The Link Between Nutrition and Clear Skin with Dr. Stacey Shillington ND

Embark on a transformative journey to radiant health and clear skin with the wisdom of Dr. Stacey Shillington in our latest Clear Skin Sessions. As a renowned naturopath, Stacey illuminates the profound connection between internal nutrition and our external beauty. She invites us into an enlightening discussion on how the signs of our body, from the skin to our hair and nails, can reveal the silent whispers of our overall well-being. If you're ready to decode your body's signals and discover a holistic approach to wellness, this episode holds the key to unlocking the secrets of true health from within.

In our conversation, we delve into the hidden culprits behind chronic skin conditions — the declining nutrient quality in our food and the pervasive toxins that infiltrate our daily lives. Stacey provides practical guidance on rejuvenating your diet with a focus on whole, organic foods and the life-changing benefits of an elimination diet. By uncovering the impact of modern agriculture on our health, we pave the way for empowered choices that nourish the body and spirit, fostering a blemish-free complexion and a vibrant life.

Rounding out the clear skin blueprint, we discuss the paramount importance of detoxification in our toxic world. Discover how minerals play a crucial role in our body's natural detox pathways, and why whole food supplements such as spirulina and chlorella may hold the key to unlocking the doors to optimal nutrition. Don't miss the opportunity to join Stacey's free clear skin masterclass for a deeper dive into strategies that promise not just a spotless face, but a harmonious body. Tune in to this episode for a masterclass in the art of living well for those who are serious about transforming their health and their skin.

Interested in my new Clear Skin Group Program? Click here to learn more!

Click here to watch my FREE Clear Skin Masterclass and learn more about the 4 pillars of clear skin and my top tips to heal acne for good.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions, where we heal your acne from the inside out. Hello, beauties, and welcome. I'm Dr Stacey Shillington, a naturopathic doctor. I've been helping women clear their acne for over 18 years and the whole reason of the Clear Skin Sessions is to help you on your clear skin journey. It is overwhelming. Out there, there's a lot of information on how to heal your acne, and I want to teach you how to do it naturally by healing your body from the inside out, because truly, this is the only way to heal your acne for good.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Acne is a sign that there's some type of imbalance in the body, and when we actually address those imbalances and when we solve them, that is when not only do you achieve optimal health, but you're going to achieve clear skin as well. And I know so many of you have been led down the road of taking different medications, whether it's the pill, whether it's antibiotics, spironolactone or even Accutane, or whether it's been topical skincare and I mean there is a time and there is a place for really excellent topical skincare which is actually always but it's not going to solve the root cause of acne ever, ever, ever, because it's about an imbalance. So that is what the purpose of this podcast is about. So I am so grateful that you're joining me here, and I'm here to impart my knowledge and my wisdom on you so that you do not have to spend years and years battling acne. We can get right down to it, balance your body and clear your skin. So this is the third podcast in a series that I'm doing about the foundations for clear skin. So what I'm talking about in this series are the aspects of health that have to be in place in order to heal the body, and already we've talked about hydration, we've talked about sleep. In this podcast we're going to talk about nutrition, and then I'm also going to talk about exercise and light therapies in upcoming podcasts. So this is really teaching you the basics that you have to have in place, not only for clear skin, but for optimal health and when it comes to balancing the body and clearing acne for good, you know it's going to be so much easier when we have these foundational aspects of health in place.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So let's talk about nutrition. Let food be thy medicine. This was famously said by Hippocrates. He was a doctor way back in ancient times, and I mean back then they had beautiful organic food. I think Hippocrates lived in Greece. So I mean, if any of you have ever been to Greece and tasted the food there, it's pretty next level. So they had a lot of great food to eat.

Speaker 1: 2:49

We don't necessarily live in the same environment where we are just always confronted with the best, most nutritional food possible. I mean, we can be if we choose to, but often this is not how we've grown up. So we really need to re-look at nutrition, re-look at how our body is utilizing nutrients and put some things into place that are really going to take our health to the next level. But we're also living in an environment where there's a lot of toxins, there's a lot of pesticides, our bodies are overwhelmed. So we need to address nutrition a little bit differently, and diet is always going to be the foundation of great health, but diet alone cannot heal everything. Sometimes there's deeper imbalances in the body and we have to establish a really great diet, but then we have to go in and heal at a deeper level, and this is the work that I often do when my patients have been suffering with acne or other skin conditions for a long period of time.

