Are you removing more and more foods and still struggling with unhappy skin?

Image: Khloe Arledge, Unsplash

You’re missing the underlying source of the problem.

Have you tried elimination diets to manage your skin problems, beyond identified allergens and common triggers like gluten, dairy, eggs and processed foods? Have you tried restrictive diets that remove whole food groups, like carbs, or categories of foods, like grains?

And did these diets solve the problem? If you’re reading this, I’m guessing they didn’t. Maybe your skin improved for a while and then the problems returned – maybe even worse than before.

The problem with elimination and restrictive diets is that we’re removing nutrients that we need to thrive. A healthy body and healthy skin need a lot of different nutrients that come from all food groups.

And restrictive diets can be even worse for children because they are growing and developing and need nourishment. Diet restrictions in children can also trigger fear of food and disordered eating habits in the future.

Food isn’t causing your skin problems. Not in the way you think it does.

If you’ve removed known allergens and common trigger foods and it didn’t help, and your diet is getting smaller and smaller, we need to dig deeper.

We’ve got to look at the gut and see what the problem is there. This is a crucial first step. If your gut isn’t happy, your skin won’t be happy.

The gut-skin connection

If your gut isn’t working well, you can eat the most amazingly nutritious food, but your body won’t be able to do anything with it, because you won’t be able to digest and absorb the nutrients from it that you need to support your skin. You’re not what you eat, you’re what you digest and absorb (but it doesn’t sound as cool).

If your gut isn’t working well, your gut bacteria is out of balance and this creates all sorts of problems throughout the body, affecting the health of your skin.

If your gut isn’t working well, neither is your immune system. This is because your gut bacteria have a direct influence on your immune system – and a large part of the immune system is located in the gut! And many skin problems are directly linked to immune system problems.

 If your gut isn’t working well, it often leads to inflammation. This in turn can cause the gut to become leaky and start letting food molecules into the blood stream, triggering the immune system to react to foods it shouldn’t be reacting to = food sensitivities.

If your gut isn’t working well, the body’s natural detox functions won’t work, and the body will try to get rid of toxins and waste products in other ways including through the skin, causing skin problems.

By the way – and this is important – you can have a gut that isn’t working well, without having any gut symptoms.

A new approach

So, we need an approach that doesn’t take more and more foods out of your diet. We need an approach that uncovers the roots of your skin problems – and restores the health and optimal functioning of your gut, as a foundational step towards happy skin.

To have a chat about how I can help with this, you can book a free 15 minute discovery call - just go to Work with me.