Today’s episode of The Spa Dr. Podcast is different… It’s someone’s personal story.
My guest is Jennifer Garn who has an amazing story, like many of you. I’ve asked her to share her story about her skin and how she’s overcome her struggles.
Jenne first reached out to me with a comment on The Spa Dr. Facebook page, and I was struck by her words because of how her challenges are so real. And, they mirror so many other stories I’ve heard over the years from my patients.
Jenne is the mother of 6 kids (4 of them biological and 2 adopted) and has managed to find a way to heal despite many obstacles. When you listen to her story, you’ll hear about how she experiences some initial improvement in the appearance of her skin. But, what you’ll notice is that her skin issues didn’t go away until she was able to address the root causes. And, when she did that, that’s when she finally noticed a lasting improvement in her skin. But, I’ll let you hear the story from her. Make sure you listen until the end because the really magical part is in her journey and what she shares near the end.
So, please enjoy this interview …
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Transcript of Jennifer’s Story of Transformation
Dr. Cates: Hi there. I’m Dr Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. Podcast. Today’s podcast is a bit different. I’ve asked someone to come on and share her story about her skin and how she’s been able to overcome her struggles. My guest is Jennifer Garn who has an amazing story like many of you. She first reached out to me with a comment on Facebook about four years ago and I was really struck by her words because of the challenges she had and how much they mirrored so many other stories. I’ve heard over the years from my my patients and listeners of the podcast and and followers and customers and so many of these stories I’ve heard and the transformation is there and available to people. So I wanted her to come on and share her story. She’s a mom of six kids, two of them are adopted and has managed to find a way to heal despite all of the obstacles in her way. When you listened to her story, you’ll hear about how she experiences some initial improvement in the appearance of her skin. But what you’ll notice is that her changes in her skin don’t really go away until she was able to address the root causes. And then when she did that, that’s when she finally noticed a lasting improvement in her skin. But I want you to hear the story from her. Make sure you listen until the end because the really magical parts are in her journey along the way and also what she shares at the end. And I know that many of you struggle with your skin or have struggled with your skin and have found help wherever you are in the journey. I wanted to highlight this interview with her because I know that these struggles are real. I experienced it myself and I want to be able to share Jennifer’s story with you to help give you inspiration. So please enjoy this interview.
Dr. Cates: Jenne, welcome to The spa doctor podcast. It’s great to have you on.
Jennifer: It’s great to be here. Thank you.
Dr. Cates: Well, this is a little bit different for me to be interviewing now, somebody that had came to me in a different way then a lot of the podcast guests that I’ve had on you reached out to me on Facebook and I was looking at the data, it was four years ago and it was before I came out with my skincare line before my book, before a lot. And you’ve been with me a long time, through quite a bit of a journey here, but I want people to hear your story because when you reached out to me on Facebook and you shared some things with me, I thought, wow, this, this woman as she’s had her struggles and I could feel your struggles through the words that you shared. And it was very palpable to me. I could, cause you know, I’ve, I’ve gone through struggles. I’ve had a lot of patients, we have a lot of, I have a lot of followers and customers that, that have had struggles with their skin. And I, I was, so I wanted you to be able to share your story because I think it’s something that a lot of people have experienced and the fact that you’ve been able to overcome that and your skin looks so great and you have this beautiful family and you’re helping them, all of all of you live healthier lives. So it’s such a great store and I’d love to see all this unfold over the last four years. And so let’s start with the beginning of, of, of your skin. And what, what did you notice first? What were your struggles?
Jennifer: Right. You know, I was a child of the 80s right when we had three liters of pop way back then and we were pretty much your typical family. You know, we baked cookies on a Friday night and we drank pop and chips and there was always vegetables on the table. And really I didn’t start to experience problems with my skin until I was in my teens. Even my later teens I would say is when it really started. And it must be for me as much a quantity. I never really had like a large section of my face covered with a lot of blemishes, but instead you might be able to say, I had more quality. Right? It was more of, you know, larger, inflamed blemishes that didn’t get away quickly. And, um, and really not, it wasn’t that I had a lot of peers who were going through this. So I think that really made me even more self conscious about it because I wasn’t seeing a lot of my friends struggle with this, but I was struggling with it.
