What Your Skin is Telling You

Your skin is a reflection of health and a guide to where your next health gains can be made.  Join me in exploring how our internal health is reflected within the health and glow of your skin.  Learn to fix the root, improve wellness and glow more beautifully inside and out.  

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):

Welcome back to the Jolie Podcast where we explore nutrition, beauty, wellness, and vitality from the inside out. Today's episode is all about your skin, not just how it looks, but also what it's telling you. Your skin is a living reflection of your internal wellness. I like to think of my skin as the canary in the coal mine. It tells me how I'm doing inside every flush, every breakout, every glow. The morning when I wake up and my skin is glowing. It's a message from within. And when we learn to read these messages, we can create the kind of radiance that last because we are creating not temporary radiance from products, but we are creating the deep, luminous kind that comes from balance and nourishment and internal self-care. And so that's what we're dropping into. And I want to be completely transparent and share with you my own belief.
(01:19)
I always say that I can tell how my body's doing just by looking at my skin and it tells me the truth of what's happening before even my blood work tells me the truth. So to know that as you get to know your skin, as you get to know the factors that impact your skin, you get another data point to see how your body is doing in the inside. Let's talk about the skin body connection. The skin is your largest organ and it is your most visible detox pathway. So our skin is our protection from the outside world and our skin is one of the avenues through which our body release its toxins. Our body will release toxins through the skin, through evaporation, through our sebum, which is the oil that it's released as well as through sweat. Sweat is a big way in which toxins are released from our body.
(02:27)
The skin is a detox pathway, but it is also a protection pathway. So the quality of our skin impacts our immune system because our skin is the barrier that keeps us from pathogens entering from the outside world. The skin is also where the quality of it indicates how quickly it heals, which in turn indicates how long microbes have when we have an open wound or an abrasion. So the skin is very important in your body's overall health because of its operation as a protector, but also because of it being a huge detox pathway. The other way in which the skin connects with your body is when the gut liver or hormones are struggling, the skin becomes the messenger. So when your gut is struggling in terms of a leaky gut or gut inflammation, your skin is going to show this by becoming very reactive. When we have an inflamed gut, when we have leaky gut, even before we know it, our skin becomes reactive.
(03:55)
And how do you know if your skin is reactive? More things irritated it than should irritate it. It becomes hypersensitive. You have flushing of different colors. Your skin can be blotchy. Those are all signs that your gut is really needing of attention. The liver is one of our most important organs for metabolism, metabolism of energy, but also metabolism of medicines, of pharmaceuticals that we take of vitamins of waste, product of hormones. When the liver is struggling, that increases the toxic load that exists in our body. And this shows up in our skin by dullness. Dullness is a huge sign that the liver is congested. When your skin is dull, it means that your cells are getting overwhelmed with toxicity and they cannot be vibrant. They can't be vibrant. And so when we have skin that is very dull, we know, okay, we need to pay attention to our liver.
(05:18)
Another easy way to understand this connection is when you drink alcohol and how the metabolism of alcohol causes your skin to flush. That is one of the easy touch points where you can see liver activity and skin radiant are very much connected and hormonally, if you're a woman and you're listening to this, you can totally understand when your skin looks beautiful. And then at some point in your cycle, your skin begins to break out. That is a hormonal breakout and is showing you that, okay, our hormones are not balanced and we need to pay attention to things that help them to balance, like our eating, our exercise, our movement, our sleep cycle. All those things help for your hormones to balance. So the skin is a messenger, and I will say that the skin is the early messenger, so the skin is responsive even before pathology begins to happen, even before you get sick, even before you realize that, oh, I have IBS even before you realize, oh, my estrogen is low or my testosterone is low, your skin is going to show that it is going to demonstrate to you, Hey, there's something going on here.
(06:48)
And that's why it's so important for us to really listen to our skin and to not see breakouts or flushing or flaky skin or skin conditions as the problem. They are more the symptom of a bigger problem, and this is especially true with chronic skin conditions. I want to touch on inflammation, glycation and hydration because they are the three most visible disruptors of radiance. Inflammation disrupts the skin just as it disrupts every cell in your body. Systemic chronic inflammation affects everything from your brain to your pinky finger, to your liver, to your reproductive cycle because when there is systemic inflammation in your body, your cells are not functioning optimally and your immune system is on high alert. If this becomes chronic, then we start to develop autoimmune diseases, we start to weaken. It throws off our metabolism. We can see hints of this before we have a four alarm fire through our skin.
