Today we’re chatting about the ins and outs in terms of nutrition for healthy glowing skin. We’re also going to touch on a few other related things such as alcohol, supplements, sun exposure/sunscreen, skincare products as well as other lifestyle factors that you can implement to improve your skin! I’m also going to share with you what I do for my skin personally.
Most folks tend to take more of an outside in approach to their skin as opposed to an inside out route meaning, a lot people believe that the key to great skin is putting something on it externally, which is actually a band aid approach because healthy skin comes from within! What our skin is exposed to externally does matter, however not nearly as much.
You’ve likely heard the saying ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’ and when it comes to the skin, your skin is a window to your stomach. The gut, the microbiome, your digestion, the immune system (80% of which resides in the gut itself)…these are the keys to healthy skin and so let’s dig into the specifics!
Why does the skin flare up to begin with? Why do we get things like acne, rosacea, psoriasis, rashes, flushing, puffiness, eczema…which I personally suffered from for years! Well, the skin is an organ and it has the largest surface area of any organ in the human body and so it’s an amazing way to detoxify essentially, meaning…
Skin issues are the body working its magic or in other words they are a reflection of the body healing itself. I fully appreciate that it doesn’t feel that way when your skin is acting up…I used to hate having zits, pimples and eczema however…
The most important question becomes, why is the body or the skin specifically behaving this way…and the answer is super simple, because there is damage. Just like when you roll your ankle and it swells up, the swelling isn’t an enjoyable experience, however that’s literally how the body heals your ankle…it’s the immune system sending all sorts of resources to your leg in order to repair it…the same concept applies to the skin!
So the immune system is really at the center of all of this and this makes complete sense when we look at autoimmune skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, vitiligo etc. Folks with these conditions (like me) are often put on immune suppressant drugs because the typical thought process is that the immune system is overreacting…but I would argue that it’s actually acting perfectly appropriately, the issue isn’t the immune system itself, it’s the inputs!
I like to think about it like this, if you have a rock in your shoe, you can take an Advil, Tylenol or name your over the counter NSAID to numb the pain or…you can take the rock out and we are going to be discussing how to take the rock out...
Nutrition, here is a great place to start no matter what skin you issue you have…it could be a few pimples, acne, it could be eczema like I had or it could be something like psoriasis…start by eliminating or at least reducing highly processed foods. Why?
Our bodies didn’t evolve eating these foods and so they trigger the immune system and lead to inflammation and inflammation is essentially what skin issues are on a baseline level. Now if ya don’t eat processed foods, what should you eat?
Single ingredient whole foods because our bodies did evolve eating these and so they typically don’t trigger the immune system like processed foods do. What is a single ingredient whole food? Meat, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, fruit, vegg, grains, potatoes, nuts, seeds…essentially anything that has one ingredient aka food ya find in its original form from nature.
These foods typically don’t have ingredient labels because they just are what they are. Eggs are eggs, a banana contains banana and cucumber only has cucumber things in it. Now…
There is one MASSIVE caveat here and that caveat is, if your body reacts negatively via your digestion and/or your skin directly to a single ingredient whole food, skip it even if it falls under this category, for example…
If you eat some unflavoured plain Greek yogurt (dairy) and you get bloated and/or your skin acts up, curb the dairy for a bit. Just because something falls under the single ingredient whole food category does not mean that it can’t cause issues for you personally.
There is no one size fits all and that’s why I work with my clients 1 on 1 and everyone’s program looks different…because we’re all different. The fundamentals are very similar however, food tolerance and sensitivity varies a TON between individuals.
Side note, dairy and fried food are the 2 most common culprits that flare up folks skin…I’ve seen this too many times to count over the last 12 years of coaching folks. If you’re not happy with your skin and you do nothing else, eliminate or at least reduce fried food intake and experiment without dairy just to see if you do better without it…you should notice a difference within 7-10 days or less.
Also it’s worth mentioning that if you cut out dairy for a period of time or any whole food for that matter, you may be able to reintroduce it later without issues after your immune system has had a chance to heal some of the damage that’s occurred.
It could also be a type of dairy issue in the sense that maybe you can tolerate lower lactose options like harder aged cheeses let’s say, but the lesser aged ones don’t work for ya…or maybe lactose-free yogurt works but the regular stuff doesn’t, or perhaps A2 dairy which is from a specific subset of cows sits well, but the A1 doesn’t…the only way to find out is to experiment.
