Many people all over the world fall into the same trap when trying to discover how to prevent pimples and acne.
We see the breakouts on our skin and naturally, we assume that acne is a skin problem.
I mean we see the pimples right there, don't we? We see how oily our skin get's and we know that clogged pores, again in our skin, lead to breakouts.
It's not really that much of a stretch to say that acne is quite obviously a skin problem.
Well yes and no.
All the problem do exist on our skin; as I said, we quite certainly know this for sure.
However the real issue is what causes these problems and conditions to exist on our skin in the first place.
Sure we have oily skin, but why do we have oily skin? Dead skin helps clogs pores, but what causes it? Finally, we come to the acne bacteria, P.
Acnes.
This bacteria exists on every single person in the entire world.
So what is it about us that makes us get pimples? These are questions that led me down a long road of discovery about the real nature of acne a few years ago.
When I first developed my own acne problems as a teen, they were never a big deal at all.
I had at most one or two pimples on my face at a time.
I knew I would eventually outgrow it and wouldn't have to worry about acne ever again.
Except as I got older, my acne became worse and worse.
It was so bad by the time I was 22 that I almost never left the house because my face was covered in cystic acne.
I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror it was so bad.
At this time, I had tried so many treatments that didn't work that I was almost ready to beg my dermatologist to go on Accutane.
I was a bit worried about some of the side effects but I would do anything to get rid of my pimples.
Instead, I started learning more about natural cures for acne; things like baking soda, apple cider vinegar and the like.
What I discovered was that these products worked fairly well on my skin and even better, I finally could stop moisturizing ten times a day.
The natural products were just much gentler on my skin and it was a relief to not have to worry about scratching my face all day.
But I still had a lot of pimples that those products couldn't quite get rid of.
Which is what ultimately helped me to discover why my acne wasn't going away.
Put simply, I wasn't doing a single thing to take care of the real causes of my breakouts.
Think about this for a second; imagine you live in a house with a big hole in the ceiling.
Would you just put a bucket under the hole and say the problem is solved? Silly question, right? I mean, you're just using a quick fix that doesn't do a single thing to take care of the actual problem; the hole.
Well putting stuff on your face to cure your acne is doing the same exact thing! If you properly patched that hole in your roof, the problem would go away forever.
The hardest thing for most people with acne to understand is that when they use anything on their skin and expect it to work, they're effectively ignoring the real problems and only treating the symptoms.
If you never take care of the real problems, the symptoms will just keep coming back over and over for the rest of your life.
So what are the real problems? Well they are all within our bodies; somewhere no gel, cream, or natural product used externally can ever get to.
For instance, I'm sure most of you are aware of insulin and have a general idea of what it does.
Simply put, it helps the body convert food into energy but that's not that important.
What is important, however, is that too much insulin in our bloodstream causes some very, very interesting side effects.
It is a very powerful hormone and too much of it can upset the delicate balance within our bodies.
For example, when there is too much insulin present in the body at any one time, it causes our sebum glands in our skin to produce far, far too much oil.
Also, it causes our skin cells to thicken, dry up and die off much more quickly than it should.
In case you missed the significance of that, it causes our skin to produce to much oil and dead skin, which in turn leads to clogged pores, which leads to acne.
But it get's even worse! The causes of too much insulin in the bloodstream is typically due to our diets; too much processed flour items such as breads, crackers, etc and not enough vegetables and the like.
We also don't typically drink enough water throughout the day.
The combination of all these issues leads to large releases of insulin into the bloodstream.
This occurs daily throughout our lives for years and years.
Because it is so taxing to our body, our immune system starts to wear out and get run down.
We develop a low-grade chronic inflammation that ultimately hurts us health wise.
What this means for us as acne sufferers is that the P.
Acnes bacteria is now allowed to multiply out of control on our skin.
This is how it get's into clogged pores and begins feeding on the dead skin and oil trapped there.
The body's response is to send anti-bodies and white blood cells, which is how pimples are formed.
In a way, we're lucky as acne sufferers.
Our genes cause us to get breakouts where others might just become sick and tired all the time, others might get constant migraines and headaches, and still others might gain weight much more easily.
Our problems are relatively minor when looked at in that light.
Now the important thing to know is that this entire problem, the years of buildup from this insulin release can be reversed with a very simple but incredibly powerful method.
To say it plainly, don't eat solid food for a week! It's slightly more complicated than that, of course.
Doing a fast from food isn't something that you should just jump into.
Your body has years of buildup of toxins and other junk from what we eat everyday.
If you started a fast tomorrow, you would feel awful and would most likely quit before you saw any of the benefits.
You must ease into a fast slowly; about a week out from your fast, slowly start eating less meat until the day before the fast, you only eat raw fruits and vegetables.
This helps alleviate the "cleansing hangover" and will make the fast much more enjoyable.
The easiest and best fast is a raw and fresh pressed juice fast; your body get's all the vitamins and minerals it needs, but since it doesn't have to digest any food, all that energy is redirected into healing whatever is wrong with the body.
I cannot stress how important and powerful this is for anyone looking to finally cure their acne.
I did a fast four years ago; I still go to happy hour with my friends, I still eat pizza on the weekends and I've never once thought twice about touching my skin.
Maybe 3-4 times a year, I'll have one or two pimples show up.
It works that well.