hello friends

our skin care series continues…in case you missed any topics -

• skin care part 1
• skin care part 2
• skin care part 3

today we are just highlighting a few dietary changes and points that we focus on when dealing with our acne.

through all the research and personal experience from striving to reach that optimal level of health we have learned quite a bit. some things we have done and seen it work. as other things we have tried and never saw any benefits. so even with us it is all about trial and error.

we eat a fairly clean diet. and we still struggle with breakouts so we decided to investigate further. we have taken all the big culprits out of our diet, we have done cleanses, we have had series of colonics done before. pretty much everything people mention for us to try, we have tried. and we still stand here today trying to understand our skin. and for those critics out there that claim we stress, or are obsessed or do too many cleanses, well all we can say is look at this post, and then come back here and say what you want to say. trust us, we do not like always thinking about what could cause our skin breakouts. but this is our life. this is our battle. and we feel it is worth figuring out the cause of our acne and healing it for good.  and show that anyone can get beautiful skin!

okay vent over

things that we pay attention to that could be factors of our skin issues:

• Hormones (here is more info on our hormone testing)
• Sleep
• Unbalanced EFAs, need to balance omegas 3-6-9,  (read our thoughts here)
• Exercise
• Inflammation
• Androgen hormonal – causes oil surplus, which can lead to pimples
• Diet – sugar, cooked oil, grains, protein, etc.
• Weak Liver/toxins
• Poor digestion/elimination

 today we are going to focus on diet related issues.

source

we believe what you eat does matter and can lead to clear skin.

with everything in life we recommend starting small because too much can also be harmful. and talk with your doctor before making any major changes.

now for other general health/food/diet topics. we are just going to quickly cover them. as they are big topics in of themselves.

remember, you need to find what is causing your acne.  below are just some ideas of what could be causing acne.

 Cooked vs Raw Food

this is a big topic! when we first started this blog over two years ago, we were 100% raw vegans. we came to this way of eating due to our health issues and wanted to get clear glowing skin that we read about. plus many say that alkalizing foods can improve skin, which yes this can make a difference, how much will vary in each person.  raw foods for us helped but did not make our acne go away like we thought.

although with that being said cooked foods cause skin issues for us as well. we notice cooked foods prepared in certain ways can cause inflammation in us.

one reason we enjoy both worlds, think it is good balance for us.

Grains -

we are talking all grains here, even gluten free grains. remember we mentioned healthy foods may not be healthy for you. a hard thing for us sometimes to acknowledge not all foods are healthy for us, even though there are tons of claims out there saying you should be eating this because of x,y, and z. now we are not here proclaiming you should go grain free or anything.  we just noticed our digestion is better with little to no grains, therefore our skin better.

Sugar

how many times have we talked about sugar on our blog. haha. we have done cleanses. battled candida. and played around with our fat intake to help with sugar cravings. did it all help? yes and no. we do feel overall watching our sugar intake is important to overall health, not just for skin. how much sugar can one handle? well that is personal and something everyone will have to figure out on their own. we do feel having a very low sugar diet has helped our skin. this is still hard for us as we love our sweets.

Nuts/seeds/legumes

everyone is pretty aware that certain foods are harder to digest than others, well nuts/seeds/legumes can fall into that category. remember with everything we are mentioning here not everyone will be affected by these. we do notice when we have too many nuts/seeds/legumes intake, our skin shows some signs in forms of breakouts and how we overall feel. so we have learned moderation, again how much will vary per person.

and a reader has mentioned to us Loren Cordain controversy on chia seeds. we are not sure about this, something new to us. still need to look into it more. anyone else have any thoughts on this chia seed controversy?

Digestion

everyone claims if you have bad digestion, have a hard time digesting food, do not eliminate properly then you get acne or have poor skin. well yes and no. there are periods when both of us feel we do great in the bathroom, and still get breakouts.

we do feel poor digestion can cause toxins to build up, so can show on the skin.  currently we have been trying to focus on our liver. healing it so we can detox better because we feel when our liver is healthy our skin is healthy.