Jennifer: And so, you know, like people normally do, you start on the shelves at the store and you try the topical products and none of them, none of them helped at all. So we went to the dermatologist and he gave me, I think every single topical solution possible. I mean, I came home with this bag of samples. I went through them all and I mean literally no change, none, not even kind of, and so when we went back to the dermatologist to say, what else you got. And I have to give him credit because he brought up accutane, which is a pretty potent drug to use for skin. And he was really good about explaining the gravity of it. He, you know, sat us down and said, you have to take blood tests and if you are sexually active, you need to take pregnancy tests. So I feel like we knew that it was a big deal that I was going to be taking this accutane. However, as a teenager I didn’t care. You know, I was like, I don’t care if it clears up my skin. I’m in, let’s just do this. And so I did, I did the accutane and I did the blood tests. I think it was every month you had to go and have blood drawn and it worked. It was a very effective for me and it didn’t take long. So I’m pretty sure I was only on the accutane for a relatively short amount of time, maybe let’s say six months. And um, and after that he took me off accutane immediately. As soon as it worked, I was off the accutane and then I was on a low grade antibiotic. It wasn’t birth control. I know a lot of people end up with birth control. I was put on a low grade antibiotic for years. We’re talking a minimum of four years. I don’t remember the timeline exactly, but I know it was for the full duration of college. While I was on my parents’ health insurance, I took an antibiotic every single day to keep my skin clear. And you know, looking back, I think I didn’t really have a big impact on me then. It wasn’t that I was having a lot of health concerns. I wasn’t sick more often than anyone else. I would get severe stomach aches, but only occasionally. And so, you know, I did that for awhile and it kept my skin clear, so I was happy. I didn’t think twice about it. I just popped my pill and went on my merry way every day. And then, you know, it ended and my skin didn’t get super bad after I ended the antibiotic. I just had mild acne. I still had the problems that it came right back as soon as I went off. And it was probably about two years I would say, where I was just doing topical skin care solutions and um, which obviously weren’t working. I was still having acne, but I was too afraid not to take the topical skincare solution system, because I was afraid of how much worse it could it be right. So something’s gotta be better than nothing.
Jennifer: And so I got married and immediately, was pregnant. And so the full duration of being pregnant and nursing, my skin was perfectly clear, not even a blemish. And we had four kids in five years. So I experienced clear skin pretty much for what would that add up to like six, seven years. But in between that short amount of time in between each pregnancy, my skin would immediately flare up. It would just be tiny little pimples. But I knew that the problem was still there, but somehow my hormones were different and so I wasn’t experiencing it. And so it was kind of in the back of my mind, you know, when you’re done nursing that last baby, what are you going to do? Because you’ve had great skin, you know, you struggled with, I’m going to say it’s probably six, seven years with your skin. What are you going to do when this is all over? Because I didn’t want to get back to, you know, dealing with that. I love just being in a, you know, not have to wear a ton of makeup and run out of the house, but that wasn’t my story. The acne did come back and again, I never had a lot of acne, but it was just always there. I don’t know a little bit of me as a perfectionist I guess, but how it really affected me. I mean, it’s kind of like the dumb little things, like when you take your kids to the swimming pool and you don’t want to go into the water and play with them because that’ll rinse off the cover up and then the rest of the time at the pool, everyone’s going to be able to see, you know, how clear your skin really isn’t. Little things like that. And I was also very, very oily. I couldn’t go a day without a shower. I mean, I would wake up and it was just like my body had just unleashed oil all night long and I couldn’t wait to wash my face and I couldn’t dream of going anywhere without showering my hair. And I’m going to say, and again, if there was a skincare system advertise, if you had a skincare for clear skin and you sent me samples in the mail, I was signing up. I mean, I don’t even want to think about how much money we spent on skincare solutions during that period of time. And again, it was most, it wasn’t because they were really working, but more because I had a fear of what might it be like if I’m doing nothing.
