Look Younger Without Plastic Surgery, with America' Holistic Plastic Surgeon Dr. Tony Youn

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OB, GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi, ladies. So I'm so, so excited for today's episode because I am talking to a really awesome plastic surgeon, Dr. Tony Yoon. If you haven't heard of him, I'm shocked. Like, you need to check him out. He has over a million subscribers on YouTube. He is blown it up on TikTok because he is just hilarious and the way he looks at everything is just, you know, eye opening. I love it so much. So we're gonna be talking about our skin and our faces today. Because he is America's holistic plastic surgeon. He believes that you don't always need to go to the operating room. There are oftentimes things you can do to avoid going to the or. And we're gonna talk about that because I just, I feel the same way he does. Like I'm a surgeon, but I don't necessarily want to do surgery unless it's required or necessary. And so I just really appreciate that he has taken on this movement and he believes in the fact that not everybody needs surgery. You know, even though he's a plastic surgeon, there are other options. And so we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about his skin. Caroline Yoon, Beauty and it's just good to hear a different perspective. So you're really going to enjoy this. And you need to check him out on social media. He's hilarious. Like, he makes me laugh and smile every day and it just brightens my day because we're all too stressed, right? So you gotta follow Tony because it will make you feel better. So let me just say that he's known as America's holistic place plastic surgeon. Tony Yoon is a naturally recognized board certified plastic surgeon. He's recognized as a leader in his field. He's the author of the best selling books the Age Fix. A Leading Plastic Surgeon Reveals how to really look 10 years younger. Also in Stitches, a Memoir and Playing God, the Evolution of a Modern Surgeon. That book was awesome. I couldn't put it down. And a Lot of it I connected with because he had the same thoughts and feelings that I did going through residency and training and becoming and attending and, you know, just how we view relationships with patients and relying on God to get us through. Like, I connected with all of that. And then on top of it, he hangs out where I live in Grand Haven, Michigan. So he just grew up close to here and he came here for the summers and hung out at the beach. And so I just really enjoyed reading this book and about all his fun times in Grand Haven. So definitely check out the book. It's a great read. Like, he's a great writer. I couldn't put it down. But let me get back to his public television special. The age fix with Dr. Anthony Yoon has been viewed by millions. Dr. Yoon also hosts the popular podcast the Holistic Plastic Surgery Shows. He's a social media star, like I said, with millions of followers on YouTube and TikTok. He's an assistant professor of surgery at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. So he's very accomplished, yet very humble and hilarious. And I just really enjoyed talking to him today. And then you can check out my interview on his podcast. So we did back to back interviews today. It was super fun. Um, but check out my interview on his podcast. We talk about a lot of good stuff regarding, like, what conventional medicine doesn't tell you as a gynecologist. What a functional gun. How does a functional gynecologist approach things? And so that was a good conversation as well. But check out Tony. The links are in the show notes. Check out his skin care line and then shoot me your questions. Tell me what you thought of it. I would love it if you would hit five stars and hit the subscribe button and just kind of let me know what you need from me. I'm here for you. I do this for you, so love it. If you would shoot me out on Facebook or Instagram, rtabitha and just let me know what you're thinking. All right, here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Yuna. The functional Gynecologist podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to have a conversation with you. I just finished on your podcast, so I'm really excited to talk about you a little bit. Right.

Oh, thank you. I'm not that interesting, but yeah, let's chat.

Yes, you are. I was reading your book Playing God, and I literally couldn't put it down. You're an awesome writer, so kudos to you. But I just connected with so much that you went through, you know, during your training and becoming a physician and just how you feel about your patients. And it's just really heartwarming to hear that a plastic surgeon cares. Right. There's this myth that, you know, they're just in it for the money. You talk about that a little bit. Beverly Hills.

Yeah. You think that that would be a given that you're a physician because you want to help people, people, and that's your main goal. But unfortunately, in the field of cosmetic surgery especially, there are a lot of other factors that can play into there. And sometimes some of the more prominent plastic surgeons are ones that are prominent not necessarily because they're just trying to do what's best for their patients, but for other types of reasons.

