Healthy skin starts from the inside out. While oil cleansing can help detox your skin from the outside, there is still so much that we can do to detox our skin from the inside. And no, we’re not talking about going on another juice cleanse! That’s why Megan Rand (Ginger Newtrition) & Alex Golden from the Healthy Hormones Group are taking over for this guest blog post featuring the skin benefits of a whole-food, integrative medicine detox. They are kicking off their Fall detox in just a couple weeks, check it out here!
The Skin Benefits of a Whole-Food, Integrative Medicine Detox
Detoxing is a super hot topic right now. Juice cleanses, fasts, and 3 ingredient diets are all the rage…with promises to make your skin look 10 years younger, help you be 10 pounds lighter, and have you feeling oh-so-fab. We’ve seen stuff about it at the store, walking down the street, and plastered all over the internet.
We’re going to be talking all about detoxing as well in this post. But the way we think about detoxing is much, much different than what you see in the general media…and we’ll get into why this approach is so much more powerful!
We’re going to be focusing on what it means to do a whole-food, integrative wellness detox and how it can do a whole lot of amazing stuff for you skin.
And in the real, long-lasting kind of way that most of us are actually looking for.
It’s potentially less exciting to take out the little gimmicks and “quick fixes”…but we’ve seen the long term benefits and we’re completely sold on this more wholesome process.
While many detoxes offer rapid skin improvements (say goodbye to acne!), most quick fixes lead to short term results. And it makes sense: if it’s taken us years to get to our current less-than-ideal state of skin health, a quick detox fix is like sticking a bandaid on something that needs to be sutured and properly healed.
The Amazing Benefits
So let’s check out what a whole food, natural liver support detox can do for you skin
– Clear up acne (especially when the acne stems from gut and hormonal dysfunction
– Even out skin ton
– Balance oil production for both overly dry and much too slick skin types
– Help repair damage associated with eczema, psoriasis, seborrheic dermatitis, lichen planus, some medication-induced skin changes, and other health issues
– Give skin a healthy glow
– Decrease the development of internal damage related wrinkles over time
Not too shabby of a list, huh? And it comes from our previous detoxers, many of whom have been fighting skin issues for YEARS before coming to us.
But how does this comprehensive type of detox lead to skin benefits this good?
The Personalized Whole-Food Approach
By following a specially formulated elimination diet and re-introduction series, we can begin to improve our gut function, which is a common root cause of many different skin problems. By learning how our body signals which foods do and don’t work for it, we can begin to figure out how what we eat really impacts the health of our skin.
Further, learning which foods best fuel our body (instead of following some prescriptive plan of eating!) can go a long way to decrease systemic inflammation, a big red flag for skin conditions. This has been especially important for our previous detoxers who struggle with chronic inflammatory and autoimmune conditions which lead to ongoing skin problems.
By removing foods that inflame and irritate the body, we allow our livers to function more optimally. That means that toxin elimination and processing happens in a more efficient manner, a health function that is crucial for living acne free and enjoying skin you feel comfortable in. Additionally, having a liver that functions well is an important component of properly metabolizing our hormones, another common root cause of skin issues.
With all these amazing things happening deep inside our bodies, we get to watch our skin reap all those extra benefits. And we get to wake up feeling beautiful, confident, and healthy!
Daily Detox Tools
Besides changes to your diet, the daily detox tools that are included in an integrative wellness detox are key as well. Think contrast showers, acupuncture mats, lemon/cranberry detox elixirs, and tongue scraping…just to name a few!
By working with our natural detoxification systems–the liver, the lymphatics, the kidneys, and the colon–it allows those toxins not to show up at the level of our skin. This means fewer breakouts and a healthy, vibrant look to our epidermis!
So with all this talk to detoxing and the benefits it carries for our biggest organ (our skin!), the last thing we wanted to address today is how to even KNOW if you need to detox! Fair question, we think.
We tried to make this step as simple as possible by creating a Detox Quiz that can help you figure out if supporting your detox functions is a good fit for you.
Click here to get the Detox Quiz.
And if you know already that you need a little help in the detox department, we’d love to have you join us!
Sign up for the Fall Love Your Liver Detox today!
Bio:
Hi there! Megan and Alex here. We want to live in a world where women can be free of chronic medical problems that leave them frustrated and feeling alone. As a health care providers, we’ve worked with hundreds of women to help them live the happy, healthy, and vibrant lives they desire through own Seasonal Detoxes and Healthy Hormones Group Program. The fact that we’ve managed to put online courses together despite being overwhelmingly technically challenged is nothing short of a miracle.
When we’re not helping other women online, you can find Alex working as an MD anesthesiology resident at the University of Chicago and Megan showcasing her lab work wizardry as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner.
In real life, you can usually find Alex watching Friends reruns and making messes in the kitchen with her latest DIY-ing adventure. Megan is busy running around after her 2 girls, currently 5 years old and 9 months old, and fielding questions about that being her real hair color (it is!).