Speaker 1: 3:51

So one of the reasons why I love working with the skin. So much is because it's a mirror into the body. So the skin is actually a reflection of our inner health, and this can also be said for the hair and the nails as well. So when I take a look at a patient's skin, hair and nails, I'm actually able to understand a lot of what's going on within their body. These systems are able to tell us how malnourished or nourished a person is. For instance, if the skin is red, shiny, swollen. If there's a lot of pigmentation, if there's a lot of dryness or scaliness, if the skin is red, shiny, swollen, if there's a lot of pigmentation, if there's a lot of dryness or scaliness, if there's infections, if there's bumps, then right away I know there's something going on within. The same thing with acne. If there's a lot of deep, chronic, cystic acne, I know that there's something going on within the body that needs to be solved. And then we take a look at hair. If hair is dry, brittle, if it doesn't have any shine, if it's starting to fall, we know as well something's going on in the body. Maybe it's an infection, or maybe it's a nutritional deficiency. And same with nails. When there's white spots on the nails, that's a sure sign that there's a mineral deficiency. If the nails are brittle, if they're prone to breakage, again, that's telling us something about what's going on inside the body. And I think this is one of the big mistakes that we make is, when we see something going on with our skin, hair and nails, we immediately reach for topical solutions. You know, we'll go to Sephora and we'll buy a new skincare regime, we'll buy a new shampoo, we'll, you know, put some crazy like polish on our nails in order to hide it. When really we're not addressing the root cause, we're not solving the problem. We're just prolonging the pain, so to speak. It's just going to get worse and worse. It's not going to necessarily get better without addressing the root cause of what's going on. So that's one of the reasons why I love working with the skin so much. And it was funny. As I was going through naturopathic school, I always knew that I wanted to focus on the skin. And people would say to me well, you've gone through school and you've done all this education, you've spent all this time learning how to heal and you're just going to focus on the skin. But the thing is, in order to heal the skin, the hair or the nails. You have to really understand the different organ systems of the body and how to heal them. So you know, when you heal the skin, you're really dealing with so many parts of the body. It's so exciting and it's really work that I love.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So whenever the skin's involved, I'm considering vitamin deficiencies. I'm taking a look at B vitamins, I'm taking a look at the fat soluble vitamins, which are vitamin D, a, k and E. I'm taking a look at vitamin C and then always, always, I'm taking a look at minerals. We are so deficient in minerals. There's the macro minerals, which is potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium chloride and sulfur, and then there's also trace minerals such as iron, cobalt, manganese, zinc, iodine and selenium. So most of us are deficient and, according to the CDC and the US Department of Agriculture get this nine out of 10 Americans are deficient in potassium. This is one of the most important electrolytes we have in our body, and when we're deficient in potassium, there's many systems in our body that are going to suffer and not work optimally.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Seven out of 10 people are deficient in calcium. Again, this is a macro mineral. This is a very important mineral in the body and 70% of us do not have enough. Eight out of 10 people are deficient in vitamin E. This is a very important antioxidant. It's very important for the health of the skin.

Speaker 1: 7:38

50% of Americans are deficient in vitamin A, vitamin C and magnesium. So we need vitamin A for healthy skin. This is incredibly important. We need vitamin C for our immune system, and magnesium is required in hundreds and thousands of enzymatic reactions in the body and we require these nutrients and it's really upsetting to see how many people out there are actually deficient when we are surrounded by food. We're surrounded by food and more than 50% of the general population is vitamin D deficient, regardless of age. And by now I'm sure we've all heard about vitamin D and how important it is. 50% of us are deficient. But when you look at all these other nutrients that we're deficient in, we really need to concentrate on re-nourishing ourselves as a culture, as a society, because we are not doing well.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So why are we so deficient in all these nutrients when we have grocery stores just overflowing with practically any food we could desire? Why are we deficient? Well, number one poor diet. Way too many processed foods, you know way too many. You know packaged, packaged foods, and a lot of these foods are nutrient deficient and even if foods are fortified with vitamins and minerals, sometimes I find that these synthetic vitamins are not as bioavailable as whole food sourced vitamins and they're not utilized as well. And I see this all the time in my patients. And my patient population is women with acne and skin conditions, and if I give them synthetic vitamins, I see reactions. When I give them whole food forms of nutrients, they're much better absorbed and utilized with the body Poor gut health. So you know there's a saying you are what you eat, which is true to a point, but really the correct phrase is you are what you absorb. So you can eat the very best diet in the world, but if your gut is in poor health, if your gut lining is not working, if your microbiome is out of balance, you're not absorbing the nutrients that you're actually eating and they're just going right through you. This is one thing that I emphasize the most in my practice is healing the gut. I'm actually obsessed about the gut and you know I test every single patient that I meet with. I test their gut because I'm always discovering ways to heal their gut and improve their health.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Depleted soil, so our farming practices over the years have not been ideal. And we, you know I don't know a lot about crop rotation, I don't know a lot about the utilization of specific fertilizers, but I do know that we have not been treating our land and our soil as well as we could have and consequently, a lot of the produce that is grown in North America is actually grown in depleted soil, which means we are not getting the nutrients that we require for optimal health. And we also have a lot of carbon dioxide in our environment, and when there's a lot of carbon dioxide, it means plants grow faster, but because they're growing faster, they're not able to utilize as many nutrients when they grow. So our food grows fast but it's actually nutrient deficient because that growing process is sped up and also we're living in a toxic environment, and when we're living in a toxic environment, it means we require more nutrients to offset the effects of these toxins on our body. So we are sitting in a situation right now where our bodies are having to deal with all these toxins, but we are depleted nutritionally, so we're not able to give our bodies the support that they need.

