Epsom salt is actually not salt, which after all consists of sodium chloride, but magnesium sulfate in crystal form. It is used as a natural relief of skin problems and falls into the same category as e.g. Dead Sea salt. Usually it is added to the bath water in a tub, but since I take showers and not tubs, I had to find another way to do the salt bath.

The answer was to dissolve the salt in water and use this the solution as a kind of “bath soap”. By filling a plastic bottle with the Epsom-Salt solution, I can take it into the shower.

When applying the solution, after a while you can see the Epsom salt as a fine white powder on the skin. Now scrub yourself with your hands and get the cleansing effect you normally use soap for. A handful of fine kitchen salt gives an additional scrubbing effect and is very good for e.g. washing the armspits.

Finally, I shower as usual and the “best” part of the bath now comes when the temperature is turned to cold. It is beneficial for your health if you can stay in the cold shower for at least a few minutes, in order to get the maximum positive effect of the cold bath :-).

The result after a few weeks of showering with Epsom salt is really good. My skin is soft and eczema-free, and I no longer use shampoo and soap. The moisturizing creams are now only used sparsely, as the skin is no longer dry.

Using Epsom salt instead of soaps has not had any odor drawbacks and it seems that the body likes this kind of shower better as it feels more natural.

Epsom salt and washing with common table salt do not remove the skin’s natural oils. Therefore, the water beads off and you don’t need so much lotion to re-moisturize the skin after bathing.

When there is an eczema flare-up

It has for me been effective to use Epsom salt followed by regular salt for thorough but gentle scrubbing of the skin during eczema flare-ups.

The method is to cover your body in Epsom salt solution in the bath and while it dries, massage the skin until it is dry and the salt can be seen. The skin is then moistened under the shower and gently scrubbed with common salt.

The skin becomes clean and the eczema areas are often pink, but non-itchy. Prescription creams such as e.g. Locoid is applied to the eczema-spot and after five to ten minutes, the Cerave cream is applied. It seals, moisturizes and protects the skin during the treatment.

Epsom salt and water, shake-shake and after a while all the salt is dissolved and you have a bottle ready to take with you in the bath..

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Eczema is a chronic skin condition that affects millions of people worldwide. It is characterized by itchy, inflamed, and dry patches on the skin, and can be a source of discomfort and embarrassment. While there are several treatments available for eczema, some people have found relief in not using soap when bathing.

Bathing without soap may seem counterintuitive, as soap is often associated with cleanliness. However, for people with eczema, traditional soap can actually exacerbate the condition. This is because many soaps contain harsh ingredients that can strip the skin of its natural oils, leaving it dry and more prone to irritation. Additionally, some people may be allergic or sensitive to the fragrances and other chemicals in soap, which can trigger eczema flare-ups.

If you can see the water become droplets on your skin, then it is a good sign that your skin barrier is intact and the lipids of the skin repels water. A dry skin will instead soak up the water and you will see little or no droplets.

So bathing without soap can help to soothe and heal eczema-prone skin. By avoiding soap, the skin is allowed to retain its natural oils and moisture, which can help to prevent dryness and irritation. Additionally, bathing in lukewarm water can help to hydrate the skin, promote healing, and relieve itching and inflammation.

If you are considering bathing without soap to help manage your eczema, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, it’s important to use lukewarm water, as hot water can further dry out the skin and exacerbate eczema symptoms. You may also want to consider adding colloidal oatmeal or baking soda to your bathwater, as these can help to soothe and calm the skin. Of cause, this will only be beneficial if you are bathing in a bathtub. In the shower I recommend using a washcloth and/or fine salt in a plastic jar.

After bathing, it’s important to pat your skin dry with a soft towel, rather than rubbing vigorously. This can help to prevent further irritation and dryness. You may also want to apply a gentle moisturizer to your skin, such as petroleum jelly or a fragrance-free lotion.

While bathing without soap may not be a cure-all for eczema, it can be a helpful addition to your overall eczema management plan. If you are experiencing persistent or severe eczema symptoms, it’s important to consult with a healthcare professional for a proper diagnosis and treatment plan. With proper care and management, however, it is possible to find relief from eczema and enjoy healthy, comfortable skin.

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Turn on your favorite music and take your morning coffee into the bathroom. Now is the time to relax and take care of your skin so you are ready to step out into the world.

Eczema and bathing can be difficult to discipline. How to wash when the skin is affected by eczema.

