This is the Art Beauty podcast, where we are always reaching for truth in beauty. Remember, the brands and the people on the show are not paying to be here. So we get to have the real discussions. We know that you want to hear because you deserve to be informed so you can make the best choices for yourself. With that said, I'm Amber Milt, and today my fabulous co-host is friend of the show, Jennifer Hanway. She's a board certified, holistic nutritionist. She has just so much information.
She is one of my beauty besties. And we've got a great show in store for you today. Welcome, Jennifer. I am so good to be here. I feel like we should always record the bit that we talk about before we actually record, because that's where we get some of the juicy stuff as well. And so maybe, well, we were talking about like, should we be transparent about some of the things we're doing?
We've been sharing some stuff, so let's get into today first and then you know what, because we're going to keep it honest here. We're going to talk to tell you because we've been talking about some things that we're doing if you're interested. So first off, it is April 16th. Most of you had the most hated day if you were in the United States yesterday, hopefully paid your taxes. And so over paying taxes. But we got to do it.
And so, you know, if you need a little bit of like light hearted recovery, hope you can get some of that today. We are also going into I know it seems like it's not there because in New York, in the East Coast, it's been cold, but like summer is coming, isn't it? It's coming. It's coming. I was in Arizona a couple of weeks ago and it was just packed. And I was like, remind me, live on the East Coast again. But it's coming. It's going to come around so quickly. And I think we yeah, we're in that.
We have my husband and I, we seem to have the season between like mid-February. So post Valentine's Day the route to getting our taxes in that just seem the busiest like two and a half months of our lives and every year rolls around and like our car always needs some of the saying like all of the things. So hopefully we can all take a breath, take a pause, and then look forward to summer. I feel like it's the busiest and also the most boring, right?
Like in some ways because it's like there's no, you know, my husband always is like after February and Super Bowl. I mean, Valentine's Day for us is like. So we always try to take a trip in February, but then it's like March, April, these two months that are looming where it can go either way, either can be beautiful out and you can be happy or it's not nice out. And it's like, come on, come on already.
But yeah, and then you're doing all the things like getting ready to pay your taxes, hopefully paying your taxes, thanking God that you paid your taxes, car servicing all the things. I hate taxes. So but, but in like knowing that the summer's coming, I want to Jen to come on today because, you know, listen, we've talked about it before and I thought we should do a real in-depth dive into this today about the relationship between sugar and our skin and the realities that it has.
You know, I'm a sweet tooth. I like my cocktail from time to time, but I know that's not bad. And as I'm starting to get older, I'm starting to realize, like, I look tired more. My skin doesn't bounce back. So just a little bit about this, like, just give it to us. Rip the Band-Aid off. Yeah. I mean, for us, it's bad. And I. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but. But it really is.
It is something that I really notice in my clients and my friends post 40, We don't have as much wiggle room anymore. We don't bounce back as well anymore from those late nights, from the sugar, from the wine, and kind of 40 onwards, what I'm really starting to see the split between women that really take care of their skin and take care of their skin from the inside out and women that don't. And I think get to you. I think all of us up until about our thirties, we can get away with a lot more.
We get to 40 and you really start to see me putting in the work and who hasn't? And, you know, I think sometimes when we talk about work, it's like we spend so much money on skin care products on, you know, these in-office treatments. Some of us do or maybe don't, but. But then are we just totally derailing it by our diet? Is there sort of like a balance that we can find? What exactly does sugar due to the skin?
Yeah. You're not going to be totally derailing it, so you're not undoing all of the hard work. But let's be rude about it. A lot of us spend a lot of money on what we do in our skin care at home. We're spending a lot of money on skincare treatments. Now, why would we not want to optimize that investment by looking after our skin from the outside in? And one of the biggest that, you know, I get so many people reaching out to me like, what about this supplement?
What about that supplement? What about this collagen? What about that? And I'm like, let's go back to basics, because one of the biggest things that we can do, one of the best things that we can do if we're talking about skin in any context, whether we're thinking about anti-aging, reducing inflammation, dealing with anything like eczema, acne, rosacea, wanting to look young and youthful, I think it's okay that we want to say that we want to look young is to minimize sugar.
