Clear for Life

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.

1. 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.
2. Avoid trigger foods and substances you are sensitive to or that in some other way trigger a breakout.
3. 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

You can’t get clear until your self-image is clear. Holistic health is the only reliable way to permanently clear skin. Readers love Clear for Life.

Those are just few of the results of a recent customer survey I did. Thanks for everyone who got back to me. Here’s feedback on the feedback, and few golden nuggets that help you get clear. You’ll pick up something useful even if you haven’t read Clear for Life.

You can’t outperform your self-image

Interestingly quite a few people commented that CFL gives them fantastic results when they stick to it. Unfortunately they keep falling off the wagon and in the process making a mess of their skins.

While I agree that staying healthy in today’s world takes some work, I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. The truth is that eating and living healthy is easy - once you get over your own limits.

If you find yourself repeating a pattern where you make progress and then fall back, I believe you need to work on your self-image.

In the personal growth circles it’s well-known that you can’t outperform your self-image.

Deep in your subconscious mind you have an image of yourself; your self-image. That image shows what you really believe and think about yourself. It shows what you can and cannot do. It shows what your life is like.

Your mind’s job is to make sure that your life matches your self-image. Scientists say that 95% or more of our behavior is subconscious. Humans like to believe they behave rationally and logically, but even a cursory look shows this is not true.

Your subconscious mind controls most of your actions and choices. It guides your life to the fulfillment of your self-image. One way this happens is through your thoughts. If you think exercise is boring, you’ll find it hard to motivate yourself to exercise. If you believe eating healthy is difficult, you’ll find that it is. But if you believe exercise is fun and eating healthy is delicious and fulfilling, living a healthy life gets easy.

While it’s true that you are free to choose your thoughts most people don’t exercise that power. Instead the choice happens in the subconscious level. And here’s where your self-image guides your destiny.

In each moment your subconscious feeds your mind with thoughts and images that guide your life towards your self-image. If you haven’t trained your mind your life inevitably slips towards your self-image - even if you fight it.

Acne can be part of your self-image directly or indirectly. You may see yourself as a victim of this horrible curse. Or you may, for example, believe that you don’t deserve love; acne then justifies that belief and gives you something to point your finger at, you can say the reason you haven’t found love is because nobody would date anyone with your skin.

I used to be afraid of success. I has a belief that it’s better to be small and not attract too much attention on myself - thanks to my childhood. This held me back in many ways. For example my mind created food cravings. I used to be able to stick to raw food diet for few days. But regularly also found myself eating pizza, coke or some other junk. I pushed my limits and my mind had to bring me back to my “comfort level”.

Luckily I found that belief and got rid of it. The food cravings disappeared overnight. Now I’m free to choose my meals and eating healthy is easy.

If you keep hitting a wall and can’t get past a certain point, I recommend you work on upgrading your self-image. Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins shows you how.

Holistic health is the only realizable way to permanently clear skin

Going through the feedback it got painfully obvious that getting clear is a holistic effort. Acne is a complicated problem and I don’t think anyone really knows how it happens. Equally obvious is that there’s no simple solution that would be permanent and would work reliably for many people.

Constantly working to improve your health is the only way to permanently clear skin. Further, you must put in all the pieces of the puzzle. Health is not just about diet or exercise. You have to work on it at many levels. You have to eat healthy, you have to move, you have to sleep well, you have to remain positive, and so on.

The feedback shows that you’ll get the best results if all the elements of health are in balance. Weakness in one area can hold you back from getting 100% clear skin.

Most acne treatments ignore this fundamental truth, so is it any wonder their track record is so miserable?

The biggest problem areas for people were sleep and stress and negative attitude.

Stress and negative attitude are related to your self-esteem and mental image, and I wrote a bit about sleep here:

Feeling tired and can’t figure out why?

6 Months to clear skin

I also have to admit that I may have been too optimistic about the time it takes to get clear. I usually tell 3 to 4 months is a reasonable time frame for big improvements.

While many people get good results within 4 months this may not be enough to get you completely clear.

I’ve gotten quite a few emails from people who tell me that they’ve been following CFL for 3 to 4 months and are still breaking out. Granted, their acne is much better than it was before starting CFL. Cystic acne has faded to whiteheads and breakouts happen less frequently and fade away quicker.

Still, when you expect to be completely clear, it may be hard to appreciate these changes and many people focus on their remaining acne - instead of how much better their skin looks now.

I should have communicated more forcefully that in the 3 month mark people are still going through the detox process and it’s normal to keep breaking out. It doesn’t mean you do something wrong or you couldn’t get clear.

From the feedback I get 6 months seems to be a better timeframe for completely, or nearly, clear skin.

Of course this changes from person to person, and I’m sure some people say they got clear much faster and some say it took longer than 6 months.

People love Clear for Life

I’m especially happy about this - and perhaps even a little proud. I asked those customers who bought Clear for Life at least 6 weeks ago - so that they had enough time putting it into practice - how satisfied they are with it.

A whopping 51% gave the highest rating. Here are the results:

About 10% of the people I send the survey filled it. I realize that there can be a positive bias in the answers - people who are happy with CFL are more likely to respond to the survey. Still, it shows people get results with Clear for Life.

