Adult Acne Solutions – my natural gut reset experience

If you’ve been following me on instagram (@indieyogalife) you may have seen or read my stories with dealing with adult acne and the solutions that have been working for me through following a Gut Reset Protocol.
I’ve had (SO) many questions and queries and interest from this journey that I wanted to share a bit more here in a bit more detail for those who have been asking the nitty gritty and for those who perhaps want to jump in on Anna’s gut reset program starting Jan 6.
Note: This is deffo nitty gritty – ie: lots of info (and a few “gross” pimply pics)  – so if this is not your jam feel free to skip over to something more fun! Otherwise let’s begin at the very beginning!

WHY did I decide to start a gut reset?

Around July 2017 I started getting some toothache in a molar. (HOORAY FOR TOOTHACHE). After checking in with the dentist (my favourite place of all time), they told me I needed root canal with an endodontist. I booked the root canal for September, as for most of July and early August I was away teaching on a retreat with Anna Marsh. After a round of anti-biotics to quell the infection I left for Bali where my tooth was absolutely fine (aka relaxation), but when I got back to London to self-created project deadlines and associated stress, my tooth flared up and got another infection. They were unable to book in the root canal with the specialist (who only visits the practice once a month), if my tooth was still infected, so, desperate to get my tooth sorted, the infection stopped, and not to loose the £900 appointment – I went onto another round of anti-biotics.

Now, we all know the “dangers” of taking so many rounds of anti-biotics, but I do think they do have their place when absolutely needed.

*At this point, as it seems I’m now dishing out medical advice like a brain-surgeon,  It is important for me to add the disclaimer that I am not a doctor, nutritionist or functional medicine practitioner. The views in this post are entirely my own, no one has paid me to say any of this and there are no affiliate links in this post. I have worked closely with Anna Marsh during this process (who is both a nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner) as well as following her female hormones guide which she has developed into a gut reset program – which you can get a look at over here. This is my personal experience entirely and if you are looking to do something similar I would suggest finding the right support and guidance for you!

So back to my toothache!

As I was experiencing my tooth flaring up in infection, I also began to notice a lot of “unusual” angry pimples on the side of my face/cheek localised at the area of my back teeth. I say “unusual” because my skin has definitely had periods of being less-than-fantastic (I went on the contraceptive pill Minerva when I was in Grade 11 to help manage hormones, and also did a round of Roaccutane when I was younger), but this was unusual in that I’ve never really had pimples in this location on my face before. (Generally I would say over my period or when my skin has been “bad” – I would get spots around the “T-zone” – the forehead, nose, chin areas). It was also unusual to me that the side of my face where my tooth infection had been, was MUCH worse than the other side of my face. Anyway, I had the second round of anti-biotics, had the root canal (heaven help us) and then sat back and waited for my skin to clear.

Although my tooth was better, nothing really changed in the skin department, which started to make me feel a little bit doom and gloom. The spots on my skin, if I can describe them in any way would be “angry”.

Like maybe you know what I mean or maybe you don’t – so if I had to compare it to something in order for you to get a clearer idea, I’d have to go with Donald Trump Pimples versus Hilary Clinton Pimples.
Hilary Clinton Pimples are pimple-ish and inconvenient perhaps, but they are just regular, par-for-the-course pimples.

but Donald Trump pimples – dang, they are the RAGEY, ANGRY, SCREAMIN’ RED type.

I had the Donald Trump type, in case you must know.

It’s probably worth noting that perhaps I shouldn’t bring politics into my pimple comparisons, but honestly – it’s just way too easy.

At this point I began voicing my concerns to my husband, who – bless his soul, just kept reinforcing to me how beautiful I am. Which is lovely, and we are very grateful for the Warren’s of this world – but sometimes you just want someone to acknowledge your problem like, “yeah fek girrrrl. This is a problem!”. I mean it reallly felt like a problem of Trump-proportion, but I would’ve settled for “problem” on it’s own. loll – Anywhoo. I was chatting to Anna about my terrible skin and she suggested I follow the seed cycling steps listed in the hormone guide of hers that I had bought.

I read over the guide and after reading all the info and case studies and how much the gut affects EVERYTHING, and how anti-biotics basically wipe out the gut bacteria, I just decided to do the whole dang 28 DAY* GUT RESET.

What is a GUT RESET?

Without going into too much of the science details, I shall leave the professionals to that, a gut reset is about essentially getting the gut back to optimal functioning. It’s a process of eliminating certain trigger foods which can cause inflammation, reinoculating with healthy bacteria, repairing with any supplements and getting the system back down to basic, whole foods over an extended period of time so that you can reintroduce food groups slowly back in and monitor symptoms to see what triggers your system most. Basically: remove the general shit from your diet and see how you feel. This actually felt a little tooo simple, and I wasn’t sure it would actually even work – PARTICULARLY for me, as generally, I do already have a pretty healthy diet. But anyway, I decided to give it a shot.

What to remove from your diet?