And there's really two parts to sugar on the skin. Number one, it is someone who struggles with breakouts. And I think there's a lot of women in their thirties and forties who've got breakouts on one hand, premature aging on the other hand, and they're happening at the same time. And sugar is really the culprit. So in terms of our breakouts, what happens is when we eat sugar, it raises our cortisol levels, it raises our insulin levels. So those are all two kind of monster hormones.
Now when we raise our incentives and our cortisol levels that can raise other hormones in the body, that can create breakouts and inflammation. So it helps us and makes us produce less see them, we get more breakouts. It's why that we see as teenagers, we get a lot of breakouts, especially with those androgen hormones as well. So sugar, we're getting skin more breakouts, so make that a teenager. But we also see that in women in their thirties and forties as well.
Now, when you talk about sugar, are you just talking about refined sugar or are we talking about sugars that we have, you know, naturally occurring like in fruits, even some vegetables? Yeah. So let me get to that in a second, because I haven't even talked about sugar and aging. I'm going to get even more bad means. I'm going to be I want to be bad cop, but am I going to be good cop and talk about what are the things that we can do? Okay, so one man, we've got those breakouts.
The other hand is premature aging of the skin through something called advanced glycation end products, also known as agents. And what this does is when we eat a lot of sugar in the diet, it binds to the collagen and elastin in our skin. So the collagen and elastin in our skin, it cannot repair. We cannot grow more collagen.
And the way I ask people to think about this is think about when you have barbecue and it's delicious, but you have that barbecue sauce on the meat and that makes it go kind of hard and crispy on the outside. Delicious for our barbecue. But that's what's happening with us having too much sugar as well. Sugar is great for barbecues, but the skin got it. Well, you know, speaking of barbecue and skin, ah, you know, let's let's talk about the types of sugar.
So you'll be talking about only refined sugar or are you talking about the types of sugars that could be found like, you know, in fruits and vegetables and other naturally occurring sources? What we're really talking about here is added sugars and refined carbohydrates. So added sugars and caloric sweeteners, added sugars and caloric sweeteners, anything that the manufacturer has added to the food or anything that you add at home.
So, for example, a really good example of added sugar is all the sirups that we get the whole Starbucks thing. And also what's important to think about is that we typically think of white sugar, and I see so much noise around healthy sugars, things like coconut sugar, honey, maple sirup. Unfortunately, they all have the same impact on your blood sugar and your skin. So then not healthy sugars. Shoot. You know, on that note, I feel like I also want to talk to you.
I see I was in the grocery store the other day and I saw all these kind of like healthy beauty kind of inspired drinks, you know, where it's like probiotics and and different types of like watermelon beauty drinks. And I was thinking, gosh, that sounds good, but there must be so much crap in this. This is the thing. It's, you know, and all this and great options out there. Yes, there are great options out there in terms of kind of nutraceuticals.
The things that we're having in our diets that can help with that. But a lot of the time when you get a processed food of any kind. Yes. That might have a bunch of collagen in it. You know, you've got a drink with collagen in it, but if it's going to have children, it's just going to outweigh the tooth. So the majority of them are not great. Yeah, I mean, just stick to the basics, keep it clean. Or if you're going to just go off the deep end, do what I do and have a diet Coke.
Because, I mean, here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with the occasional Diet Coke, you know, and we're talking occasional here. And it's also it depends on depends on your health status and your goals. So if you are someone who's really struggling with their weight, really struggling with their blood sugar balance, really struggling with their metabolism, then yes, we want to steer clear of these things for a longer period until we can get healthier.
For someone who is generally healthy, you come back, great, you're not struggling with weight, etc., etc.. You can have these things in, you know, in Michaela occurrences in moderation and then not going to be the end of the world. But I just think my my biggest thing is I just see so many women spending so much money on skincare and treatments and then I'm doing it all with a diet.
