Clear for Life

Your friends see your new diet as an open seasons for nasty jokes? Perhaps you could have written this email.

Just as a side note, when you do decide to go out with friends, do you find it easier to cheat / enjoy your food (and not invoke cognitive dissonance) or do you have to explain your life philosophy of being a raw vegan? Personally, my friends do not want to hear such nonsense and I get so much crap everyday for how I eat but oh well!

I don’t have any rules regarding my diet, so the concept of cheating on my diet doesn’t make any sense in my case.

Instead of rules I have preferences. Those preferences change depending on the situation I’m in and what I want to achieve (my goals). Often they are related to health, but not always. When I go out with my friends I tend to focus more on just having a good time.

So I try to use diet to my benefit without letting it rule my life.

Perhaps as a consequence my friends never give me grief about my diet. They know that I eat in a week more fruits than they probably eat in a year, but they hardly ever mention it. Sometimes they are a bit curious and ask question (usually arising out of dietary ignorance), but they do so out of curiosity.

I also never bring up my diet. Sometimes they want to eat in a place I just don’t want to eat (such as McDonald’s). In those cases I tell them ‘I can’t eat that crap, let’s go somewhere else’. I just tell them it’s bad for my skin/health and makes me feel terrible afterwards without going into ‘I’m a raw vegan and can’t eat that’ nonsense.

I don’t think your friends intentionally want to see you fail in your diet. At least if you don’t make an issue out of it. They probably do give you grief about it if you let your diet come in between you and your friends. If they notice that it stops you from going out and having fun with them.

So don’t let your diet rule over your entire life. Remember that being happy is at least as important as eating healthy. In most cases you can still make reasonable food choices even when eating out with your buddies. As a guy, just don’t order a salad if your buddies have big burgers. That’s just asking for trouble

Finally talk to your friends. I’m sure they understand you don’t want to eat at McDonald’s because of your skin.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Lot of people email and ask what I eat normally.

I decided to come clean and unloaded everything from my fridge and cupboards on my bed. Here’s what it looks like:

So let’s see what we have:

• Tons of bananas
• Mangoes
• Oranges
• Pineapple
• Watermelon
• Peaches, Asian variety
• A dragon fruit
• Few bags of greens
• Tomatoes, cucumbers and few other vegetables

At any given day those make up for the majority of my diet; though the selection of fruits changes depending on availability, season and whatever I happen to fancy.

Most of that will be gone in the next two to three days.

What’s missing from the picture are the few kilos of frozen berries occupying my freezer.

Let’s move to the stuff I eat less frequently:

• Some dried fruits, occasionally snack with these
• Tuna, sometimes add it to salads
• Olives, again for salads
• Mix of sesame seeds and seaweed, excellent stuff to sprinkle on salads
• Salad dressing
• Bottle of lemon juice

Finally we have the rest

• Instant coffee, I know it tastes horrible and is very bad for your health, but what can I say I’m hooked on coffee and have no plans to quit it.
• Green tea and herbal teas
• Natural and unsweetened cocoa, sometimes drink this in the evenings
• Salt, baking soda and honey, bought them to try some homemade skin care recipes but don’t eat them
• Instant oats, unopened for the last few months and I doubt I’ll ever open it

That’s about. When I’m at home that’s what I eat.

I have to say that when I’m out I eat more ‘normal’ food, i.e. cooked food. I usually eat one cooked meal a day, usually Thai food since I’m in Thailand. Some days I’m 100% raw, aside from two cups of coffee.

If eating like this scares your socks off, don’t worry, you don’t have to go this far just to get clear. 50% raw and the rest from natural, whole foods should do the trick.

Just so you know, I just didn’t one day decide to eat like this. It has been a gradual transition to me. Now eating mostly raw is very natural for me. It makes me feel fantastic and I wouldn’t want to eat any other way.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Good steak or a juice mango? That’s the question many acne victims face.

