Better watch out for the skin deeps

The Stranglers

The Skin Deep Project

I was reading a book Beautiful Skin Begins Within by Dr. Martin Braun about how to keep skin beautiful and elastic before, during and after menopause.

While Dr. Martin Braun wrote the book, it is sponsored by Lorna Vanderhaeghe, who just happens to have a full line of vitamin supplements that will help with what the doctor suggests.

According to the plan, there are a number of things you need to do, besides adjusting your diet and exercise levels.  One is adding a number of supplements to your diet which are supposed to help your skin turn back time and appear dewy fresh and plump.

Conveniently, the doctor is able to recommend exactly which products of his sponsor’s line will be required. So, I thought I’d give it a try.  I had some of the supplements but had to purchase others.  These supplements are cheap, the 4 items I purchased added up to $200, on sale.

Here’s the plan:

• A multi vitamin
• Collagen plus – 10 drops in liquid
• Active Collagen – horse size pills, 4 a day.  Apparnetly activated collagen reduces deep wrinkles in 28 days.
• GLA Skin Oil – 1 tbsp first 10 days and then 2 tsp after that for 30 days
• Cala-Q Plus with Coenxyme Q10 – 2 per day

In addition I took:

• 5 HTP for sleep – one capsule
• Vitamin D – 3000 UI
• Estrosmart – 2 capsules

I didn’t take Pine Bark

The “How To”

According to the plan, the collagen portion needs to be taken for 28 days but I did 30 just for good measure.  The good doctor also suggested that if I take 2 tablespoons of GLA for 10 days, people will wonder “what I’ve done” because there will be a noticeable difference.

Well, 10 days in, no one remarked on “what have I done”.  Mind you the preceding 2 weeks had included husband dropping the divorce bombshell on me and a number of nights of little or no sleep.  So, any benefits of the oil might have been lost.  None the less, I still had 18 more days of collagen to try out.

The good doctor made a number of dietary suggestions so avocado, pomegranate and more vegetables and fruit were added to my diet.  I added more protein to my diet because it’s supposed to help with the saggy arms.

I upped my exercise in order to tighten up a few areas and drop a few pounds.  Plus I made sure I went to bed at reasonable hours in order to get at least 8 hours sleep.  I also switched my face cream to a cream with retinol A and Hydralauronic acid, both of which are supposed to be miracle workers.

The Results

I started the regime on Aug 29th.  Junior was on hand to take some before pictures.

 

 

So here it is September 30th and the big question is:  Did it work?

 

I don’t think so.  Even thought the lighting is a bit different, it appears that there are the same number of wrinkles as 30 days ago.

Can you see a difference?  I can’t.   On the up side, my nails look pretty good from all that collagen.