Aruidimma 4

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Zemaye’s Take: For those of you who told me that salicylic acid doesn’t do anything for your breakouts, here are two new things to try: sulphur and charcoal.

Charcoal absorbs excess oil. Masks and scrubs that contain charcoal are good for oily skin that easily gets pimples.

If you can’t find a mask or scrub with charcoal, then make one.

Please where are all those people who studied biochemistry and chemistry and nutrition in university? Why are they not making things? Charcoal is easy to get. Charcoal works as a skin treatment. They should make products with charcoal abeg.

Also buy sulphur ointment from the pharmacy. Wash your face gently. Don’t over-wash or over-do anything because you will just annoy your skin and make it produce more pimples. Use charcoal mask. Wash off after thirty minutes. Rub a bit of sulphur ointment on the pimple. Be patient. A pimple treatment needs at least two days to work.

Aruidimma 3

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Zemaye’s Take: Pimples

My face has never been smooth. Pimples have been my friends since forever. But it is a relationship I am slowly ending. Here is what has worked for me with pimples:

1. Food matters. What you put in your mouth affects your skin. Remember that the whole body is interconnected. You cannot treat your facial skin as if it is different from the rest of your body. The skin is the body’s largest organ. Bad greasy food will show up on your skin as bad greasy pimples. If you eat fresh vegetables and nuts and fruits, your skin will be different. I was complaining about my face once and Ifemelu said I should stop eating too much ‘refined’ food. At first I said abeg abeg Ifem carry this your Americanah and go. But one day I woke up and my face was like a farm, bumps and ridges everywhere. So I asked what she meant. She said, “refined or processed food is food that God did not make as it is. Food that has been processed in a factory or bakery or whatever. Like bread. Tinned tomatoes. Chocolate. Cake. Spaghetti.”

In short, everything I like eating.

Anyway I stopped eating most of them. And I swear my face looked better in two weeks! (Stay tuned for what I actually ate)

2. How you handle your skin matters.
Wash your face gently. Do not overwash. If you scrub too hard you will annoy the skin and cause it to produce more oil. If you scrub too hard you might just get more pimples. So clean gently with water and a simple cleanser (I’m putting together a post on product recommemdations). Use a toner with 1-2 percent salicylic acid. Give your skin a minute for the toner to absorb. Then use a benzoyl peroxide cream and apply directly on each pimple.

3. Another thing you can try for a big angry pimple is hydrocortisone cream, 1 or 2 percent. It sometimes helps reduce a pimple. It works for me on some days and not on other days.

4. Always use moisturizer. Also known as cream. Also known as ude. If your skin is oily, it does not mean your skin does not need cream. It means your skin is overproducing oil. And sometimes not moisturizing your skin (aka not rubbing cream on your face) will make it produce even more oil.

The important thing is to find the right cream. Look for creams that say ‘oil-free’ or ‘gel’ or ‘for oily skin’ or ‘balancing.’ There are even some oils that can help oily skin. Seriously. But that is a subject for another day.

Aruidimma 2

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Ranyinudo did well with drinking only water for the first five days. Then on Saturday, she went to a wedding and drank two glasses of juice.

“But it was just juice now, at least it is good for me,” she said.

Actually juice is not so good for the aruidimma challenge. Bottled juice is water and sugar. Aruidimma is focused on, among other things, reducing sugar. Sugar causes all kinds of problems – diabetes is only one of them. So, for next week, Ranyi will follow this rule: forget the juice and eat the fruit.

Let’s use orange as an example. God is wonderful – you see, where God put sugar in food, God also put fibre, which means that when you eat a fruit, you get sugar AND fibre, and your body handles sugar better when it comes with fibre. Even the juices that say ‘no sugar added’ have a lot of sugar in them.

Instead of buying orange juice. Buy oranges.

Peel an orange with a knife leaving the whitish skin on. Cut open. Suck orange. When liquid is exhausted, turn inside out and eat the fibrous bits. Repeat once a day. Or peel an orange with your hands until all the skin is off and you are left with a soft, vulnerable fruit. Divide into four parts. Eat all four.

PS: oranges are cheaper than orange juice. N200 oranges will last you a week. N200 might not buy your orange juice carton of choice.

Aruidimma 1

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Ranyinudo recently paid almost 50K for what she called a ‘slimming treatment’ at a spa. A complete waste of money. No ‘treatment’ will make you slim. Remember your secondary school biology. Only two things matter in weight loss: food and exercise.

So we are putting Ranyinudo on a one-month aruidimma challenge. It is more than just about losing weight. It is about aru idi mma, the wellbeing of your body.

If you are in your best health, the quality of your life increases. You will have more energy. You will get sick less frequently.

Ranyinudo hardly drinks water. She even claims water gives her diarrhea.
She drinks only Coke and Malt. Her first step to aruidimma is to change what she drinks.

We know that what we eat makes us gain weight but we often forget that what we drink also makes us gain weight.

She will not change what she eats. But she will drink only water for one week. Only water.

It won’t be easy for someone not used to drinking water.

Two bottles of water N200
A pack of pure water N100

When the bottled water is finished, refill the bottles with pure water. If you have light, keep the bottles in the freezer overnight. Take the bottle to work. If there is an office fridge, keep it there. If not, wrap it in a polythene bag and keep it in your handbag. If you think all this is too much stress, imagine yourself wearing that dress that is now too tight.

If you need ‘taste,’ try a lemon, a lime or an orange. Cut up a few small slices and put inside your water. Don’t expect water to taste like Coke. It is not Coke. It is water. And it is better for you.