Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / Acne After 30 Is Your Body Asking for Help| Katie Stewart

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Acne After 30 Is Your Body Asking for Help| Katie Stewart · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

0:00
Your acne is yesterday's poop.
0:01
That's exactly what's happening is if you're not having a healthy bowel movement one to three times a day where there's no straining, no constipation, no undigested food, blood, mucus in the stool, you have to remember your body is using your colon and your bowel movements to excrete excess toxins, bacteria, excess hormones like estrogen.
0:18
So if you're not getting that out every day, that's going to start to reabsorb back in the body.
0:22
And then what do we have?
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More inflammation, more toxicity, more hormonal imbalance.
0:25
All because... What I always tell people is what's happening on your skin is just symptomatic of something else that's happening inside your body.
0:33
What do your clients come in with?
0:35
They come in because they're having a skin issue.
0:37
Clearly, you are doing so much more to unpack their lives than just dealing with skin.
0:44
Absolutely.
0:44
And I always tell our clients that if I've only cleared your skin, I've failed you.
0:48
Because...
0:52
Welcome back to another episode of Age Defiantly.
0:57
I am your host, Dr. Mark Young, and I am joined today by, I'll say a friend of a friend.
1:03
So by proxy, I think that makes her my friend as well.
1:06
Absolutely.
1:07
Katie Stewart.
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who actually was introduced to me by our mutual friend, Dylan Gemelli, and said, you have to absolutely meet this woman.
1:16
She's amazing, and you need to have her on your podcast.
1:19
So Katie, first of all, let me say welcome aboard to the Age Defiantly train here.
1:24
Thank you so much.
1:25
I've been really looking forward to this podcast.
1:27
I think just like the name of your podcast totally spoke to me, like being in the skin world myself and a millennial, like Age Defiantly, like that's what we're all achieving to do.
1:36
You're right.
1:36
I mean, for me personally, I will say age defiantly was just another verb because I think I do everything defiantly.
1:42
So it just kind of felt it just like my vibe.
1:45
Katie, I'm going to give you like this amazing introduction here because this is my opener and my group does such a great job at writing these that I can't not read them on camera.
1:56
So you'll pardon me when I use a scripted intro for you.
2:00
A breakout at 45.
2:03
Another dermatologist.
2:04
Another prescription that treats the skin but never asks why.
2:10
She tried the retinoids, the antibiotics, the spot treatments, and it kept coming back.
2:16
often worse around her cycle, her stress, her forties.
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Katie Stewart has spent nearly a decade refusing to treat adult acne as a skin problem.
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She's a registered holistic nutritionist and functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner who works exclusively with chronic adult acne, nothing else.
2:38
Since 2016, she's worked with more than 3,000 clients across 15 plus countries and reviewed over 4,000 functional lab panels, building a five-pillar framework, gut health, detoxification, hormone balance, nervous system regulation, and nourishing skin care that treats the breakout as a signal from the rest of the body, not a flaw in the skin.
3:05
She co-hosts Keep It Clear, the number one nutrition podcast on Apple Podcasts.
3:10
Katie, welcome to Age Defiantly.
3:13
Well, what a great intro that was.
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I just need to bring you everywhere I go as my hype man.
3:17
I know, right?
3:18
And I even put on my game show voice for you there.
3:21
Absolutely.
3:22
I love a good game show voice.
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You know, it's a true statement.
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My dad was actually best friends with Chuck Woolery.
3:29
Oh, no way.
3:29
Do you remember who that is?
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So, like, I have to always, like, if I put on my game show voice, I've always got Uncle Chuck in my head the entire time.
3:36
Like, I'm like, no one can be a game show host like Chuck, right?
3:40
Yeah.
3:41
So, Katie, I'm super excited to talk to you here because I have to be honest with you.
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I'm about as vain as they come.
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I'm not going to love it.
3:48
Let's just call it out.
3:49
Let's just be honest about it.
3:51
I grew up in a family where my grandmother, God rest her soul, used to always teach us that it is more important to look good than feel good.
3:59
Um, spend, I know, right.
4:02
Total exaggeration.
4:04
And spending so well, she used things like, you know, when you feel your worst, make sure you look your best.
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So like if you went over to her house and she was all dressed up and everything, you just assume she felt terrible that day.
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And that was the day she took extra care.
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And part of it is because she was just no nonsense.
4:20
There was zero sitting and feeling sorry for myself.
4:23
It was, if things are bad, you're going to go take the bull by the horns.
4:28
And I will say that that is part of my, I'd probably say genetic, but certainly my nurturing was making sure that you understood that no problem is not worth a battle.
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And I love this because your entire...
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mojo here around skincare 100% fits what I believe.
4:47
And it's like, I'm 51.
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And the reality is, is like, things do change.
4:53
I'm not going to say they don't.
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But at the same time, I always say I don't care how old I am, as long as nobody can guess.
4:59
And then I go tell everybody anyways, it doesn't bother me.
5:02
But the reality is, is like,
5:04
the skin, the way that I see it.
5:06
And I want you to walk us through the way that you view this, because when people are having a skin issue, and as you know, my PhD is in functional medicine, so I get asked a lot of questions all the time, many of which I am in no position to answer because they're not areas of my expertise.
5:23
But when people are having skin issues, and that could be anything from acne to eczema to a rash or an allergic response or whatever,
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What I always tell people is what's happening on your skin is just symptomatic of something else that's happening inside your body.
5:40
So I'm not trying to topically recommend anything.
5:44
I'm trying to figure out what's going on inside because your skin is just an expression of something else.
5:51
And looking through your background and you and I have talked before and going through that bio, I'm like, man, it sounds like we really agree on that.
5:59
A thousand percent.
5:59
And I think I want to go back to your other comment on, you know, you're as vain as they come.
6:03
And I think in the society that we live in, that's a very common thing, but not a lot of people say it out loud.