Speaker 1: 11:36

So this is one of the reasons why chronic disease is so prevalent in our society, and this is one of the reasons why skin conditions are so prevalent in our society as well. When it comes to the skin. The skin is an incredibly important organ. It's my favorite organ, but there's other organs that are actually more critical to survival. So a lot of these other organ systems, like the heart, like the lungs, they are actually going to have preferential treatment in terms of the nutrients they receive, in terms of the order of healing. So you know, often the skin is kind of like the guy that gets things at the very end. It gets the leftovers, and when we're deficient to begin with, the skin's not getting much at the end of the day, and that's why skin conditions are just on the rise and they seem to be rampant when we look at the statistics. There are so many skin conditions out there that I'm going to be busy for the rest of my life helping people heal their skin, that's for sure, unless we can really get these foundations of health under control. So how do we increase our nutrition? What are some of the tips that I can give you to really help reverse the trends that we're seeing in our society?

Speaker 1: 12:58

Number one stop eating processed foods. So a rule of thumb for me is that when I'm in the grocery store, I always shop on the outside. I'll go into the aisles, of course, if I need something that's on my list, but I eat whole foods. I eat fruits, I eat vegetables, I eat really good quality protein. I'm not a vegan. I eat animal protein and I feel so much better on it In fact, I'm going to do a whole podcast on this coming up, because this is something really important that we need to address. But stop eating processed foods. If we can shift to a whole foods diet, we are going to do so much better. When you look at your plate, a full 50% of it should be vegetables, even more so than fruit. Vegetables are what we really require, and lean protein, grass fed protein, organic protein. We need to have really high quality protein.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Stop eating foods that inflame your gut and there's a lot of controversy about this. I've been a naturopathic doctor for almost 20 years and one of my very best tools is an elimination diet, because there are foods out there that are inflaming your gut, that are making the situation worse every single day, and this prevents you from absorbing nutrients, even though you're eating a great diet. We need to remove foods from your diet for a certain period of time, and these are commonly known inflammatory foods, so that not only can we discover what foods are aggravating you, but we can also give the gut time to heal. When you're constantly eating foods such as gluten and dairy, you're constantly adding fuel to the fire of inflammation, and when there's constant inflammation, healing is not going to happen. It's just not.

Speaker 1: 14:48

It's when we do an elimination diet, when we take these inflammatory foods out, that we're actually able to start to heal. And I know a lot of people are like well, when you do elimination diets, this can lead to disordered eating and, yes, for some people they have to be very aware of this. But for the majority of people we are able to do this, and this is sometimes the only way that we can achieve gut health and we can get you to a place where you're able to eat foods and absorb the nutrients. And when we heal the gut, we're actually increasing our levels of serotonin, because our gut produces so many neurotransmitters, and this is actually going to make us feel better mood-wise as well. So stop eating foods that inflame your gut and work with somebody to help you really heal your gut quickly so you can start reintroducing food sooner than later. The other thing that's really important that not many people are talking about is to stop eating foods that are anti-nutrients for you, and the only way to really figure out what these foods are is to do an elimination diet.