At a very basic level you would remove these four things for 28 days:

• gluten
• dairy
• refined sugar
• alcohol

There are different “levels” to doing a gut reset. You could also choose to eliminate caffeine, nightshade vegetables, eggs, soy, FODMAP foods (which are foods which can have inflammation in the gut for some people like: lentils, chickpeas etc). Since I was “doing it” – I decided to just go for it and do as much of the elimination as I felt was still manageable. So I did for the most part try avoid nightshades, FODMAP foods and caffeine. I did ask Anna specifically about caffeine elimination and she mentioned that if you remove it and after three days you notice symptoms of withdrawal (headaches, low energy etc) then it would be a good idea to keep it out as the body is obviously quite dependent on it. I have removed caffeine before and had no reaction to it, but decided to eliminate it largely anyway.

Over the course of 28 days I had 3 cups of coffee on “special occasions” – one just at home in the very beginning to test my symptoms, one with Warren in London when he got back from his fishing trip and one when I met Anna for some project planning things (and yes, I did feel like a very disobedient school child having a coffee mid-gut-reset with the nutritionist watching me, in case you must know).

Treats:

I decided to cut out fruit (ie sugars) almost completely from my diet in this time to give myself the best shot. Over the course of 28 days I had one banana (which I ate over two days) and in the last week I had a handful of strawberries. I did find Ombar as a lovely treat which is a dairy free 90% dark chocolate and very low refined sugar. That was the sum-total of my “treats” over this time. Since I cut out caffeine, I found some Yogitea chai herbal teas and a delicious rooibos chai which was so good!

Seed Cycling:

Along with the Gut reset, I also implemented seed cycling. This is where you monitor your cycle and include natural food supplements
Day 1 – 15 of your cycle – include 1 tbs of tahini and 1 tbs of sunflower seeds daily
Day 15 – 28 of your cycle – include 1 tbs of flaxseed and 1 tbs of pumpkin seeds daily.

This really worked (and is working) for me. Having been off the pill now for about 11 months now, my cycle has been pretty erratic –  with some cycles lasting up to 43 days long – which leaves me feeling almost every month, like there’s some news I need to break to Warren. Anywhoo, I track my cycle on the Clue App (which is really good), and I started seed cycling on day 30 of my cycle. Based on the app, it told me I still had another 10 or so days until the start of my next period (based on 6 months of averaging) within 3 days of starting the seed cycling I started my period, bringing my cycle length down to a much more “average” number of days. Even if nothing else, seed cycling is a great way to stay present with the cycles of your own body. I’d definitely recommend it. I also found some interesting pumpkin seed butter (above) which I started added to the top of my sweet potato over lunch!

Supplements:

I’ve been taking probiotics, liquid vitamin A and liquid vitamin D (which Anna, being my friend, very kindly sent to me) to assist with skin regeneration.

What did a typical day of eating look like before the gut reset?

Breakfasts: 
protein smoothie with banana, berries + spinach
oats
grapefruit + protein shake

coffee + dairy milk

Lunches:
Eggs and salad things
Tuna and salad things
store bought soups (Tescos lentil soup/sea green broth soups)

coffee + dairy milk

Dinner:
Salmon, vegetable ready cook box, sweet potato crumbed fries to bake in oven
store bought veggie quiche
store bought soups (same as above)
freezer meals/veggie stews ala husband.

Weekend treats on ocassion: 
ice-cream/gu desserts store bought
brownies/cupcakes bought from markets
lindt 70% chocolate
rusks with coffee (+ dairy milk)
red wine (sometimes G&T)

What did a typical day of eating look like DURING gut Reset?

Breakfasts: 
gluten free oats – either with tahini + sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds + flaxseed depending on cycle
gluten free muesli – (I tried Deliciously Ella’s which did have some sugar in the raisons – I tried removing the raisons in the first week and then got over it.)
chia seed overnight with almond milk

chai tea + almond milk

Lunches:
Smoked mackeral, quinoa (I love the Merchants brand), watercress + rocket, olive oil, avocado
Salmon, sweet potato, watercress + rocket, olive oil, avocado/olives
flaxseed pasta + vegan basil pesto

chai tea

Dinner:
same as lunches

Treats on occassion:
90% dark chocolate Ombar

The main thing I found, was taking food back to the “whole-est” most natural ingredients. I included a lot of oily fishes into my meal plan as this supports skin nutrition. Also helpful for skin nutrition is watercress so I amped those right up. Yes, my diet did become very monotonous and “same-same” but it didn’t really bother me too much at all. I’m also not someone who needs a HUGE variety in my diet, so if this is you and you are looking to do a reset then it would be worth creating a few more menu things for yourself.  Once you work out what your “staples” are, it really is quite easy to follow. It was slightly more challenging doing this on a pescatarian diet (opposed to meat-eating) especially with eliminating probable gut irritants like lentils and chickpeas which are generally good sources of proteins for vegetarians. If you do eat meat then go for bulk up on veg with a side of protein. There are also loads of recipes in the revised edition of Anna’s gut reset guide.