Yeah, exactly. I even see that in the world of gynecology, there are surgeons who love to do surgery, and they will perform it on anybody that will let them, and that might not necessarily be the best thing for the patient. Right.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm sure, you know, I mean, I remember my. My wife, when she was going to give birth to our first child, she was seeing a guy, an obstetrician in the area, and she found out that the C section rate for this obstetrician was, like, incredibly high, Higher than almost anybody else in town. And so we ended up switching because we thought, like, why? Why is it that this person is doing that? And, you know, I'm sure that there are reasons obviously, to do a C section and all that, but when your numbers are so incredibly high, is it that you're nervous and that you're so afraid that something bad is going to happen, so you just jump to surgery right away? You know, why is that? And we never found out, but it was something where I think it was the right decision for us.

Well, I'll tell you, I have worked alongside a few obstetricians who have a very high C section rate. At dinner time, they want to go to bed that night. And I hate to be the bearer of the truth, but that, that is, you know, that's their way of protecting themselves. And so, you know, six o' clock rolls around, that baby better be out. And so I just. I like that you're shedding light on this. And people need to know, like, think about things. Question. Don't be afraid to be your own advocate. Right.

No, definitely. And I think that one of the things that you and I agree on, we've both spent thousands of hours in the operating room, and there are those people that we know who just love being in the or they love cutting people open. And for me, the big thing is I actually don't love cutting people open. If anything, I love not doing that. And if I can get a person happy and, and feeling great without having to actually put them under the knife, then I feel like I've been successful. And yeah, for me, there are some things where you have to go to surgery for. If you've got a ton of extra skin of your tummy, no amount of diet and exercise is going to get rid of hanging skin from your tummy. Then, yeah, sometimes you go to surgery for that. But I think, like in your field, there probably is a lot of surgery that may not be necessary and can be for some people an easier way out than some other ways that may be more healthy, that may be healthier options for them.

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's what I want to talk to you about today. So you are the holistic plastic surgeon. Tell us what that means.

Well, what it means basically is, you know, when I did my training and really in the first, gosh, eight years of practice or so, it really was all about the procedures. And I remember I would, you know, in training we would talk about the, the bigger surgeries being the ones that you really wanted to do and it was so exciting to do those. And then in practice, I remember I would, for years I would keep track of how many facelifts do I have on my schedule. And the more facelifts, the better I would feel of like, hey, I'm doing right, I'm making it. And it got to a point where I hit what I thought was the pinnacle of my career. And then tragedy struck and it really caused me to reassess. What am I doing? I've got tons of happy patients. I've got a great reputation. I feel like I do surgery really, really well. But am I truly doing everything I can for my patients and maybe even for the people who follow me? And so what has been a real blessing now is that, yeah, I still operate. I operate a couple of days a week. I still see patients. I have a full cosmetic center here in Metro Detroit. But what actually I find to be so satisfying is I have now millions of people that follow me. It's crazy. And I try to give them advice on how to improve their lives by the right skincare, by the right diet. And yeah, there are some non invasive or minimally invasive options to feel better so that they don't hopefully have to go to surgery to get to that place.

Yeah, I love that because there are so many Things you can do before you go under the knife. Right. Let's talk about the face, because I think the face is a big one. Like you said, you were just doing facelifts nonstop. But there's other options now, right?

Yeah. And I think it's, you know, the way I look at it, it's like you're building a house. And I get patients who come in to see me, money in hand, saying I want a facelift. I take one look at their skin and it's like, you know, I can tell that they haven't taken care of their skin in 60 years. So it's, it really is like, you know, jumping to surgery is like you're building a house and you're so, so focused on what the attic is going to look like. Well, that's the last thing to consider. You know, the first thing is you want to build the foundation. And the foundation of a house is going to be the food that you're eating, is what you put into your body is your environment, you know, is how much sleep you get. And that really is the foundation. And then the next floor may be skin care. Skincare is so important. There are so many of us who, you know, either they're not doing anything for their skin or they're slathering their skin in products that may not be good for their skin. And then from there there are non invasive treatments that we can do in the office, things like IPL and lasers. Then you can go from there up to injections and then surgery being just that last little bit at the top where nothing else is getting you where you need to be. Then look at that as a possibility.

Yeah. And I think you're gonna have such a better outcome. I mean, I just used to cringe when I would have patients with uncontrolled diabetes or who smoked. Just thinking of how their skin was not gonna, it wasn't going to heal. They were going to be in wound packing and all of that bit. It really does matter, the health of your insides, right?