Jennifer: So, I would say probably when my youngest was about six or seven, I would say I did the topical solutions and my poor mom, my poor mom was trying, if she got a sample in the mail she’d say try this, try this. And you know, I, I really, if I think back, I think it was chocolate. I loved chocolate. I loved all things, junk food. If I’m going to be honest, I was a junk food junkie. That, that was my stress food, right? Four kids, very close in age. That was how I handled stress was with eating junk food and chocolate has kind of always been the food. Right. That’s always maybe been associated … it doesn’t cause acne, does it? No one really seems to know. And so I set about on a mission to find out about chocolate because I was really just, I’m in my mid thirties, and I was just done. I was ready to say this isn’t teenage acne, acne anymore. This is adult acne and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. What on earth can I do? And, so you know, I set about on the Internet and in my journey to figure out do I need to give up chocolate, for clear skin. I ran across some articles about dairy and how dairy impacts your skin. So I was like, okay, well I’m a milk drinker. I have it on my cereal, I have it with my dinner, I have a bowl of cereal before I go to bed. I mean, there’s plenty of dairy in my life, so I’m like, that’s it. No more dairy. I’m done drinking milk. And literally the day, the one full day I went without drinking milk. I woke up the next day and I wasn’t drenched in oil. My hair wasn’t all oily, my skin didn’t feel like it had a layer of oil on it. And that was truly the AHA moment of “food has to be a major player in this game”.
Jennifer: And when I first was really digging around on the Internet, there was not a lot of information out there. There was very minimal. It was, you know, maybe an article that you would find that was in vogue magazine or something. It wasn’t true information from doctors who were explaining how this happened. And so I kept looking because, dairy helped, but dairy didn’t alleviate the entire problem. I just kept digging, right? Because I really wanted a solution and in my journey I started to stumble across and I think it’s the blessing of timing, that the naturopathic doctors were really starting their movement. They wanted to be heard. You guys knew you had a message, you knew the information that you had worked and you were ready to be heard. And so as I, kept looking, you know, constantly, constantly like sending out a search hoping that something new would pop up because I knew the dairy had made a difference. What else could there be? And you know, the conventional system is not really willing to throw sugar under the bus very easily. No one was really saying cut the sugar out of your diet, you know?
Jennifer: And so anyway, I had listened to a youtube video about balancing my hormones cause I knew that, you know, I knew that I wasn’t healthy in general and you know, let’s not even talk about stress yet, I’ll bring stress in later. But up pops the next youtube video and it was about the impact of food on your skin. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, this is what I have been searching for. And so I listened to that youtube video and it was this a really incredible doctor named Dr Trevor Cates. And you explained not only which foods may trigger skin, but you explain how and why they are a trigger. And now to be fair, I’m nerdy. I have a biology degree. I adore the anatomy and physiology. I think it’s fascinating and something spoke to me hearing how food literally impacted my inside. But just, just your tagline ultimately of inflammation on the outside is a sign of inflammation on the inside is empowering. It’s truly empowering in your path or healing. Just having that knowledge. So, that was really what started me on this journey of following you. So closely. And learning, learning is so much that I can be sitting here with you today. And yeah, so, and I mean there’s so much more, you know, I could keep going,
Dr. Cates: I want you to keep going because that was watching that video obviously is something that you’d been looking for and I’m so glad you found that, but then what did you do next?