What about fiber, fruit and vegetables? Despite what a lot of folks in the fitness field might say, fiber is not an essential nutrient and this has really come to light recently with the popularity of the carnivore diet because the carnivore diet is a zero fiber diet and a lot of these folks are motoring along really well. Interestingly enough…
The carnivore diet or something close to it can be an amazing tool for managing autoimmune disease and skin conditions specifically for some folks, however we’re not going to dig into that today as I’ll likely devote a separate article to the carnivore diet as a tool for autoimmunity.
So when it comes to fiber, if you do well with it digestion wise feel free to eat it up, but if you find that it bloats you, backs you up or even sends you to the washroom too frequently, you can experiment with scaling it back.
On the veggie front, eat the ones that sit well in your stomach and skip the ones that don’t, for example…if you eat broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus and you get bloated and gassy, focus more so on veggies that don’t give you those issues.
In terms of fruit, same dealio…eat the options that you digest well, for example…if you eat an apple and your stomach inflates like a balloon, skip the apples…at least for right now. On the other hand if you eat a bowl of grapes and you feel great, grapes are a go!
For gas and bloating specifically, reducing high FODMAP foods is definitely worth looking into!
Moving onto alcohol…bad news, not great for the skin and this is primarily because alcohol is an immune suppressant and so the less that you consume the better. A very prominent example of how alcohol can impact the skin is via the nose specifically…you’ve probably noticed that severe alcoholics have red noses all the time and it looks as though the blood vessels in their noses are not happy…extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
Booze also impacts sleep in a negative way and lack of sleep supresses the immune system massively and so there is a serious trickle-down effect when it comes to alcohol consumption and health as a whole…not revolutionary information. Also acutely, the skin just doesn’t look as good after a night out of drinking…let’s be honest, a hangover really doesn’t look great on anyone, I look like a smashed bag of tomatoes after a big night out!
Also, our food choices don’t tend to be the best before, during and/or after drinking and so that’s an input as well. I mentioned that fried food and dairy are the 2 most common skin flare up culprits and these foods go hand-in-hand with alcohol intake essentially all the time!
Smoking cigarettes and/or weed, vaping, chewing tobacco…not helping your skin and also not novel information. Also, I doubt that there are a very many folks reading this that smoke, vape or chew tobacco so it’s a bit of a moot point.
I touched on it a second ago in regards to alcohol, but getting great sleep is amazing for skin health and again this is primarily via the immune system because the immune system works most of its magic while we’re sleeping and so if we’re short slept, the body is constantly trying to play catch up.
Ya wanna get 7-9 hours per night based on your individual needs. A cool dark room, limit liquids, food and bright lights 2-3 hours pre-bed as well as anything overly stimulating. A lot of folks tend to do things like check their email before bed, which is an amazing way to get your brain fired up…not what we’re after! Or catch up on current events…I mean, reading about a war going on on the other side of the world pre-bed…wouldn’t recommend!
Movement is great for the skin for a whole host of reasons, one big one being that it gets lymphatic fluid flowing throughout the body. Lymphatic massage is becoming more and more popular these days and feel free to do that if you’d like to, however you can also just go for a walk. Having said that, if you find that you just need some human touch I get it, that’s super important for health as a whole too, however movement really is the best option for lymph flow specifically.
I recommend that my clients get 10,000 steps per day or 70,000 over the course of the week as a whole. If they want to workout on top of that or play some sports, do yoga etc…even better!
Sweating may be beneficial for the skin, however it’s difficult to parse out movement from sweating just because they typically go hand-in-hand unless we’re talking about a sauna or a steam room. Also…sweating, movement and sun exposure, which leads us into the sun topic perfectly also often accompany one another! Either way, it’s not a bad idea to get a good solid sweat in on a regular basis no matter how ya do it!
The idea that the sun is bad is pretty wild…don’t get me wrong, ya don’t wanna bake and burn but…the idea that something that feels that good on your skin, elevates mood, regulates hormones like testosterone and estrogen and literally provides the body with a vitamin (vitamin D) without the ingestion of food…like wow, that’s incredible! Also, let’s be honest, everyone looks healthier and hotter with a bit of a tan…there’s something to all of that!