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So I'm glad that you did, because at the core of it, we all want to feel good.
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We all want to feel beautiful and good looking in our own skin.
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We want to feel confident because when we are confident in how we look.
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It shows up in every facet of your life, from your career to relationships to how you parent to how you hold yourself when you go into a room.
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And when you don't have that confidence because of how you look, it really impacts your whole life.
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So I always think that we look at this term vain as such a bad connotation.
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But in fact, it's not.
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It's okay to want to feel good in your own skin.
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So I'm glad that you're fully on board with that.
6:40
You're like, listen, let's just haul it out because...
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Like so many of us are like that, right?
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Especially in 2026, where we're in a very visual world, more so than any other time in the history of humankind.
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We are inundated with videos left, right, and center.
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So being able to feel confident is great.
6:57
And the reason why I have taken that inside-out approach is because
7:00
Your skin, whether like you said, psoriasis, acne, eczema, whatever it is, it's an internal or an external issue of an external symptom of an internal issue.
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And treating of all these topicals, it's like putting a bandaid on a bullet hole.
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Like, sure, you're going to cover it up, but like you're not getting the bullet out and stitching it back up.
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So we need to be saying, okay, well, what is the body telling me?
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Because your skin, alongside with your bowel movements, they're the two best windows into your body, right?
7:27
Like we don't have an x-ray machine at home, but your skin is definitely going to be telling you what's going on inside.
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And instead of looking at it as the enemy and saying, oh my gosh, why is my skin doing to this to me?
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We need to start thinking, okay, well, what is my skin trying to tell me?
7:40
And I think in the long run, when people are dealing with acne issues or skin issues, while it is not fun to be dealing with, I want to validate that.
7:49
You know, I am actually filled with so much gratitude for it because it forced me to look at my health.
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Had it just, you know, been period problems or headaches or whatever it is, I would have like, that's just how I am.
7:59
But when you're dealing with acne, like it really is going to push you to figure out what's going on.
8:04
Well, and it's funny because you mentioned acne.
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Now, when I was younger, you know, true confession, like in my teen years, like I had bad acne.
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Like it drove me absolutely insane and continued into my adult years.
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And it's like I hated it, obviously.
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I think everybody does because of multiple reasons.
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And what's funny is like probably into my late 30s, even into early 40s, um,
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I think we start noticing patterns and, you know, the smart people end up starting to know, oh, well, if this happens, then this happens.
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And you start connecting dots on things.
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And again, I grew up in a vain family, but I'll be honest and tell you, not necessarily a healthy one.
8:42
Um, simply because it was, you know, Italian culture and, you know, you ate what you wanted and everything's great and so on and so forth.
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So it's like, it was never, it was never a family that was necessarily into health and wellness per se, just looking good.
8:57
But it was, it was funny because one of the things that I started noticing and probably one of the first things I ever made a connection to, um, possibly even in my twenties was like, when I eat milk chocolate, I have acne.
9:11
You can literally, and I'm telling you, like I could set my watch that if you handed me a Hershey bar right now, I would come into work tomorrow with pimples.
9:21
I mean, it is just that much of a direct correlation.
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And I'm like, that's super interesting to me.
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So it's like, and I've noticed it so long that I just don't eat chocolate anymore.
9:30
Like, right, I don't do that because I know what happens.
9:33
And I'm like...
9:35
The older I've gotten, it's less about chocolate equals pimples.
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And it starts to become a deeper dive, which I want you to get into.
9:43
Because for me, the more I studied health and the more it became part of my lexicon, it's not chocolate equals pimples.
9:52
It's chocolate is triggering something in my gut.
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It's triggering something inside of me.
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that's doing other damage.
10:01
Pimples is the only damage I can see, but what's going on inside of me, and whether that's a gut microbiome issue, whether that's a food intolerance, whether that is a genetic expression to some other type of ingredient that exists in that type of milk chocolate, maybe a dairy sensitivity, I don't know.
10:19
I've never really figured out why that is, but the truth of the matter is, is my reason for avoiding it today is,
10:27
is not because of the pimples.
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It's because the pimples told me that something else was taking place.
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And I wanted to avoid that even more than avoiding the pimple, right?
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And I think when you start to, you know, get into this world of functional medicine, nutrition, like you don't have to be a practitioner, understand that.
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But I think it's so important that to remember is it's doing something internally that you can't see what's going on.
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And it's not just impacting your skin.
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So like we want to think longevity wise is what is that damage doing to the longevity of my body a decade, two decades from now?
10:59
Because your gut really is at the foundation of so much of your health.
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And if we are able to optimize the gut, like we're not only reducing our risk of acne, but you're reducing your risk of other issues later on in life.
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So being able to go and say, okay, you want to know what chocolate equals pimples, but underneath that is, yeah, like you said, microbiome, food intolerances, genetic expressions.
11:21
So my next question for you, I'm curious is, does that happen when you eat like a healthier chocolate bar that doesn't have the sugar, the, you know, the refined sugar and all of the additives?
11:29
I don't know because I don't normally.
11:31
You're too nervous.
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You're like, I don't know.
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I'm in there to be.
11:33
Well, no, I'm I'm in abstinence is so much easier for me than than anything in moderation because I have I have no ability to moderate.
11:44
Like, I mean, I'll be honest with you, like, I'm much better at fasting than I am cutting back.
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I am as well, though.
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I feel like I got that.
11:54
Oh, totally.
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I can go without food the entire day.
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But if you put a plate of food in front of me, the idea of leaving some of it on the plate at the end of the meal is absolutely ludicrous to me.
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I grew up in Italian.
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I got you.
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Skipping the meal.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And it's like looking at that acne.
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And that's why I tell my clients of, okay, like you're getting the physical expression, but you don't like, I don't think I've seen a single client, all of the thousands that they've just had acne as their only symptom.
12:21
And when you first approach them, they're like, oh no, I just have acne.