The most important element in my skincare is the daily bath. This is where the skin is cleaned so that any eczema does not become infected with a bacterial or fungal infection. Clean skin is the basis for effective treatment with prescription creams. During the process, it is important to keep the skin barrier as undisturbed as possible.

The top layer of the skin is a combination of skin cells and natural fats (lipids). Therefore, the skin barrier can be easily damaged by soap. For that reason, I have stopped using soap, unless it is for local washing of eczema spots before I disinfect them. Instead of soap, I use fine table salt or a washing cloth. Soap is a collective term for shower gel, shampoo, and whatever else you normally wash with in the bath.

Salt may be a new thing in your bathroom, but it is very effective in keeping the skin clean. It is inexpensive and contains no problematic chemicals. It will even gently tell you if the skin is damaged by burning a little bit. Pay special attention to these areas when applying your prescription creams after the bath.

There are two types of baths, depending on whether you have active eczema or not. I will describe the bathing procedure in two different ways. The first is used when the eczema is active and must be treated with prescription creams. The second is a normal bath when the skin is healed and in a healthy state. Here, however, it still needs care and attention to keep the skin barrier intact.

The water should be lukewarm during the bath and the final rinse can be cold if you dare.

Before you begin, take the time to inspect your body to assess where you have spots that need to be treated with the creams prescribed by your doctor after bathing. This makes it easier to focus on these places during the bath and when applying different creams afterward.

Take out the various creams, deodorants, and other medications and place them in “order of application” on the table in the bathroom, so they are ready when you get out of the bath.

Active eczema bath

• Fine table salt
• Mild hypoallergenic soap
• 0.2% chlorhexidine
• Towel

• Start by rinsing with lukewarm water.

• Apply mild soap to the areas where the eczema is present and massage it gently.

• Rinse off the soap.

• Take a handful of fine salt and gently rub the whole body.

• Rinse the body with lukewarm water.

• Gently dry the body parts where eczema is present or usually occurs. Apply 0.2% chlorhexidine to these areas. Wait for approximately two minutes for the next step.

• Rinse in lukewarm or cold water until you feel refreshed.

• Pat yourself dry.

• Apply the cream prescribed by your doctor to the eczema spots. Do not apply other creams to these areas for at least ten minutes, so that the active substances can be effectively absorbed by the now clean and disinfected skin.

• Apply moisturizer to the parts of the body that have not been treated with the prescription cream.

• Apply moisturizer to the eczema spots after approx. ten minutes.

Normal bath

• Fine table salt
• Towel

• Start by rinsing yourself with lukewarm water.
• Take a handful of fine salt and gently rub the whole body.
• Rinse with lukewarm water.
• Rinse with cold water until you feel refreshed.
• Dry the skin gently.
• Apply moisturizer all over your body.

For practical reasons, I use a plastic jar with a screw-on lid for the salt. If I drop the jar in the shower, it doesn’t splinter and you often have small empty plastic containers of food supplements, vitamins, etc. in your home.

When using prescription steroid creams, it is important to continue using them even when there is no visible eczema. If you suddenly stop using them, you risk the so-called rebound effect, where the eczema comes back again and a new cycle of treatment has to be started. In the long run, you will use less prescription cream than if you use a stop-and-go strategy.

Experiences with this bath have shown me that I smell significantly less sweat than when I used soap products. I don’t know the specific reason, but I suspect that a body in balance returns to a more natural state. When we lived out in nature, we didn’t wash with soap, so maybe the smell is an expression of the body’s natural balance being disturbed.

Have a nice Bath :-).

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In the anti-inflammatory diet, sugar is one of the biggest culprits, affecting blood sugar levels and spiking your insulin production. If the body does not constantly regulate the blood’s sugar content with insulin, the result is damage to the body’s cells.

This study was made by researchers from Rigshospitalet in Denmark and the University of Copenhagen. It shows that sugar has a destructive and inflammatory effect on the body’s cells. The study shows that eczema is often the result of inflammation in the body and therefore it is recommended to reduce sugar intake as much as possible.

And in blogs like Quora and Reddit, you often read that sugar can be bad for people with eczema skin. Below is a typical description of how sugar can cause problems in the body and especially the skin.

Read more about diet and eczema in the book Eczema Healing Guide, which you will find on the front page of Eczemahealingguide.com.

Or in the article Bodyweight management.

