Missy LaBate, MS, CHES, FMCHC, LE

Hi! I'm Missy. I'm a Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach, Certified Health Education Specialist and trained skin care specialist. My soulful skin coaching packages focus on empowering you to find a holistic and mindful method of developing a skin care and whole-body wellness routine to help your soul glow!

When I turned 22, my skin started to break out. Purple, painful, bumps all over my face. After multiple visits to doctors, dermatologists and skin care specialists, I finally had to go on medication, it helped, but it was difficult. Even after medication and numerous treatments, it didn’t stay away. Over the years, I continued to hide my skin the best I could. I’d constantly avoid eye contact and conversations because all I could focus on was if who I was talking to could see these horrible things on my face. For me, acne turned into an isolating existence. In 2005, I enrolled in an esthetic science program and received my esthetician license. During this time and beyond, I think I had tried just about everything to help my skin. In 2017, I vowed no more severe treatments. I continued to get facials, but they were very mild. I cleaned my make-up brushes, changed my pillowcases daily, put my hair up at night, slept on my back like a mummy, drank a boatload of water, took apple cider vinegar, you name it; still it was there. Over and over again, when I looked in the mirror there were cysts or pimples and even worse dark spots providing even more proof that I just couldn’t solve this. Every day, I would say “I’d love to have just one day where I could see me and not these cysts and spots and bumps.” So, I started to look within. As a functional medicine health coach, I learned the huge connection between what you eat and how it effects your health and how your gut health effects just about everything in your body. As a health educator, I always ate well and exercised and did my best to teach others to do the same and as an esthetician I certainly knew how to take care of my skin. As I learned more and more, assessed the knowledge that I already had, tapped into my intuition and started really listening, I realized that my skin issues were being caused by four things: diet, stress, emotions, and skin care.
• I changed my diet to be more anti-inflammatory by limiting sugar and alcohol and increasing healthy fats. I also started tracking my breakouts and began to examine my exercise routine. I realized that the long and intense workouts I was doing were not only hurting my joints but, they were also keeping me in sort of a fight or flight state and all of the stress hormones involved with that seemed to be contributing to my skin issues.
• Next, I addressed my stress level. At the time, I was unhappy, lonely, sad and frustrated. I felt like a failure daily. I could not seem to find what I wanted; the more I tried, the more I attracted things I NEVER wanted in my life.
• I had to get real with my emotions. I had a lot of anger, a lot…mostly at myself. Anger=acne, especially when that anger and negative talk is directed within because I had made what I thought were terrible mistakes in my life. I was also angry and resentful at many people in my life. I realized that this meant that it was time to work on forgiveness and letting go, not to mention examining what within myself was bothering me that these people were representing.
• Lastly, I took account of my skin care. I knew that I was using way too many products and getting way too many treatments with too many toxic ingredients because of my desperation to clear up my skin fast which only made everything worse.

Once I started putting all of these pieces together, things started to change. My mindset shifted and my skin started to clear Oddly enough, the acne became my awakening.

My personal struggle with cystic acne and body image inspired me to become a wellness professional. I now specialize in whole-body skin care. My nutrition degree helps me understand the science of food and supplements and how they work or don’t work in our bodies. My health education degree affords me the opportunity to teach others. My esthetics license helps me understand the true function of the skin and exposed me to a multitude of treatments and skin care products, and my Functional Medicine Coaching certification allows me to help co-create and empower others to listen to their body, tap into their intuition to uncover what they really need to heal and what they really want to manifest in their lives.

Many clients tell me how easy I am to talk to. They like the follow-up emails I send to them after a session and are more motivated by having someone on their side.

Functional Medicine Health Coaching is an excellent way to help empower and co-create a personalized health and wellness plan based on your unique goals. In partnership with your physician, we focus on the areas of diet, sleep, stress and self-care to help you uncover the root cause of health and skin issues.