Supplements

yes taking supplements can help acne. does it cure it? we do not think so, but still a good idea to find what nutrient you may be low in, as it could help other issues too. we currently take digestive enzymes, probiotics, omega oil, zinc, vitamin D, and green superfood powders (like spirulina). we try our best to take them everyday and lately when we have been doing a great job with keeping up with them we have seen great improvements in skin!

Dairy

do not eat dairy we all know this and yes we know for some people that eating no dairy has helped clear up skin. for us it helped some.  again it did not ‘cure’ our acne. we continued to get it even without having any dairy. we have come to realize that we do okay with goat and non-dairy coconut based yogurts just cannot overdo it. we are learning to rotate things better.

Oils

we do take Udo omega oil and love it! and just started taking cod liver oil which we are excited to try because we have heard great things. we do notice having oils in the raw form, not cooked, we get the best skin results! having cooked oils are something we have noticed for months now, just did not what to admit it as you all know we love our socca (to be honest we rarely have it anymore) and we love to bake, that could be causing our breakouts! therefore we are starting to stop having any cooked oils and see how are skin does.

Food testing

being allergic to foods can cause acne not just hives, breathing problems, etc. one reason we did the diet wise elimination diet. we are still unsure if we have hidden food allergies or not that are causing our skin issues. we are looking into more allergy testing but they are expensive so just not sure.

so what to do?

track you own food. get tested for food allergies (a few of our readers have had success with this) although remember test are not always accurate. having a food journal can be beneficial and seeing how foods react with your skin.  we have tried this and did good for a few days just lost track with it. in a perfect world, if we had no distractions, no temptations, yes maybe we could really find the culprit.

learn about your body. do not be afraid to make mistakes. break rules. find what works for you.  and just you. you can’t always base it off what someone else is doing. try tackling one of the issues we discussed above and see if you get results. keep trying. keep learning. and stay positive!!!

as you can see there are a ton of reasons for acne. the hardest part we feel is finding the main underlying cause of acne. and we still have other non food areas to cover they can effect the skin. crazy. it sucks that so much has to be looked at but the whole body works together, so taking the time to took at it all will help.

we are starting to put all the pieces together for us, hopefully get the answers we need to heal.

again we appreciate all your support, kind words, and advice. we know we are not the only ones who struggle with poor skin and hopefully these posts are helping those individuals out!

and for our readers that do not have skin issues, thank you for putting up these posts. promise we got a great recipe coming tomorrow!

please if you have anything you would like to add or mention, please leave a chime in below as we love hearing from our readers.

till next time,

L &M

hello luvs!

today we are picking back up with more of our findings about what has helped us heal our acne.

if you are just joining our blog today, first hello and welcome, and second please check out our other two acne post on our new face products that we love and then our face routine that has helped clear up our acne.

today we are focusing on Omegas. now remember we are not doctors nor nutritionists. just sharing our own experience and research. we are not claiming this will 100% cure your acne but it COULD HELP! it helped us!  and there are so many great health benefits of Omegas (fatty acids) we are just relating them to skin and acne in terms of the ratio of them all.

Omega 3 to be specific. how Omega 3 fatty acid is great for clearing up acne.

we have mentioned before that we were going to take a closer look at our Omega intake when we first started seeing our acne come back.

you may not hear to much about what is omega-3. or really worry about Omega-3. mostly you hear more about Omega 6. but we feel everyone needs to be more aware of their Omega-3 intake. to be even more specific their Omega-3 ratio to Omega-6 ratio. majority of people have a TON more Omega-6 then Omega 3, which is not necessarily good.

 we shall explain.

you need both to be healthy. but the best ratio for optimum health is 2:1 or 1:1 of 3 to 6.

there are studies showing that those of us who live in the United States actually have a diet something close to 1:15 to 1:32 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 when the goal is actually 1:1 to 2:1. pretty scary

here is how Omega-3 awareness changed us?

