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Foreign. Hello and welcome back to the Treatment Room Podcast. I'm your host, Tessa Zali, licensed esthetician, acne specialist certified through Douglas Preston Method and Face Reality, as well as a certified NESM health and nutrition coach. Guys, I'm so, so excited to be back recording. I have missed you. I took a long hiatus after the holidays, but we are back and I am so fired up about today's episode because this changed the way I view health, wellness, fitness, skin goals. It's changed the way I coach. And I will tell you, I used to feel really confused when I would watch other people's wellness content because it would feel like I've seen so many videos that conflict or somebody's eating one way but it conflicts with another person's. I know I felt this way when I was going through health struggles with my autoimmune condition. I also wanted to get really fit at the same time. So I was, and I still am, obsessed with bodybuilding content. I love watching these videos, the hauls, the what I eat in the days. But little Tess was so confused because she had just been given a anti inflammatory low fodmap protocol for her autoimmune health. But meanwhile, I'm watching all of these videos of bodybuilders who are consuming white rice, eggs, dairy, all of these things. And I'm wondering why does my protocol for my naturopath look so different if I'm trying to be healthy and they're trying to be healthy. And what it really comes down to is having a much more specific goal beyond just quote unquote, being healthy. So today I want to talk about something that I think completely will change the way you think of acne healing. And I hope this really flips a switch for you and allows you to believe that it can be a lot simpler than whatever you have been doing in the past. It all comes down to something called phasing your goals or just having a primary goal. Let's think of it really simple, simply so. One of the biggest mistakes that I see my clients make when they have finally come to me and invested in my virtual acne coaching services, they are exhausted. They feel like they have been trying to fix their skin for decades on end. I see women in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are who for the most part have been struggling with their skin since middle school or high school. It kills me to think about the missed opportunities because people didn't have the full confidence in themselves that they could have had the potential they could have had at work when they weren't so fixated on their skin, how much more they could have opened up in a relationship because they weren't always isolating or trying to hide from their partner, the, the occasions, the photos they have missed. Not to mention the physical damage that acne does to our skin in terms of damaging collagen and elastin and creating scars that can be lifelong. I truly believe that every single person can get clear skin or their best possible clear skin. And there is a reason why your skin hasn't cleared before. For one, of course, you didn't have the proper education or guidance. But another huge part of it is that I believe most people are trying to pursue too many goals at the same time, or they have no clear goal and no clear plan or structure for how they're going to achieve their goal of clear skin. So it's really just more of a. A wish. But These days, in 2026, our content has become so wellness focused. We are so focused on looks, maxing and optimizing and biohacking, and we have more of a focus than ever on our physical appearance, but also internal wellness. So. So with that comes people who have five to 10 different goals. Maybe you want to build muscle, but you also want to lose body fat. But you're also competing in a hyrox race and a marathon later in the month. But you want to optimize your hormones, you want to heal your gut, and you want to clear your skin. And I'm so sorry to tell you, we can't have all of these things at the same time. But the good news is we can achieve them. It just comes down to really phasing our goals around one primary goal. So to rephrase, you can have it all, you just can't have it all at the same time. The problem is the body doesn't work well under competing priorities. And every single goal that I just listed has a unique protocol. And sure, these are all in the bucket of wellness. There may be a couple things that overlap, but when it comes down to it, the optimal protocol for each goal is going to be different. And so it deserves its own, own phase where you are laser focused on that one goal, one goal at a time. And the beauty of this is it becomes so much less confusing. It's so much more manageable when you don't feel like you have to accomplish all of these 10 things and become this superhuman all in one period of time. Because the sad reality is when you try to do all of those things at one time, usually you end up with none of them, when everything is the goal, nothing is the goal, Nothing gets prioritized. Phasing your goals is truly where it is at. So let's talk about the concept of a primary goal. A primary goal is the one health outcome that you organize your lifestyle around for a second season. It doesn't mean that the other things don't matter at all, but it does mean for a distinct period of time, maybe it's six months, like in my acne care program, or maybe it's for a year, you are going to focus on that one thing. And when it comes down to making decisions, you are going to make decisions that align with your primary goal. And