And if you haven’t read Clear for Life the chances are you’ll love it.

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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

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

“Help, I’m losing too much weight and my friends comment how skinny I look!”

Please cool down, you are not going to fade away : )

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I get from Clear for Life customers. Perhaps it’s on your mind also, so I wrote a detailed reply to it.

Let’s start with an ABC of body composition and weight control.

Three elements make up for your body weight: water, lean tissue and fat. Water makes up as much as 70% of our total body mass.

Water has many important functions in the body. One is that it’s used to dilute toxins to bring down their concentration to less harmful level.

When the body cannot eliminate all the toxins it has to store them. But it doesn’t store just the toxins, it also stores the water they are diluted in. Solution to pollution is dilution.

Once you stop putting toxins in the organs of elimination have a chance to catch up. The load of toxins in the body starts to go down. As the body gets rid of the toxins it also releases the extra water.

Any rapid weight loss is always water loss.

That’s one part of the weight loss issue.

Second, and this may make you a bit uncomfortable, nearly all of us are under muscled and over fat.

Here’s a quote from Dr. Graham:

“When thin people have a desire to gain weight, they usually fail to recognize that they need to gain muscle, not fat. Almost every client who has even come to me wanting to curtain their weight loss because they thought they were getting too ’skinny’ actually still needed to lose some fat…

One client, a high-end fashion model, came to me saying she would do whatever I suggested in order to extend her youthful beauty, but she could not afford to lose any more weight. She was long and lanky and looked skinny to be sure, but she was under muscled. When we measured her body fat, she was shocked to discover that it was almost 29% - at least 10% above what I would consider healthy. She did not need to lose weight; she needed to lose fat while gaining muscle.”

Dr. Graham
The 80/10/10 Diet

For most people it only looks like they have muscle because of water and fat. Water inflates their muscles. Within the muscles there’s also lots of fat, and there’s a padding of fat around the muscles.

Once the body starts to release water and fat it looks like our muscles are shrinking. But in reality we have only been stripped off our illusion of muscles. Perhaps for the first time we have to face the fact of how under muscled most of us really are.

Muscle loss happens only in two cases: you don’t use the muscles or you starve yourself. Starving is not an issue, because the body first burns off fat before using muscle for energy. If you purposefully leave yourself calorie-deficient for long periods of time (months) it may happen, but for the vast majority it’s not an issue.

So the only way you can lose muscle is not to use them. Use it or lose it. And as you start using them your muscles gain their size back quickly.

That’s another part to weight loss mystery.

As you can see it doesn’t really make sense to look at your weight and ’skinniness’ as an indicator of how well you are doing. Rather focus on how you are feeling. Do you still have energy? What about your athletic capabilities, are they still the same/improving/declining?

As long as you feel great and can perform athletically (the way you used to) you have nothing to worry about.

Initially, you may experience a drop in your athletic capabilities. That’s a result of detoxification.

Initially the body may break down more tissue than it can rebuild. So you may lose a little strength. That’s ok. It’s temporary and you will gain the ‘lost’ muscle back.

It doesn’t happen to everybody, but if it happens to you it’s important to be aware of it, and keep an eye on it. This ‘weak’ period should not last for more than a month or two. If it goes on for more than two months, you may have a problem with your diet.

With strength training you can minimize or completely avoid this weak period. I’ve noticed and heard from other people that by training your muscles you can prevent the temporary muscle loss.

On a personal note I can tell that none of this happened to me. Yes, I’ve lost some weight, but I was carrying few extra pound that I was happy to get rid of. Instead of looking skinny I have far more muscle now than I did when I was eating a more standard diet. Putting on muscle has become much easier than it used to be. I get bigger gains from doing less work - you just can’t beat that.

My body builds itself almost automatically. And all I’m doing is to follow the diet guidelines in Clear for Life and the exercise routine I learned from Roger Haeske’s Lightning Speed Fitness Program.

I never go to the gym anymore. My strength training routine takes only 5 to 10 minutes a day. I only do exercises that I enjoy - I just can’t stand boring and repetitive stuff. And I do it all in my home.

When exercise is so simple and fun there’s no need to look skinny. That’s why I recommend Roger Haeske’s Lightning Speed Fitness Program.

So to sum things up, ensure that you:

• Do something with your muscles
• Eat sufficient calories
• Keep your fat consumption under 20% of total calories, preferably under 10%
• Eat a pound of greens a day
• Drink enough water; even a slight dehydration can lead to reduced capacity for muscular work

Isn’t it funny how good things just stack up when you do the right things? The same advice that helps you to get clear also gives you a great body. It’s a total transformation from skinny and acne ridden to clear, athletic and sexy. And that really sucks when everyone else is getting fatter and lazier : )

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

Share your views and experiences about acne, getting clear and weight loss at Clear Skin Space forums: “Help, I’m losing too much weight!”

Does it feel like your skin has a mind of its own? That it feels like acne is impossible to control?

You certainly aren’t the only one. The email I got from a reader describes the sentiments of many acne victims.

My skin, overall, is good. I do not have severe acne and my breakouts are mild and comes but once in a while. But when I do get them.. I feel they are impossible to control. I also am frustrated by the red marks they have left behind. What would you recommend is best for me.