(08:08)
If you're having frequent outbreaks, if you are suffering from eczema, if you have an existing skin condition and then it ramps up from a one to a five in severity, this is helping you to understand that the inflammation in your body is amped up. So when we see these signs from our skin, what do we do? We back off and we start treating ourselves with anti-inflammatory foods and actions. And a little deep breathing helps too because I will say that sometimes we discount the emotional nervous system connection with inflammation, but that is there too. There's obviously the food and all of that, but there is how amped up our nervous system is. Glycation is one of my favorite subjects as it relates to visible disruptors of the skin. So glycation shows up in the skin as brown spots, as liver spots. It is basically when sugar molecules, they are oxidized and it turns into a burnt sugar, a burnt caramel that is glycation, that produces a ags advanced glycation in product.
(09:38)
Ags are responsible for gunking up our cells so that they do not function well. And think of it as literally burnt sugar. It's responsible for cell aging and even cell death. So when we see liver spots coming, when we see brown spots coming, obviously get them checked out for skin cancer and all of that. But you see you becoming more freckly. For instance, glycation is happening and that is telling us that our sugar levels are high and we may not be diabetic, we may not be pre-diabetic, but the body is sending us the early tremors of hay. You need to pull back on your sugar consumption. You need to pull back on your reliance on pasta and rice and corn and other grains as your sustenance. You need to pull back on that. And so glycation is such an important indicator of health because when you see less glycation, you know that metabolically you're functioning better, your liver is functioning better, and on the subject of glycation, the other way that it shows up besides the liver spots and the brown spots and the freckles is skin darkening.
(10:56)
So you yourself or you might walk around and you'll see people that have darkened patches of skin usually around the eyes is where it starts. This is one of the ways that your body oftentimes also it's by the cheeks. I just wanted to add that this is one of the ways in which your body is telling you there's too much sugar here. There's too much sugar here, and it is showing up on your skin. Important, important message. And lastly, hydration. Hydration is something that I won't spend as much time on it because it's more obvious and it's something that is, we know, oh, if we're parched, if we go through a day and we are not drinking enough water, it's likely that our skin will be dull. You do a juice cleanse and the next day you're like, oh my gosh, my skin looks so radiant because well hydrated.
(11:54)
Not even the fact that it has been doused with vitamins, but it is well hydrated. Hydration really, really shows up in the skin. And the older you get, the more important hydration is because you want to maintain optimal cell health to help your cells reproduce more quickly. And that process just slows down as we get older. It also helps the cells to be more rigid, which allows them to be plump, something we all want. We don't want sagging cheeks. We want cheeks that are nice and firm and plump and look youthful. Hydration has a lot to do with that. So I want to pivot. So we talked about what the messenger is telling us in terms of gut, liver and hormone struggling. We talked about visible disruptors, inflammation, glycation, and hydration. I also now want to talk about the importance of skincare versus food care, as I call it.
(13:06)
We often think of skincare as completely topical, that it is the cream that I have, the oil that I put on my skin, the lotion that I use, the serum, the peptides, all of these things. All of those things are absolutely magnificent and wonderful and I use them every day. I will never tell you not to use them, but 80% of the work of keeping your skin radiant and healthy happens underneath the surface. It happens through your digestion, through your hormones and through your circulatory system as well as your immune system. So what you're eating is more important than what you're putting on your skin. You can have absolutely gorgeous skin and use like the CVS moisturizer and eat really, really well. Or you can use the most expensive moisturizer, eat like crap, and guess what? Your skin's going to be like, crap. So just know that that is important.
(14:20)
So let us decode what your skin might be telling you. I formulated a little skin signals quiz and we are going to run through it and you can just keep a mental tally or Italian on paper about what your skin is telling you. So first up is redness and flushing, redness. Red blotches, flushing of the skin is a clear sign of inflammation and imbalance. That could be leaky gut, that could be yeast overgrowth, that could be other imbalances in your microbiome, but that's what the redness and flushing is telling you. Most likely the culprit for this is sugar. It could be antibiotics, it could be wine over alcohol use, it can be stress. Those are the factors that have a huge impact on gut health, sugar, alcohol, stress, and a huge impact as a corollary to inflammation. So if you are struggling with redness and flushing, your solution is to begin to detox from sugar to begin to detox from high sugar foods, from reliance on foods like pasta and rice and bread and oats and corn, things of that sort.