Jennifer: Right. So I loved knowing where a great starting point was like the top 10 inflammatory foods, right? To this day, corn is inflammatory for me and also for my children. Not so much the little ones, you know, they’re still progressing to the age where they’ll have all the teenage hormonal changes. But just having that knowledge alone … of eat this, not that it’s such a powerful place to be able to start right now. It’s not an easy place to start because most of us have eaten that way for so long that that’s what your body wants. That’s what you crave, that your go to right. I mean I was a chip and salsa eater like nobody’s business, right? Pop open the bag, chips, eat some salsa, you’re eating vegetables. Right? Nut the reality was is I still can’t, I mean, and now that I’ve pretty much eliminated corn based products from my diet, if I sneak a few, you know my kids will be eating chips and salsa and I just want to sneak a few bites, I immediately experience inflammation. My body’s like forget it lady. That’s in your past. But so just having those told of even knowing potato chips, right? Nobody tells you potato chips. Like you think like, Oh, you know, that’s not sugary. That’s not this, that’s not that won’t guess. But not only do you have to give up all your junk food, you’re sweet junk food. You got to give up your chip habit too.
Jennifer: So, but the beautiful part is, is when you follow those guidelines, you see the difference. You are going to see it. And that’s what makes you want to keep going is knowing that you’re on the right path and that you’re going to get the results. And it’s honest, empowering, knowing that you can make the right choice and get the right result or you can make the bad choice and be like, yeah, but I know why. I know why that happened and I can choose differently, you know? So that, that’s huge.
Dr. Cates: Right. And so what were some of the tools that you found to be particularly helpful?
Jennifer: So when I started this you’re right, you didn’t have your book, you didn’t have your skin care line, you didn’t have any of that. So I spent a lot of time listening to you online. You did spend a lot of time talking to people online. And I don’t even remember if it’s all youtube. I don’t even know if you were doing the podcast. You know, I think it was really when you first ventured online, but you were really putting such great information out there and constantly letting us know like, okay, you’re talking let’s pile on skincare products. Right. Let’s pile on putting those toxins in their burdening your body. They’re disrupting your skin micro biome so when the book did come out, so in during this journey, to speak a little bit about the fact that you addressed the holistic aspect of it … After I started following you and making all the changes and experiencing the changes and being very excited about my great skin, we did have some things come into play that kind of amped the game up a little bit. So we decided to start foster parenting and we got a bit of an unusual child. Now, I don’t really know if there’s such a thing as an easy foster child. Everyone kept telling us she’s unusual. She’s unusual. We didn’t know really. We didn’t know anybody who foster parented and we never really met foster kids, so we didn’t know just how unusual she was. But we were about to find out. And, um, it turns out that, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t express herself. We got her at two and a half. She had no ability to talk and she had, I don’t even know what all of her trauma was, but ultimately she would scream for hours. And I don’t mean like cry, kind of like a screaming cry. I mean scream for hours, six to eight hours often at night. And so that stressor of not really knowing how to handle this situation because we were very, very into this and we had four of our own biological children and they needed sleep. My husband needed to get up and go to work.
Jennifer: And so there were times I would sit in the car with her in the garage just so that everyone else in the house could sleep. Needless to say, that set my skin back down into a spiral and I probably had the worst acne of my life. Huge cystic acne. And I can’t even tell you the stress that was in my life. You don’t just not sleep, you don’t listen to screaming for, you know, we put her to bed and sleep for about two hours till about 10 o’clock, and she would scream until about two or three in the morning and then she would finish sleeping. And, so there was that that I needed to learn to address. And then I also contract in lyme’s disease in the summer and I took the antibiotics because obviously when my acne returned, I didn’t truly believe that I knew how to heal myself actually. So I took two months of antibiotics and what that did was trigger Eczema and Eczema showed up as a big old red ringing of flaky, inflamed skin that literally went from nostrils to nostril. And, when I’m talking about your double whammy and, um, you know, again, the blessing of timing, that was when you released your book. So, by reading the book, because obviously I wasn’t able to spend as much time learning about how to care for my skin and doing the same research because our life had changed, you know, kind of drastically. And so having the book with the recipes and the holistic approach to healing myself and realizing stress isn’t just something that you feel, stress is something that literally impacts how you digest. Sleep. Your body can’t heal without sleep. So it doesn’t matter how good you’re eating if you’re not addressing all of you in detoxifying yourself. And then all the amazing recipes at the end of the book. Right? I didn’t have to because again, this wasn’t, you know, there’s this huge movement now. It’s really easy to go online and find really healthy recipes. And this was kind of before that. This was really kind of before the movement. And so just having the ability to have recipes and understanding which foods we’re going to work and which ones were not such a good idea was huge. And is ultimately what again led me to be able to heal my skin and really get it to a place where I felt like I was in control again and I felt like, you know, I could really help myself.