Sugar affects your skin in three significant ways:

• It Spikes Insulin: high levels of sugar cause insulin spikes and those can trigger an inflammatory immune-system response just like cat hair or the synthetic perfume in your cosmetics. And while you might find you have an immediate reaction to sweets or sugary drinks that manifests itself as itchiness and redness, high amounts of sugar in your diet can also exacerbate chronic inflammation, meaning that the problem drags on long-term.
  
• It Affects Gut Flora: a diet high in sugar knocks the healthy balance of flora in your gut out of whack, because it encourages the growth of harmful sugar-loving yeasts etc. That also reduces the absorption of the healthy nutrients your body needs and affects the efficiency of the immune system, so that the body struggles to respond appropriately to triggers, again leading to chronic inflammation.
  
• It Ages Skin: the higher the glucose levels in the blood, the more the body produces substances called AGE (advanced glycation endproducts) which prevent the skin from repairing and regenerating itself as well as it could. This could mean that skin damage from scratching at eczema patches takes longer to heal, and that the skin barrier is less effective than it could be, letting in allergens and losing moisture, leading to – you guessed it! – yet more itchiness, dryness and cracked skin.

Alternatives to sugar

There are several good alternatives to sugar. Personally, I have tried Stevia and Sukrin Gold which I use in i.a. coffee drinks, ginger tea, chia porridge and other places where I would have used sugar in the past.

Sukrin Gold is definitely my favorite. It is similar to brown sugar in color and texture, just as it has the taste of caramel, although not as much as real brown sugar. There are virtually no calories in it and most importantly, Sukrin Gold does not cause a rise in blood sugar. This way you avoid a “sugar high” followed by a “sugar crash”, because the body does not secrete insulin into the bloodstream to combat the rise in blood-sugar levels. Research has shown that it is not the sugar itself that is harmful, but rather the body’s insulin reaction that damages health. In the long term, sugar can lead to insulin resistance, also called type 2 diabetes.

Sukrin Gold

Sukrin Gold contains only 8 kcal per 100 grams. It gives a sweeter and fuller sugar taste than ordinary Sukrin. It has the same degree of sweetness as brown sugar, but contains only approx. 1 calorie per teaspoon (5 g).

Sukrin Gold is based on erythritol, tagatose and stevia glycerides in a perfect composition for optimal taste. Eating foods containing erythritol (Sukrin) instead of sugar limits the rise in blood sugar levels compared to sugary foods. And erythritol (Sukrin) instead of sugar also contributes to maintaining the mineralization of the teeth.

With Sukrin Gold you get a sweetener that

• contains few calories
• does not damage the teeth
• tastes and looks like sugar
• is 100% natural – you will find it, among other things, in fruit

Sukrin Gold can be bought in many places, e.g. in the supermarket, online and in health food stores. The price for 500 grams is approx. DKK 80, but often found on offer online at a much lower price.

On the diabetes association’s homepage can you read much more about alternatives to sugar.

Sugar helps build muscle

The only time I consume sugar is in combination with my strength training sessions. Here I actively use the ability of sugar to make an insulin response. This is normally considered a bad thing, but when it happens during hard training and subsequent recovery, you can use insulin’s ability to open up cells for nutrients. This helps transport glycogen, amino acids, and other nutrients into the musclecell and thereby assists the muscle to grow.

Protein synthesis is the process by which cells build new proteins, which is crucial for muscle growth and repair. During intense workouts, the body undergoes stress and depletes its glycogen stores, which are the stored form of sugar in the body. This is where sugar steps in as a valuable resource.

Insulin Response:
Sugar intake triggers the release of insulin, a hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar levels. Insulin plays a vital role in transporting nutrients, including amino acids, into cells. By promoting the uptake of amino acids, insulin helps fuel muscle growth and repair. This is particularly beneficial after a workout when the body is in a heightened state of protein synthesis.

Post-Workout Recovery:
After intense exercise, the body enters a recovery phase where protein synthesis is crucial for repairing damaged muscle tissue and promoting growth. Consuming sugar in combination with protein post-workout can enhance the delivery of amino acids to muscle cells, optimizing the recovery process. This can be achieved through options like fruit smoothies with added protein powder or chocolate milk.

Finding the Right Balance:
While sugar can be beneficial for protein synthesis training, it’s important to find the right balance and choose healthier sources of sugar. Opt for natural sugars found in fruits, honey, or maple syrup, as they come bundled with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Avoid excessive consumption of refined sugars and processed foods, as they can have detrimental effects on overall health.