(15:55)
So instead of having, let's say a muffin with a sandwich for lunch and then having pizza for dinner, it would behoove your skin at that point to replace your muffin with some scrambled eggs and then your sandwich, maybe have a lettuce wrap and your pizza, have the thin as possible pizza crust as you can or have one slice of pizza and a salad. So that helps you to cut down on the amount of sugar that you're eating. When my skin flushes, I know that I've been too stimulated, and that might be from too much pressure. That might be I'm really stressed out, but I know from experience and from tracking my own skin that if I start to flush, it means that I'm overstimulated. It means that I need to slow down, I need to take some deep breaths and I just need to calm my nervous system a bit.
(16:58)
So that's something that you can use too if you struggle with redness and flushing. Let's move on to the dreaded dry, dull skin. And this is an easy fix. It is basically hydration and electrolytes. Dry dull skin equals dehydration and mineral deficiency, and this is super easy to fix because hydrating adding electrolytes to your water, so salts that allow the water to be better absorbed and utilized. My fabulous broth latte from Jolie, that is a combination of broth and protein and collagen, but the broth itself is what's going to hydrate and give you those minerals. And we all need a little bit of fat and we need fat both in our food and in our skincare. Why do we need fat? Because our cell linings are made of lipids. The lipids help to keep our skin more moisturized. Without fat, the skin more easily gets stripped of its moisture.
(18:16)
So if you have dull dry skin, here's what you need to do. So for the next week, you're going to super hydrate with electrolytes. You're going drink your bone broth and you're going to have a few nuts or seeds, a quarter of an avocado, half an avocado as your snack. And this give it seven days. Your skin will no longer be dry and dull. It will be bright and glowing. So one of the things that I sometimes do in the winter, particularly end of January, beginning of February when it's like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can make it. It's all due with juice cleanse. A juice cleanse for me is painful during the winter because it tends to be cold, but it is super hydrating and by the end of it, my skin is radiant. And that is mainly because of the hydration and the minerals that are found in the pressed juices. Now let's go to the breakout around the jaw. These are the worst because you can have beautifully clear skin and the chin or the nose gets broken out certain times of the month.
(19:39)
In terms of helping to relieve yourself of this, we need to look at your hormones. We need to look at how do we prevent hormone fluctuation. And the two key ways that we can do that is to pay attention to the liver. Because our liver metabolizes our hormones, our liver is very active in keeping our hormones balanced. So we want it not to be congested. So in order to support that pathway within the liver, we're going to eat more cruciferous vegetables, we're going to have steady protein supply, we're going to have a high fiber diet, and we're going to make sure that we have enough rest. Those four things will help your liver to detox and to function at a higher level so that there's less range in your hormone fluctuation. And over time, give yourself three to six months, you are going to see less and less breakouts around the jaw.
(20:48)
Now let's get to puffiness. No one wants to be puffy and that puffiness is like you kind of feel like, I don't know, an overstuffed sausage. The puffiness and puffiness is generally lymphatic congestion. This can happen because of immobility, but it can also happen by too much. It can also happen from too much processed foods, which will give us more salt than we need and will lead to puffiness. Lymphatic congestion can also happen when the liver isn't being well cared for. It also happens when you are chronically dehydrated your lymph, it moves it's fluid. The more well you're hydrated, the better that fluid moves. So how do we address puffiness? So we know what it's telling us. It's telling us, okay, we're a bit dehydrated. It's telling us we need a more lymph friendly diet. It's telling us that perhaps there's too much processed food and salt in our diet.
(21:58)
It's telling us that our liver is a bit congested. So in order to help relieve this, we know that we need to hydrate. We know that we need to move. Your lens system does not have a pump. It moves through your own movement. And you can also do sauna. Sauna because of the increase in circulation causes your lymph to cycle more the heat, and there's facial massage, there's lymphatic massage, there are plenty of rollers on the market that help to move the lymph. The lymph is on the very surface of the skin, so it doesn't need a lot of tension, but it does need to move. And as it moves, then your body can begin to empty it. We talked about liver spots and age spots as a symptom of glycation and sugar exposure. We talked about how sugar binds to proteins and creates ags.
