Nourish your skin from within to get the best results.

Lunch Hour Lesson #19

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Many of us use multiple personal care products on our skin, everything from sunscreen to makeup. This concerns me, for a few reasons. Conventional cosmetics and personal care products are relatively unregulated for safety (unlike food). Some are made of ingredients that research has shown to be carcinogenic. They damage our skin’s microbiome, are bad for the environment, and are designed for appearance and feel, without concern for health effects.

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If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin. Why not? The skin is our body’s largest organ, and is very permeable. Unlike substances entering the digestive tract, everything we put on or inject into our skin gets directly absorbed into the bloodstream.

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The digestive tract is designed to kill bacteria and sequester the “bad stuff” from what we ingest so it can be eliminated. But our skin doesn’t have this ability.

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Before the advent of “skin care products”, our skin only came in contact with natural substances: dirt, air, water, animal fats. That is what our body is prepared for.

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Another reason to focus on feeding your skin the right food is that external beauty is only achieved through internal health. Using lotions and creams to chase an ideal of beauty doesn’t produce the results that proper nourishment on the inside can achieve.

RESTART® Snip

Gain a long-term strategy to make good nutritional choices

Weekend Tip

Nourish your skin from within to get the best results.

  • go without makeup
  • expose your skin to the sun without sunscreen for 15 minutes
  • do not wash your arms and legs with soap, just underarms, groin, and feet
  • look up some natural “skin food” – emu oil or collagen peptides