I had acne. It sucked. Otherwise I felt very attractive. The several photos I took of myself each month when I had pretty clear skin got me tons of interenet dating inquiries. And then by the time some guy I wanted to meet asked me out and I was excited about the date, I didn't want to show my face, and would often cancel. They likely thought I wasn't that interested, but really I just knew I wasn't going to live up to the picture I had taken of myself just a week before. I'm not talking little blemishes, I'm talking those big puffy hard things - that hurt -- I felt cursed. Like a cursed girl in a fairy tale and I was doomed -- oh I was depressed.
I tried lots of things. Exersice, yoga, face washing - don't get me started. And the most recomended, by various beauty magazines, Neutrogena type topical drug store stuff. And tons of face masks. Some things made it worse, most things helped a little, but the acne was persistent and nothing was enough to lift my spirits. I missed my face, underneath it all. So much.
Finally, sans health insurance, I went to a Dermatologist. And gave him way more money than I should have been taking out of my monthly budget. He was very nice, maybe a little too nice. Seemed to immediately form a crush on me. And later called me on Christmas and I had to ask him to please stop. But -- that's not too relevant. It was nice -- my biggest embarrassment - the reason I felt I couldn't have love had finally driven me to -- drive myself -- to a specialist, who turned outto be about my age -- and make him look right at these things on me that made me so ashamed -- and he in turn -- liked me - a lot. Thank you. I suppose it didn't have to go that way. But moving on.
His treatments didn't work either. And from the stories he told me of his other patients, it didn't seem that anybody was really getting cured. And he infact told me when I asked him out right -- there is no known cure. There are only ways to lessen it. He said the biggest thing I had to do was relax. That stress was a huge factor. And my nervous state was the root cause. I thought my nervous state was the result. But chicken or egg, I couldn't argue with the cycle. I also asked him if there are foods I shouldn't eat, and he said nobody knows which foods really cause or don't cause it, some people find fried foods or chocolate make them break out and others don't.
I went home after that conversation weeks into my regular appointments with him poorer and more unhappy. And probably freshly broken out, I don't remember specifics.
And I started thinking. Really thinking. I have got to figure this out. This is my life. This is my happiness. I have got to put my freaking thinking cap on. I have gone to the expert and it wasn't enough, I must solve this without hishelp. People solve problems that have not been solved before all the time. Every answer that exists was once nonexistent. Just because nobody knows the answer doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist.
Ok, I said to myself, not wanting to look at myself while I said it, what do I know, where can I start from. Stress. Stress and maybe fried food and maybe chocolate. Ok. Well I almost never ate fried food and while I did eat chocolate sometimes I broke out much more often than I ate it. And then there's stress, sure, I feel that often. And then I thought -- what IS stress? It can't be just some abstract thing. In order to have a physiological effect it must have matter is must be some THING. I looked it up. Thank you internet. It must have been SO much harder to solve major problems before it. Apparently stress manifests in your (my) body as acid. Huh. Ok. I hadn't known that. Then I thought well if acid is a problem -- what's the opposite of acid? Turns out, as the internet readily informed me -- it's alkalinity. Hmmmmmm I had never heard of this. But I wanted to see if there was any intersection with fried food and chocolate -- an my mind exploded when I looked it up. They are both acidic foods. Along with a host of other foods like milk, wheat, soda and sugar. And then it was like angels singing when I sought to find out if any foods are alkaline. The answer is YES; vegetables, spices, almonds and most fruits in small quantities -- too much becomes acidic as sugar accumulates.
For two weeks I ate predominantly alkaline foods and whenever I ate acidic foods that are still in my opinion foods I need like whole grains and fish and chicken -- I always ate alkaline foods with them to balance out the PH. (which I soon learned was another term explaining alkaline or Acidic levels.) My face cleared up. My doctor didn't believe me when I showed him. I was elated.
Next post -- I met a guy who had colorectal cancer and I made him eat vegetables with every meal for a year and a half. He didn't eat any before. He also went through radiation and surgery all the western med stuff for his cancer. But he only had some tiny percentage chance of it being effective and if him living. He's now been cancer free for 6 months. His doctors were amazed.
Turns out the same principle that applies to acne applies to cancer. And to so many other ailments as well. Disease flourishes in an acidic environment. Disease can not grow in an alkaline environment. Our bodies constantly seek to balance our PH level, we can't be all alkaline we'd be in a coma -- says the internet, BUT we want to be much less acidic than we are. The body works to regulate it. So by that principle nomatter what we eat, what air we breathe or how stressed we are we should always be even steven -- but it's not so -- that work to regulate our PH is taxing. So when we make our bodiews have to work really hard to regulate out PH other things in our body don't get the attention they need and bad bacteria grows and other bad things -- sorry I have no medical education or vocabulary. But if we flush our system with alkaline things --- our body doesn't get so taxed regulating our PH and all sorts of awesome things happen. We get prettier and healthier and have a damn good chance of getting over deadly diseases.
Turns out there are SOOO many ways to alkalize. Eating vegetables alone or with meat and/or whole grains is the most basic effective thing to do. But there are hundreds of other things you can do too. And you don't have to do them all. Doing any single one of them helps to tip the scales some.
I'll be back to write some of them here.