Yeah. And what we're finding now is that there are studies coming out showing that the foods that you eat can really make profound impacts on the appearance of your skin. And it comes down to things like the microbiome. And there are connections between the microbiome and inflammatory skin disorders, things like rosacea and eczema. We're finding that taking certain types of supplements, vitamin C supplements, collagen supplements, that can really impact the skin and how hydrated your skin is, how many wrinkles you have. So really what we're finding is that kind of the traditional stuff that we learned when you and I were residents, that you don't smoke, you wear sunblock, or you stay out of the sun, and then otherwise you have surgery, there's so much more. And essentially, that's the crazy thing. I went through five years of residency, a year of fellowship out in Beverly Hills, and we didn't cover nutrition at all. And you and I know when we're in the hospital, we're working late in the middle of the night, and 2am the cafeteria opens up for us residents who are there overnight. And what is it? It's fry bar. It's everything deep fried. And we get our plates and stuff that stuff on our plates, not even thinking how bad that was for us.

Oh, yeah, we called it fourth meal. And we just. I lived on donuts and garbage. Oh, my gosh, the garbage. I mean, the nurses station always had huge bags of M&Ms. It was always somebody's birthday. There's cakes everywhere. Like, it's the unhealthiest situation you can imagine.

It really is. And nowadays, when you've got fast food restaurants that are in hospitals, I mean, it's, you know, unfortunately, you know, medicine has gone in a direction that is essentially, you know, people are getting unhealthy, and you treat them to try to treat their acute problem, but you're not necessarily helping them to not come back again. And so we see that even with plastic surgery, it's like people will come in and they have money and they want their facelift. Well, there's so much else that you can do. And even if you have that facelift done, getting on the right diet, using the right skin care, you can enhance the results of your facelift. You can prevent the need for a second one, potentially, and you can potentially heal much better and heal faster if you do have surgery.

Yeah, exactly. So I love the idea of getting on a good skincare regimen. Often, you know, skin probiotics, that type of thing, hyaluronic acid. Do you have a specific skincare regimen that you recommend?

Yeah. So there, you know, the thing that's going on is that there's so much out there. And, you know, you can walk into Sephora or into your local department store, and it's so confusing. There's so many products out there, and this one's better than Botox, but this one's the fad product, or this one the Jenners use, and this one the Kardashians love. So what do you do? And you can really make it very, very simple. The first thing is every morning you want to cleanse your skin with an appropriate cleanser. So what does that mean? Well, it means that if you've got oily skin, okay, then you may want to consider it more of like a foaming cleanser that's going to help to control that oil a little bit more. If you've got more sensitive and drier skin, then you may want to go with the cleanser that's more of a milky, hydrating type of cleanser. So you cleanse your skin in the morning, you apply an antioxidant serum. Okay, Step number two, antioxidant serum. The most popular, easiest to find antioxidant serum is vitamin C. Okay, Vitamin C antioxidant. You find it obviously in fruits and vegetables, but it's the easiest to find antioxidant serum that you can buy and almost all skincare brands have it. The key to vitamin C serum is make sure that it is in an amber bottle or something that just doesn't let the light in because vitamin C can oxidize, it turns brown. And if it's brown when it comes out of the bottle or the tube, then it probably won't work. Okay. And then you want to put on a sunscreen. And typically the American Academy of Dermatology recommends at least an SPF of 30 that will block upwards of 97% of the sun's rays. So that's technically all you have to do in the morning. You cleanse, you apply an antioxidant serum and then you apply a sunscreen at night. Super important. You really have to cleanse your skin. So for those people who are like, I don't want to cleanse my skin more than once a day, I'm too lazy, then you got to do it at night because you want to wash off the day's worth of grime and dust, dirt and sweat and makeup, especially that makeup. You got to get rid of all that and go to bed with a clean face. So you cleanse your skin and then I usually recommend some type of a treatment. What I mean by treatment is the most common is a retinoid. Retinoids are derivatives of vitamin A. Prescription strength. Retinoids are tretinoin or retin A. You can get non prescription strength, which are called retinols. And like vitamin C, almost all the different skincare brands have a retinol cream in them. You apply that over your skin every night or every other night. And then if you want to apply a moisturizer on top of that. Feel free. But not everybody needs a moisturizer. If you've got real oily skin, thick oily skin, then there's no reason to necessarily apply moisturizer if you're not feeling dry. And technically, Tabitha, that's all you have to do. If that's all you do, then you're ahead of probably 98% of the population. Okay. Because you're doing the steps that are necessary. You add on top of that a bit of exfoliation a couple times a week either with like an at home type of a chemical peel. Some people use a fine scrub that that also will help to get the skin turning over better, to get you more youthful and smoother and healthier skin too.