For clear skin and good health should you go low-carb or low-fat? Some people get clear with low-carb diets, some with low-fat diets. How is this possible, and why does it have to be so darn confusing?

Just few questions on Chris’s mind when he emailed me. You can get clear on either diet, and in this post I explain why. I also explain a serious short coming with low-carb diets; something you should keep in mind before trying them.

Let’s start with the original question from Chris.

This high fruit/carb/sugar (from fruit and veggies) especially in those green smoothies then, in regards to the high protein/fat argument, is a death drink.

I have read all your articles and blog entries, I get a good understanding on where you are coming from, but then again I see their point and am trying to link both arguments together, like an argumentative paper, to see why one side says “this” and the other says “that.” I’m trying to see which side is missing something, if they think they are. I know this is hard due to food being a “religion”, like you said, and what not. But I feel you have a good head on your shoulders and are honest.

Let’s see if we can’t clarify things a bit.

Diet wars: fat vs. carbs

In case you are not familiar with what I call the “diet wars” let me explain them briefly. Basically we have ‘carbs’ people fighting ‘fat’ people. People on the carb camp say eating too much fat causes insulin resistance, which that leads to all kinds of problems. People on the other side of the fence claim carbs spike blood sugar and levels, and that leads to insulin resistance.

So both sides agree that insulin resistance is the main problem and the solution is to keep blood sugar levels stable. Just the methods differ; low-fat diet vs. low-carb diet.

Let’s also acknowledge that people have gotten clear with low-carb diets and with low-fat diets. People on low-carb diets can have stable blood sugar levels, and the same can be said about low-fat diets.

So what gives? Does it even matter whether you eat low-carb or low-fat?

Understanding blood sugar controls unravels the mystery

Understanding how your body controls blood sugar levels unravels the confusion. The process works a bit differently for both diets.

In the case of low-fat (high-carb by definition) diets your body turns carbs into glucose and absorbs it directly from the digestive track. Glucose goes to bloodstream and from there insulin takes it to your cells. This is the most efficient route and the way your body was designed to work.

In a healthy individual eating a healthy diet this process works perfectly. Blood sugar levels remain stable. But insulin resistance changes things dramatically. Glucose cannot get from the bloodstream into the cells and blood sugar levels increase. This leads to high insulin levels and all sorts of problems low-carb books warn you about.

So carbs + insulin resistance = problem; carbs + no insulin resistance = no problem.

Now let’s look at low-carb diets and how they affect blood sugar levels.

Your body runs on sugar. That’s the fuel it prefers and, as a general rule, everything you eat gets converted to sugar, even the fats and the protein you eat. Since protein rarely makes up a significant portion of calories I’ll focus on fat here.

When you eat fat the body picks it up from the digestive track and the circulatory system (your blood and lymph) takes it to fat storages.

Think of those storages as a warehouse. As needed the liver converts fats into glucose, dumps it into the bloodstream and from there to your cells.

Your body actively manages this process. It monitors blood sugar levels and instructs the liver to convert just the right amount of fat into glucose. Going back to the warehouse analogy. As orders come in the warehouse manager ships just the right amount of material out, and at the right time.

Because your body manages this process you’ll get a steady drip of glucose into the bloodstream and your blood sugar levels remain stable.

Too much fat still leads to insulin resistance

At the first glance that looks like a great approach, but it has one major setback.

It does nothing to the root cause of the problem: insulin resistance.

While your blood sugar levels may remain steady on a low-carb diet you are still cannot handle carbs. I touched on this in an earlier blog post: Acne victims: To fruit or not to fruit?.

The concentration of glucose in the blood was consistently 1mmol/l higher in the mice maintained on the high-fat diet than in those on the normal diet throughout the 1 year study period. However, insulin levels continued to rise in the mice maintained on the high-fat diet. This suggests that insulin resistance progressively increased but there were compensatory mechanisms which kept the hyperglycaemia stable at 1mmol/l. When challenged with an intravenous glucose tolerance test, there was no compensation for the insulin resistance and there was a marked deterioration of glucose elimination.