So when used strategically and in moderation, sugar can be a valuable tool to enhance protein synthesis training. Its ability to provide quick energy, stimulate insulin response, and aid in post-workout recovery make it a great tool when your want to optimize your muscle building potential.

Cancer loves sugars

Researchers have long known that various cancers absorb glucose like a sponge. The German physiologist Otto Warburg discovered that tumors absorb glucose at a rate that is 20-50 times higher than normal cells. It awarded him the Nobel Prize in 1931 for his research into metabolism.

Studies suggest that it is not so much the amount of glucose in the bloodstream that promotes cancer, but the level of insulin. This hormone is made in the pancreas and regulates the sugar content in the blood. Insulin can convert glucose into instant energy and help your body store it in the fat cells and muscles. When you eat sweet things, your blood sugar rises; this causes your pancreas to say, “Hey! we need to make more insulin! ”Insulin tells cells to let in the glucose, either to be used immediately or stored in muscle, fat cells and in the liver.

Why do cancerous tumors absorb more glucose? The main reason is that insulin can turn on the glucose transporters (proteins on cell membranes that transport glucose into the cells). They correspond to those in the liver, muscles and fat cells. The presence of these glucose transporters on tumor cells is partially regulated by insulin. This is why it is important to focus on the amount of insulin in the bloodstream.

The enzyme called PI3K

Researcher Cantley began studying insulin receptor in the 1980s when he was on the faculty at Harvard University. A few years later, he discovered an enzyme called phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K). It signals the cells that insulin is present and causes the cells to open the valve that lets in sugar. Usually, PI3K does a good and important job of helping cells survive, grow and multiply. But sometimes it goes awry. In type II diabetes, this PI3K pathway becomes dull, so the cells do not respond properly to insulin and become insulin resistant. But in cancer cells, even in a person who is insulin resistant, PI3K does its job a little too well. It causes glucose to flow in, tumor cells eat away at the sugar and grow faster.

In many cancers, the so-called sugar-loving cancers (not all cancers are dependent on sugar, but many are), PI3K is like a circuit breaker that drives growth. PI3K is the most frequently mutated carcinogenic gene in humans. It may be involved in up to 80 percent of cancer cases, including breast cancer, bladder cancer and certain brain tumors.

How can we use this knowledge ?

This scientific discovery tells us that we should probably try to keep our insulin levels as low as possible. Especially if you have cancer and want to prevent the tumor from growing. We can keep the diet under control and exercise to keep glucose and insulin levels low. Then we have a much better chance of slower growth of a possible tumor.

Or even better: Allways keep your insulin levels as low as possible, whether you have cancer or not. This is a strong potential cancer prevention mechanism. Reducing processed sugar in the diet may prove to be even more important for cancer prevention than previously thought.

Perhaps we can we learn to use the sweet tooth of cancer as a weapon against it? Research has already led to the development of several PI3K inhibitory drugs: Idelalisib, approved by the FDA in 2014 for the treatment of lymphoma and leukemia. And the drug Alpelisib, approved in 2019 for the treatment of breast cancer with mutations in PI3K. But researchers also believe that changing the diet to a low-sugar diet is important. But it should also be low in other carbohydrates, which can cause blood sugar to rise. That is called the LowCarb-diet and focuses in reducing the daily intake of carbohydrates to a maximum of 50 grams.

In another landmark research article from 2018, published in Nature, researchers showed the effect of a carbohydrate-reduced diet in mice. By limiting carbohydrates and thus keeping insulin levels low, cancerous tumors responded much more strongly to drugs already approved to treat the disease. Tumors that had never before been able to shrink in mice could now be reduced with a diet with a low glucose content.

Article about sugar and cancer

Takeout for eczema patients

Now it is up to us eczema-fighters to use this knowledge to our advantage. If a lowcarb diet can both help eczema and have a protective effect against cancer, then it is just a matter of time, before more of us might start using the LowCarb diet as a daily guideline.

The post Sugar and eczema appeared first on Man's guide to eczema healing.

As an eczema patient, it’s important to display some kind of bodyweight management. When a person develops eczema he is 8% more likely to become overweight or obese. But the opposite is also the case. A person that develops overweight or obesity is more prone to having skin problems like atopic dermatitis.

Effects of obesity on the skin

A 2017 study of American women found that skin barrier and moisturizing functions were significantly impaired by obesity, resulting in considerable dryness and roughness, compared with nonobese women.