Speaker 1: 15:56

And you know my husband. For many years we've been dairy free and we've used almond milk as a alternative to dairy milk, and I feel great with almond milk. However, unbeknownst to me, my husband had a sensitivity to almond milk and he was always getting these muscle pains in his body. He would work out and he'd injure himself and he'd have a sore neck and he'd have a sore shoulder and his body would always be sore. And, honestly, I would sometimes roll my eyes and think that he was just complaining to me, because he was, you know, he had a very low tolerance to pain. I don't know what I was thinking, because he ate a really, really great diet. And then one day I'm like, okay, let's just do an elimination diet to see if your aches and pains start to improve. And so we did an elimination diet and, lo and behold, we discovered that almonds were kryptonite for him. It was once he got rid of the almonds he was able to experience a body that was actually comfortable. He didn't experience pain all the time, and so this is one of the reasons why I think an elimination diet is so important.

Speaker 1: 17:02

When we do IgG blood test to test for food sensitivities, I don't always think it's as accurate as an elimination diet. I just don't. So there are specific foods that can act as anti-nutrients in the body Spinach and kale. These are big ones. Now, some people are fine with them, but kale contains a lot of thallium. Spinach contains a lot of oxalic acid, and sometimes, when people remove these from their diet, they actually feel better. The other one is phytic acid. So phytic acid is on a lot of nuts, it's on a lot of grains, it's on a lot of vegetarian food, and often this is why we need to soak nuts and we need to soak grains before we use them, because this will get rid of phytic acid, and if you're eating phytic acid, it can steal calcium, it can steal iron, it can steal magnesium, it can steal zinc from your body. So, especially if you're vegan or if you're eating a plant-heavy diet, you need to understand if these foods are aggravating you, if they're reducing the nutrients in your body, maybe you have to prepare them differently.

Speaker 1: 18:10

The other anti-nutrient can be lectins. Lectins stick to carbohydrates and they actually create a lot of congestion in the blood. And nightshades that is a group of vegetables such as potatoes and peppers, and they contain a lot of lectins. So some people are very sensitive to nightshades. I'm not. I can eat nightshades without issue. The other food that can be an anti-nutrient omega-6 fatty acids. So these can be very inflammatory. Instead, you do want to concentrate more on eating omega-3 fatty acids, which are anti-inflammatory. I find that when my patients avoid omega-6 fatty acids these are typically vegetable oils, such as canola oil, such as sunflower oil A lot of inflammation goes down in their bodies almost immediately. Other antitoxins mycotoxins and mold. We find a lot of this mold in grain, wine, beer and coffee.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Glyphosate this is a really big one for me. So glyphosate is a pesticide that is sprayed on so many of the crops in North America, specifically wheat, and glyphosate affects our cell membranes directly. It disrupts gut bacteria. It is a neurotoxin. So many people, when they eliminate gluten, when they eliminate wheat from their diet, they automatically feel better because inflammation in their body just comes way down, because they're not constantly consuming a neurotoxin and gluten can do a lot of damage to the gut. I do a lot of GI mapping testing in my practice. I see so much gluten sensitivity. So this is a big food to watch out for. This food can be a big red flag and when the glyphosate disrupts the gut lining, you're just not able to absorb your nutrients. And artificial sweeteners that's another anti-nutrient. For instance, something such as sucralose, because it disrupts the microbiome and increases inflammation.