 Omega-3 we feel really helped with our acne! hands down changed our skin for the better. *we did these changes in our Omega 3 intake back in September time frame.

back in Sept/Oct time our acne had gotten out of control again. we researched and found our plan to get rid of our acne. we were taking control again and not letting our acne control us anymore!

so what happened?

it is something called Omega-3!

slowly Omega 3 is getting more attention. and attention it deserves. Omega 3 is one essential fatty acid that gets overlooked by so many. there is a deficiency of Omega 3 in the world.  you’re probably eating foods all day, every day with various ratios of these essential fatty acids without you even knowing!

think about your diet for a minute. think about everything you eat in a day. how much omega 3 do you really get in a day?

we never really questioned our Omega 3 intake since we ate chia seeds and hemp seeds everyday and fish about once a week and eggs here and there.

so what changed our mind about Omega 3’s?

the more we dug into our diet and researched what foods have Omega 3 in them we were shocked. not as much as we thought.

and on top of that we were not getting the right balance of omega 3 to 6! getting the right balance was something else we learned and that most people probably do not really pay attention too.

if we were to ask you right now how much Omega 3 to Omega 6 do you get in a day, would you be able to answer it?

from our research almost every one is deficient in Omega 3.  the problem with that is, foods that we eat here in the states that are much higher in Omega-6 than Omega-3. most of the foods that a typical Western diet eat are cooked in Omega-6 such as corn oil, soy, sunflower oil, and safflower oil.

wait a minute, I think the foods I eat are ok? can you explain more.

sure, we thought the same thing.

all the foods that we (Michelle and I)  do eat are high in Omega 6 and some are good sources of Omega 3.

but again not everyone thinks about Omega 3 in terms of how much 3 to 6 ratio one is getting. Omega 3 is so important! especially for the skin!!

back to the diet – we researched what amounts of Omega 3 and Omega 6s are in the foods we were eating. we quickly realized our diet did contain Omega 3 but our Omega 6 was TOTALLY out winning. not good. *but it is not good to have too much Omega 3 either, so we just did our increase in Omega 3 temporarily then went back to adding in Omega 6 foods too

it’s the RATIO that will bring you acne free clear skin and stop breakouts. if you have acne, it may be a prime indicator that you do not have the correct ratio of Omega 3, 6, and 9 acids.

our skin was finally having an enough of it and things had to be changed!

we realized that the foods we ate daily like avocados, tahini are all high in Omega 6 and not really Omega 3.

 what foods should I eat then to help increase my Omega 3 and not Omega 6?

flax seeds and flax oil are great. as well as salmon, sardines, scallops, any green leafy vegetable, lettuce, broccoli

 what is the ratio of Omega 3 to 6 should I be having?

that really depends on each person. the ultimate ratio should be 1:1 or 2:1 of Omega 3 to 6. Udo’s oil book, Fats that Heal Fats that Kill, goes into great detail of this information. a book we recommend.

 I do not have skin problems do I need to worry?

yes and no. if you do not have bad skin issues or acne then no, you might not need to worry too much about your Omega 3 intake. but we feel it is still worth you consuming more foods that contain the right ratio for better health in the long run.

if you are someone like us who suffers from poor skin and high stress, then yes we feel you should pay more attention to your ratio.

the thing though to remember is that you have to be careful how you go about increasing your Omega 3. you don’t want to just start eating a bunch of walnuts because you have heard they are a great source of Omega 3. which is true they are, but there is a catch!

the catch being that they are also high in Omega 6. they have more Omega 6 then 3…. not the correct ratio needed. so if you kept eating walnuts thinking you are helping your really not. from our research that only increases both your 6 and 3, so again making matters a little worse if you are trying to just increase your Omega 3.