Winzell MS & Ahren B (2004)
The High-Fat Diet-Fed Mouse: A Model for Studying Mechanisms and Treatment of Impaired Glucose Tolerance and Type 2 Diabetes. (PDF)
Diabetes 53 (3) S215-9

OK, this is research done with mice. But does it apply to humans in real life. Take a look at these comments at a low-carb forum:

“when i sit down and have a nice two lb steak, and measure my blood sugar 2 hours later… since i am diabetic.. i notice that the number is around 85..if i eat any carbs my blood sugars go as high as 500.. steak.. its whats for dinner!!”

“I have severe reactive hypoglycemia. With protein and fat throughout the day, my blood sugars are nice and steady. I never spike and crash. If I ate too many carbs, however, I’d be having some severe episodes.”

“My mom’s diabetic, so she’s testing all the time… When she LC’s [low-carbs] all her numbers are under control… when she goes off plan, her numbers are haywire!

Likewise, just in my own personal experience… I have low blood sugar… if I eat a steak, I have even sustained energy and clear mental function… if I eat comparable carbs, it’s like I’m DRUNK I’m so lethargic and stupid!”

Protein and Insulin Levels

You can find several people at acne.org forums who have gotten clear with low-carb diets. The message from the is very clear. As long as they stay away from carbs they remain clear, but when they eat too many carbs they breakout.

Here’s an email I got from a customer. Before trying Clear for Life he had been on a low-carb diet.

Just got to say, you da man! I’m into my 4th week post paleo and my skin is doing very well. I haven’t kept to your diet and detox plan stringently, but am eating an abundance of organic fruits, greens, grains, tubers, and legumes while being very careful about my fat intake. Also maintaining a regular exercise and meditation routine while getting as much sunlight as I can manage working an office job during the rainy season in Seattle.

The first week on my diet I was quite amazed to eat levels of carbs that would have caused a carpet bombing of my face while on paleo. No such result.

Can you see a common pattern here? None of these people can eat carbs without severe blood sugar problems. Meaning they still have severe insulin resistance - just like the research done on mice said they would.

And what causes their insulin resistance? All the fat in their blood.

So while they may have their blood sugar levels and skin under control they’ve done nothing to the root cause. They simply manage symptoms and have pretty much doomed themselves into never eating carbs.

Low-carb agruments don’t square with reality

OK, I get that, but what about the arguments low-carb people say? That eating carbohydrates leads to spiking blood sugar levels and insulin resistance, and that the only way to avoid that is to avoid carbs.

One good thing that has come out of low-carb diets is that people are more conscious of eating refined sugar and carbs. Because those are bad for you, can spike your blood sugar levels, and lead to acne and other health problems.

But the argument fails miserably when applied to unrefined carbs; the things you find from whole foods. And I have to admire the low-carb people for persisting on their argument even though it flies on the face of reality.

Riddle me this. Most people outside the Western world eat a diet that’s high in carbs (Asians with their rice and South Americans with their corn). How is it there are very few fat people in these places and diabetes is almost unheard of, except in people who eat a more Western diet? According to the low-carb arguments these people should be obese, diabetic and pretty much dead by now.

The longest-lived people fill their plates with unrefined carbs

And if low-carb diet was the key to optimal health how is it possible that the people in the longest-lived cultures eat a high-carb diet?

Costa Rica’s longevity capital

A lot of physical labor still goes into food production there, from clearing fields to raise crops to picking fruit and grinding corn for tortillas, which is a great upper-body workout. In fact, people who live in this region have some of the best physical stamina in the world because they’re always on the move. People eat lots of corn, beans and squash, and there’s fresh fruit almost year-round.