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And then when you go through their form, we're like, well, you also don't sleep through the night.
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You're drinking three cups of coffee in the afternoon.
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You get regular headaches, you have bloating and you have your regular cycles.
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They're like, oh, well, that's just part of being me.
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Like that's just normal.
12:36
And this is interesting that you say that because I want you to unpack this for us because I'm curious when somebody starts having these types of expressions in skin, right?
12:46
Like, I'm sorry, but the podcast is called Age Defiantly.
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So skin is usually where most people are looking and calling age.
12:54
Right.
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Because no one ever looked at my intestinal tract and told me how old I looked.
13:00
So what's going on in the inside?
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And we're starting to get into this.
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You know, what is your biological age and these types of things?
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I get the biohacking longevity world.
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And, you know, I'm 36, by the way.
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So I'm holding on to that number.
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Look at you go with all my might.
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So, yeah, my my my current longevity age is 36.
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So if I can if I'm 15 years younger than the than the clock, I'm good with that.
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But so here's my, I'm just a slow starter, I think.
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But here's my question for you.
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And that is, skin is where we see age first.
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And, you know, or for me, it would be hair color.
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But we notice the gray hairs.
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We notice the wrinkles.
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We notice the crow's feet start to get in there.
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We notice, you know, everybody is always, you know, oh, you can tell the age of a person by their hands, right?
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And there's all these hallmarks that people look for.
13:53
And in men, it tends to be like liver spots and stuff showing up.
13:57
Yeah.
13:58
But here's my question for you, and that is, I agree with you, or maybe I say we agree that age is physically expressed through skin more often than anything else.
14:11
That's how we tell, you know, how old does a person look?
14:15
Well, I'm looking at your skin, right?
14:17
That's literally the only thing I'm looking at because I'm looking at your skin.
14:22
I'm not looking at anything else about you other than your skin when I make that comparison.
14:28
The correlation between that and health is so important because even people with clear skin look older, for instance, when they're overweight.
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Or they look older when they're dealing with health issues or are stressed.
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Like a person who just lives a life of high oxidative stress...
14:53
They just look older.
14:54
And you know, it's why when a person comes back from a vacation, we say things like you look relaxed.
14:59
What do your patients or clients, I'm not sure what you call them, like, what do your clients come in with?
15:06
Like, they come in because they're having a skin issue.
15:09
Clearly, you are doing so much more to unpack their lives than just dealing with skin.
15:18
Absolutely.
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And I always tell our clients that if I've only cleared your skin, I've failed you.
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Because like I said, they have a laundry list of items.
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And I always am such a big advocate that just because something is common in our society doesn't make it normal.
15:31
It's not normal to have to take days off of work because you have such bad period pain.
15:35
It's not normal to be bloated, look like you're six months pregnant at the end of every day.
15:39
But we live in a society that's really normalized it.
15:42
And I want to say like, yeah, there's no shame in that when you're
15:46
But those are also cries of help from your body.
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So we need to look at what is causing all of those symptoms because your body's not working in isolation where like your acne issue is separate from your bloating issue.
15:57
Those issues are one in the same in their body.
15:59
They're being expressed in a few ways.
16:01
And so for every symptom you have, that's another like red flag from your body saying like, hey, like you need to pay attention to what's going on here.
16:09
So when we're starting to work with clients, I say like our first goal is not clearing your skin.
16:14
Your skin will come at the end of this journey because your body, like as much as it sucks to hear this, your body doesn't care about your skin.
16:21
It's like, we'll deal with that later.
16:22
I need to be breaking my food down.
16:23
I need fuel from the food we're eating.
16:25
I need to be getting my reproductive system back online.
16:28
I need to start ovulating.
16:29
I need all of these life-sustaining features to work before we clear up the skin.
16:33
So I think that's one of the most important things to hear is when you're working on your skin, you need to look at those non-skin wins.
16:38
Do you have better bowel movements?
16:39
Has your bloat gone down?
16:40
Are you sleeping better?
16:41
Are your cycles better?
16:42
Do you have more energy?
16:43
Those are the things to be looking out for.
16:46
Yeah, and metaphorically, again, my life is in metaphors, and you're reminding me of a particular story, but I'll just say there was mold on the wall, so we just painted over it.
16:59
It's like, well, sure, that's great.
17:01
You painted over it.
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Now you can't see the problem anymore, but you did nothing to eliminate the actual problem.
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And if given a little bit of time, the problem is going to be there again anyways, and it's going to be visible again.
17:14
And trying to do the things that we're talking about doing here are just going to continue to creep up if you don't fix the underlying, that root cause.
17:25
The skin issues are irrelevant.
17:27
You're trying to do this.
17:29
I've got a friend who's significantly overweight but always has acne issues and is forever trying to go get a different medication to clear up the acne.
17:37
And it's like, this is a dietary problem.
17:41
It's like the diet, if you fix the dietary problem, you fix all of the underlying things.
17:45
And yet it sounds terrible because I would, I would arguably say, and I want to ask you to speak to the topic of diet specifically and how that affects skin.
17:55
Because to me, what's going in your mouth is coming out your skin, good or bad.
18:00
Yeah.
18:01
And I want you to speak to that for me because one of the pillars you get with is detox and stuff.
18:06
But can you start with diet and gut health?
18:09
I want to walk through all five of your pillars.
18:11
Yeah, for sure.
18:12
So the diet, I like to say, is the foundation that we build everything from.
18:16
And there isn't one diet that is going to clear your acne.
18:20
What we like clients to start with is an anti-inflammatory foundation.
18:23
Let's remove all of those pro-inflammatory foods that are raising inflammation in your body, which is leading to acne, and leading to oxidative stress and the creation of free radicals, which is aging you further.
18:32
So can we focus on a whole foods diet?
18:35
We're focused on getting our macros, our protein, our fiber, so we're having bowel movements.