So, you know, on that note, if sugar is something that we're looking to remove from our diets, I know that you have a fabulous detox plan. It's a 14 day detox, but but what are some ways that we can start to do that, you know, or do we have to go cold like cold turkey? so let's talk about some of the places that we can find it in our diet where it's it's easy to take out. So some of the kind of the worst offenders, number one, is going to be soda. I think we all know soda is bad for us.
Like the one that really frustrates me is the sirup sweetened drinks in places like Starbucks. And I'm in Massachusetts and Dunkin, even your small and I mean small like the one they don't even offer you. I think it's like 12 ounces or something. It might even be eight ounces. Small vanilla latte and Starbucks, 22 grams of added sugar. What about what about the sugar free sirups?
We could go sugar free Sirups They're a little bit more chemically laden, but really, do we need to be having if we're going for a coffee, can we not just drink a coffee? Does it have to be a dessert? There's a big difference between a coffee. You know what? I know. So you have to have a black coffee, have a splash of milk and then whatever. But with the Starbucks drinks, I think that's so misleading. The holiday drinks can have up to 70 grams of sugar in them.
Yeah, that's like three times as much as you get in a slice of dessert. Yeah. Yeah. So really, that's the biggest places we can find them. So it is we're going to think about having it in our coffee as well. And then the other place I'm going to say unfortunately, is in our wine, not alcohol. Yeah, you know, we've got to call it. It's maybe in one hand and the glass of wine in the other. And we're really just kind of we're not doing ourselves any favors.
I want about when it comes to I've got a girlfriend who was drinking like organic wines or natural wines. Are those any better? I think the naturals don't add sugar, right? They're going to be better. But that's still not those. You know, I've gone back and forth over this over the years and they have changed, changed my mindset and in full transparency.
I don't drink anymore, have a drink for about eight months because we don't the we have very clear evidence that alcohol is more harmful for our health and is beneficial for our health. And I wish that wasn't the case because I love a great glass of champagne or a great glass of red wine. But just knowing what I know, I couldn't in integrity include that in my diet.
And also from a financial integrity point of view, I could be spending all of this money on skincare and treatments and then I'm doing that work with wine. So get me organic, more natural wines. They have less sugar, less colorings, but they're still going to spike your blood sugar. It's still going to send hunger hormones all over the place. And best of all, are you going to text on this as well. Right? my goodness. Okay. So we've got sugary drinks, the sirup drinks, soda, wine and alcohol.
What else, you know, are there are there any other sneakier places that the sugar might be existing? Yeah, I have a real issue with products that pretend to be healthy and they're really not. I'd rather just if you were a candy bar, just call yourself a candy bar and let someone enjoy it.
So for example, when we look at Granolas and Cereal, one of the worst ones offenders, especially granola, granola is delicious, but granola is delicious because it has honey and maple sirup and all kinds of different sugars in there as well. The same with cereals. I have a real issue with kind bars. I have a ton of sugar and that just and then they try, you know, there's a ton of sugar in them when they put five grams of protein and they can call themselves a protein bar. Right.
So I would rather products which is transparent. And if you're going to have some candy and a Snickers, Reese's Pieces enjoy it rather than going over here to a pretend healthy option. So really, with any of these things, it's always about ignoring the front of the packaging, the front of the packaging. But anything in food, in skin care, it's always for marketing. We never want to believe that we flip it round front.
It's the marketing back, it's the science, and we always want to look at the ingredients just like I met someone at an event last night and they were asking me about a certain products that someone had recommended to them and I was like, I don't care what the person says about the product, show me the ingredients and show me the clinical studies. Well, you've got to tell us what was the product. It was buy and sell something or other.
All they did was send me a promo video about it and I'm like, I can't tell you anything about this because I don't know the ingredients and I don't know the studies. And that's the same for for any food. What is it? Third, believe the claims on a funnel. So let's flip it around, find out what's in it. So, you know, because I know there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast who probably do need the occasional sort of quick meal replacement bar. Are any of them at all good protein bars?