this means you might be uncomfortable at times. It does mean there may be some sacrifice. And I think this is where people can struggle. I think there is definitely a moment for the client sometimes after we've had their initial consultation that they realize I know what I'm doing and they realize their dreams are actually very possible and they're within their grasp. But there's this light bulb moment of, oh, I am not going to be able to continue living the way I have been living. And if that way you were living was just making decisions based around what's the most convenient, this will be a departure from that. And I think sometimes that can take a little bit of reckoning. But if you've heard that quote, the scariest place to be is where you were last year. That motivates me. When I am focused on something and it is not easy, I remind myself it's not supposed to be easy, but I am getting out of my comfort zone because I want to be better than I was last year. So when we have a primary goal, it means that our daily choices need to align with the result that we are actually trying to achieve. And of course we're not going to be perfect every single day, every single hour, but for the most part, we should be making choices that align with the goal. And. And for the most part, when you look at your overall day or your overall week, your choices should be aligned with the number one primary goal. If your primary goal was fat loss, you would need to focus on a calorie deficit. It's scientifically the only proven way to lose weight. But if your primary goal is clearing your skin, the strategy looks very different. Clear skin requires the body to feel safe, nourished and regulated. So that means we need to prioritize adequate nutrition, probably eating at at least maintenance calories, so that your hormones are optimized and your body Feels safe. We also want to focus on stable blood sugar, which is a big focus of my program. Making sure we are reducing that glycemic load, focused on lower glycemic carbohydrate and then a high protein diet and a more moderate healthy fat intake. We need to focus on reducing inflammation. This includes making sure we're getting enough sleep and managing our stress. We want to support digestion. We want to focus on recovery, not over exercising and doing a HIIT workout every single day of the week on top of intermittent fasting. Sometimes we might even need to temporarily remove certain foods that aggravate acne. So a weight loss protocol is going to look very different from a acne clearing protocol. Although of course I've had clients tell me, hey, I've actually lost some weight in your program is not the primary goal of the program. Now I want to do a separate episode diving deeper into acne triggering foods. I've done that episode before in the past, but I'd love to do a refreshed episode. But very briefly, there are certain foods that can commonly aggravate acne prone individuals. Some of the most common ones that I see are dairy, eggs and egg whites, gluten, oats, white rice and high glycemic foods. Soy products like soy sauce, seaweed and peanuts. It doesn't mean that these foods are inherently bad. In fact, these are a lot of the same foods that I would see bodybuilders using in their videos. But again, a weight loss and muscle building diet is different from a diet that focuses on acne clearing. So when somebody's primary goal is clearing their skin, reducing foods that may increase inflammation, insulin signaling or digestive distress can make such a noticeable difference. And oftentimes I get asked, how do you get the results that you get without offering your clients in person treatments? And for me, the answer is that I am managing their lifestyle rather than needing to unclog their pores and treat their skin in person. I am more so focused on the internal factors that would trigger that oil and inflammation in the first place. So they're just different approaches. I don't think one is right or wrong. I have so many amazing, amazing esthetician friends who deliver incredible results through in person treatments. But I think we just want to recognize like there's different demographics and there's different growing client needs. One client might love and look forward to her monthly facial, another might not enjoy getting treatments. Maybe they have a very busy lifestyle and they want to focus on what they can do at home in terms of their skin care, their nutrition and their lifestyle to keep their skin clear long term. Where I notice 100% of my clients get stuck is that they were trying to clear their skin while still operating under habits that conflict with healing their skin. And maybe, you know, they were habits that they knew wouldn't be great for their skin, like loading up on ice cream at night or picking their skin, but they just go about doing it anyway and it kind of just becomes part of the lifestyle. This is where as the professional, we are here to educate our clients and I'm here to help hold my clients accountable. We do FaceTime calls, we do bi weekly check ins, we do nutrition recalls. And this is so I can actually monitor my client's skin through this journey and I can see the data of what they've been eating. I can talk to them about how their routine is going. I ask them, are you doing xyz? What are the things we're not doing or could be doing better? And this way they have somebody in their corner who is helping them to ensure they stay focused on their primary goal, which they told me in the initial consultation was wanting to clear their skin.