 what DID WE DO to fix our Omega 3 ratio: (here is a quick glance of what we did)

• Took out all foods that contained Omega 6.
• Took out all foods that contained both Omega 3 and Omega 6.
• Just ate foods that contained Omega 3.
• Took Udo Oil 2-3 tablespoons a day.
• Ate salmon or tuna 2-3 times a week.
• Did not eat any nuts nor seeds.
• Did not eat any avocado, tahini, chia nor hemp seeds.
• Did not eat any grains.
• After 2 weeks we added in chia seeds and a little hemp seeds.
• After a 3 weeks added in a little avocado, tahini, nuts and seeds along with a few baked good items.
• Ate mostly fruit, veggies and salmon, eggs or tuna.

*again we did this strict diet eating to increase our Omega 3 for about 2 weeks before we slowly started adding in back other foods.

 what can I do?
well we shared what we did. but again we are not doctors. just sharing our personal experience and our own research. again depending on your situation and health you may need to speak to a doctor about any changes.

we only want to share what we did and how it worked for us in hopes that it can help someone else.  start slowly with the changes. so take it slow, add a little bit at a time and slowly take it up a notch if you don’t see any improvement.

 now back to present:

since we did a hard core Omega 3 push for a few good 2 weeks. after that for about 1 to 2 months we were more aware of what we were eating in terms of our Omegas. we feel currently our levels are back to be good. we still watch our intake but not us strict as we did a few months ago. we do not stress over it as much as we did at the beginning.

we are also realizing that there might be other issues with food that is now causing our acne. we shall expand on that tomorrow. Omega 3 is just part of the puzzle to clear skin. though we do feel the change in our Omega 3 has made tremendous improvement in our skin. and another note we did not really discuss what the Omegas in general can do for skin and health. today we wanted to really point out it is the ratio that people with troubled skin and high stress need to be aware of

 Twins Question: What are your thoughts on Omega 3? Does your diet have a well balanced ratio of 6 to 3?

till next time,

xoxo

L&M

hello friends!

thank you all so much for the sweet comments on our new face skin care products and our issues on getting rid of acne for good. we are always blown away by the support we get from our readers!! THANK YOU!

like we mentioned yesterday we are going to share some pictures of our face (skin) and what we are doing now to help get rid of acne through our face routine.

but before we get into all that we wanted to mention that everyone gets acne for different reasons. that there are different types of acne. so you need to understand your own body and make the call on what type of acne you have. now you might be thinking, ” how do I do that”?

we thought the same thing. there are moments when we think our acne breakouts are just hormonal issues due from us dealing with imbalanced hormones. which we still feel our first MAJOR face breakout over two years ago was due from going off the pill. but now we are getting more deep cystic acne that makes us question everything all over again. we will share more on this topic soon.

like we have said we have read so many articles and books on skin and acne. now we are getting down to a few ideas of what might be causing our acne flare-ups.

*side note – Michelle did not take any pictures of her skin when she was at her worst, as it was too hard for her. Lori is much stronger in sharing in hers! thanks for stepping up sis

also please keep in mind we are human. we have feelings, so please no harsh judgement here. these pictures were extremely hard for us to post. but we wanted to share are struggles with acne and show others you are not alone!!

back in September/October time of last year I, Lori, got a really bad flare up that caused my face to be all red along with cystic acne. as you can see in the pictures below. this was an extremely tough time for me. I got really depressed again and cried every night. thinking to myself why is this happening to me? what am I doing wrong?

again these two pictures were taken back in Oct, around my worst!

it was then that I took a deep look at my diet and lifestyle and made some changes.  will share more on that in another post.

here is a my skin a few weeks after above pictures in early November.

some improvement! but not healed.

here is Michelle

now here are pictures of us that we took yesterday after our video (we do have a little make-up on due to making the video)

going back to face routine that Michelle and I do now for our skin and it has been working!