18:39
Especially working with women, I find a lot of women are heavily under-eating and they don't even realize it.
18:44
So it's not just can we be eating anti-inflammatory?
18:46
Can we be eating enough to sustain your body and to be able to give your body the raw materials that it needs to function?
18:53
The liver needs to function.
18:54
Your skin needs to repair.
18:55
So it's focused on the proteins, the whole foods, the fruits, the vegetables, reducing the refined vegetable oils, the refined sugars, the conventional gluten, the conventional dairy.
19:05
all of those things and alcohol that we know are not good for our system and give the body the nutrients that it actually needs.
19:12
So from there, that's the foundation we start with and like balancing blood sugar and getting all of your, you know, all of your meals in a row.
19:20
And then from there, it's how do we tweak and personalize for your body?
19:23
Because the reason Mark has acne is different from the reason Katie has acne.
19:26
where sure, you're going to have to work on all pillars of gut detox, hormones, nervous system, skin, but maybe Mark's a little more gut heavy and it's candida and low stomach acid with a little bit of blood sugar.
19:36
And maybe Katie, it's her methylation and maybe the heavy metals and estrogen dominance and a little bit of low enzyme function.
19:44
So you have to be looking at the individual because the way that you're going to go after candida and leaky gut and low stomach acid is going to be very different from how you're going to go after, say, an estrogen dominance.
19:53
So it's like, can we start with the anti-inflammatory foundation, layer in and maybe remove temporarily the foods that the body needs in order to self-heal, and then layer in the supplementation lifestyle habits that are going to support it.
20:06
I want you to comment something crossed my mind when we were saying it, because this is a conversation I've gotten into countless numbers of times.
20:13
Our GOP-dependent country...
20:17
Yes.
20:18
You mentioned something a moment ago that, you know, and I wanted to make sure I went back to it, and that is you said something about most women specifically are coming to you to talk about, you know, nutrition and whatnot, and you find that they're not even eating enough because they're nutritionally deprived.
20:35
And GLPs come up in conversations all the time, especially when anybody understands that you've got even the remote understanding of health care.
20:41
Yeah.
20:42
And then when the conversation comes up about GLPs, there is a, what do I want to say?
20:48
Like people are saying, well, it's this symptom.
20:50
It's this symptom.
20:51
It does this.
20:51
It does this.
20:52
It does this.
20:53
And it's hair loss and it's skin sagging and it's muscle depletion.
20:56
And then they go through all their things.
20:58
And I'm like, nutritional deficit, nutritional deficit, nutritional deficit, nutritional deficit.
21:05
And at the end of it is GLPs caused none of that.
21:09
What happened was that you suppressed your appetite so much that you quit eating.
21:13
And when you did eat, you ate for pleasure, not nutrition.
21:18
And, you know, I'm only going to have one bite of food this dinner sitting.
21:22
So it might as well be a bite of lasagna as opposed to a bite of steak.
21:28
And it is like they're not eating the protein.
21:30
They're not eating these things.
21:31
So when you're talking about women who are nutritionally depleted,
21:35
Do you find that it's layered with the GLP world or is that anyways?
21:40
We're seeing it more, obviously, because it's really exploded in the last year, especially of our American clients, because GLPs are everywhere.
21:47
And I always want to say it's not the peptide.
21:49
It's not the GLP or the GLP-3 that you're using.
21:53
It's because you're not eating food.
21:54
You're literally undernourishing.
21:56
You're malnourished.
21:57
You are starving your body.
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So when your body is starved, you're going to lose hair.
22:00
You're going to have sagging skin, muscle loss.
22:02
It's not the peptide.
22:03
It's what's the side effects it's giving you.
22:05
So if it's completely removed the food noise and completely removed your appetite and you're surviving on like electrolytes, hopefully, and then you're like you said, having a bite of lasagna, you're like, I'm totally full.
22:17
Yeah.
22:18
it's what you're doing with the GLP that's causing that.
22:22
So it's like you really need to be nourishing your body because those are, like you said, all nutrient deficits.
22:27
And I've seen the Reddit threads where they're like, I'm losing my hair.
22:30
And I'm like, it's because you're not eating food.
22:33
You just wrote that you eat 10 grams of protein in a day and you survived on a Caesar salad.
22:38
That's not going to cut it.
22:40
Yeah.
22:41
And that's exactly the advice that I talk about with people all the time is it's when you get on these, it's so tempting for people to try to lose so fast.
22:52
And the problem is, is if you're going to be using a GLP, which, by the way, I'm a big fan of.
22:57
So I have no issue with the use of a GLP.
23:00
So that's not judgment on my part on the use of GLP.
23:02
Yeah, not at all.
23:02
Same.
23:03
No issue.
23:04
Yeah.
23:04
And it's like no issue with them at all.
23:05
I think they're amazing.
23:06
In fact, I micro dose Reta.
23:08
Like I have no issue with that.
23:10
No issue.
23:11
But right.
23:12
It's like, but I'll micro dose it every couple of weeks.
23:15
And it's like, I'll just spend a few days that I don't eat as much as I normally would.
23:19
And it's funny because I'm two weeks out right now.
23:21
And I'm like, man, I'm hungry today.
23:23
I'm hungry.
23:23
Oh, wait, I got to eat again.
23:24
Wait a minute.
23:26
I haven't eaten in two weeks.
23:27
I should probably do that.
23:29
But the reality is, is like it really does become an issue of people when they're given permission to not eat like that, they they crash through it.
23:40
And then all of these symptoms start wearing it.
23:43
And it's like, and they do blame the peptide rather than the lack of food.
23:47
And it's like, it would be better for you to eat less because you're on the GLP, but make sure that you're disciplining.
23:53
And the way I describe that, and I would use this to your audience as well, is all GLPs are doing is giving you a pause button to reprogram your habits.
24:02
This is not a weight loss drug.