Live longer with advice from the “Blue zones”

The island of Okinawa in Japan is the home to the longest-lived people in the world. They eat plenty of rice, tofu and seafood. The longest-lived Americans are the Seventh-Day Adventists, many of which are vegetarians and have cut out most of the foods available on a low-carb diet.

These people wouldn’t live so long with raging blood sugar and insulin levels.

Then we have people who eat raw foods, the low-fat version. Most of them report dramatic improvements in health, energy levels and athletic performance. I’m one of them, and Clear for Life customers email me with similar stories every day.

I could go on and quote studies showing how low-fat, high-carb, high-fiber diet reverses insulin resistance, but I don’t think we need to go there.

In the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence I can’t put much weight on the low-carb arguments.

Let me say I’m not making a value judgment here, and at the same time wrap this up.

Whether you choose a low-card or a low-fat approach it’s possible to cure acne and live a healthy life. It’s just that the low-carb approach still leaves you with insulin resistance, and that’s a risk I’m not willing to take. Especially since you can get the same results with healthier diet that’s supported by both science and real life experience.

You are free to choose differently, but at least now you understand the whole story and can make a conscious choice.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Not sure how you to cure your acne?

You are certainly not the only one. Most acne victims waste huge amounts of time and money because of wrong ideas on how to cure acne.

In this post I correct some misconceptions about how to cure acne many acne victims have. I got inspiration for this post from an email a reader sent me. I’m confident you share many of her concerns. Here are few excerpts from her email.

I’ve read a lot of what you say causes acne, and that a lot of the things I’ve been doing aren’t the answer. But i’m confused because you have other acne reviews on your site, so how do i know which i should try?

I don’t want to be “wasting” my time… because it seems like that’s what i’ve been doing in the past years with no results!

I just want your imput. I’m willing to do ANYTHING that will give me back my self-confidence, my life, and ability to enjoy so many more things!

I’m a very busy person, so I don’t have time to do some crazy diet thing, where I have to make all these concoctions and cook a lot…i’m always on the go. I’m always very low with money, so I can’t spend outrageously…

so, that’s why i’m so skeptical about paying to try new things, but I’ll give anything for something that really works!

Is your book give easy & simple to do (like DO this, DON’T do this etc…?) or is it all holistic stuff like “you gotta breathe right” sleep 10 hrs., meditate everyday, and think positive type thing? or is it so complicated that if you miss 1 thing you’re screwed? or “try this, it MIGHT help you?”

I’ve always thought my problem was somehow hormone-related…

Seems to me that your view on how to cure acne is a bit off the mark. Seems that you are after simple tips, guidelines and DOs and DON’Ts that get you clear. At least that’s the impression I got from your email.

Allow me to be blunt here and break it for you.

There are no simple tips and guidelines that will help you to cure acne. At least not anything that would work consistently for many people. Some tips and regimens may help individual people to cure acne, but often they don’t work for the next person.

The closest thing to a universal tip I can give is building health leads to clear skin. This is the message in Acne 101. I spent over 100 pages explaining and hammering this point in from various angles. Hoping that through this shock and awe bombardment the message would go through.

Health = clear skin is a radical departure from the way most acne victims try to get over acne. Simply because there’s nothing you can do to target or cure acne. Your skin is not in your control.

Different acne treatment products, regimens and drugs give you the illusion you can control your acne. But as the email pointed out the results are often wasted time and money and mounting frustration.

From my experience in helping people cure acne one thing is clear. And that experience includes being in touch with over 1000 acne victims, many of which have either cured their acne or seen significant improvements, curing my own acne and studying natural health for over seven years. From all this the overriding conclusion is:

Focusing your efforts on curing acne leads to failure.

More than anything the road to clear skin is learning to treat yourself with respect; in all three levels: physical, emotional and spiritual.

That means giving your body everything it needs (nutrients, fresh air, exercise, rest, etc.) and treating yourself with respect mentally.

If you constantly put someone down, make negative comments about them and don’t believe into them, do you treat them with respect? Then, why do you keep doing it to yourself?