in the video from yesterday we use the Body Deli products along with jojoba oil. and for me lately these past two weeks I have been using neem oil at night along with my cucumber moisturizer. at first my face broke out a little more when I added the neem oil back into my face routine, but now I can say I just have a few pimples and acne scars left to go away. (remember when you do something new to your face it can cause more breakouts but in a way this is good as it brings out toxins)

small improvements, but feel like I am heading in the right direction.

we know that many people are afraid of using oils on their face. especially when they think they have oily skin. well we have oily skin too! and the oils have been a blessing for our skin!!!  use natural, organic, cold pressed oils on face. play around with what oils you find your face likes the best and keep with it.

we love jojoba oil the best followed by neem oil, coconut oil, and castor oil.

Twins Night Time Face Routine to help get rid of acne:

• make sure have clean hands.
• splash face a few times with luke warm water.
• put about a dime size amount of jojoba oil mixed with two pumps of the ROSE GERANIUM  face cleanser. gently rub face all over in circular motions for almost 2 minutes. splash face again with water to get cleanser off.
• lightly pat face with clean towel.
• *if we had make-up on, we do our apple cider vinegar on face.  then place some aloe vera juice on a cotton pad and rub all over face. (since Michelle is not as inflamed as me she does not do aloe on face)
• put about a nickel size of SEA CUCUMBER GELEE moisturizer. let sit for 2 minutes.
• then put a small amount of more jojoba oil and neem oil. rub again gently over face.
• place a clean towel on pillow and go to sleep.

Upon waking we either rinse face with a few splashes of water or do nothing. then do our aloe vera juice on a cotton pad  and rub all over face. then put the LIGHT FACIAL EMULSION  or put the VITAL-C SERUM on in morning. we are still figuring out which we we like better. there are some mornings where we do nothing!

and that is it.

we try to keep it really simple, gentle, and natural. and we only like to wash our face at night. we feel when we wash it again in the morning it is too much and makes our face worse.

we still have a lot to learn about our face. and we still have a lot to share with all of you about more findings we have learned about other causes and issues with acne.

Twins Question: What do you like to do for your face routine? How many times do you wash your face a day?

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good morning friends,

finally getting around to discussing skin. our skin issues in particular. we have also put together a short video discussing our new face products and issues with skin at the bottom of post. 

well, if you have been following our blog over the years you would have seen our skin go up and then come down.we have shared our troubles with dealing with acne, how to cure our acne, what works for our bodies to get clear skin, etc.and believe us we have tried everything and nothing really seem to work. to be clear – things worked but did not last!

why do things not last? good question

if you would like to see our past posts here are a few:

skin issues and raw foods

how we did an elimination diet

what is our skin telling us

dealing with hormonal issues

tips for skin care

skin care and depression

as you can see things change. we are still learning.

we think we are in the midst of finally figuring out our issues with acne for good! so we hope

now from all the research and self experience we have seen and dealt with just about any type of pimple out there. and yes we have formed our own thoughts on what works and what does not. and remember each person is different.

why does eating a clean diet not help acne? something we have questioned a lot

since we have so many ideas of how to go about these acne/health/food related topics we have decided to break them up into smaller post that way we can focus on that one topic. a little acne clear skin series if you would like to call it.

to start things off with our way to clear skin series is sharing what NEW face skin care products we are using. and have been using for about 2 months now.  you know we love using natural products on our skin like apple cider vinegar!