Two concerns: Control acne and fade away post acne marks. Overall I am happy with my skin. Just want to be able to be in control of it more.

First I have to say you can’t really control your skin. Not in a reliable way at least. Sure creams, lotions, drugs, supplements, light therapies and such can give you some degree of control. But you’ve probably tried almost all of those. And nobody can tell you if they work for you, and if they do for how long. It’s a bit like going to casino. You may win, but the odds are stacked against you.

A bit more advanced way is to see if some foods or substances trigger a breakout. Perhaps you have some food allergies or sensitivities that trigger acne.

But that’s about the extent of control you have over your skin. How your skin looks is largely determined what happens inside of you. If I had a pull a figure out of my hat I’d say what happens inside of you controls at least 80% of your skin. The rest being what you do to your skin.

Trying to control your acne is not the way I recommend. Simply because illnesses don’t happen without a cause. And what we deem as a health problem, such as acne, is nothing but a symptom of the cause. Pimples are not your real problem, and trying to fight pimples won’t get you any closer to curing the real problem.

Why elimination of the symptom is NOT the same as elimination of the disease
Physicians and surgeons palliate symptoms instead of removing causes

Jeffrey Levy, DVM - “The greatest harm of drug treatment is usually not so much the toxicity or side effects as it is the effects of suppression. Allopathic (conventional Western) medical thinking generally seeks immediate gratification: just make the symptom go away.

So the patient may be better in the short term, but is usually worse in the longer term. Homeopathy is just the opposite: sometimes the symptoms are worse in the short term (such as with aggravation or the reversal of a previous suppression), but the real benefit is in the longer term.

A symptom, say itchy skin, is the body’s response to a deeper problem. When a symptom is suppressed, it is only the outward manifestation of the problem that goes away. Since the deeper problem is still there, the body may, in time, produce the same symptom again.

Another possibility is that, as a result of the suppression, the deeper problem progresses to the point that a deeper, more serious symptom is produced. So the itchy skin may go away, but then chronic diarrhea develops. If the diarrhea is then suppressed as well, it may lead to, say, liver disease. But hey, at least the skin is cleared up!

I see this pattern, or variations on it, very frequently in reviewing the medical records of new patients. It is the unrecognized, and often high, price that we pay for the quick fix, for immediate gratification, for the shot or pill that seems to make the problem go away.”

Understanding Basic Healing Principles of Natural Cure

Clear for Life approach recognizes that the root cause is related to diet and lifestyle choices, and that given a change the innate healing mechanisms in your body will heal it.

In the name of honesty I have to say that the Clear for Life approach is not always a walk in the park. Mainly for two reasons.

First, it takes some work initially. Making diet and lifestyle changes you may need to make is not always easy. Though once you get the ball rolling it becomes effortless. Because you start feeling so much better you can get hooked on feeling good. Then there’s no turning back to your old diet and lifestyle (what a shame : )).

Another stumbling block is that you have to give up trying to control your skin. Going through the healing journey can be a bit of a roller coaster ride. One day your skin looks great and the next morning you wake up with horrible pimples.

Healing is a reversal of the disease process. While on it your acne may get worse (temporarily) and some of your old symptoms may pop up (again temporarily).

Going through this roller coaster ride often puts you face to face with deeper self-esteem issues (if you have any, most people do and I certainly had my fair share).

On the other hand with proper tools, guidance and support you can get over these emotional issues and emergy stronger not only physically but also emotionally.

I know this was a long and complicated answer to a simple question. But acne goes far below the surface. When one talks about true healing one cannot chop the body into pieces and deal with them separately. Everything is interconnected and when you throw mind and emotions into the kettle you can begin to appreciate the soup you have cooked.

Still I see acne as perhaps the greatest opportunity you have to drastically improving the quality of your life and getting closer to a happier and more fulfilling life.

If this a path you want to get on head on to Clear Skin Space. It’s filled with people just like you. You’ll get all the support, advice and inspiration you need.

So go ahead and turn acne into your greatest opportunity.

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

The comments for this post are moved to Clear Skin Space forums: How can I control my acne?

Confused about fruits? Think fruits cause acne?

Some people say it’s the devil’s incarnation and nature’s candy, which others say it’s the healthiest food you can eat. In this post I explain, in detail, why most fears about fruit and unfounded and why eating fruits fixes the underlying cause of acne and many other health problems.

This is an answer to Krystal’s question at Clear Skin Space forums. She asked:

Okay, seriously, what is the deal? Everywhere I look someone is saying eat fruit, don’t eat fruit, limit your fruit, fruit should be unlimited?

So my question is this..
Does fruit cause people to break-out?

Welcome to the wonderful world of diet and nutrition. Want to get even more confused? Surf to Amazon.com and search books with ‘diet’ in title. You’ll get about 300′000 results - all with different conclusions and recommendations.

But generally the most intense battles in these diet wars are fought on the high-fat vs. high-carb front.

This is important for acne victims because blood sugar problems cause hormonal reaction that can lead to more acne. Some doctors even call acne ’skin diabetes’.