Now it’s still a hot topic, so what I’m going to do here is explain my approach to sun exposure. I like to get as much sun as I can right up until the point that I might burn…I cut it off before that and if I’m going to stay out in the sun past that point for whatever reason, I’ll cover up with clothing.
I personally don’t use sunscreen because I don’t like the feel of it on my skin…also, I’m SUPER aware of how much sun exposure that I’m getting as a whole. If I were to use sunscreen, I would use a zinc-based option and not a chemical based one.
One cool thing about sun tolerance is that it can be increased relative to you, meaning…if you slowly introduce your body to more sun exposure without burning (don’t burn!) you can increase your tolerance and it’s just like working out in the sense that you build strength and muscle slowly over time as you lift heavier weights more often.
Just like you wouldn’t go from 0 workouts to 7 per week, ya don’t want to go from barely any sun exposure to 5 hours a day for a week straight on your next vacation...burning is an issue and it’s an immune response, it’s literally inflammation, it’s damage…so if you choose to do this, work up slowly!
Also, the healthier that you are, the more sun tolerant that you’re going to be relative to the melanin in your skin and this is because of you guessed it…the immune system! For example…if you’re eating poorly, not moving enough, not sleeping adequately and consuming a bunch of alcohol…that’s a great way to decrease your sun tolerance a ton because all of those things suppress your immune function…makes sense right!?
What about supplements? Collagen supplementation has become really prominent lately for the skin specifically and collagen is beneficial for the skin, the thing is that you don’t necessarily need to supplement with it because your diet should have plenty of collagen, for example…
Things like bone broth and canned fish with bones contain collagen! Also, ground meat has collagen because you get a bit of bone, tendon and ligament in there, which is a huge additional benefit of eating something like ground beef!
Pre and probiotics are popular when talked about in tandem with the gut, microbiome and digestion and some folks do really well with prebiotics and others actually get worse…the same goes for probiotic supplementation.
If you’re someone that does well with one or the other or both, you can also just get prebiotics via fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi and you can get probiotics from things like dairy…and the cool thing about getting your nutrients from whole food is that they’re coming in their quote unquote ‘natural’ form, for example…
A whole egg is essentially a multivitamin, it’s loaded with nutrients in perfect ratios because mother nature made it that way. Technically you could formulate a vitamin tablet (multivitamin) that contains the same nutrients that an egg does, but it’s not the same thing…the forms of said vitamins, minerals etc. are going to be different so when in doubt, I’d recommend going with the whole food form of something as long as it agrees with you.
What about makeup, creams, scrubs, washes, cleansers and whatever else folks are using these days? The less ‘stuff’ that you can use, the better.
Personally, I just wash my face with water and I use a tallow based moisturizer (tallow is beef fat) . The cream that I use only contains tallow and some olive oil…I get it from Amazon and HERE is a link if you’re interested. I used to use a fragrance-free Aveeno on my face, but I don’t do that anymore, I only use a little bit of that on my legs or arms if they’re a tad bit dry due to weather conditions.
Oh and I’ll mention, when I was kiddo and my eczema was acting up, I used to use a corticosteroid cream and I’ll be honest…it worked to clear up my skin, but holy smokes is that stuff intense because it’s an immune suppressant! I would have loved to have known that I could have just modified my diet and not needed any of that stuff…but ya live and ya learn!
Whatever you’re going to use whether it be laundry detergent, a body wash or a cream, fragrance-free as a general rule is definitely the way to go and if you find that you really need a fragranced version of something, fun fact…cleaning up your diet will improve the way that you smell! Also, excessive spice use does tend to impact how we smell and so it’s worth experimenting with less garlic and onion for example if this is a concern for you.
So the big takeaway in terms of nutrition and skin health is limiting processed foods as much as possible and favouring single ingredient whole foods that you digest well because…the primary way that we want to think about having healthy skin is via working from the inside out!
Also, keep a close eye on fried food and dairy intake.
Hit 10,000 steps per day, sleep like a baby and when it comes to the outside in stuff…less is more and if you want to use various products, the simpler the better, such as zinc-based sunscreens and fragrance-free creams, detergents etc.