I'm not great, so but we need them in it. We need them in a hurry. So the one that I recommend that you could actually have on a regular basis is something called an epic bar, but it's really not epic. So but it's a bar made out of meat. So it is a true protein bar. You know, most people, when they're thinking protein bars, they're thinking quest bars, they're thinking maybe kind bars. And the reason why they like these, no question, is they don't have sugar in them.
But the reason why they like these is they feel like a treat. Yeah. Or it feels like very palatable if you have to have a breakfast. So epic is like a meat stick. I think it's like a meat bar. Okay. Yeah, exactly. What about I can't think of the name of it, but it's like a small bar, and it's like it has six cashews and something else. That's in the bar. The Oryx bars. Are they bad? But they're just. They're not bad at all.
But the thing with protein bars is we haven't got a treat apart from Quest Bars, which I don't love, because they're full of really processed, daring sugar, alcohol, Most protein bars will have almost twice as many carbohydrates as they do protein, so that only protein bars because they have a little bit of protein in them, not because they're a good source of protein.
So I think people either have these when you're when there's no other options, if you have to get on a flight, all of those things that we don't want to make them a regular part of our diet. Sure. But if you need them occasionally, you know, just and again, I'm not the holistic nutritionist here, but I found on Amazon, Amazon sells little individual packet of pistachios. Yeah. I keep them in my desk and like, I think it's like 100 calories, but man, will those fill me up.
So I've tried to kind of I'm like, when I do QVC and QVC, we have to be like up for like 24 hours. Those seem to be really helpful to me. Yeah, because they have protein. They have fiber in them. They have that right. They have a little bit of protein in them. So I had to get I flew back from the West Coast a few weeks ago and I didn't usually when I fly to take my food with me, I wasn't saying I was I didn't have that option.
So I went to like their version of Hudson Cheese and I got some chopped turkey sticks, I got some nuts. I did get an rxbar. I got a tiny thing of grapes that cost me $10. So ridiculous. Yeah. my God. Like I spend money on food. And even I was like, Are you kidding me? So $70 later, but yet this thing's like, nuts, the jerky, the grapes, that kind of thing kept me going for the flight. So, you know, I want to be mindful of time here, but we've kind of identified some of these bad foods.
I think it makes sense. So if we want to start to detox from some of the sugar, what does that look like? I know you have a program, but but how should we begin to do that? Is that gradually or do we have to go cold turkey? So I will recommend going cold turkey because what we have to do is actually set up a dose response in our brain. So we're going to go back into the science a little bit. So there's a couple of reasons why we crave sugar.
One of them is because sugar sets off a dope immune response in our brain. We are wired to crave sugar as evolutionary biology. So back when we were people, foods like honey berries were really, really important for our survival. So our body is designed to crave those. Now, when we eat foods that are high in sugar, we get that dopamine response in our brain that makes us feel good.
Just that same, you know, we talk about dopamine detoxing in terms of like not checking our social media all the time. It's the same with sugar. Now, the more sugar we have, the more we get that dopamine response, the more we need to get that hit, for want of a better way of saying it. So what I do ask people to do, I say, if you give me 14 days without having sugar and added sweeteners, we can retrain that part of the brain.
But I don't have people white knuckle this because that's never going to work. Like if I say to you, you can't have any sugar, any wine, you can't have your candy corn at Halloween, what is going to be the first thing that you want to have? Candy, corn immediately. Anyone has have that conversation. But what we really want to do is we're going to think about taking those things out, but also going to support your body by a chemistry over here.
So if we don't have protein, fiber and fat and all meals, we're going to crave these foods even more. So what a lot of people do is when they go on a diet or detox, whatever we want to call it, they jump straight in with everything and they're like, I'm not going to have any fat, any sugar, any carbs, any such and such. And they get to maybe 3:00 that day in the head first. And Ben Jerry's, right?