As a disclaimer I live on a high-carb, high-fiber, high-fiber diet and eat very little fat. I don’t have anything against low-carb diets. I just don’t see them as very smart thing to do. But if you are currently on one and it’s working for you then keep up with it. In the end of this post I’ll add some good points about them.

PROBLEMS WITH LOW-CARB THEORY

If you listen to the high-fat, also called low-carb, guys and gals you should shun away from fruits and carbs. Their theory goes that since carbs raise blood sugar levels, which raises insulin levels, which are linked to many diseases (acne included) one should avoid carbs.

The problem is that it’s all baloney. That theory has been proven wrong so many times, both in lab and in real life. Before writing this I again researched the issue a bit. I really loved this comment on a review study:

The purveyors of these diets [low-carb] portray them to be scientifically sound. Although there is some scientific rationale, two common devices used to support contentions include the overinterpretation of data and weaving together of unconnected scientific observations, and these processes often border on sophistry. Nevertheless, driven by the increased prevalence of overweight and obesity, these diets are increasingly popular despite a relative lack of rigorous scientific data. These diets present an attractive alternative to challenging lifestyle modifications (i.e. intentional calorie reduction and increased physical activity).

Diet, Insulin Resistance, and Obesity: Zoning in on Data for Atkins Dieters Living in South Beach by Cristina Lara-Castro and W. Timothy Garvey

Here’s another aspect of low-carb theory that’s wrong.

The entire theoretical framework of low carb diets, like Atkins and The Zone, hang upon the notion that insulin is the root of all evil and so to limit insulin release one needs to limit carbohydrate intake. Dr. Atkins, for example, has a chapter entitled “Insulin–The Hormone That Makes You Fat,”[71] Protein Power calls it the “monster hormone,”[487] and the author of the Zone Diet calls insulin “the single most significant determinant of your weight.”[72]

What they overlook is that “protein- and fat-rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion” as well.[73] Research in which study subjects served as their own controls, for example, has shown that under fasting conditions a quarter pound of beef raises insulin levels in diabetics as much as a quarter pound of straight sugar.[74]

Atkins’ featured foods like cheese and beef elevated insulin levels higher than “dreaded” high-carbohydrate foods like pasta. A single burger’s worth of beef, or three slices of cheddar, boosts insulin levels more than almost 2 cups of cooked pasta.[75] In fact a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that meat, compared to the amount of blood sugar it releases, seems to cause the most insulin secretion of any food tested.[76]

Low carb advocates like Atkins seem to completely ignore these facts. Recent medical reviews have called Atkins’ feel-good theories “factually flawed”[77] and “at best half-truths.”[78] “In the scientific world, books like the Zone Diet are generally regarded as fiction,” one reviewer wrote in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. “The scientific literature is in opposition…”[79] In a medical journal article entitled “Food Fads and Fallacies,” the Atkins Diet is referred to as a “‘New wives’ tale” with a “sprinkling of fallacies.”[80]

According to a 2003 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Dr. Atkins and his colleagues selectively recite the literature” to support their claims.[81] When researchers take the time to actually measure insulin levels, for instance, instead of just talking about them like Atkins does, they often find the opposite of what Atkins asserted.

Phony Baloney
Atkinsexposed.org by Dr. Michael Greger

Another problem with the theory behind low-carb diet is that it over simplifies things. In the Blood sugar worries blog post I explained the concept of input and output.

THE REAL REASON BEHIND BLOOD SUGAR PROBLEMS

The main reason you get blood sugar problems is because the output side is not working well. Glucose cannot exit from the bloodstream. A condition called insulin resistance, which means that the insulin receptors in cells don’t work well, or they are down regulated. When insulin receptors don’t work glucose cannot get out of the bloodstream. Here’s how Dr. Mark Jenkins put it:

It is not hyperinsulinemia that is the problem, it is the receptor. It has been repeatedly shown in the medical literature that increasing the sensitivity of peripheral insulin receptors reduces hyperinsulinemia and hypertension. This process is termed insulin sensitization and is accomplished by aerobic exercise, low-fat / high-carbohydrate diet, and reduction of excessive body fat. Conversely, obesity and high fat diets have been shown to induce insulin resistance. It is important that the high carbohydrate diet have predominantly complex carbohydrates and also have a high fiber content.

Insulin, Diet, Disease and Athletes

And if you think I’m just blowing smoke out my a** just Google ‘high-fat diet insulin resistance’. Scientists have known this thing since thirties.

When researchers want to study diabetes they feed mice a high-fat diet to create diabetes. There’s even a term called ‘high-fat diet induces insulin resistance‘.

If you can tolerate more science talk, here’s what happens to mice on a high-fat diet. If not, you can safely skip this quote.

Main Findings

Unsurprisingly, the mice fed the high-fat diet had an increased body weight compared to those maintained on a normal diet. The investigators observed stable hyperglycaemia and progressively increased hyperinsulinaemia in the mice on the high-fat diet. This is indicative of progressively worsening insulin resistance. After only one week on the high-fat diet, blood glucose levels were raised and intravenous glucose tolerance tests showed reduced glucose elimination and impaired insulin secretion. This demonstrates two distinct mechanistic characteristics of impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes; namely insulin resistance and islet dysfunction. Metabolic efficiency (that is the energy intake per gram body weight gain) was raised in both the mice fed a high-fat diet and those on a normal diet. However, the increase was attenuated in the mice fed the high-fat diet. Thus the weight gain observed in the high-fat group cannot be fully explained by increased energy intake; there was also a concomitant reduction in metabolic rate.