Speaker 1: 20:13

So by really being aware of certain foods that aggravate our body because certain foods will act like kryptonite for us and eliminating those from your diet, that is going to go such a long ways to help you improve the health of your gut and increase your nutrition. And, as you know, increasing our nutrition is so important to helping us heal acne. So what should you do moving forward? Number one heal your gut so you can absorb nutrients properly. I really suggest that you work with a naturopathic doctor, you work with a functional medicine practitioner to heal your gut and do so with somebody that does this through a lens of skin issues and acne. This is so important because acne patients are very sensitive. They don't necessarily react to certain supplements as the same way as people without acne. So really work with somebody don't guess. It's going to take you much longer. If you're guessing, you're probably going to go down a rabbit hole of certain supplements. You may not need certain health practices that could actually not be helpful for you. So work with somebody that's experienced, because the gut is a very complicated system.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Support detoxification, so you don't require an overabundance of nutrients and which will prevent depletion. So help your body detoxify. We are exposed to so many toxins in our culture in our day and age and you know, over the last 200 years the amount of toxins that we have been exposed to has not necessarily our body hasn't kept up. Our body hasn't evolved to a place where it's able to handle the toxic burden that we're now exposed to. So we need to support our systems of detoxification. We need to ensure that our bodies are draining properly, that the enzymatic reactions within our liver are well supported, and these reactions always happen with minerals. Minerals are the cofactors to so many enzymatic reactions. When we're deficient in our minerals, we are just not able to detoxify properly.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Eat organic as much as possible. I know organic food is more expensive than conventional food. There are certain fruits and vegetables that are more important to eat organic than other. Check out the Dirty Dozen. You can Google it. Those are the foods that you should always be purchasing organic. For instance, I would never eat non-organic grapes, nor would I eat non-organic apples Some of these things. There's a line that you don't want to cross. And also with your meat wild meat, grass-fed meat we really want to focus on eating meat that's as nutrient-dense as possible and as healthy as possible, that food that's been really raised or grown in an ethical way and supplement. So in this day and age, we do need to supplement. Doing a mineral supplement is so important. I really like doing a fulvic acid or a humic acid or even just a complex mineral supplement, but be sure that you're getting your minerals, because so many of us are deficient, and vitamin supplementation is really important as well.

Speaker 1: 23:35

When you have acne, you have to be careful of multi-vitamin supplements just because, as I said earlier, I find that synthetic vitamins can be really overstimulating for people with acne. They're just not necessarily absorbed properly. They're not utilized as efficiently as a whole food form of vitamin would be. So I use a lot of spirulina. I use a lot of chlorella. With my patients, I really try to get as many vitamins in them as possible, using superfoods, using whole food forms of these nutrients.

Speaker 1: 24:10

So remember that optimizing nutrition can take time. It's going to take time. It's not as simple as starting to heal. Eat a really great diet and all of a sudden you start to feel better right away. It takes time because, remember, we have to heal the gut first. We have to make sure that we're eating high quality whole food forms of nutrients, and often we need to build up our reserves of these vitamins as well. We're so depleted. It's going to take a long time of renourishing ourselves for us to really experience the effect. And remember that the skin is usually the last part of the body to heal, because the body is going to take care of the most vital organs first, meaning the heart, meaning the lungs, meaning the kidneys, things that we actually can't survive without. I'm not saying that we could survive without our skin, because that would be really weird, but we can survive with acne, we can survive with eczema, we can survive with psoriasis, while our vital organs are being nourished and repaired.

Speaker 1: 25:10

And you also want to find a protocol that's sustainable for you, as re-nourishing your body takes time. Work with somebody that's very experienced in this and that can understand how to put together a diet for you that is sustainable, that is very satisfying, because that's the thing Our diet has to be satisfying. We cannot feel deprived, and in this day and age, there's so many great food substitutes. If you're going to do an elimination diet and you have to get rid of gluten and dairy, there are so many great choices out there there's no way you can feel deprived. If you go into Whole Foods and you just look at all the great options out there, nobody has to really really feel that deprived on these healing diets anymore.

Speaker 1: 25:56

All right, so, as always, one last piece of advice always work on relaxing the nervous system. So, while you're working on re-nourishing the body and healing your gut and you're waiting to see all these great results on your skin, work on relaxing the nervous system. When you're in a state of survival, which is a state of stress, this is not the time for nourishing and healing the body. We need to get into our rest and digest nervous system in order to fully heal. So this is always the most important work. And yeah, we're just not able to digest our food properly when we're in stress. So many of us are in a state of chronic stress all the time that it really is no wonder that we're having so many difficulties nourishing our body. All right, guys, that's it. So I hope that this has been helpful. I hope that you understand.

Speaker 1: 26:51

By improving your nutrition, everything in your body is going to change, including your skin. Often, it's not just about eating great foods. We have to take a look at all the different aspects that I've talked about today in this podcast. If you want more clear skin tips, be sure to check out my free clear skin masterclass, where I share my four pillars of clear skin. If you're struggling with acne, you don't want to miss this masterclass. It is going to teach you so much about healing acne.

Speaker 1: 27:22

And if you're just ready to jump in and start your clear skin journey, you can check out my new hormonal acne healing program. This is my self-study program. It's so value-packed. I give you so much in this program for a very low price. However, if you want to work with myself and my team one-on-one, we have that option for you as well. The link is in the show notes. I'm so grateful to have you following me and listening to this podcast. It is my absolute pleasure to guide you on your clear skin journey. I'm sending you so much love. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you in the next podcast.