So what we want to do if we're thinking about taking out sugar in our diet, detoxing from sugar is making sure we're having a really great amount of protein and veggies, fresh fruits, healthy fats, maybe some more complex carbs that every meal that is going to help rewire our body so we're not craving speed so much. Okay. So, you know, if people can't do this on their own, I know you have an incredible program. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah. So I saw this in I'm seeing so much noise around giving up sugar, blood sugar spikes, etc., etc.. But no one's really teaching you how to do it. People just expecting you to kind of white knuckle it and it doesn't work for anything. So I put together my 14 day detox. It helps you with the behavior change part of it. That's also going to give you the exact thing to do. You know, I'm busy. You're busy? My clients are busy. They don't want to have to figure it out themselves.
They want someone to show them exactly how to do it. So within 14 day detox, we have 40 days of meal plan. So breakfast, lunch, healthy snack and dinner. We have our smart swaps, which are all of our sugar free options for your favorite foods. And then we're also talking about the behavior change piece of the puzzle as well. So it really is going to take you through that 14 days. And honestly, within a couple of days, you're going to start feeling better. I love that. Love that, love that.
If people want to know more about that program, where should they go. As they come over? It is coming to me over at Instagram. I'm @JenniferHanway on Instagram. We'll have all the details of that for you. Amazing. And you know what? Before we wrap things up, we did say at the beginning we would be kind of transparent about some of the things that we've been doing. Do you want to go first? To get me to go first? Which decade are we starting from? Yesterday.
Yeah. So on a I get Botox on a regular basis, I did any something that when I was 37 or 38, I wish I had started that earlier. Honestly, I remember the first time I ever got on Microdermabrasion I must have been like 30 or something and I was petrified and I was like, this is nothing. And then the first time you got Botox, you're like, my goodness. And you're like, Give me all of the Botox. So Botox on a regular basis.
I have had sculpture in my temples, which I really like, and I feel like sculpture is the gift that keeps on giving a little bit and clear. Brilliant. I did so fun the other day as well. I tend to. I do. I will say I'm not attempted treatment jump and I never do a series of other things. So I'd say for me the major things that I'd, I mean, I am very, very dialed in on my diet. I don't drink the do drink coffee. I take a ton of supplements.
So I'm very good on that side, pretty good with my basics of skincare, things I do on a regular basis, pretty much Botox and then kind of maintenance stuff with laser or hydro facial. That's probably where I'm at. What I'll never do, I probably will never do threads that no. Don't. Know it. Don't know threads. I mean, even all the professionals who used to like, swear by threads, they're now saying that there's too many complications. It can just be a nightmare.
I've heard. Yeah. So I think that's where I think that's where I'm at for me, for the next problem. When I look and I'll talk about you. I am regular Botox. I started at 35. I'm actually glad. You know, I think for some listeners, for some people that may seem young, some people that may seem old, I thought it was the right age. So I think 37 is actually like kind of the right age.
If you start too young, Botox can cumulatively start to lose its effectiveness also by paralyzing the same muscles all the time. It burns the skin. You get muscle atrophy because you're never using that muscle. So I realize one of the problems I had, I started to have veins pop up and my doctor was like, it's because we've probably done too much Botox there. So I had to lay off that. So full movement right here. But I will continue to go in and sort of add that back in up here.
I'm giving it a little break. I am doing sculpture of for the first time. So I'm excited. Stay tuned for that. I'm doing it with you, beauty. So just Google new beauty ember sculpture in like a couple of weeks and that video should be up there and I will track my process. Chris also shared on social and then yeah, like occasional lasers. I think my next thing will be in the fall to do IPL again. That'll be the big one. Thera I like. It's very expensive.
So but you know, I think the most important thing, find a doctor or derm that you love, not that there's not great medical professionals out there and assistants, but like go to a board certified doctor or derm to get a good plan. You know, you just you want to make sure that you're in the right hands. And that's all I got. So with that, my lovelies, you know, we're in spring. Happy April. Happy Post Tax Day. We're good for another year. We hope for Jennifer. Thank you so much for being on.
Great advice that we can take for the spring, the summer when I certainly know we kind of start to derail some of our diets and certainly beyond. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I love you. And of course, if you at home have any questions you want me to pass on to Jennifer, I'm happy to do so. You can email me at hello@artbeautypodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @ArtBeautyPodcast. And as always, we will see you next Tuesday. Bye!