Tag Archives: dairy

The Dairy-Free Experiment

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Well hello my loves, how’s everyone doing?!

I’m doing fabulous, even better than when I last posted. Why?

Because I’m on vaycaaaay baby! I have this entire week off from internship madness so I’m more than happy about that. My parents will be coming for a visit on Wednesday through the weekend and I can’t wait, haven’t seen them since Christmas!

To kick off my week of relaxation I did a who lot of nothing this weekend. And by nothing I mean laying by the pool, getting a little color to my ghostly pale skin. Oh and I slept, a lot. Sleep and a tan should get rid of those stress-bags under my eyes don’t you think?

Anyway, remember when I said I would be doing a dairy-free experiment for two weeks, to see if it had any positive effects on my skin/acne? Well it happened.

On Friday the 12th is when I started, and went until this past Friday, the 26th.. sans dairy. Let’s recap what that meant: no cheese, no milk, no butter, no yogurt, no ice cream, no froyo, no whey powder, oh and actually a lot of other things too. I went as far as checking labels to make sure even the smallest amount of dairy wasn’t included (for example, in those steamable veggie packs that have a little sauce on them, yep they ALL contain milk products). If it say “contains milk” in the allergy statement, it didn’t go into my grocery cart.

This meant a lot of fresh produce and a lot of simple meals. Chicken and rice with a side of broccoli. Pasta with marinara sauce. Tacos with only meat, black beans, peppers and onions. Sandwiches without cheese. Dippy eggs over veggies. Not hard to do, but it’s crazy to be aware of how many food items I eat on a regular basis that contain at least one type of dairy, especially cheese!

I didn’t really try to find any replacements for the dairy items, I just did without. For breakfast I had a lot of eggs and oatmeal with PB, I added avocado to a lot of things for a creamy-factor, and I bought a carton of coconut milk for my coffee, or whatever else I might need a splash of milk for. I noticed almost immediately that my skin was starting to clear up, and no new blemishes were forming. Unfortunately my experiment wasn’t totally dairy-proof. Hear me out…

So you all know (or maybe not, but now you do) that I started my most recent rotation at an eating disorder facility. Well I had to eat lunch with the patients one day the first week, which meant I had to follow their meal plan in order to not be a trigger to anyone, and to show them that what they were being served is in fact a real, healthy, balanced meal. This meant I had to have one serving of dairy, which on this particular day happened to be cheddar cheese. I was very conscious of this, and watched my skin very carefully for the next 48 hours to see if any new trouble spots formed. Nothing.

Fast forward to this past Friday, the last day of the experiment. Again I had to eat with the patients, this time though, because of the meal plan, both cheese and yogurt were included in the meal. I figured it was a good way to end the experiment and see what would happen from there. Low and behold, Saturday morning I woke up to a small blemish on my cheek, and another on my chest. Nothing gargantuan, but enough for me to notice

Here is my rationalization: more dairy means more of a negative affect on my skin. I really think that if I want totally clear skin, it’s going to take more than just giving up dairy to make the difference. Hello, stress? Hello, coffee? Hello, living in a humid climate? But, making a conscious effort to not rely on dairy products as much is an easy step toward clear skin.

Things that I’m going to change because of this:

  • buying almond and/or coconut milk… because it’s delicious anyway
  • not buying yogurt… this is huge, and we’ll see how long it lasts, but for now I can accept it I suppose
  • using more avocados… because seriously, why not
  • only getting ice cream or froyo if I’m physically going out to an ice cream or froyo shop… no more getting suckered into Publix’s sales!
  • not using whey protein in my smoothies… probably will be on the hunt for a plant-based protein powder soon, or just settling for more peanut butter in my smoothies for some staying-power

Things that I’m not going to change:

  • eating cheese… a lot of meals can easily be eaten without cheese, a.k.a. pasta, sandwiches, tacos, etc. and I’m definitely going to be more apt to fore-go the cheese, but there are some things that I just cannot and will not give up, like mozzarella on my favorite caprese pizza or feta in my favorite greek omelette. Totally worth the risk in my opinion.