Interesting gluten free and dairy free foods:

The main thing that made the gut reset very interesting for me was actually realising how much gluten/dairy/refined sugar is in ALL the products we consume. I was out buying some scrapbook supplies over the weekend mid way through the gut reset one week and I walked into a small service station on the side of the road to look for a quick snack (had just come out of a yoga class!) and there was not ONE thing besides the bottled water and one small graze nuts packet that was gluten/dairy and refined sugar free – IN THE ENTIRE SHOP. In the ENTIRE shop. This honestly blew my mind, and I would never have realised this had I not been actively looking for it.

However having these diet restrictions did mean that I had to get a bit more creative/adventurous with finding suitable foods – which was actually really fun! I found some “flaxseed pasta” from a health food store in Wimbledon, as well as vegan basil pesto, gluten free rice noodles and chickpea fusilli (which was my one transgression on the FODMAPS list). I did also find one store bought soup (butternut and quinoa) which I had once.

Some surprising things

For the most part, Warren and I do have a very healthy diet – so possibly the most surprising thing to me was how much this gut reset affected and improved my skin and digestion – when I thought I already had quite a healthy diet. It was also surprising to me how I actually ended up eating MORE in this way of eating than I would usually have done, (and particularly more carbs – quinoa, sweet potato etc) and yet my stomach became flatter and less bloated. I’ve actually listed a few benefits that I noticed while doing the gut reset below:

1. Improved digestion (MAIN WOW FACTOR for me!)
2. Healing for the skin (definitely)
3. Flatter stomach and less bloating
4. More energy
5. Figuring out which foods you are reactive to
6. More consciousness around food and eating
7. Better, deeper sleep (although this may have also been due to the fact that warren was away and I had the WHOLE bed to myself, I mean – let’s be real.)
8. My hair. Randomly I have felt that my hair has really grown well in this time. It sounds balmy to say, but I have had a google and there are certain instances where the gut may actually be affecting hair growth. Who knew?!

(Anna. Anna probably knew).

Products:

I switched out my facial cleansing products and moisturiser over this cleanse to natural paraben free products – which I ABSOLUTELY love. I’ve been using the Sukin Range – (recommended in Anna’s guide) and I love that my skin feels nourished without having that astringent/dry feeling.

So anyway, the whole reason I did the gut reset was to help balance my skin. I took photos of my skin from the beginning right through to the end so that you could see the progression. If I was a real scientist I would have probably had more controlled conditions in terms of the lighting in the pics as the pics look extremely different even on the same day under different lighting (see below):

But then again, if I was a real scientist you probably wouldn’t be reading this on this here colourful blog. Although it’s not always easy to see from the images, I can definitely notice a MASSIVE improvement in my skin – even though it actually got slightly worse before it got better – the spots are WAY less Donald Trump and the skin underneath is actually really healthy. I honestly feel like the skin coming through now is WAY clearer, healthy, brighter and smoother than it has been in a LONG time. If this it TMI then apologies, but the skin (and few small pimples) that I can see on my face now are not “pussy” or squeezable or have that inflammed vibe, they are more like general skin blemishes.

It does truly feel like my skin is healing from the inside – which is definitely the biggest difference I have noticed, as I have tried many different creams/products/facials and other topical things to try help my skin in the past – and yes sometimes these do help, but the skin coming through underneath still has the same repeating problems.

The most frequently asked question when it comes to people asking me about doing a gut reset is – “is it really difficult to do?”

And the answer is no.
It is not difficult at all.

But it depends where you are on the pivotal scale of pain-point in relation to change.

If you’re really unhappy with how things are currently and you’ve reached the end of what you can handle with the way things are right now – then you will make change. And it will be easy.
If this is just something that you’re wanting to do just to see if you can do it – well then it may be slightly more challenging.

But the best advice I can give is spend a few moments figuring out some standard meals for yourself and then get everything prepped to make it work. Look ahead at restaurant menus if you are eating out and either eat before hand or ask if they have gluten-free/sugar free/dairy free options. I didn’t actually find eating out to be too much of a problem, and I think it would be even less of a problem for someone who eats red meat/chicken. I’ve done a few graphics for Anna’s edited guide and she has included a food plan for people to follow to make it really simple and easy to do.

I hope for anyone dealing with annoying adult acne that this inspires you to make some changes – or at least have a bit more of an enquiry into how the foods you’re eating are affecting you on the cellular level… deep man, deep.

If you have any questions relating to my experience feel free to leave a comment below or if you have questions about the gut reset process you can chat to Anna on FB or Instagram.
She is launching her new gut reset program on January 6 and I can’t wait to do another booster!

x

PS. For those who are stopping by my BRAND NEW SHINY WEBSITE for the first time – Welcome! Come take a peek at what else I’m now offering!

PS. This post contains an affiliate link for Anna’s program – which I have been through and loved!