Oh, I love that. So yeah, it doesn't have to be complicated or super expensive, right. You just have to figure out your regimen.

And for those people who are like, geez, I'm having so many issues with my skin right now, I'm breaking out. You know, I had actually a TV producer from New York, a producer for one of the top TV national TV talk shows has been emailing me because she's like, look, I've had all these issues with adult acne, I've got these breakouts. My skin is horrible. What do I need to add to my skincare routine? Because I'm already on like four or five different products. And it finally I got to the point where I convinced her, I said, look, get off of all your products and start over again. Give your skin a break. And she a month or two later emailed me back, said, oh my gosh, everything is so much better. And going back to just that regimen that I just told you, if you go back to that, you're just doing the absolute necessary things. Get your skin cleared up first and then if you want to apply things, add something one at a time. If you like, let's say, you know, copper, if you like other peptides, if you want to add growth factors and feel free to do that, but do that one at a time, okay? And if you are having issues with your skin, the first thing to do is to get rid of all of the extra products you just don't need.

Yeah, exactly. And what I see so often in my practice is you don't have a healthy gut, you're getting eczema, rosacea or those inflammatory type conditions, acne, because you're eating way too much sugar and processed foods and not enough fiber and vegetables and antioxidants, all those brightly colored Fruits and vegetables. Wouldn't you agree?

No, I totally agree. I mean, really, the health of your gut can really come out in the appearance of your skin. And that's something that I think a lot of people don't really realize and a lot of physicians don't realize. I mean, dermatologists are more and more getting it. But I think that really, that's where alternative medicine has really been ahead of the game in just how your diet can really impact your skin. I think on the other hand, you know, I think that there is a fine line in that, you know, there are some alternative health practitioners who say really everything is about the gut and you know, don't do this, don't put that on your skin. And I really think there's a medium there somewhere, you know. Yes, having a healthy gut is so important, but you know, if you're 16 year old boy and you're just, your face is filled with acne because of hormones working on your gut, you know, that's not going to necessarily take care of all of it. And I think that we have to be realistic too. And I think really from my standpoint, looking at these types of things from a true integrative approach, not just one direction, not just the other, but really combining it all together, that's definitely the way to go. Yeah.

No, I think, Tony, you and I are unicorns. We have the best of both worlds. We've been conventionally trained, we understand functional medicine and we figured out how to blend the two to give the patients the best possible outcome. So I love everything you're doing. That's so good.

Well, thank you.

Yeah. So you cover all this kind of stuff on your YouTube channel, right? I mean, you make your funny tiktoks and all that stuff. That's entertaining. But you do a lot of education too as well, right?

Yeah, so I do have. So in YouTube you can create playlists where you can have like a handful of different videos. So I do have a playlist for people interested in skincare and it's basically a clean skincare playlist. I think there's like five videos. There's the ideal morning skincare routine, the ideal nighttime skincare routine. Why consider clean beauty. Clean beauty is kind of a buzzword right now, and it has been for the last few years. And it's this belief that there are so many different chemicals that are put in, artificial chemicals, potentially dangerous chemicals that are put into our skincare products nowadays. I mean, in the United States, the US really, we only have like 11 different skincare chemicals that are actually banned for use in the us whereas in the UK and in Europe, it's hundreds, if not thousands. And so, you know, there's so many, so many different products out there that do have preservatives, potential, hormone disruptors. Even some of the sunscreens out there with oxybenzone and octinoxate may not be good for your skin. And so looking at skin care too, from a clean perspective, if you look at your diet and you clean up your diet, you get rid of the processed foods, you try to go organic with it if you can. You can do the same thing with skincare too. And I think skincare, you're applying it over your skin, especially with some of the products you're applying over your body, you know, to go as clean as you can is only going to potentially help.