The Body Deli is the company that is behind these wonderful products. (thanks to a dear reader Vanessa for bringing this company to our attention)

we have gotten a few different products off the Body Deli site.

we have loved everything we have bought and tried! we are in love with all these products.

the products that we have mainly used over these past few weeks:

ROSE GERANIUM CLEANSER – gentle and soothing for sensitive skin, reduces inflammation

SEA CUCUMBER GELEE – all natural moisturizer to impart a dewy glow while it cools, soothes and hydrates the skin

Jojoba Oil – love this stuff, we got the Desert Essence brand from health food store

Neem Oil – great for our skin, we just got a brand from the local health food store

and use Aloe Vera Juice – got from local health food store

other products we got from The Body Deli that we also love:

LIGHT FACIAL EMULSION – hydrates the skin while helping to heal and neutralize blemishes, pimples and acne

VITAL-C SERUM – full of Vitamin C to help skin from any damage

GLACIAL MINERAL MUD – great mask that we love, helps control blemishes coming on face

OATMEAL AND HONEY MASQUE – most recent purchase and so far we love it, use it about once a week

now remember putting stuff topically onto skin is just one step to clear skin. there is so much more you need to do to get that glowing skin.  especially if you are like us and have sensitive skin or acne prone skin.

good morning everyone!

today we wanted to give an update on where we stand now with our skin, face products, skin care routine, etc

the things we are about to mention have been working for us lately, we are starting to see results, slow but happening (we hope they can help some one else)

a quote that has helped us get through some of our really tough days with our skin

how we are NOW clearing up our acne/poor skin?

we mentioned before that we like to use apple cider vinegar (ACV) on our face. we basically use ACV to clean our face instead of a regular toner. we put some apple cider vinegar on a clean cotton swab and rub over our face, gently. yes it burns some and our eyes water, but it works and we feel it is a great natural face cleaner.

when do we use ACV?

we use in the mornings. we do not wash our face in the mornings instead we just use ACV. followed by a moisturizer. if we wear makeup during the day, we sometimes do apple cider vinegar again at night after washing our face

how else do we use apple cider vinegar?

we use it in salad dressings. we use it to bake with (making our own buttermilks).  most recently started to add a teaspoon to a cup of warm water in the morning to start our day. and we are going to try to increase our warm ACV water intake throughout the day to see how our bodies like it.

what is our face routine?

first – we really try to have a daily face routine. and if we get off the routine we notice problems. so traveling definitely puts a toll on our skin care routine.

second – we try not to over wash our face. wait a minute you are telling me if I have acne I am not supposed to wash my face? not exactly. what we are saying is that you can wash your face but don’t over do it!!  we now only wash our faces at night and just do AVC in the morning.

third – we are trying a new a face care product line that a reader recommended. we are looking forward to reporting our thoughts on the products here soon.

fourth – we increased our omega 3 intake. watching our ratio of omega 6 to 3s. more on that soon promise – it has been a very huge learning curve for us.

what else do we use to help with acne that is more natural and gentle for the skin?

• Coconut oil – we wash with it from time to time, especially if we wear makeup. it does wonders.
• Joboba oil – another great oil we use almost daily. we put the oil on at night for a moisturizer. skin loves it.
• Neem oil- so great for the skin! we feel this really helps calm our skin from inflammation, we like to use it as a spot treatment.
• Castor oil – great to mix with coconut for cleansing the skin, great for makeup removal.
• And Tea tree oil – only used for spot treatments. helps dry up those large pimples.

we know there are a ton of girls (and guys) that struggle with breakouts, acne, etc. we are all here to help and support one another. so please no negative comments on this one, as this is one of the hardest things for us to talk about and deal with.

like we mentioned earlier that we are starting to see improvements in our skin, and we feel what we are now doing from skin care routine, to our stress levels, to the few vitamins we are taking, and the omega 3 intake all have helped. we will continue to share our findings and what works for our skin.

we wanted to share what we have been doing lately because we have been loving it. we have been feeling good with our new routine. we are more hopeful! optimistic! and really believe in what we are doing. as we are seeing results.

Twins Question: what are your favorite ways to use Apple Cider Vinegar? do you use ACV in baking? have you ever tried ACV in water before? tip: drinking a cup of AVC water before a meal can help with any digestion. have you tried any of those other natural products on your skin before? if so, which ones do you like?

till next time,

xoxo

L&M