24:04
This is a pause button to turn off the hunger while you reprogram.
24:10
but you need to reprogram.
24:12
Otherwise, the pause button did nothing for you.
24:15
Otherwise, you're just pressing play again to the same bad storyline.
24:18
Absolutely.
24:20
And I think that's where a lot of people miss on that.
24:22
So sorry, I wanted to touch on that.
24:24
I want you to talk to detox because you just mentioned this is your second pillar.
24:29
Absolutely.
24:30
And you just mentioned heavy metals could be a reason for some of this.
24:34
Go through that because Mr.
24:36
Amalgam here has a dentist appointment on Monday because two years ago, it never dawned on me that I had mercury fillings from when I was 15 years old.
24:46
Changing them out.
24:48
Yes.
24:49
Yeah, I did that a year ago as well.
24:51
Talk to me about how detox and heavy metals are affecting this.
24:54
Absolutely, yeah.
24:56
So for every client that we work with one-on-one, we run a hair trace mineral analysis.
25:00
And we run, like I said, well over 4,000 of them at this point.
25:03
Heavy metals, I would say, come back in 90, like 95% of our clients at some level.
25:09
To be honest, I don't think I've seen, probably 100% at some level, but a good portion of them have two high limits.
25:16
We're often seeing like aluminum, super, super high, which we know we can be getting from so many spots in our food.
25:22
Barium, which is gonna be, you know, so many different spots, but say like an old cookware.
25:26
So we do see mercury, which, you know, if you're a big fish eater or lots of different spots.
25:30
So we are seeing a lot of heavy metals
25:32
And we need to be supporting the body to start detoxifying them.
25:37
But the issue a lot of people have is they panic because they see these heavy metals.
25:40
They're like, oh my gosh, that's my top priority.
25:42
I got to go and detox those heavy metals first.
25:44
When in reality, we need to look a little bit more upstream.
25:47
Like, are your drainage pipes open?
25:48
Because we're not going to start flushing heavy metals from the body if you're not having daily bowel movements every single day.
25:53
If your lymphatics aren't flowing, if your kidneys aren't functioning, like your detox organs need to be open before we start doing any of these cleanses or detoxifications, because all of that is just going to recirculate through your body, cause more inflammation, more oxidative stress, and more strain and hormonal imbalances on our body.
26:08
So it's like really pulling back and thinking like, okay, are my bowels open?
26:12
Do I have enough water?
26:13
Do I have enough food?
26:14
Does my liver phase one and phase two, is it functioning properly?
26:18
And then we can start layering in the heavy metals.
26:21
And again, I'm going to go back here for a moment because several things, one of them is I want to go back to the GLP conversation because a lot of people go into the GLP thing and then they end up overdoing it on the GLP.
26:33
So not only are they starving themselves, but then they end up with a toxic dump in their gut because GLPs are actually slowing the gastrointestinal process.
26:45
And for some people who are overdoing it, they don't have bowel movements for five days.
26:49
And now all the toxins that you're dealing with are now...
26:54
being reabsorbed back into the system and your systems having to deal with it.
26:58
And I try to explain to people from a detox standpoint and talking about the topic.
27:03
And I want you to comment on chelation, but this idea that stirring up all the garbage does nothing.
27:11
If you don't have a way of getting rid of it.
27:12
And I love that you're talking about, there's no reason to start detoxing heavy metals.
27:17
If you haven't also optimized your detox organs and,
27:21
as well as your lymphatic system.
27:23
Because if everything is just getting stirred up and then just gets stuck in your lymph nodes, you haven't done yourself any favors.
27:29
In fact, you just stirred it up in the air.
27:31
And it's, I say, it's kind of like the asbestos world, right?
27:35
Like, truthfully, like that's how I- 100%.
27:39
Type of toxins.
27:39
Like, in some cases, you're ready to just let it be.
27:43
Absolutely.
27:43
Then to stir it up if you don't have a way to, a strategy for getting rid of it.
27:49
Mm-hmm.
27:50
Yeah, some of my most viral posts, they're all related to poop.
27:53
Like anytime I talk about poop in a post, like it always goes viral.
27:57
So I recently had one and I think that the Hulk was like, your acne is yesterday's poop.
28:01
Because that's exactly what's happening is if you're not having a healthy bowel movement one to three times a day where there's no straining, no constipation, no undigested food, blood, mucus in the stool...
28:11
You have to remember your body is using your colon and your bowel movements to excrete excess toxins, bacteria, excess hormones like estrogen.
28:18
So if you're not getting that out every day, that's going to start to reabsorb back in the body.
28:22
And then what do we have?
28:23
More inflammation, more toxicity, more hormonal imbalance, all because you're not having a healthy bowel movement.
28:29
Blame this on our society because I don't remember growing up in a health class and being told what a healthy bowel movement was at all.
28:35
And then we grow through our whole life not knowing because it's not a dinner topic.
28:39
You're not talking about this at the water cooler with your friends.
28:42
You're not talking about this when you're going out.
28:43
You know, like, yeah, it's shameful.
28:46
And I think that's why the posts and the topics always go viral is because nobody's been taught about their bowel habits.
28:53
And like still to this day, I get women in their 50s and being like, I just thought going once a week was normal or I only go once every two weeks.
29:00
I'm like, you're literally full of poop.
29:02
Like that's what's coming out of your skin.
29:04
And so many of our clients, like literally.
29:07
So if we can be getting your bowel movements, not only you're going to be literally feeling better, but the inflammation that we see like starts to recede very quickly.
29:15
Yeah.
29:15
Yeah, and it's so important.
29:17
And also the topic of chelation.
29:19
I want to throw that in there with people that are actually using fulvic and humic acids and stuff like that to bind to these toxins, like the mercuries and stuff that you're talking about.
29:32
People have a tendency to start these things, and they're not either.
29:36
They're trying to use, I want to say they're using chelation tools without having found the source of the toxicity.