Yeah, I think that's such an important point. I was just thinking of my poor husband who, you know, he has delicate skin and so he would spray this sunscreen on like every hour when we would go on vacation, and yet he would burn every time. And it turned out it was the chemical in the sunscreen making him burn, you know, that oxybenzyme is toxic. And when he finally got into a clean sunscreen, he's not burning like that anymore. So I just think we have to be our own advocates. Like you said, those things are not regulated, Things should be banned and they're not so, so many.

Well, if I buy just commercial brands from Walgreens or CVS and I apply some of that to my skin, I break out in hives. And so that was, for me, my lesson is that depending, you know, and some of the most popular brands I put on my skin and it's Hy Vee and I and itching. And so it was only when I started applying actually clean products that that went away, you know, that I wouldn't get those types of reactions. And I have my own skincare line now, Yoon Beauty, and it's made with natural and organic ingredients. We don't have a lot of that stuff that can potentially cause these reactions. And I do well, putting it on my skin, I don't react to any of it. So that's always good news.

Yeah, that's awesome. Where can my listeners buy those products?

So my products, like I said, they're called Yun Beauty. You can go to yoonbeauty.com, y o u n beauty.com, all one word. And like I said, like you mentioned on my YouTube channel, I do cover some of those products. And really it's about educating yourself, trying to use the products that are healthy for your skin. But I think like anything, you know, it's like, you know, on my podcast too, I've asked experts like yourself if you were to have the choice of either eating fruits and vegetables that are conventionally grown or not eating them, because we know that organic is better than conventional. You should still then eat the conventionally grown. And I think really with skincare products, it's kind of the same thing in the end too. It's like there are chemicals in some of these products and even in some of the sunscreens that you may not like. But in the end, if it's apply sunscreen or not, well, I would apply it. You know, if it is use this, you know, serum that may have one or two things that we may be a little concerned about or just not apply anything in general. I recommend to use it because your skin in general is going to benefit. And there's so many things out there that we know that we believe, I think in large enough quantities could potentially harm us. And our colleagues will say, well, there's no studies that show that, but. And we know that, we look at it and it's this cumulative effect. So short term use of some of this stuff may be helpful. It's just long term, try to go clean if you can.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. It's, you know, at least focus on the good stuff you're doing for your body and the bad stuff usually falls away, right?

Definitely.

Yeah. Well, this has been awesome. I'll make sure the links are in the show notes. And I want people to listen to your podcast, the holistic plastic surgery show, because you go over all this stuff, right?

Yeah, we do. And I was very pleased to have you record for my podcast today. So we'll be releasing that here very, very soon as well.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. So check out Dr. Tony Yoon on YouTube, TikTok, his website, his beauty line. All the links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for being an awesome guest, Tony.

Thank you, Tabitha. That's fun.

All right. That was great information. I am definitely going to get more aggressive with my skincare regimen because honestly, I don't have one and I need one. And I keep saying I need one. You know, I'm going to have BBL done very soon. That stands for broadband light. He mentioned ibl, which is the same intense pulse light. So IPL and bbl kind of the same concept of Using laser light energy to get rid of brown spots and get rid of wrinkles and get a. Get rid of like tiny red vessels from rosacea and just, you know, we'll get the red vessels around our noses and that kind of thing. And those laser treatments help with all that. So I actually have a lot of sun damage. You can't really see it because of my zoom filter. But all that brown pigmentation, the light hits it and it pulls it to the surface and it sloughs off. And so you get rid of all those brown spots. So I love laser therapy. I'm gonna do that. But I know that I need to get on a skin care regimen because it will enhance the results of the laser therapy. You know, I know this. I've been trained in this. I just need to be more consistent about doing my morning and night routine. So that is my golden nugget that I took away from that episode with Dr. Tony. Hopefully you got something out of it as well. You know, I want you to keep finding little golden nuggets every week that you can just keep adding in and baby steps back to health. Right. Maybe it's that you need to eat more brightly colored fruits and vegetables or get off the processed foods, or maybe you need to give your skin more vitamin C antioxidants like Tony mentioned. So whatever it was, I would love to hear, shout me out on social and tell me what your golden nugget is, but keep coming back every week. I do this for you. I'm here for you. Let me know what you want to hear about, any questions I can answer. So thank you so much for staying tuned and check out the show notes for, for all those links for Tony and have a kick ass week, ladies. Bye.