Acne is a lesson in self-respect

Those who succeed in curing acne treat it as a lesson in self-respect.

They work not only on their diet but on all the elements of physical health. They weed out negative thoughts and beliefs about themselves. They go from pessimism to optimism. They challenge themselves and grow. They accept responsibility for their lives.

I know this was another high-flying answer wrapped in fancy rhetoric with little substance - or so some people would say. This also happens to be the same bunch of people who just want the quick tips and thus avoid hard work and responsibility.

The point of this post is not to give you a clear road map to clear skin. There’s no such thing. The point of this post is to change the way you approach curing acne. So that you can start looking for answers in places where you find them.

Let’s finish by going through few important points in the email.

Self-respect and happiness lead to clear skin - not the other way around

I’m willing to do ANYTHING that will give me back my self-confidence, my life, and ability to enjoy so many more things!

This is one life’s little lessons. You’ve got the whole thing upside down. You don’t get clear and then get back your self-confidence and start enjoying life. Simply because acne doesn’t hold you back on anything. Your own limiting beliefs and negative thought about yourself do. Acne is simply an excuse you use to justify them. If you get over acne without dealing with the limiting beliefs you simply find another excuse.

You first deal with the limiting beliefs and start respecting yourself. That gives you back your self-confidence and ability to enjoy life. After that most likely your acne goes away on its own.

You probably want to whack me on the head for not understanding your situation, and were I in your shoes I surely would understand that acne is the real problem.

I can just say I’ve wrestled with my own challenges in this field and know this to be true. Plus working with people who test Happy Skin Days and seeing how simply changing beliefs changes your whole outlook on life. So I hope you can take my word on this.

I’m a very busy person, so I don’t have time to do some crazy diet thing, where I have to make all these concoctions and cook a lot

Then you should be glad to hear that I never cook. I don’t even own pots and pans anymore. Not because I can’t cook but because I don’t see a point anymore. When I’m at home I mostly eat fresh and raw fruits and vegetables. When I go out I eat more normal food. I can’t think of a simpler diet.

This is one reason I love Clear Skin Lifestyle so much. It’s so simple and easy.

Is your book give easy & simple to do (like DO this, DON’T do this etc…?) or is it all holistic stuff like “you gotta breathe right” sleep 10 hrs., meditate everyday, and think positive type thing? or is it so complicated that if you miss 1 thing you’re screwed? or “try this, it MIGHT help you?”

It’s a bit all those - except complicated. As I made the point earlier, getting clear means learning to respect yourself. We all face different challenges in that area. For some people those challenges are physical, others may struggle with mental things.

With everybody starting from different points there’s no way for me, or anyone else for that matter, to give a simple one-size-fits-all solution. But I can give you a goal to aim at, and I can give you tools to look at your life and find the areas you need to work on.

For example I can say that it seems that your diet needs a little work, and then give you guidelines for what a healthy diet looks like. Or I can say that you could benefit from exercising more, so why don’t you see if you can think of ways to incorporate more exercise into your days. Or I can say that on the physical front it seems you are doing fine, but you may need to work on accepting yourself and on your negative beliefs.

So I can’t give you a dumbed down 3-step solution to clear skin, but I can help you to figure out where you are at the moment and how to move forward from there. I can help you figure out your own solution to permanently clear skin.

Clear for Life focuses more on the physical front. It helps you with diet, exercise and other elements of health. Upcoming Happy Skin Days helps you with mental side of things. It shows how to deal with negative beliefs and create a healthier self-image.

I’ve always thought my problem was somehow hormone-related…

Yes, of course it is hormone-related. But hormones are linked to your diet and lifestyle. You can’t separate the two issues. Anything that happens inside of you ultimately comes down to your diet and lifestyle choices.

You are in control of, and only of, your diet and lifestyle choices. Your body adjusts everything that happens inside according to those choices.