29:44
Yeah.
29:45
Or they found the source of the toxicity and then did nothing to eliminate once it was, you know, pushed free.
29:52
And I say, it's kind of like, and again, I look at detoxing, almost like cleaning the house, right?
29:57
Like you went and tore everything out of the closets, but you didn't have a strategy for how you were going to put everything back in.
30:02
And, you know, in the process of trying to clean the house, you just made a mess.
30:05
Like you need to be finding that source, you know, like chelation is great.
30:09
We want to be binding it moving out.
30:10
But like, where is that source coming from?
30:12
Are we doing this properly?
30:13
Do we have the right even like lifestyle habits in place?
30:16
And even looking further is like, OK, sure, let's great.
30:18
Let's get the aluminum out.
30:20
But then have you looked where in your life that aluminum is coming from?
30:24
Like, are we getting this from?
30:26
Yeah.
30:27
Are we getting this from our water?
30:28
Are you getting this from your food storage containers?
30:29
Like you need to go back and analyze like where are these heavy metals coming in my day today?
30:34
Yes.
30:35
So I'm going to move on to your third pillar, this hormonal balance.
30:39
And again, the talk of hormones, I would say, is probably more pervasive amongst women.
30:45
Most of your time is spent with women, but I actually want you to spend a minute focusing on the guys here.
30:50
Yeah, absolutely.
30:51
Like hormonal balance is not just a female problem.
30:54
In fact, we live in a very testosterone depleted culture right now, which also impacts all of these things because not only for men, particularly men my age, like you talk about a reduction in testosterone production, which leads for a lot of men into estrogen dominance, which causes a whole series of problems for them as well, because now they're dealing with a lot of the same issues women are dealing with.
31:20
Absolutely.
31:21
It's like, especially in the acne world, everybody assumes they have hormonal acne.
31:25
And I like to say yes, and your hormones are the messengers.
31:29
They're responding to something that's going on in the body.
31:31
So while sure you have that cyclical acne, like I'm talking for both men and women, hormonal related, but first we need to look upstream.
31:38
I know I keep going back to the gut, but if we're not having bowel movements, we're not getting our estrogen out.
31:42
So especially if you're a man and you're not having a healthy bowel movement and you're in that space where your testosterone is going down, your estrogen levels, we're dealing with an estrogen dominance.
31:50
If you're not having a healthy bowel movement, that's how your body's excreting the excess estrogen.
31:54
And also in your gut, we have that unique subset of microbes, your estrobolum.
31:57
So if your gut is struggling, your estrogen is going to be as well.
32:01
So it's like, can we look at that?
32:02
Then can we be looking at your detox organs?
32:05
So are we able to be filtering in our kidneys and our liver for our excess hormones?
32:08
Then from there, it's like, okay, now let's look at the low-hanging fruit in our day-to-day.
32:13
But what a lot of people forget is there's more hormones than just estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and your androids.
32:20
I'm more worried about your cortisol.
32:22
I'm more worried about your blood sugar.
32:23
Because these cause such a catalyst to those hormones that if we're not looking at our stress and our cortisol imbalances...
32:30
And our blood sugar is on a joyride.
32:32
Those are naturally going to be impacting the rest of our hormones.
32:36
So that's actually where I like to start in the hormonal picture is balancing your blood sugar and getting your stress at some type of regulation.
32:43
And you just segued directly into the fourth pillar here, which I love.
32:47
And this is this idea of nervous system regulation, because you talked about hormonal imbalance and mentioned cortisol.
32:54
And yet most of the world is living in a cortisol flood from, you know, environmental and, you know, relational situational stressors.
33:08
which is driving cortisol through the roof, which is causing obesity, which is causing like all of these other things.
33:13
So like there's a connection, there's a thread that's running through every one of these things and they're not treated in isolation.
33:20
No, and like the nervous system is the piece everybody skips.
33:22
Because I think especially here in North America, we are in this hustle and grind culture where you're rewarded for being like, oh, I only slept four hours, I work 16 hours a day, I'm hustling, I'm grinding.
33:31
And it's like your nervous system, like I almost...
33:35
Don't even care about your gut detox hormones if your nervous system is shot because your nervous system is at the foundation.
33:41
If you're in a chronic state of fight or flight, guess what?
33:44
Your digestion, not happening.
33:45
It's going to be lowering your stomach acid because your body's like, oh my gosh, we're in a famine.
33:50
A bear is after us.
33:51
We need to divert all the energy away from non-essentials to our limbs to run away from the threat.
33:57
So if we're constantly like that, our digestion, we can take all the enzymes and BATIN HCL and do all of the thick cleanses in the world.
34:04
If we're not going after our nervous system that's at the core root of so many diseases and ailments, you're just gonna be stuck in that pattern.
34:11
And I have seen this with so many clients where,
34:14
We've done all the gut cleanses, the detoxes, the hormone balancing, and like all of that's on point, but their skin is plateaued.
34:20
And I'm always harping like, have we worked on our boundaries?
34:22
Are we working on our nervous system?
34:23
And then they share, oh, I have this massive childhood trauma that I've never worked through.
34:28
And I actually had a client...
34:29
share this.
34:30
And she said, I just started working through it.
34:31
And I swear to God, I watched her face physically recede with acne as she worked through the trial to trauma that she had.
34:39
And that just goes to show that your nervous system isn't this piece that we get to skip.
34:44
And I think it's the one everybody wants to skip because it's the hardest.
34:46
It's like, I can't supplement it.
34:48
Like I have to physically change my behavior in order to fix the nervous system.
34:53
So I always know that's the...
34:55
One no one wants to do because, you know, whenever I run masterclasses or events, that's the most enrolled masterclass.
35:00
It's the least engaged.
35:02
It's like the least engaged topic across the board, but it's the most important.
35:06
Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly there.
35:09
And I spend, say, a lot of time talking about exactly what you're talking about.