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. This, along with similar patterns observed following an oral glucose tolerance test, highlights that insulin secretion is defective in this model. When the DPP-IV inhibitor was administered in the drinking water of both groups of mice, there was an augmentation in insulin secretion resulting in improved glucose tolerance.

Conclusions and Future Directions

This work has demonstrated that the high-fat, diet-fed C57BL/6J mouse is a robust model for studying impaired glucose tolerance and early stage type 2 diabetes, as it exhibits similar metabolic defects as are observed in the human disease.

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. Diabetes 53 (3) S215-9

DOES FRUIT CAUSE ACNE?

Now that we have paddled through a mountain of science talk we can move on to the question.

Yes, fruit can cause acne if you have insulin resistance. In that case the sugar in fruits causes a hormonal reaction that can lead to acne.

Get fat out of your blood and reduce insulin resistance with other lifestyle factors and fruit shouldn’t be a problem.

Most fruits are low to medium in glycemic index. And your body is perfectly equipped to deal with sugar from fruits. In Candida and acne blog posts I quoted Steve Pavlina who did an experiment with a raw food diet. Steve monitored his blood sugar levels and they remained remarkably stable. He said that he couldn’t spike his blood sugar levels even if he tried - even eating 19 bananas a day has no effect on blood sugar levels.

Your body is designed to run on sugar and it’s perfectly equipped to deal with it. All your cell run on sugar. The only time your body starts running on fat is if you severely restrict carbohydrate intake. This mechanism is a survival tool, allowing you to survive times of famine or when carbs might not be available. Practically the entire medical community agrees that this ketonic state is not healthy.

Even for people who say they breakout from fruits this is often not the whole truth. When they remove fat out of their diet fruits usually cause no problems. Here’s what on happy Clear for Life customer wrote to me.

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.

After so many years of suffering from acne and then months of being chained to paleo, I’m still quite incredulous to the fact that I can have clear skin and live a normal life.

So you have my sincerest thanks for leading me to a diet and lifestyle that’s providing a long sought-after freedom.

Paleo, or Paleolithic diet, is often high in meat, healthy fats and vegetables with some fruits thrown in. Overall it’s a pretty healthy diet, but the high-fat content can lead to carb sensitivity.

NO ONE DIET FOR ALL PEOPLE

I don’t believe into blood type diet and metabolic type diet theories. These basically say that depending on genetic, or who knows what, make up some people are designed to run on carbs while some are designed to run on fat or protein. So far I haven’t found a single piece of credible evidence to support these theories. And they run against common sense, rationality and real life experience.

That said, I also don’t believe that one diet fits everybody. Yes, I believe that fruits and vegetables are the ideal food for humans. But because we have abused our bodies for decades some people have develped allergies, sensitivities and other conditions that can make eating fruits bad for them, at least some fruits. So we always have to look at the individual and not stick to a dogma.

GOOD POINTS WITH LOW-CARB DIETS

Now that you know why I choose not to eat a low-carb diet and wouldn’t recommend it let’s look at some of the good points in them.

People on low-carb diets tend to eat less processed and junk food they used to. Most junk food is carb-based. Just eliminating soft drinks, candies, pastries (trans fats anyone?) and fast foods can create miracles. I think that simply eating a diet of natural, whole foods is 80% of the solution.

Today people just eat too much of everything. We eat far too many calories. Low-carb diets often get people to eat less. That’s another huge step in reducing insulin resistance and creating health.

Low-carb diets often recommend eating more vegetables. Any diet that gets you to eat less junk and more vegetables is a step to the right direction. Points for low-carb on that.

Creates health awareness. Often when people go on a diet they also become more health conscious. So they might start exercising more and pay attention to their sleep. Diet is just one part of the solution, and in Clear for Life I explained the six elements of health you need to pay attention to. You could eat the perfect diet, but if you ignore the other elements you probably won’t make much progress in terms of health or curing acne.

Finally low-carb diets may get you clear. I know of several people who have gotten clear with a low-carb diet. Since acne is linked to blood sugar response removing carbs somehow short-circuits this mechanisms.

Still, I think high-fruit, low-fat diets are far better at allowing your body to heal itself and removing the root cause of acne. You can actually get to a point where you can eat several days in a row at McDonals and not have it affect your skin at all (unfortunately I speak from experience). Whereas on low-carbs diets such cheats lead to breakouts far more frequently.

CONCLUSION

I hope that by taking you through this long and perhaps a bit science filled journey I managed to shake off some fears you may have concerning fruits. The majority of the scientific community support the idea of high-carb, high-fiber diet in creating health. And fruit gives you both. Plus it’s filled with vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients.

For all these reason I believe fruits is the ideal food for creating health and curing acne.

