How to Get Clear Skin & Other Healthy Tips from Someone Who Inspires Me

Hey POPsters!

Happy Tuesday! Today we have a very special guest. He’s a friend and someone I seriously look up to.

Doctor by day.

Entrepreneur by night.

Now, that’s my style! I am fascinated daily by his achievements and boggled by his energy to do so much! Most people can’t even do one, let alone do both and be successful at them. Everyone, please meet Dr. Jonathan Carp AND President of Miracle Noodle!

Today Dr. Carp will be answering some questions about how to achieve clear skin and will also share his thoughts on healthy living. Without further adieu…let’s meet him!

Introduce yourself!

I am a dermatologist who has an interest in nutritional and lifestyle medicine and also practices conventionally. That means that when a patient comes in wanting to avoid pharmaceuticals I can guide them with lifestyle changes and special nutritional changes that have been documented in the medical literature. Of course, you know me because I also the President of Miracle Noodle so I have two jobs that I both love!! I am very lucky!

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What foods do you recommend eating and not eating for clear skin?

Well, as far as acne goes, what matters is the glycemic load of the food. The simplest way to explain this is, the glycemic load of your food is how fast your blood sugar rises after eating something. Whenever you have a carbohydrate that has been processed in any way, the glycemic load increases. Candy, sweetened drinks, clear fruit juices, white potatoes, all processed wheat products including chips and packaged foods, white pasta, most breads are some of the foods that will make acne worse. You can look up glycemic index and get a listing of foods that have a high value.

Dairy also plays a role because we think it raises something called IGF-1. So, low dairy, low sugar is the way to go. For those who are near vegetarian or want to pursue that I recommend a book called Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, MD. For those who can’t imagine giving up meat I recommend a book called The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. Both of these diets can help to clear up your skin and lose weight even if nutritionally they disagree on a lot of points.

As far as keeping the skin at its best, eating foods with a high nutrient density score means you are getting loads of antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Leafy greens like kale, collards, spinach are at the top of this list. This can even minimize the development of wrinkles and even sun spots especially if combined with a zinc based sunblock for the face.

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How important is sleep to maintaining overall health?

Sleep is very important. You get a release of GH (growth hormone) during proper sleep that can be interfered with when you don’t sleep well. GH in addition to promoting muscle growth also helps the immune system, promotes lipolysis which is fat burning, and reduces the levels of stress hormones that can cause you to gain weight.

Hydration – how does drinking water help us lose weight?

Part of what makes you feel full is stretch receptors in the stomach. As for water, well for some people it can help you to feel fuller but the best way to do that is to eat some leafy veggies. They hydrate you since they contain a lot of water, the fiber bulk can make you feel full and they low in calories.

Why do some of us still have acne even though we’re far beyond our teenage days?

Well, there are lots of factors involved with acne including diet, hormones, and genetics. Women unfortunately cycle hormonally monthly whereas the hormonal aspect in acne for men usually fades after puberty. Sorry ladies, as if it isn’t hard enough to be a woman as it is! 🙂 Nonetheless, I have yet to have someone who didn’t follow my nutritional suggestions who didn’t improve their acne dramatically.

What’s your daily diet like?

My diet is very clean but cheat on occasion like anyone else. I eat around one pound of greens per day. I make a super smoothie in the morning which consists of frozen blueberries, a banana, raw cacao (chocolate) powder, some green powder, flax seeds, and a vegan chocolate protein powder mixed with chocolate almond milk. You can tell I like chocolate 🙂 There are lots of ways to enjoy chocolate without sugar and dairy in the mix. I’ll mix up the fruit and this week mixed cranberries with the blueberries, very good!! Mid-morning I snack on raw nuts usually almonds or walnuts. I then eat a humongous salad with chick peas and tons of veggies. I may have an apple with raw almond butter later in the day and for dinner, I will eat usually eat fish or rice and beans. I eat fish a couple of times per week – usually have sushi once per week and eat chicken, beef and eggs occasionally though not that regularly. I don’t eat any dairy at all and almost no wheat. You need to find out what works best for you. With all of the disagreements about nutrition out there, what is clear with nutrition is that we should all be eating more vegetables especially leafy greens and that we eat too many processed carbs and oils. The processing of oil makes most oils harmful and remember oil is a whopping 120 calories per tablespoon with few nutrients just fat. I am not against eating fat but get it in its original packaging, nuts, seeds, and avocados. Liquid fat (oil) even as olive oil is a major calorie load. Processed carbohydrates are also a major problem and probably the biggest food disaster of all. In addition to the acne we discussed above they are implicated in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

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What’s your typical exercise routine?

My routine which works for me is as follows. 2 days a week I walk or lightly jog on the beach or walk on a treadmill on an incline for 1 full hour at a time. It is very low intensity but its relaxing time for me and it gets me outside and in touch with nature. I do high intensity training 2 days a week, one night I box and one morning I do all out sprints on the beach that are 20-40 seconds at a time for what turns out to be only 12-20 minutes. There have been some studies that showed that even very short and infrequent high intensity workouts work really well. I think a lot of people actually over-train but that is another discussion. I am a big fan of body weight exercises which I do almost everyday pushups, pullups, one legged partial squats etc. I do weight training twice per week on the 2 other days and take one day off per week though I end up usually spending some time on the beach. I am missing pilates in there however and need to work in a few of your workouts IF I can handle it!! 🙂

Fave healthy food: Kale!! I love me some kale!! You know, when I first tried kale I hated it but it really grows on you to the point where I just love it now. It sounds crazy, I know. When your body wakes up to eating high nutrient density food, you find that your body starts craving it and somehow it just starts tasting delicious!! Really, I am not the only one this has happened to!! 🙂

Fave “bad” food: I have 2 foods that I have absolutely no control over myself with. I become like a crazed, rabid wild animal!! Seriously 🙂 Chocolate chip cookies and a good key lime pie. I could and have devoured 2 full plates of cookies and an entire pie!! Once I had this very nice elderly patient who baked me and all my nurses and the other doctor and his nurses chocolate chip cookies. The nurses know I eat cleanly so they kept them in my office. They hadn’t met the beast yet so they thought they were safe!! When I walked in to my office, the beast came out and I ate the whole thing!! 🙂 I didn’t feel well for 3 days!! Everyone has to cheat sometime, you can’t be perfect, just please only give me a slice or one cookie:)

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Fave color 🙂 Ocean blue, I love the beach!

Thank you Jonathan for this very informative post. We all learned a lot today. If you guys have any questions, please leave them in the comments below!

Also, quick note! Miracle Noodle will be sponsoring the POP Pilates Meet Up this Saturday Dec 3rd! Everyone coming will get a bag of noodles to try out. Awesome. Also, if you haven’t gotten your tix yet, there are literally like only 6 left and it’s gonna be a packed room! This will be fun. Here’s the link for more info on the event.

Come to the Bryant St. Sports Basement in SF at 12:15PM with your mat and your coolest fitness fashion wear! We will be working out, live streaming, and eating! Sports Basement is sponsoring food and drinks. Also 10% of all purchases made that day will help benefit BuildOn, an organization I personally support. The team helps build schools in some of the poorest countries in the world. Everyone deserves the right to be educated.

I will update you guys more on the live stream and where to go later. I need to sleep. I have to film a video for Fitness Magazine tomorrow that they just told me about today. It is also due by end of day tomorrow, edited and everything! They want me to do a Post Thanksgiving Tune Up total body workout. Haha, this will be my THIRD Thanksgiving themed video in 7 days! Oh well ,the more the merrier right?

<3 Cassey