35:13
And that is this idea of the parasympathetic to the sympathetic nervous systems.
35:17
And people are living in this sympathetic nervous system, and they're just on overdrive 24 hours a day.
35:23
And they don't understand vagal tone.
35:26
They're not understanding that down regulation of the nervous system that...
35:31
Sympathetic nervous system is great.
35:34
It absolutely should be there.
35:35
It should drive you in moments of peak performance.
35:38
And it is what makes you amazing at what you do.
35:42
And for so many people that they get stuck living there, and there never is that parasympathetic response and that rest and digest, as you said, that when all of your energy, and my metaphor that I always use is, it's like the Wi-Fi at the office, right?
35:58
Everything's run slower the more people that are here today.
36:01
Right?
36:01
Because that bandwidth is being pulled by multiple sources.
36:05
But if we have a big project that needs done in the office that's going to require a lot of bandwidth, I need everyone else to log off.
36:12
Like, we need to do this overnight when no one else is pulling bandwidths.
36:17
Otherwise, it's going to take forever to upload this particular file.
36:20
And it's much the way our nervous system works, right?
36:23
Like it's going to pull this energy from every other area and only focus attention on the vital resources that keep us safe.
36:32
And it's that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
36:35
Like if safety is threatened, nothing else matters.
36:40
that I'm back to the basics of human evolution if safety is jeopardized.
36:46
And I laugh because you just made the comment about sleep and that we've rewarded a culture for being able to function on four hours sleep.
36:54
And I actually had looked over at my producer because I was like,
36:57
I was going to see if she was looking at me at the same time because I'm like, I've said that a hundred times.
37:01
Like we live like this is a badge of honor.
37:03
Like as little as I can sleep, I wear this like a trophy.
37:07
And I'm like, folks, I'm an adult now.
37:10
I want to sleep.
37:11
Yeah.
37:12
And I want good sleep and I want uninterrupted sleep.
37:17
And I don't want to wake up to an alarm clock.
37:19
I want to wake up to the sun.
37:22
And, and, and it's like, literally that's the way my body is trained now.
37:26
Like I wake up at six, six 30 every morning and I never, I haven't set an alarm clock and I can't even tell you probably two decades because I don't need one.
37:34
Because my body functions the way that it's supposed to function in that respect.
37:40
But especially to the younger generation, like I remember the college all-nighters and the pulling through.
37:48
I'm like, no, I don't want that anymore.
37:50
Like, that's not even interesting to me.
37:52
Like, maybe I'm just not that excited about being awake.
37:55
Yeah.
37:56
And I feel physically unwell when I think about the lack of sleep and the amount of drinking that I did in my in my 20s and college years.
38:03
Like I I would I would die.
38:06
I think at this point I would need an IV drip.
38:07
I'd be at the hospital for four days like I need sleep.
38:10
I can't be pulling those all nighters and, you know, going to bed at 6 a.m. and going to work for 8 a.m.
38:15
It's terrible.
38:16
I want to get to your fifth pillar as we're popping here.
38:18
So nourishing skincare, because we've talked through gut health and diet.
38:23
We've talked through the need for detoxification, chelation of heavy metals.
38:27
We've talked through digestive and bowel movements.
38:29
We've talked through hormonal balance, not just sex hormones, but also things like cortisol and, and the other stress hormones that are taking place in the body.
38:39
We've
38:39
talked through the need for nervous system regulation.
38:42
And it's funny to me that we've talked on all of these things, but they're really all worth the topic today is on skincare.
38:49
So why all of these other bodily functions and all of these other regulations and all of these other protocols that we're talking through skincare, but literally we're just talking about getting your skin to the point that the inward expression, the outward expression of an inward health,
39:08
is expressed through your skin very often.
39:10
And that's the easiest place to see if somebody's having an issue.
39:13
And again, I will tell you that I can look at a person and just tell what's going on in their life simply based on what's going on with their skin.
39:20
You just look at them and you're like, oh, you're not having a good season.
39:24
Yeah.
39:24
Oh, what's going on over there?
39:27
Yeah, I'm doing this for a living.
39:28
I can do the same.
39:29
I'm like, okay, I know what's going on in there.
39:31
Totally.
39:31
And it's like, wow, sympathetic.
39:33
Gotcha.
39:33
But the last thing that I'll put is nourishing skincare.
39:36
Just this is the part that everybody wants to know.
39:38
Like, what's the skincare that makes me look great?
39:41
And the reality is, is, well, first take care of these first four pillars, assuming that I have.
39:46
Give me the trick to number five.
39:48
A thousand percent.
39:49
So everyone loves skincare.
39:50
You know, I have more skincare than any human being ever needs.
39:53
I am a bit of a skincare obsessed addict as well.
39:54
So I get it.
39:55
Now with acne, of course, you don't want to forgo your skincare routine all the, like all out the window.
40:00
Is it still a really important component because a lot of acne sufferers have destroyed their skin barrier.
40:05
Your skin barrier is a protective mechanism that keeps the pollutants out and keeps everything, you know, hydration and everything in.
40:10
So it's a very protective mechanism.
40:12
But because we're overusing benzoyl peroxide, medicated topicals, you know, topical antibiotics, harsh scrubs, like the more is more idea when it's not for acne.
40:22
So you've now made your skin barrier disruptive.
40:24
You've disrupted your skin's natural microbiome.
40:26
And so now we're having more sensitized skin.
40:29
So you're reacting to more things.
40:30
Not sensitive.
40:31
It's sensitized.
40:32
You have more inflammation, more redness, more irritation, which leads to more breakouts and slower healing.
40:36
So we still want to be using nourishing, gentle skincare and using things with the right ingredients.
40:41
So can we be looking at ceramides, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, azaleic acid, especially for, you know, the clientele that's, you know, they're millennials and above, like the 30s, the 40s, the 50s and up.