Recommended reading:

Fruit Controversy - A free, 30-page report from Frederic Patenaude dispelling the myths about fruits. You have to give your email-address, but Fred sends out good material and doesn’t spam you. And if you really don’t want his emails you can just not confirm your subscription, that way you won’t get any emails from him but still get access to the report.

Atkins exposed.org - A thorough review of science for and against Atkins and other low-carb diets.

Clear for Life - Well, of course you need to read my book : )

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

The comments for this post are moved to Clear Skin Space forums: Fruit… what’s the deal??

In this post I want to touch on Candida in bowel, how it affects your acne and health and what I think is the best way to deal with it.

I haven’t talked about Candida in bowels because I don’t think it’s an issue you should concerns yourself with. Not because I dismiss it but because it takes care of itself when you follow the diet and lifestyle guidelines in Clear for Life.

This was probably a mistake because it left some unanswered questions. Here’s one comment I got few days back.

As I wrote on one of your blogs, you dismissed some valid concerns a few candida sufferers have about following the method of upping carbs and reducing fat. In one lesson I was informed that insulin resistance due to high fat diet was really the culprit of candida, however later this was proven to only be applicable to the naturally occurring candida in the bloodstream- the back up plan our body has as you said. In another lesson you discussed the concept of leaky gut syndrome that could arise in individuals whose intestinal flora is unbalanced, increasing harmful parasites and yeast such as candida. The candida (as i have confirmed through extensive research) then morphs into a more invasive fungal form, and compromises the integrity of the intestinal wall allowing toxins (and quite possibly the fungal candida itself) to enter the bloodstream. Your reply to my query was that sugar has no effect on the growth of candida and the only chance of eliminating hostile candida was to go on a low fat diet…which makes absolutely no sense b/c if as you said the insulin is unable to (at the moment) stabilize blood sugar, blood candida will have to do the job and the sugar will also feed the candida in the gut…so really you are asking all of us with Candida infection to give the lil buggers a feast.

 

Two Candidas - one solution

There are two issues here.

• Insulin resistance and other blood sugar problems that allow, or demand, Candida in the bloodstream to multiply.
• Overgrowth of harmful bacteria, Candida and pathogens in the digestive track, also called gut dysbiosis. This can lead to leaky gut syndrome, where toxins from the bowel leak into your body and increase inflammation and overload the elimination organs.

Both of these are important for acne sufferers. If you want to permanently cure your acne you need to deal with both of them. Blood sugar problems lead to constant stream of hormones that increase sebum production. Leaky gut syndrome leads to constant stream of inflammatory toxins into your bloodstream. Both must stop before you can get clear.

I haven’t separated these issues because the same solution works for both problems.

I’ve beaten the issue of blood sugar problems and the role of fat to death, but I’ll touch on it briefly here since she (the person sending the comment) was still concerned about it.

First, high-fat diet is not the only reason behind insulin resistance. Your other lifestyle choices affect it also. Anyway, cutting out fat from your diet is one of the best ways to increase insulin sensitivity. This inevitably means eating more carbohydrates. And since fruits are the healthiest source of carbs, it means upping your fruit intake.

 

Keeping blood sugar levels stable with high-fruit diet

Second, I never said that sugar has no effect on Candida. Obviously it has. But you need to understand that the key is blood sugar levels, not how much sugar you eat. High and erratic blood sugar levels = Candida, stable blood sugar levels = no problems. And as you’ll see eating sugar doesn’t lead to high blood sugar levels, contrary to what 99% of Candida websites tell you.

In her comment she said that upping carb intake makes no sense because insulin cannot transport the glucose to cells. If this were true it eating more fruits wouldn’t make sense. It would be a very stupid idea.

But it’s not true. As you eat less fat, and fix all the other lifestyle choices that affect insulin sensitivity, insulin starts working again. Yes, you have to go through a transition period, but for most people it’s very short. Like few days. New Clear for Life customers frequently email me telling that the oiliness of their skin reduced almost overnight after switching to Clear for Life diet and lifestyle. A clear indication that their insulin sensitivity improved.

 

19 bananas a day, no effect on blood sugar levels

When your insulin receptors work well glucose won’t stay in the bloodstream long enough to feed Candida overgrowth. You can eat all the fruit you want and your blood sugar levels remain stable. Steve Pavlina commented about this in his raw food diet trial. Here’s what he had to say.

I monitored my blood sugar using a blood sugar testing device, the same kind diabetics may use. It showed no discernible spikes in blood sugar throughout the trial whatsoever — absolutely none. In fact, my blood sugar remained incredibly steady throughout the trial. My highest blood sugar reading of the trial was 94, which is still medium-low. All that sweet fruit in my diet simply did not have any adverse effect on my blood sugar.

Eating this way gave my blood sugar more consistency than ever. I couldn’t spike my blood sugar on this diet if I tried. Even eating 19 bananas in one day made no difference.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/02/raw-food-diet/

19 bananas a day, and no effect on blood sugar levels! All that evil sugar and yet where’s the spike on blood sugar and insulin levels all those Candida websites claim will happen? It flew out the door with the fat.

So you are not giving the lil buggers a feast by eating lots of fruits. And neither are you feeding the Candida in the bowel, as I’ll explain later.