(23:12)
The ags in turn stiffen our collagen so we have less flexibility, less suppleness in our skin. The best way to treat this, and this is so super important because the suppleness of your skin has a lot to do with how quickly you develop wrinkles. So you don't want wrinkles if you don't want your wrinkles quickly deepening. If you want to get rid of those fine lines, you need to pay attention your sugar because it is working against you. And one of the greatest tools that I absolutely love and adore is a continuous glucose monitor, and I find it really helpful. I have used one myself for people who are non-diabetic or non pre-diabetic because it clearly illustrates what is happening blood sugar wise based on what you're eating. And then you can have information about, okay, what changes do I need to make? It's very easy and simple for us to think, oh, I'm not diabetic.
(24:20)
Oh, I'm not pre-diabetic. I don't have a sugar problem based on the population. As I walk around and I look at people and I see their skin, we have sugar problems and they can be, I say they can be pesky little rascals because sugar is hidden in so many things. And it's not until you have the continuous glucose monitor that you begin to notice what happens and how food impacts your sugar levels. While we're on the subject, a fine line and fine lines being linked to collagen, stiffening, fine lines are also linked to collagen breaking down. As we get older, our body synthesizes less and less collagen. And so as we get older, we have to be more adept and more attentive to promoting collagen synthesis. And we do that by eating our protein, eating our collagen peptides, having our broth, eating our broth lattes, vitamin C and sleep all super, super, super important.
(25:32)
And those will help break down the fine lines and even reverse the fine lines. I find in my own self as I have really committed to my daily broth latte, I have two little lines that are between my eyebrows. They basically have virtually disappeared, which thank God I wanted that to happen. I didn't want to have to Botox them. They're gone. So I'm good. The other thing I will say is that lowering stress and if your life is stressful, taking deep breaths will help reset. Your nervous system also helps because then you just hold less tightness in your faith. Let's move on to itchy and reactive skin. Itchy and reactive skin is a sign of gut permeability. So that would be leaky gut. What comes before leaky gut, what comes after leaky gut or food sensitivities, which would come after your gut is leaky. For this, the best solution is to heal your gut.
(26:36)
We tend to put cortisone on our skin. We tend to put extra oil, all these ics to help relieve the itchiness. The real root that's just treating the symptom is your gut. And so here I would highly, highly suggest that you do a gut reset, that you pull back on gut irritants like dairy, gluten for some cruciferous vegetables, and you really just allow the gut to heal. Eating too often, eating too much, all disrupt the gut. So healing the gut is going to help relieve that itchy skin, relieve that reactive skin. Now for you guys who have an oily T-One, fewer meals, fewer carbs, more magnesium, more sleep, the oily zone is connected with insulin usage. And this doesn't have to be diabetes. I'm always careful when talking about sugar because I don't want the non-diabetic, non pre-diabetic population to think, oh, this doesn't apply to me.
(27:51)
It does apply to you. And even in myself, I have very low sugar. I still have to be mindful of what I'm eating and mindful of sugar content, particularly hidden sugar content and having that high sugar, high cortisol causes your body to overproduce oil in the oily T-zone. Taking that out, it relieves it. One of the things that my daughter did when she was in high school, she struggled with acne one summer, she's like, mom, I'm going to do the Mediterranean diet for the entire summer. She did the Mediterranean diet, utterly scarred her brother because we ate so much salmon that summer. He's like, no more salmon please. But by the end of her summer, her skin was gorgeous, and that was all due to a change in diet. The oily T-zone was gone, the pimples were gone, the skin looked gorgeous. So there you go, uneven skin tone.
(29:03)
And we talked about that in terms of uneven skin tone or darkening of the skin is a sign of liver congestion. I really wish that more and more people would pay attention to that because that's one of those things that is like, oh, it's just aging. Oh, my skin darkening, my cheek's darkening. Oh, that's just part of aging. Actually, no, that's not part of aging. That is part of continued liver abuse, continued over consumption of sugar, but it should not be that way. We should have even toned skin that is bright and lovely besides what we spoke of earlier in terms of emphasizing your proteins, lowering your sugar consumption, what are other things you can do to help the liver decongest to help it revive to help it function better? Lemon water, lots of leafy greens, dandelion rest, celery juice, parsley, all of those things are super helpful for helping the liver to decongest.