Jennifer: And during this time, your skincare system also came out. So that was, that was a major player, right? Because, I’m a mom and we had four kids, five at that time. And so I was totally doing the natural skincare solutions at the end of the book. And I still do them. I think they’re fabulous. I think that, anytime you can do something natural like that and create something, for your skin is great. But, being able to put on a skincare system that really helped to heal, you know, it wasn’t THE solution. I couldn’t just use the skincare system and be like, oh, look, voila, no more acne or Eczema. I wish, but what I was able to experience, was a cleanser that wasn’t stripping my skin. It was, instead, allowing my microbiome to begin to heal and my skin, you know, get to the proper ph just like you teach. And, really step two and step four, step four is my favorite step of all. Because for me personally, I developed hyperpigmentation after a zit. So I would have the zit and then it would go away. But I would have this red spot that would linger and I kind of felt like maybe that was just the rest of my life. Step four, it turns out not only can it help heal up broken skin amazingly fast, like if you’re home and you don’t have a makeup and you can just apply it throughout the day, it’s almost shocking how fast your skin would heal, but it also diminished so much of the hyperpigmentation, that I thought I would live with. And, you know, learning to eat the healthy foods like avocados and the healthy fats, you know, the fine lines that I had developed, I had actually kind of deep grooves here and you know, all the little wrinkles, crow’s feet, if you want to call it that on the side of my eyes and grooves and my forehead. You know, I actually experienced reverse aging and I will tell you, I did not think that was a real thing. I mean, I honestly thought, oh, there are chemicals in those products. I don’t know what they’re doing to that woman, but you can’t reverse aging. Well it turns out with the right nutrition and skincare you can, and I’m going to be 40 next month and I’m really looking forward to my forties because my skin looks younger than it did in my thirties and healthier than it did. And that’s, that’s huge.
Dr. Cates: Yeah, that is, that is fantastic. I mean, I feel the same way sometimes. I look at pictures of myself, my early thirties, and I think, well, it’s amazing how your skin can improve over time and with the right, with the, with the right nourishment. And I know you mentioned step four, which is an oil blend or the glow boost. And I think a lot times people think, when they have oily skin, you know, like you tended to have … that the last thing you’d want to do is put more oil on your skin.
Jennifer: That’s definitely where I started. But, when you see, when you give it time and you see how your skin heals, you almost have to experience it for yourself. How the nourishment, the true nourishment, not just a chemical fix, but how smooth and healthy your skin can feel. Look, I never thought that I would love my skin. I thought maybe I’d at least have clear skin and I’d be able to use the right skin care products to cover it up. Never thought I would live without foundation and goodness knows you can never find the right foundation, right? Everyone knows if you wear foundation, for me anyway, I never found the right color. But now I just use the tinted sunscreen and you know, I do have, I still have dark circles.
Dr. Cates: So part of that might be a lack of sleep because you’ve got six kids. So let’s go back to the six kids. Cause you said that, you know, you kind of brushed over that, which it’s, I have three kids and I feel like it’s a lot. Having six plus the challenges that you’ve had with, you know, fostering children and you know, that that’s a whole other set of issues. So how have you managed to, to take time to take care of yourself and to be able to do that with all, you know, all that you have going on with the six kids? Because I think, you know, a lot of times women feel like we’re taking care of others. We’re caregivers, right? And we don’t have time to, to, to take care of ourselves. So, so how have you managed to do that?
Jennifer: Well, you know, it’s true and people like to use the line. If it’s important to you, then you’ll make it happen. And while that’s true, I want to say there should be an addendum of, yeah, but you’re sacrificing something. You’re still giving something up in order to make that time. And, you know, the word balance is so overused, but it literally does come down to balance, right? Because the ages of my kids, when I started this journey, I had four and then five, and now we have six. And right now the age range is from two to practically sixteen. You know, two days after I turned 40, my oldest, she’ll be 16. That’s going to be a crazy month. So I’m still in nearly every area. I don’t have adult children. I haven’t experienced that yet, but I’m still experiencing the toddler years and then the teenage years. So I would say that, you know, aside from the chaos, we had a little bit with our first foster daughter who we adopted and she’s with us today. There was a lull, but you really, I think it’s important not to stress out, you know, it would be easy to say, Oh, you have to exercise, you know, get in there. And it’s really easy to tell people that you have to exercise every single day. But you know, if you can’t exercise every single day, do it. You know, sweating unleashes, there’s toxins. And you know, for me personally, I had to do a lot of healing of my liver. Now, there were years of learning this, right? I didn’t figure this all out right away. It’s taken me years to figure out what my body needs to stay healthy and what works for it you know. And you know, a detox bath sounds great, but if you don’t have time to do a detox bath, actually have a basin that. It’s, you know, just kind of a little bit bigger than something you keep in your kitchen sink that I keep in my shower. And so whenever I take a shower, I put Epsom salts in the basin. And so while I shower, my feet soak and you know, I absorbed some magnesium and I released some toxins and you know, the food thing, it’s really just an adjustment. You know, we are very, and to this day it’s an adjustment, right? Because we’re still so used to just opening up a bag of something. You just open a bag and you eat. And the difference is you can’t just tear open a bag and eat anymore. You have to be deliberate in your food choices. I wish, I mean there are always the options of okay, you can purchase your bone broth or you can, you can always purchase the pre chopped veggies. I don’t know about organic veggies. I don’t know how many pre-chopped organic veggies there are. But um, you just have to almost decide and you have to find ways to eat that taste good. Right? Because when I started this I was, I hated vegetables, hated them and I only ate them because I knew I had to, to get clear skin. And so there was, there was a journey learning how to prepare food is the way that I liked them and I was actually preparing two meals, one for my family and that was totally normal food that we typically and then me and all my vegetables. And one day I was like, enough is enough. Y’all are going to eat the same meal I’m eating. And I’m actually fine if you eat it or starve, that was pretty much the motto of but you know, you, when you know what your family likes, like for us it’s garlic. We love garlic. I mean, I put garlic in a pan of something and my kids come wandering out like, Ooh, what are we gonna do for dinner? Garlic is like, you know, of all the things. But so there’s that and I think that you’ll find your rhythm almost of what’s going to work for you and your family and you’re gonna, you’re gonna kind of get to a place where you’re like, what really matters to me because, that’s how you’ll ultimately spend your time. And there is that transition time of, you know, and the expense if you’ve always purchased food conventionally, it seems crazy expensive to start purchasing the more natural and organic things. But once you start transitioning to those things, and I think you have to transition your tastes, you find it costs about the same because instead of buying of the stuff you were buying, you’re now buying these new foods and healthier foods. And you know, little mini at home facials. It’s really my key because my pores like to enlarge super fast. But in 30 minutes now, sometimes it takes an hour and a half for me from start to finish cause l have to heat the water back up because once again, I got distracted. But you know, the DIY skincare and you know, boil some water and steam it, have essential oils, throw some of them in like lavender, you know, just knowing your video about the tea tree oil, you can feel a little bit of inflammation, put a little bit of tea tree oil on, that kind of things. But I do, I think that you will go through a transition phase, but ultimately it comes down to how bad do you want it. And um, and then it just becomes a natural part of your routine just like anything else, you know.
Dr. Cates: So it sounds like he kind of just have to do it and, and just make that choice. Just make the choice and do it. That’s what, that’s what you’ve done. And also realize it doesn’t have to be perfect, right? You do what you’re doing, the foot bath instead of the full bath. And maybe it takes you a little bit longer to get that DIY skin care facial and those specific things or to cook the meal. But, even with six kids at a husband, everybody’s got different tastes and likes you found time to do that. So I think that’s amazing. And also to do it on a budget because, I think what you’re saying is too is you figured out a way to make it work and not spending more money. It’s just being smarter about how you do it and just deciding it’s, it’s worth it too. And, so any, anything else you want to add to that, anything to think about for other people that are trying to make that change? Anything that you want to share with them before we end?
Jennifer: I would say believe that it’s possible. Ultimately, if you believe that it’s possible, then I think then you’re willing, you know, there’s no magic pill. We’re kind of used to conventional medicine has taught us here, here, here’s your bottle of something and go home and we’ll make the symptoms go away. But I think if, if you believe that you can, and you believe that it’s possible, I think it makes you more willing to put the time and the work in and believe it’s possible for your family. You know, I never in a million years thought I’d ever have a kid whose favorite food was Brussels sprouts. You know, kids surprise you. You know, I have one that I’m like, could you stop eating all the Brussels sprouts so I can actually put some on the table? And I mean, the reality is I’m literally cooking pounds of vegetables, right? So when I cook it, I don’t just open a bag of Brussel sprouts I bought, I open two Sam’s club size bags of Brussel sprouts. Actually, that’s still not enough. So yeah. So give yourself and give yourself time to transition and don’t expect yourself to love all the changes and don’t expect that you won’t fail sometimes. And it’s not really failing. It’s just kind of falling back on what you’re used to. And that’s okay because ultimately the goal is so much more, it really does become so much more than just clear skin. It really becomes the energy, the ability to manage your stress better. The ability to teach others about, you know, the impact of nutrition, meaning, you know, like your family and that kind of stuff. So, so yeah, I think a lot of it when you go places and there’s foods there and people are saying, just eat it, you know, if you can, take something to eat, if not, I always try to like, maybe make myself some sort of like smoothie or something, something super quick. Cause you’re usually rushing out the door to get somewhere. So then I’m not super hungry so that maybe you can kind of taste what your host is serving, but you’re not like, well, now that I’ve tasted it, I’m hungry and I’m going to get a lot of this. Instead you’re like, you know what, I’m kind of satiated. I’m okay with knowing that I’m going to eat a little bit of this. But that ultimately I’m not going to undo a lot of hard work and pay for this.
Dr. Cates: Sounds like you did my clean skin from within two week program, so thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing your story. It’s such an inspiration. Thank you again for all your hard work and all that you’re doing now to help other people too. You’ve got a blog up and it was great to see that you’re educating other other moms too. So thank you for coming on.
Jennifer: Thanks for knowing that you had information that would benefit others and putting yourself out there. I appreciate it.
Dr. Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today, with Jennifer Garn, it was really more of a journey, a story, and being able to follow her through that and learning some things along the way. I’d also love to hear your story too. Please share those with us. You can do that on social media. Facebook and Instagram are some of the best places to share your story. You can also share in the comments sections below the video on youtube and on the website, TheSpaDr.com below the podcast interview. So look forward to hearing your stories, your journeys, and I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.
Reader Interactions
I just want to say, Dr. Cates, that this was a really cool offbeat interview. Thank you for this one and for all of your interviews. I haven’t yet learned anywhere near as much as Jenne obviously has, but I’m working on it and your website helps a lot. I have become very much enamored with the Functional Medicine approach that you personify with your catch phrase of “Clean Skin from Within.” It’s so sad that so many of us spend so much time and often a lot of money suffering from the failures of “conventional” medical care, which isn’t really true health care, before stumbling onto the online community that we lucky few learn to participate in, and that you so ably help to lead.
Wow. I have really struggled with acne my whole life and am currently looking for ways to transition my skin.
This video was so informative for me thank you so much for your witness!