Note, processed sugar is still evil. It has no nutrients and eating it forces the body to dip into its reserves to digest it. So stay away from processed sugar but eat all the fruit you want.

 

Candida in the bowel

Now let’s talk about the other issue of Candida. Candida in the bowel.

The prevailing wisdom is that Candida turns invasive because the harmful bacteria in the gut overwhelmed the probiotic (beneficial) bacteria. The solution to the problem is to help probiotic bacteria grown and ‘rebalance’ the colon micro flora.

Bowel dysbiosis can happen for many reason, such as:

• Frequent use of antibiotics and other drugs
• Pesticides and other chemicals in food and water
• Poor diet and lifestyle

I want to focus on the diet aspect here.

 

Indigestion = leaky gut = Candida

In the Acne 101 lesson where I talked about leaky gut syndrome I explained that indigestion is the main dietary cause for leaky gut syndrome. Undigested food enters the gut where the bacteria ferment and putrefy it, which leads to many toxic compounds. What happens in the gut depends mainly on two things:

• Substances (foods) available for fermentation/putrefaction; for example when bacteria feast on meat they create different toxins than when they feast on vegetable matter. As a rule of thumb, fiber from fruits and vegetables supports the beneficial bacteria, whereas most other foods help the harmful bacteria grow.
• How long the food stays in the gut. Obviously the longer the food stays in the gut the more time the bacteria has to feast on it. Also if the transit time through your digestive system is 48 hours the bacteria have more food than they would if the transit time would be 18 hours.

So your goal is to give the beneficial bacteria as much food as possible and to make sure that the bad stuff doesn’t stay there too long.

 

Raw food diet helps probiotic bacteria

This just screams for increased consumption of plant fiber. More fruits and vegetables.

First because the fiber in fruits and vegetables contains prebiotics, substances that feed the beneficial bacteria. This article has lots more on the topic (I recommend you read it): http://www.jacksongi.com/DIETS/Colon-Gas-Flatus-Prevention/colon_gas.aspx

Second, plant fiber reduces the time food stays in your large intestine and it scrubs your colon clean of any impurities. So there’s less food for the harmful bacteria.

This is another reason why standard Candida diet advice borders idiotic. By reducing carbohydrate consumption you need to eat more meat and fats - the exact substances that feed the harmful bacteria. And the food also stays longer in the gut. On the positive note they often recommend eating more vegetables, which at least partially corrects this.

Finally, raw fruits and vegetables are the easiest foods to digest. Your meal is completely digested before it enters the gut. Sugar and other things the harmful bacteria and Candida could eat are absorbed before they can get their hands on it. The only thing that’s left is the fiber, which feeds the probiotic bacteria.

Compare that to meats and fats the dominate the standard Candida diets. These foods are hard to digest. Digesting them demands lots of time and effort. And when eaten in poor combinations, which almost everybody does, they are never digested fully.

So standard Candida diet gives plenty of food for the harmful bacteria to produce toxins that just prolong leaky gut syndrome and your acne problems.

 

Conventional Candida diet is plainly irrational

Here we have the standard Candida diet that:

• Perpetuates insulin resistance by saturating blood with fat
• Feeds the harmful bacteria in the gut and allows leaky gut syndrome to continue

Then we have the diet that makes sense. A diet that:

• Helps to increase insulin sensitivity and reduce blood sugar problems
• Helps the beneficial bacteria to kick bad bacteria butt

None of this information is in anyway controversial or difficult to understand. All of this is easily available from public sources, makes perfect sense and produces very quick results.

But for some reason people have just been blinded with the fear of sugar and cannot see these glaringly obvious and very rational points. And so we have saturated the Internet with Candida websites that offer advice that is irrational and borderlines idiotic - and keeps recreating the very problem they propose to solve over and over.

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

In this post I’ll answer Mickey’s questions about detoxes and how to use them in a way that helps your skin and overall health in the long run.

First, let’s see what Mickey asked.

Also once you do a detox and you go back to your oldlifestyle habits, even if they are averagely healthy, wouldn’t that just ruinall work you did in the fast in the first place? How does the detox help youoverall health in the LONG RUN?

Excellent, excellent points.

This is the reason I keep saying detoxes alone won’t solve anybody’s acne problems. Detoxes are very useful tool for curing acne when used in combination with lifestyle changes. Alone they, at best, produce short-term results. It’s possible to get clear after a three day apple fast (such as in Acne Free in 3 Days) but the results won’t last if you go back to your old diet and lifestyle - unless the lady luck happens to fancy you a lot.

This is reason I keep saying over and over that for you to permanently cure acne this has to be a lifestyle change. That’s the reason I named Clear for Life the lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin.

Lifestyle is the key. Anything else you add on it is just dressing on top. And detoxes are a particularly useful dressing.

Here’s a good way to think of detoxes and detoxing.

Imagine your body is like a water glass. And the toxin load is like water in the glass. When you keep adding more water at one point it overflows. That’s when you start getting problems, such as acne.

Now this happens to be a special glass because it has a drainage valve. And through that valve water can flow out of the glass. This drainage valve is the constant detox work your body does.

So if more water flows in than flows out the water level increases - and vice versa. Quite simple.