40:53
It's like, can we be looking at maybe a retinol?
40:55
Not a retinol with an O, but with an A.
40:57
So retinol is actually one step closer in the conversion to what your skin actually needs.
41:03
So not only is it more potent, and it can be up to 11 times better than a regular retinol,
41:08
It actually doesn't, you know, cause the purging that a regular retinol would.
41:12
And it's going to be going after acne bacteria, your fine lines and pigmentation as well.
41:17
So I, especially for men, love suggesting a retinol.
41:20
And I've been trying to get my husband to use it.
41:22
He's 40.
41:22
I'm like, listen, you're not getting younger.
41:24
Like, let's start using this like retinol that I got for you.
41:26
So he's a work in progress.
41:28
But I think a retinol is a really great option for both men and women if they're looking at, say, the pigmentation, the scarring and the fine lines.
41:36
I think that's great.
41:37
And I think one of the misnomers, and this is going to sound crazy, because again, I talked to you about the grandmother who believes looking good is better than feeling good.
41:48
And she had no idea how to deal with raising because she raised me and a couple of my cousins.
41:53
And she had no idea how to deal with acne because she'd never dealt with acne.
41:58
She never had a pimple in her life.
41:59
And she was like, well, that's because we just washed with soap and water.
42:02
And I'm like, well, I, and it's like, and I look back and I'm like, yeah, but we grew up eating more processed foods than were even available to you when you were young.
42:12
And we grew up in, I mean, she grew up in World War II, so I can't say that we grew up in a more stressful environment, I suppose.
42:20
But the reality is, is like the environment was different.
42:23
The amount of, you know, wireless things and electronics and the amount of time that we would spend indoors versus playing outdoors.
42:33
And just so many things are different, even generationally.
42:37
But.
42:37
Yeah.
42:39
To the crowd that is the, you know, just wash your face with soap and water and everything will be okay.
42:45
I don't disagree with that in some ways because at least that's helping your skin do what it knows how to do naturally.
42:53
But to your point, there are things that you can do to restore your skin even faster and make it stronger.
43:00
And I love that.
43:01
I've never heard of retinol.
43:03
Retinaldehyde.
43:04
So it's, I love it.
43:06
I'm obsessed with it.
43:07
It's better than a retinol, more gentle, no purging.
43:10
It's, if I was like on a desert island, that would be the serum that I would bring.
43:15
So I've got a thing that I hardly ever use.
43:17
I think it's retinol based actually.
43:19
And it's like, I hardly ever use it.
43:20
And I've probably got five jars of it.
43:22
Because of course I subscribed to something and then- You need it all.
43:25
Yeah.
43:25
Yeah.
43:26
I've got more, you laugh and say you've got more skincare.
43:29
I'm probably your male alter ego here because- Love that.
43:33
Well, and it's not because I use it the way that I should.
43:35
It's because I actually work full time.
43:37
Like my full time business is actually I work in marketing and I just have more skin care imaginable because clients send me samples all the times of things.
43:46
And I'm like, so I have more hair care and skin care and all this other kind of stuff.
43:51
You know what to do with like I moved and I I left because it's like as I'm packing up my bathroom at my old home and I'm like, what the hell is this?
43:59
Yeah.
44:00
Why do I have all of this?
44:02
I know.
44:03
I look like the Sephora or something trying to move out.
44:07
I'm like, they're going to take my man card if anybody sees those.
44:11
That's so funny.
44:12
Katie, I've loved talking to you about this stuff.
44:14
I love that we're talking about vanity, but vanity because it's a good thing.
44:19
good thing that vanity is actually looking good as a sign of feeling good um and i think for me anyways when i look at it like not just from the physiological insides that express in the skin but i will say that when i look good and i feel like i look good it's a psychological thing as well and i will say that and that's you know giving full credit to grandma here um
44:43
Her psychology of when you feel your worst look your best, I could arguably say has physiological roots, and that is, looking good and feeling confident in yourself actually triggers that parasympathetic nervous system, because...
44:59
When you're confident, your fight or flight mode tends to calm down because you're not afraid.
45:04
And a lot of people just looking good and taking care of their hair and taking care of their skin and just taking care of themselves and dressing well.
45:14
That's a self-care routine on a daily basis.
45:17
I think people think...
45:19
Um, is a vanity thing.
45:21
And I, and I actually believe that no, like on the days that I feel like I look good and I feel good and I've eaten health, like it's a nervous system reset right there.
45:31
Just something that subtle.
45:33
Katie, how could people get in contact with you if they want to learn more about you and what you do?
45:39
They can come find me anywhere across social media at Katie Stewart Wellness.
45:42
Instagram's my main spot that I like to hang out.
45:44
So if you have any follow-up questions, just come and find me there.
45:46
I love that.
45:47
And for those of you who are watching online, you can actually look down in the show notes and we'll have all the links to Katie on her Instagram and also her other social handles that she provides to us here.
45:58
I love this idea of looking at our skin as being a barometer of what's going on on the inside.
46:06
And too often...
46:07
with many different things.
46:08
We talked about GLP-1s and hair loss.
46:11
It's like root source issues.
46:13
And that is any time that you have an outward expression of a symptom, don't treat it as the problem.
46:20
It's a symptom to a different problem.
46:23
And until we're able to ferret out that root cause quickly,
46:26
putting perfume on the pig.
46:29
We've got to make sure that we're getting into the meat of what's going on.
46:32
And Katie, I think you explained that to us perfectly today about using our skin just as a measuring tool for what's going on on the inside and being able to obviously nourish that, but only after we get it to a point of health and that health is mind, body and soul.
46:49
And we need to make sure that we're recovering in all of those areas and not just through the face of vanity.
46:55
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Age Defiantly.
46:58
And we will see you soon.
47:00
Katie, thank you so much for this conversation today.
47:03
Thanks, Mark.
47:03
This was great.