Atopic eczema becomes a problem due to chronic inflammation in the whole body due to high caloric intake. That creates systemic inflammation combined with insulin resistance, demonstrated by altered levels of interleukin (IL)-6, leptin, adipokines, and insulin.

In another study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, online March 16, 2011, the findings point to the same conclusions:

• Small children who are obese may be more likely to develop severe eczema
• Compared to children who weren’t obese, kids who became obese between the ages of 2 and 5 years old had more than three times the risk of developing the condition. If they were even younger when they became obese – babies or toddlers – their risk of the uncomfortable skin disease seemed to be even higher.
• Children who are obese for a long time are more likely to get eczema. If you’re able to reverse the obesity with weight loss, children may be less likely to develop eczema, or eczema symptoms may improve.
• Overall, the researchers found that obesity was nearly twice as common in children and adolescents with eczema. About nine of every 100 study participants with eczema were obese, compared to only five out of 100 without the skin disease.

The cost of overweight and obesity

The economic side of the matter is quite disturbing and the future outlook is not good. Healthcare costs are expected to rise dramatically in the coming years and place an already hard-pressed global healthcare system under even more pressure. For example, obesity is responsible for 70 percent of all treatment costs for diabetes, 23 percent of treatment costs for cardiovascular diseases, and 9 percent for cancers.

BodyMassIndex

Health care providers use the Body Mass Index(BMI), which is a measure of your weight in relation to your height, to define overweight and obesity. People who have a BMI between 25 and 30 are considered overweight. Obesity is defined as having a BMI of 30 or greater. You can calculate your BMI to learn if you are overweight or obese. Being overweight or obese may increase the risk of health problems. Your health care provider can assess your individual risk due to your weight.

A good indication of whether one is eating healthy is by looking at BMI and the body’s overall impression. A BMI in the lower part of the normal spectrum may indicate that you are staying clear of too many unhealthy foods and controlling your general intake of sugar. If the body appears “trimmed”, it is a good indicator that you are on the right track with the current diet.

To keep the weight in check you have to exercise and eat healthily. In my free book Eczemahealingguide you can read more about a healthy diet that is optimal for fighting both eczema and weight problems. You will also learn some mental techniques to keep doing the right thing as a part of your future life.

My way of managing weight is to keep an eye on whether my body changes over time. I do that quickly and easily every day by using a smart scale, which in addition to measuring your weight also analyzes a wide range of parameters such as muscle mass, fat percentage, bone mass, water content etc.

For that purpose, I use a Scanfit Bodypilot scale. It works by measuring the body’s electrical resistance (BIA) at different frequencies and matching it up against known values in databases, can derive so many precise parameters about one’s physical condition.

If you are a little geeky with training, diet and technique, then this type of analysis device is quite exciting. The fact that it automatically sends data to Apple health and the app is also a huge plus in a busy everyday life!

Read a really good review of the scale here and see if such a device might be something for you. In any case, it is a great help to me in the eternal effort to stay slim, strong, and healthy.

Diet to stay lean and strong

I think that my diet is quite an effective way of keeping the weight stable and at the same time build muscle. The dilemma is always how to get enough of the essential building blocks for muscle growth, but at the same time not have too many calories, so that you also gain weight.

I found out that oscillating between a muscle-building phase and a fat-burning phase during the week is the way to go. Thereby you eat what you need for the phase you are in and your food choices have a higher meaning than just keeping you full and satisfied.

The routine

• Only coffee (with a little oat milk) and carrots from I wake up until lunch
• At lunchtime, I have three pieces of rye bread with eg. cold cuts, salmon, mackerel, hummus, and pâté.
• At about 15 o’clock porridge made from oatmeal and müsli, no added sugar
• For dinner, dishes with meat, fish, or vegan steaks, falafel, etc. as a protein source. Rice, bulgur, lentils, pasta, couscous, etc. are carbohydrate sources. Rough green vegetables e.g. fried aubergines, broccoli, cabbage, scallions, carrots, etc. as a fiber/vegetable source.
• After dinner, there is no more food meaning that I will be fasting for about 16 hours, before I have my next meal at about 12 o’clock the day after. That is called intermitted fasting and a very healthy way to live. You give your body a chance to digest correctly and pause to have some of the many benefits of fasting. I use the app Zero on my phone and apple watch to keep track of my progress in this matter.