So in the end it comes down to respect. Once you start respecting your life it starts respecting you. When that happen you’ll just might notice your acne disappearing and your life getting happier.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

I do have one quick question for you….do you ever eat anything like a chocolate chip cookie, a piece of candy or a small piece of cake? I am not a big dessert eater but it would be nice to know that I can have a small treat once every couple of weeks or something. If you do eat those things ocassionally how often do you allow yourself to have them and do you alter your other eating for that day?

To answer your question, yes I occasionally eat those things. But I think you really want to know if it’s ok to do so.

I can’t give you a simple black and white answer to that. It depends on what you want.

Unlike many others who promote a strict dietary adherence I’m more flexible on this point.

Above all my advice is to make friends with your food. Your diet shouldn’t cause stress and neither should it make you feel deprived. I believe that both of those harm your health and skin more than occasionally treating yourself with ‘bad’ foods.

This means acknowledging that diet change can be a big thing, and that you may need to give yourself time to make the changes. Don’t push too much too quickly.

Your diet needs to be in sync with your life. For example I spend a lot of time at coffee shops, simply because they are convenient places to work. So it’s no surprise that I drink coffee. Quitting coffee and tea at the moment would be very hard. My life is just too structured around coffee shops. And I really don’t want to change this because I enjoy the freedom this gives me. So I think the benefits of coffee and the other things that come along with it outweigh the downsides of drinking coffee.

If you have similar obstacles to healthy eating acknowledge the fact and don’t push too hard against it. Take a look at your situation and figure out what’s the best you can at the moment. Then live by that. Don’t push yourself to go further than that or you’ll end up stressing yourself for no good reason. On the other hand keep it real. Don’t deceive yourself with this.

Making friends with your food also means keeping in mind what you want. Desire to simply remain in good health gives you much more flexibility than training for Olympic does, for example. Diet is a matter of cause and effect. If you are happy with your results then why would you change your diet? If you don’t like your results then consider making changes.

My diet is not optimal. It’s very good, but I still drink coffee and occasionally eat foods that are not good for me. But I’m happy where I’m at the moment and don’t see the need to make big changes.

As you can see it’s hard to give simple and definitive answers to diet questions. Right answer depends on so many things. But getting back to your question I don’t think such small treats hamper your efforts to cure acne too much.

Diet is an important part of healthy and curing acne, but you need to keep it in perspective. It’s just a part of the solution.

As long as you understand the elements of healthy diet and clear skin, such as presented in Clear for Life, and honestly do your best given your situation you should do fine.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

In a study conducted at Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers found that women with the highest levels of insulin had 1.5 to 2.4-fold higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to women with lower levels of insulin. The risk prevailed even after accounting for other risk factors for breast cancer, such as high estrogen levels.

As you know high levels of insulin is also linked to acne. Swinging blood sugar levels lead to increased secretion of insulin, insulin like growth factor 1 (IFG-1) and other hormones. These hormones in turn lead to increased sebum production and more dead skin cells - in other words blocked pores.

It’s no surprise that insulin and IGF-1 are linked to breast, and other types of, cancer. They are powerful growth hormones, as Dr. McDougall explains in this video.

When it comes to acne these hormones stimulate the production of skin cells and sebum. When it comes to cancers they stimulate the growth of cancer cells.

This is one more example of why I keep repeating that building health is the answer to acne. Because pimples aren’t your real problem. They are simply a symptom of the condition your body is in. And acne is but one of the symptoms.

Fighting acne (=repressing symptoms) simply pushes the real cause ‘deeper’ into the body, and later on it may pop out as a far more serious condition, such as cancer.

Finally, please don’t take this as a flimsy scare tactic (i.e. buy Clear for Life or you’ll get a breast cancer). Simply take it as a friendly reminder to focus your efforts on where have the best effect - building health rather than trying to cure acne.

With that may 2009 be your last year with acne!

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin