is mainly ‘take’ from the land. Sustainable agriculture (be it organic or not) is give and take. With sustainable practices the farmer can make the soil healthier.

That said organic doesn’t automatically mean sustainable. Because we live in an industrial society and the way our food distribution is organized we have a branch of organic called ‘industrial organic’.

This is the type of organic food you find from supermarkets and health food store chains (such as Whole Foods).

Yes all the foods are grown without chemicals, but the farming practices may not sustainable. It may result in loss of topsoil and loss of biodiversity. Still without pesticides and chemicals they are healthier to you and to the environment than conventional produce.

Another problem with industrial organic. Foods may have traveled thousands of miles to reach you. That in itself makes them unsustainable.

Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma explains this whole issue beautifully. I recommend you read it.

Often the most sustainable way is to eat local foods as much as possible.

Finally let’s put this whole pesticides in fruits and vegetables in perspective.

Eating the most contaminated fruits and vegetables is still far healthier than eating meat and other animal products.

I’m just going to ignore all the other health problems with meat and just focus on pesticides. Animals eat huge quantities of vegetable matter to grow. The pesticides in the animal foods accumulate into the fat tissues of the animal. By eating the animal (or drinking its milk) you are expose to far higher levels of pesticides than by eating vegetables.

Organic meat is, in theory, healthier. The problem is the organic standards have been watered down by the industry. For example feedlots and factory farming can be organic. Sure, the animals eat ‘food’ that is not grown with pesticides and doesn’t get antibiotics. Still given the condition the animal grows up and the so-called food it eats, the meat is no healthier than normally produced.

Another example. Eggs and poultry can be labeled free range without the chickens ever leaving the factory farm. The only thing that’s required is access to outdoor.

In theory that sounds good. Practice is another matter.

Access just means a door to a patch of grass outdoors, outside the factory farming hall. A chicken lives 7 weeks in the factory farm before it’s butchered. That door (access) is shut for the first 5 weeks. It’s open during the last two weeks but by that time the chickens are so used to indoors they never venture out.

Never mind the chicken never sees sunlight and outdoors, it’s still labeled and sold as ‘free range’. And the package shows pictures of happy chickens merrily adventuring in lush, green fields in utter and total bliss.

Again I recommend you read Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Finding safe and healthy foods to eat in our industrial society is not so easy anymore. We can thank the agricultural industries for f***ing up our foods.

Read and become aware of these issues and you can make good, healthy and conscious choices.

Eating locally grown foods, bought from farmer’s markets is always a good choice.