The porridge is made like this:

• 35 grammes of oatmeat + 35 grammes of müsli with no addad sugars
• Add about 2 dl. cold water
• Microwave for about 2.5 minutes at max wattage
• Add 1 dl. of oat milk and 1 teaspoon of raw cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of Sukrin (zero calorie sugar alternative)
• Stir and let it sit for about two minutes

By keeping with this routine you do not have to think too much about what to eat and convincing yourself to eat healthy at every meal.

Of course, this diet is a little boring, but it is healthy and cheap. In fact, I find it to be the best fat-loss diet since it is so straightforward. It keeps you full and you always know what and when the next meal is there. By dividing the day into small manageable timeslots it is much easier to “stick-it-out” to the next meal.

Food choice for training days – maximizing protein

If you want a stronger body, but at the same time do not want to gain fat, then this meal plan is perfect. I’ve been doing it for many years and it works. It’s pretty impressive what an increased amount of high quality protein can do when you combine it with strength training a few times a week.

• Peeled carrots (about 200 g) for the drive to work
• At lunchtime : rice dish consisting of 250 grams of minced chicken, 100 grams of peas, curry, salt, one can of pineapple in pieces and a shot of coconut milk. Made in Rice cooker from Sistema.
• Fruit or the rest of the rice dish from dinner relieves hunger until dinner.
• Dinner, dishes with meat, fish or vegan steaks, falafel, etc. as a source of protein. rice, bulgur, lentils, pasta, couscous el. lign. as a carbohydrate source. Rough green e.g. fried aubergines, broccoli, cabbage, scallions, carrots, etc. as a fiber/vegetable source.

The rice dish with chicken, pineapple and coconut milk is made as follows:

The rice cooker is filled with the following:

• One cup of rice + 2 cups of water
• 450 grams of minced chicken
• Salt
• 100 grams of frozen peas

Heat the minced chicken meat, rice, salt, and water in the microwave for approx. 12 minutes at max. Wattage.
Add 1 dl. coconut milk, 1 teaspoon curry, a can of sliced pineapple in juice, and the frozen peas.

Stir and wait for approx. two minutes. Then there is a healthy hot dinner dish with high protein content.

During the day, I have no sugary soft drinks. Only juice, coffee, non-alcoholic beer, diet-coke or clean water with or without bubbles. As a snack, there is fruit, nuts and more carrots.

By following this routine, one does not have to think so much about what the next meal should consist of. Thus, it is easy to eat healthy at every meal. The bonus of this meal plan is that you can feel a marked improvement in the gym, while not gaining fat.

Of course, these meal plans are a bit tedious, but they are healthy and inexpensive. They keep you full and you always know what and when the next meal is. By dividing the day into small manageable time slots, it is much easier to “persevere” until the next meal.

Protein is not just protein

Many people probably think that proteins are simple building blocks that you just have to have enough of to stay healthy. But few are aware that proteins are a key term for a collection of amino acids. They are the real building blocks that our body needs to do everything relating to repairing cell damage, maintain and build muscle, secrete hormones, etc.

Proteins are made up of chains of amino acids. The composition of amino acids can be very different, depending on the type of protein in question. Here the difference between vegetable and animal is noticeable, as the animal proteins to a greater extent contain the combination of amino acids that the human body needs. It is actually quite logical that meat products contain the building blocks that is needed to build muscle, etc., while the composition of our body is less reminiscent of a plant.

There are 20 different amino acids from which the body can make protein. A distinction is made between the essential and the non-essential amino acids. There are 8 essential amino acids. They are characterized by the fact that the body can not make these from other substances. There are also 12 of the non-essential amino acids and these the body can produce from other substances.

No sugar

A major part of a healthy diet is to get rid of added sugar in your foods. This study shows that high sugar levels can damage your brain and cause or worsen dementia.

The exclusion of sugar is no big problem and your body adapts quite rapidly. It is just like turning the volume of your stereo down and your ears will adjust. The craving for sugary foods hangs on for the first couple of days. At the beginning of the process, you are most motivated and eager to do the right thing. That helps to get through the first “tough” days and after that, it becomes much easier. Things like raisins, fruits, and daddles are small explosions of sugary taste and you will be surprised how easy it is to relinquish added sugar.

The video below is one of the best if you really want to learn about the mechanics behind the obesity epidemic. They are need-to-know knowledge if you are serious about your health. You that you will be surprised by the facts that are presented.

Morning boost

To start the day with coffee and carrots are my prime choice. It is a power-boost of caffeine, fibers, vitamins, and antioxidants. Did you know that coffee has higher levels of antioxidants than blueberries?

Sometimes you will feel a little hungry at about 9 o’clock, but in a few hours, you will start your daily eating window. The foods I have use as part of my diet contain a high amount of protein, medium fats, and low natural sugars. On top, they have lots of fibers and healthy whole-grain carbohydrates to give energy and provide a feeling of satiety.

If you buy it – You eat it !

Another important part of the healthy diet is to clean out your house of any food that is not in sync with your goals and diet. This is again an important part of what I think is the best fat-loss diet.

To keep on the right path you must make a grocery list and stick to it. I have a saying: “If you buy it, You eat it”. Healthy foods need to be the only ones leaving the supermarket with you.

For the tempting times in the evening where the cravings come rushing in it is important to have a backup-plan in place. The plan is to have some healthy snacks ready in the cupboard. A bag of raisins, nuts, daddle or salty breadsticks can be the “emergency foods”. And when you crave a coke, then have some fruit juice. They may have the same calories, but now you got all the good vitamins instead of empty calories.

In the video below you will get even more knowledge about why we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. This knowledge is good if you want to take back control of your lifestyle choices.

Weigh yourself often to stay on track

It is crucial to jump on the scale every single day to maintain progressive fat loss. It has been confirmed by science that people who lost weight and kept it off have daily weigh-ins. If you get two “high” measurements you might feel your progress has stalled. That is normally not the case. You can just not see the trends if you only step onto the scale some days. Below you see the fluctuations of my daily measurements. They are canceled out when you zoom out to Year-view.

When I follow my diet plan the result is a slow, but steady lowering of my body weight and body-fat percentage. The rate of weight loss is just above one kilogram a month, which is a healthy rate to reduce your weight.

As mentioned at the start of this article I use a smart scale to record my bodymetrics. If you haven’t found a good scale I can again recommend a scale like ec. the Scanfit BodyPilot or equivalent type of scale. It helps you to get insights into your body composition that make a huge difference in your journey to stay of becoming lean, fit, and strong.

Exercise – Keep muscle and lose fat

You have to find some kind of exercise that appeals to you. I lift weights for one hour two times a week and aim at getting 10.000 steps every day. My apple watch keeps track of all the exercise data and the daily weigh-in is also going into Apple-health.

By exercising you maintain your muscle mass and by performing weight- or resistance training you build bigger muscle. When your muscle mass is greater your body burns more calories even when you are not training. It is just like a car with a big engine. It will have a higher fuel consumption when idle than a car with a small engine.

Going slowly in the weight loss process minimizes the risk of losing muscle mass. And doing progressive resistance training while in a caloric deficit, you tell your body to hold on to the muscle. Because of the high nutritional content on the diet, I experience muscle growth while slowly becoming leaner. That is really what you want!

Walking – Fat loss acceleration

Walking is the easiest way of spending more calories and keeping muscle mass. The activity can be done everywhere and is free. The risk of injury is also extremely low compared to eg. running, playing football, or any other high-intensity sport. Combined with the fat-loss diet that I find to be the best, you can expect to see a gradual weight loss. But remember to be patient. Sometimes it takes just as long to fix it as it took to break it :-).

If I should recommend two videos about weight loss and walking it would be these two. They are my “go-to”-videos if I need some motivation myself or if people are asking about weight loss advice.

Discipline

Committing to a healthy diet and getting the exercise done can be hard. But if you do not eat healthily and burn more calories by training you will keep gaining weight. Some application of daily discipline is needed to stay on the right track. After the initial motivation has faded you have to rely on rules, routines, and self-discipline. It might be helpful to read my article about how I use and apply discipline to stay clear of my eczema condition and keep fit. Every day!

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Dairy products are things like cow’s milk, cream, cheese, and yogurt, but also other foods can have ingredients that contain milk proteins. Fortunately, international regulations advice to have these allergens in the ingredient list on food products and the word milk must be included.

It was after a long period of bad eczema that I first started looking for other people’s experiences with diet change, as a way to treat atopic eczema.

I came across a post on the internet, where a guy describes how dietary changes have made his eczema disappear. Especially the exclusion of dairy and cow’s milk had made a great impact.

Motivated by the prospect of an eczema-free life, I instantly stopped drinking milk and also refrained from eating products that contained milk as an ingredient.

After a short while my eczema almost disappeared and to test if milk was the cause, we did some quite unscientific tests at home with me as a guinea pig. The test was to refrain from all kinds of dairy products and then drink a small amount of milk after a couple of eczema-free days. The result was clear every time. After a minute or so of having milk eczema came again and always first as a tingling sensation in the skin which after a day became a visible eczema flare-up.

As an alternative to milk, I use oat milk from the supermarket. It is really good in coffee and muesli is now something I can eat again. In addition, oat milk has the advantage of very long shelf life and it stays fresh in the open state as long as it is in the refrigerator.

There are a growing number of brands so you have to test out which one you like the best.

A dairy-free diet seems to do the trick

Online you will find a lot of similar stories of eczema healing by excluding cows’ milk and dairy from your dairy. A good example of such a story is the one from Susan Marque in her post I Almost Died from Eczema: How a Nondairy Diet Saved Me.

It can be a combination of eczema and food allergies that make the road to healing more difficult. In this article from Healthline.com – How to Create an Eczema-Friendly Diet, this aspect is explained in an easy-to-understand way.

It reinforces my own experience in adjusting my diet to a dairy-free one and tells me that there is more to this subject than the established healthcare system and the dairy industry like to tell us.

Goodbye to sore throat

When I drank cow’s milk and ate dairy products I had a sore throat every winter. It was a recurring phenomenon and if you have had a sore throat once, you know how painful it can be. Therefore, I was very relieved as after the first milk-free winter I had not had a sore throat.

It has been like that since my diet change abstaining from dairy and cows milk.

Prostate cancer

If you are a man then your risk of having prostate cancer is increased by drinking milk. The higher the amount of fats in the milk, the more fatal the prostate cancer will be. High-fat content translates into aggressive cancer, whereas skimmed milk increases the chances of low-impact cancer. But both increase the overall risk of attracting this cancer that is widely spread in countries with a western diet high in sugars, processed foods, and dairy products.

You can read all about how a dairy-free diet has helped me to become eczema-free in my book Ezcema Healing Guide. But also just as important as why I just had to write a book, so that other eczema-sufferers can be inspired by my long journey to eczema-healing.

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On Amazon I saw thousands of positive reviews of the CeraVe-cream. After reading a lot of these reviews I had to try this cream and learn what this CERAMIDE was all about.

I bought two jugs of CeraVe moisturizing cream 340 grams from lookfantastic.dk. It was reasonably priced compared to a lot of other moisturizing creams made for eczema. These often tend to be quite expensive and thereby being unattractive in the long run. 

Before we go my experiences with the cream we need to learn more about the main active compound in CeraVe creams, the ceramides.

Ceramides

Us with atopic dermatitis has dry skin and our skin barrier is compromised because we lack fats called lipids in the top layer of the skin. Ceramides are skin-identical compounds that are a normal part of our skin. In normal skin these fatty lipids represent approximately 50 percent of the top layer. They keep the skin resistant against allergens and inhibit water from escaping the body. Normal people can produce these lipids including ceramides to keep the skin barrier tight and sturdy. Eczema patients do not produce enough to fill the spaces between the skin cells and therefore the skin barrier becomes leaky.

By applying lipids and ceramides to the skin in the form of cream you can help the skin to hold cells together by adding these essential fats to the skin barrier.

As we age the skin becomes drier as the level of lipids in the skin diminishes. For that reason the importance of adding creams containing ceramides becomes more important as time goes on.

Ceramides can is made synthetically or from natural sources, but chemically they are the same. Together with other fatty lipids like glycerin, fatty acids, and cholesterol, ceramides can work wonders for eczema skin.

CeraVe cream is recommended by the National Eczema Association in the U.S. 

My verdict

This is the best cream I have ever used. The cream is silky smooth to apply and absorbs quickly into the skin. My skin is now soft, moist and feels more robust than ever before. The use of steroid creams have gone down and for now I am in a period where I do not use them anymore. If this holds up in the long run we will have to see, but for now I am very pleased.

When I shower and use mild soap and salt my skin is now still oily and feel not as exposed as before. It seems like this cream in a way fills up the skin with oils, so the barrier is intact even after the shower.

I have been using the cream daily for a week after the shower, at high noon and before bedtime. In that short amount of time I can literally say that my skin has changed.

All in all I am very impressed and my skin just loves this cream. Hopefully it will keep doing its job at keeping the steroid creams at bay. 

Read more about diet, skin care and much more in my book.

References:

Wikipedia/Ceramide

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