(30:23)
I love that a liver decongest won't be morning lemon water with parsley or a salad of deep greens. I love it. So make that your daily and you'll be really, really good lack of glow. And also you'll take care of the lack of glow if you do that because lack of glow is basically nutrient deficiency. Nutrient deficiency means you're not getting enough of the good stuff, you're not getting enough of the vegetables, you're not getting enough movement, you're not getting enough color in your plate. So you know need lots of color. You need movement and that will help you.
(31:02)
It will help you to address the nutrient deficiency and the movement will improve circulation so that your cells are more nourished. So look or think of this list and pick out one or two things that you need to work on or you would like to work on your skin. It doesn't need a fix-it kit. What it needs is just for you to listen and correct the internal imbalance and you will see your skin on the surface completely transform. And so I just wanted to share with you some of the Jolie rituals for Lumina skin, and I use this myself. Our sugar detox, we oftentimes will run sugar detoxes and many of our programs are a sugar detox. I tell you, it's really important to reset your sugar palate if you are just a normal person walking around because our sugar palates can be dialed back in the same way.
(32:03)
They can be dialed back though they can also so many Christmas cookies and pretty soon your Christmas cookie doesn't taste so sweet. So our sugar perception can be changed based on how much sugar we are eating. So it's very helpful to dial our sugar back. It's very helpful to have days where we just don't consume sugar. So maybe on those days we just eat vegetables and protein, no sugar, be mindful and particularly the sneaky places where it's put into sauce and you don't realize it or it's a healthy fruit juice, but actually it's a lot of pineapple and apple, which is just sugar. So be careful about those things. The other jelly ritual that we have is the broth latte, which I absolutely adore. This has completely transformed my skin. I've had beautiful skin most of my life. This has been next level. So the brothel latte, it gives you so many amino acids, it gives you collagen, it gives you minerals, and it really nourishes your gut and your skin.
(33:18)
And I think of it as drinking radiance. If you don't have a broth latte, just start having bone broth one to two times a day that is going to transform you. If you get to have the broth latte, it'll be even better. The other Jolene ritual is really my ritual. And that is your skincare choose really amazing skincare. And I did preface this by saying 80% of what you do as an internal job, but let's do that 80% and then gets to the other 20% with our skincare. My personal favorite, and I have no association with them, is Laurel Skincare. I love every single product that they make. I know it's natural, I know it's clean, I know it's good for my skin, and more importantly, their products are radically effective. So that's what I suggest. But do what works for you. Just think clean your skin just as it is.
(34:22)
A detox organ can also absorb almost everything you put on it. So you don't want to put toxins on your skin in your skincare because you're basically putting those toxins in your body, which is going to just cause inflammation and liver congestion. We don't want that. And lastly, my favorite, favorite little tool is the Luma Laser. And all lasers for that matter that are gentle, I am one of those people that's less, is more. So as gently as you can treat your skin to give optimal results is what I go for. And consistency trumps everything. So consistently eating a healthy diet trumps the one week of health out of 52 or the 26 weeks of health out of 52. I will say however, every point counts, but consistency is king hair. So I encourage you to think about how can I listen to my skin more?
(35:35)
How can I use what my skin is telling me to change, how I treat myself, how I feed myself, how I nourish myself? And to begin to keep a journal so you can see the everyday impact of your nutrition, of your habits, of your skin treatment, and how they impact your radis and special challenge to you to do something. And notice how internally you feel differently, because this is more than beauty is skin deep beauty is all the way to the core. It tells you what's at the core. So I leave you with that and lots of love. I look forward to speaking with you again, please share this and re-listen to it. Get all your skin stuff together, your insides and your outsides. Well, thank you. You can reach me at Jolie, at the Jolie life or you can look us up@thelife.com. I hope you enjoyed this podcast, the Jo Life Podcast.
(36:39)
And if this podcast helped you in any way, I invite you to share it with your friends and your family and whoever you come across that you think might be helped for this podcast. I would love to hear your comments. And you can contact me at julia@thejolife.com and please follow us on Instagram, the Jo Life. Our website is the jo life.com and it would be lovely if you would subscribe and if you were to rate this podcast and go back and share this with someone, let the ripple effect happen. Let the joly life be the beautiful life that keeps on giving my beauty mark of love.