And like I said, I realize that it’s more than just dairy that has an effect on my skin, but if this can at least improve the chances of me having a flawless complexion, then I’m game. Oh and in case anyone was wondering, since I’m substantially decreasing my intake of calcium sources, I’ll be supplementing with more calcium/vitamin D (I take a supp in the first place) and not forgetting about my dark leafy greens. Gotta keep those bones in good health too!

What’s your favorite kind of cheese?

Dairy and Acne

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When we talk about nutrition, we often think of how the diet affects specific organs, like the heart, the intestines, the liver… but one organ that is commonly overlooked is skin… the largest organ in the body.

Ok so you kind of forgot, or maybe just didn’t think of skin as an organ, right? It’s okay because I actually seem to forget this quite a bit as well.

I’m usually stuck thinking the appearance of my skin, specifically my face, is from my skincare routine: wash and moisturize twice a day, toner once a day and exfoliate every other day. Everyone does it differently for their own skin type.

skin

But I always forget that I may be doing everything just fine from the outside, but what about from the inside? Am I feeding my skin what it needs, or maybe too much of what it doesn’t need?

The reason I bring this up is because lately, I’ve unfortunately been suffering from a bit of acne. I’ve never had a full-face of breakouts and still don’t, but what I mean is that there are more blemishes that seem to be reappearing once I seem to finally tackle them. This is a big issue for me currently because of this internship, I’m meeting a lot of new people and making a lot of first impressions. I’m in my twenties, I thought this shit was suppose to end, not get worse, what’s going on!?

Like I said before, I forgot that my skin is an organ too. And once I remembered, I realized that maybe my diet is what needs some adjusting… to make changes and work on my skin from the inside out.

Since being on a budget, many times I go for calorie-dense foods in order to get more bang for my buck, which often times includes dairy… like cheese, cream, milk, yogurt, etc. Well, one big controversy in the world of nutrition is with acne and dairy. It’s been studied and studied and studied, but even though there are many signs pointing to dairy in the diet being the culprit, there is hardly any scientific proof that it does in fact cause acne. It’s suggested that the hormone in cow’s milk (IGF-1) affect our bodies and the normal balance, and also that the dairy increases the amount of sebum, or oil, that we produce.

So, since evidence is sparse, I thought maybe I would do a little self-study of my own and see how my skin would react to this change. I’ve read a lot of stories where people mention they saw a difference in their skin in less than a week, so my goal is to cut dairy from my diet completely for two weeks. This works out pretty well actually because in preparation for our apartment move, we have been in “Operation: eat everything in the kitchen” mode, so we don’t have a whole lot of food lying around. In terms of dairy, we do have about a half-gallon of milk and a few yogurts, so I’ll be starting this little dairy-free adventure on Sunday once that’s all gone.

This means, of what I currently eat, no…

  • milk
  • sour cream
  • yogurt
  • cheese
  • ice cream/froyo
  • butter (rarely, if ever used)
  • whey protein

If you know me, you know that I love overnight oats (goodbye yogurt), protein smoothies (goodbye whey), ice cream (goodbye, my sweet love), and anything with cheese… So this is not going to be a walk in the park for me. But I’ll survive.

(haha)

Depending on the outcomes of my experiment, dairy may, sadly, just need to be eliminated from my diet. I’ll need to shift my focus from trying to recreate the same dairy-heavy meals and snacks. But since this is a totally new thing for me, I think substituting.. or at least trying to substitute.. for the lack of creamy-yummy-goodness will make a huge difference in my happiness. Obviously there are different kinds of milk to choose from, and I’m on a mission to find nutritional yeast, but does anyone have any other suggestions for replacing dairy products? Vegans, I’m looking at you because I know you have ways of making things “creamy” and “cheesy”!

Any suggestions?