Michael has tried everything.
Several courses of Accutane, all OTC treatments you can name, master cleanse many times. He eats healthy. Still his skin looks horrible.
Then he goes to Puerto Rico for 2 months, smokes like a chimney and eats greasy food. Yet his skin never looked better.
What’s going on here? Doesn’t this prove diet has no effect on his skin?
In case you are wondering. Michael is a member at Clear Skin Space, where we had this discussion.
Michael’s case is interesting because it shows that getting clear doesn’t always make sense… or does it? So what can we learn from this? If you are in a similar situation should you throw salad to the wind and eat whatever you want?
No. Not if you want permanently clear skin, anyway.
Food affects your skin in two ways. Some foods trigger a breakout soon after you eat them; often within a day or two. I call these ‘trigger foods’. This is often because you are sensitive to that particular food, or the food is otherwise inflammatory.
These foods are easy to spot, and their relationship to your skin is easy to understand.
However food also affects acne indirectly. This is where people get confused.
Foods can either contribute to your or they can take away from your health. If your health suffers from your diet and lifestyle choices it always means more inflammation in your body. And more inflammation means more acne – to those who are prone to it.
Let’s get back to Michael.
We can conclude that the foods he ate in Puerto Rico didn’t trigger acne. But it would be quite foolish to say foods have no effect on his health. And because foods he eat affect his health, they also affect the health of his skin – even if the effect is indirect and shows only after a long time.
But this doesn’t make any sense. Why did his skin get better in Puerto Rico?
Who knows. We can rarely reduce these things to one or two factors. Perhaps his body needed sunlight and fresh air more than anything. Or perhaps in that tropical paradise he was happier and less stressed. Perhaps the foods he ate back home contained some ingredient he was sensitive to, and this ingredient was not present in the foods he ate in Puerto Rico.
This brings us to the next concept many acne victims struggle with.
Your health is only as strong as its weakest link.
Unfortunately 90% of all the questions I get have something to do with diet. Is this food good? Will this make me breakout? Is this food safe to eat?
Diet is the only thing many acne victims can wrap their heads around. They have overblown the importance of diet in getting clear.
Sure it’s important to watch what you eat, but diet is just one of the elements of health. You have to make sure you exercise, sleep well, get some sunlight and fresh air, and remain positive.
Diet is no more important than the other elements.
Let me finish this by telling you the BIG SECRET to clear skin.
I get a certain amount of hate mail. For whatever reason some people feel compelled to tell me I’m a greedy and evil bastard for withholding the secret to clear skin. I should go and yell it off the mountaintop, they say.
Since there are no mountaintops nearby, and it can get a bit cold in those altitudes, I’m just going to yell it off here.
So here it is. The ‘secret’ three-step formula for clear skin.
- Put all the elements of health in place. This means finding a diet that works for YOU, and making sure all the elements of health are balanced.
- Avoid trigger foods and substances you are sensitive to or that in some other way trigger a breakout.
- Sit tight and allow the healing process to unfold.
There you have it. That is, honest to God, the big NON-secret to clear skin. There is nothing more to it.
Now just go do it.
And while you are at it, go grab a copy of Clear for Life to make me happy 
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Clear for Life – The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin