I Quit Dairy and My Acne Disappeared

Cutting Out Dairy for Acne 

I’ve dealt with bad acne all my life. I remember the doctors telling me that once I am out of my teens, the acne will go away. Well, my teenage years are long behind me, and the acne was still here. So what’s the deal? I wash my face regularly with the best acne face wash, but the acne never seemed to go away. 

After doing some research, I found a few studies that linked dairy as the cause of acne and eczema for some people. I also found some testimonials of people who claimed that removing dairy from their diet made their acne and eczema go away. 

As someone who has terrible acne and eczema, I was sold. I decided to go dairy-free for 30 days to see how my body would react. It was time to see if this dairy-free diet was a myth or a miracle for acne removal. 

 

What to Avoid on a Dairy-Free Diet

Here is a list of the obvious foods you need to avoid on a non-dairy diet.  

• Milk
• Cheese
• Butter
• Yogurt
• Ice Cream
• Sour Cream

Now the list doesn’t stop there. I decided to go hardcore on this non-dairy diet, so I removed any trace of dairy, not just the obvious foods. I checked the ingredient labels on every single food I ate.

Doing this, I discovered there are lots of foods that don’t seem to have dairy in them but do. While there a few non-dairy versions of the following foods, some of them did contain dairy. 

• Coffee Creamer
• Flavored Chips
• Cookies
• Protein Bars
• Protein Powders 
• Doughnuts
• Bread
• Cake
• Crackers 
• Nuts
• Tomato Sauce
• Gum
• Hot Dogs
• Deli Meats
• Chicken Nuggets

Crazy right? This was a real eye-opener for me. Dairy is in almost everything we eat. This non-dairy diet was going to be harder than I thought.

 

Is a Non-Dairy Diet Easy?

There were two battles I needed to beat, the physical battle and the mental battle of avoiding dairy.

The mental battle was easy for me. Anytime I had an urge to eat dairy, I just thought to myself, “If I eat it now, I’ll get some small enjoyment, but I’ll wear it on my face for a week as a badge of shame later.” That mindset helped me beat the mental battle of my dairy cravings. 

The physical battle was much harder. Two weeks into the dairy-free diet, I noticed food was beginning to taste bland to me. I found myself eating less because I stopped enjoying food as much as I used to.

I was missing cheese the most. I always added a little cheese to my meals. Being European, I also used to add sour cream to most of my meals as well. I had to get accustomed to these new tastes.

Another thing that happens when you go non-dairy is that people around you will notice. I wanted to keep my non-dairy diet discreet, but that was hard to do when most social foods contain dairy. 

The first day I went dairy-free, I had to turn down Jeff’s donuts at work, Becky’s homemade cookies, and Samantha’s birthday cake. Everyone caught on and teased me about my new dairy-free diet. The social aspect was a challenge. 

Benefits of Quitting Dairy

Three weeks into the non-dairy diet was when I started to notice the health benefits. 

Some of the benefits I noticed were.

• My acne and eczema went away
• I lost weight
• I had more energy

 

Dairy-Free Acne Results

My acne went away! It was quite unbelievable. I’ve dealt with bad acne and eczema for years, and to have it suddenly disappear was a miracle.

Now to be completely honest, I still had a few small pimples appear here and there. But they were barely noticeable and went away quickly without leaving any marks. Nothing as big or bad is it used to be. My eczema, however, was completely gone.

 

Dairy-Free Weight Loss

Cutting out dairy from my diet made me lose a lot of weight right away. I noticed this was because I was getting a lot of my calories from dairy foods.

I was no longer having coffee creamer in the morning, a cheese omelet for lunch, and a whey protein shake after my workout. I stopped eating flavored chips as a snack and ice cream as a dessert in the evening. I also had to give up the occasional pizza. 

I never realized how much of my diet had dairy in it until I started to look for it. I tried to replace the dairy foods where I could and where I couldn’t. I just stopped eating. This meant I stopped snacking, having desserts, and attacking the junk food table at parties. Fewer calories in my diet meant I started to lose weight.

I found myself unintentionally doing the Keto diet. Keto is when you lower your carb intake. 

I don’t eat bread, pasta, or drink soda. So dairy was my primary source of carbs. One of the side effects of the Keto diet is being thirsty all the time, which I was. I then confirmed that I was in Ketosis by using a Keto Test Strip.

I fixed this quickly by adding healthy carbs into my diet to replace the lost calories and carbs I used to get from dairy.

 

Dairy-Free and More Energy

Because I no longer had unhealthy carbs in my meals, I stopped having food comas. That is when you feel tired after eating a meal. Instead, I always felt light and energized.

I had to replace the missing calories from dairy, so I found myself eating a lot more healthy greens. This was another reason why I felt like I had more energy.

 

Quitting Dairy Changed my Life

What started as an experiment, seeing if quitting dairy would cure my acne, turned into a lifestyle for me. I’ve learned to love the non-dairy alternative foods I found. I even started to enjoy the taste of a black cup of coffee in the morning.

The urge to eat junk food no longer temps me now. I know not having junk food means I get to have clear skin and feel great, which is a lot more important to me. 

Since my 30-day dairy detox, I’ve eased up on the non-dairy diet. I still avoid foods with dairy as their main ingredient. But I’ve started to have foods with dairy additives in them in moderation. This way, I can still enjoy chicken nuggets and not drive my friends crazy by being a picky eater.  

If I ever feel like my acne is starting to break out again, I’ll just reduce my consumption of dairy. Please keep in mind this is how my body reacted when I quit dairy. Everybody’s body is different, so your results may vary.