A Simple Diet Tip to Help Your Skin
By Abigail Hueber
Bumps, rashes, dry skin, patchy or uneven skin tone, dark circles, acne, dermatitis, psoriasis, rosacea…our skin has a lot of ways of telling us it isn’t happy.
For those of us who experience skin irritations it can feel at times as though our skin has a mind of its own. We purchase product after product that promise clear, lustrous, smooth skin only to wind up weeks later with no relief or worse our skin reacts to the harsh products or irritating fragrances. Frustrated and exhausted it may feel as though this is as good as it gets.
What more can you do?
I am going to let you in on a little secret that many cosmetic and beauty companies have been trying to distract from for years – our skin health is less about what is being put onto our bodies and more about what is being put into our bodies.
Does skin irritation or inflammation mean I am not getting the proper nutrients?
Not necessarily. Sometimes skin irritation or inflammation can be due to something you are eating. It could be a whole food group or even an ingredient in your food. An allergen or a sensitivity to a food can cause inflammation or irritation that is expressed through our skin in the form of dermatitis, rosacea, rashes, bumps…the list goes on.
How do I find out if my skin condition is due to a food sensitivity?
The gold standard for determining skin sensitivities is an Elimination Diet.
What is an Elimination Diet?
It is a month long period of time (or longer) where you remove specific foods from your diet. This removal period allows for your bodies systems to calm down, heal and restore the quality of the affected systems. In the case of your skin, this period of time would allow for a new dermis layer of skin cells to form and for those cells to make their way to the surface. If over the coarse of the month your skin condition improves, this means you have successfully eliminated the food or ingredient that was causing the disruption.
As you begin to reintroduce foods back into your diet, do so slowly and deliberately. Choose one food group at a time and keep an eye out for any changes in skins appearance or the return of a previous condition. If your skin condition returns, it may mean you have reintroduced the culprit of your skins irritation.
The Most Common Food Groups that contribute to Skin Irritations:
- Gluten
- Dairy
- Soy
- Food additives and/or preservatives
- Artificial flavors or sweeteners
Looking to do a month long Elimination Diet?
A Reboot hits the reset button on your system through an eating plan that is comprised of a wide variety of nutrient dense fruits and vegetables. It is also absent of the foods that most commonly cause skin irritations. Weather you are juicing, blending, eating or a combination of them all, your body will have the opportunity to thrive!
A Reboot is an opportunity to become an expert in your own body. Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the health of our skin!