Please understand that you cannot directly control the amount of water flowing out. How fast the body detoxes is up to the body. But as a general rule the less toxins enter the body, and the less stress it faces the more resources it can put on detoxing. And both of these things are to a large extend under your control.

In the long-term they are both tied to your diet and lifestyle choices. By making healthy choices you minimize the amount of toxins that enter your body. This allows the body to crank up the detox work. So over time the water level in the glass comes down.

Going on a detox is just a way to temporarily allow the body to throw toxins out even faster. You do this by eating as simple diet as possible (to reduce digestive stress) and reduce all forms of stress (by giving your body as much rest as possible).

Going on a detox and then right back to your old diet and lifestyle is pointless. Sure during the detox the water level comes down, but as you return to your old diet and lifestyle it starts to increase again. And who has the time and patience to detox every few weeks? And it’s not good for your body anyway.

That’s why it always comes down these three things: lifestyle, lifestyle and lifestyle.

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

I was listening to an interesting podcast about the effect of strength training on glucose control and insulin resistance. As you probably know maintaining steady blood sugar levels and reversing insulin resistance are crucial for curing acne.

Here’s the link to the podcast. It’s a direct link to the mp3-file.

Fat, Muscle, and the Benefits of Exercise for People With Diabetes

Though this discussion and the research they referred to was done with obese diabetic I think we all can learn something from there.

One of the discussed studies concluded that combined aerobic and resistance training program gives the best results for diabetics.

"Although aerobic exercise is what is typically recommended for treating people with diabetes, this study shows that adding a high-force strength training component has significant advantages," says APTA spokesperson Robin L Marcus, PT, PhD, OCS, assistant professor at the University’s Department of Physical Therapy and the study’s lead researcher.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031161255.htm

It didn’t take long to find other studies done on a wide variety of individual that support this conclusion.

They also said few interesting things about fat. Among other things they said that fat cells produce this retinol-binding protein that attaches to the insulin receptors. Since there are less insulin receptor sites available for insulin it creates insulin resistance. They also said that fat cells produce inflammatory cells that, when in excess, create both localized and body-wide inflammation.

So there’s a direct link to how carrying too much fat can lead to acne.

What’s even more interesting is that this discussion was not limited to what people normally perceive as extra fat. They talked a lot about the fat around and within muscles. Many of us carry a lot of fat within and around our muscles. It gives an illusion that our muscles are bigger than they actually are, and so we don’t perceive it as an extra fat.

They concluded this in the study quite explicitly. This is a quite from the podcast:

Patients with diabetes are much, much weaker, even though they have large muscles.

This issue comes up with many of my customers when they email me telling about all the muscle they’ve ‘lost’. In most cases it’s just this extra fat and water within and around the muscles that’s melting away (just one of the complications of the healing process).

The main benefit of resistance training was changes in muscle composition. Leans muscle tissue increased whereas the amount of fat in and around the muscle decreased. So the muscles actually turned muscles!

This is the main reason why the soon to be updated version of Clear for Life recommends a combination of aerobic and resistance training.

Brief side note. The researchers said that diabetes really was never meant to be a disease because it was never meant to be a permanent state. Diabetes was meant as a protective mechanism to store energy when food is abundant and thus help us to survive through lean times. Just one more example of how all diseases are protective mechanisms.

Of course strength training has other benefits also. It makes you look better and so improves your self-esteem. It makes you look more attractive (unless you take it over the top). I usually do my strength training in the morning. And I just love how my body feels like steel for the whole day. Nice feeling.

One issue with resistance training is that it can be a hassle. You gotta buy a gym membership and spend time driving to and from the gym. So many people just drop it.

If you enjoy going to the gym, good for you, but if you don’t nobody said you have to do it the hard way.

I do my resistance training in the morning and it usually takes me less than 15 minutes to complete. In many days not even that long. I don’t even touch the weights at gym anymore. They just don’t serve my purpose anymore.

The secret? Bodyweight exercises. You know, pushups and the like. You can get an incredibly effective whole body workout in as little as 10 minutes. Plus using your own body as a gym is much more fun than hauling weights at gym - at least for me. And it teaches your muscles to work together instead of one or few muscles at a time like most gym machines do.

If you are interested of starting or learning more about bodyweight exercises I can’t recommend Roger Haeske’s Lightning Speed Fitness Program highly enough.

Lightning Speed Fitness Program simply eliminates time as an excuse. It shows how you can workout your entire body with just two simple exercises. That’s why in many days it only takes me 10 to 15 minutes to do my strength training routine. Lightning Speed Fitness Program also showed me how working out little bit through out the day can be as effective, or even more so, than one longer exercise. Some days I just take five minutes here and there to do my bodyweight exercises. So time is no excuse anymore.

Some days I like to vary my routine and I learned a bunch of other bodyweight exercises from Lightning Speed Fitness Program to do that. Roger also shows how to vary these exercises to make them easier or more challenging. Nice thing is that I also got a bunch of videos where Roger shows how to do these exercises. So it’s easy to get started.

Roger is also a raw food author and educator. He’s one of those guys who really get health and practice what they preach. And he’s a motivating fellow to listen to also.

So I really recommend you get Lightning Speed Fitness Program and check out his other products also.

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