Everyone wants to make sure that their appearance reflects the person they really are inside – and what you eat shows up in your skin. Sure, your hormones affect your skin, but you can make a positive difference in your acne treatment by choosing foods that promote great skin. Here’s your diet to beat acne:

Avoid sugar in all its forms: Soft drink, sugar in your cuppa, cakes, biscuits, pastries, honey, maple syrup, fruit straps. Rigorously examine the nutrition label of every packet you pick up off the supermarket shelf. If it contains more than 5g of sugar per 100g, put the packet back on the shelf. Sugar helps promote inflamed skin.

Minimise your alcohol and caffeine intake – its hard on your liver, and will become evident in your skin very quickly. 

Stay away from white flour products: cakes, pastries, pies, bread.

Avoid highly processed foods. They’re easy to pick – the label will list the multitude of preservatives and additives with many numbers.

Change the source of your protein. You need the high density of vitamins and minerals in meat – but choose seafood and kangaroo more often; chicken, pork, eggs and lamb a little less, and avoid sausages, bacon and processed meats like salami.

Chow down on greens. Plan to base one meal of your day on a green leafy salad. The other meal should contain some cooked or raw green vegetables too.

Make yourself a green smoothie as a snack: one glass of water, one banana, and a handful of baby spinach leaves. I promise that you won’t taste the spinach! 

Minimise your dairy intake. Two serves a day is enough; ‘One serve’ is 100g yoghurt, or one cup of milk. Avoid cheese and butter, you don’t need the saturated fat.

Enjoy two pieces of fresh raw fruit every day.

Include legumes in your diet almost every day – they will provide you with lots of fibre to bind toxins and carry them out of your system.

Drink plenty of pure water – two litres every day.

Avoid deep fried foods like hot chips, burgers, potato crisps. The heavy saturated fat content will promote inflammation in your skin. Remember that a pizza-based diet promotes a pizza-like skin. Clean diet = clearer skin.

Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |  
Subscribe to RSS Feeds   | Subscribe to Email Updates

GUEST POST BY JOY PALEY OF 'AN APPLE A DAY'

10 Foods for Healthy Skin

If you're tired of shelling out big bucks for skin care products that don't seem to make a difference, maybe you should consider how what's on your plate might be affecting your skin. The skin is the largest organ of your body, and just like any other, it needs the right combination of nutrients to be at its best. Here are ten of the best neutraceuticals for encouraging healthy skin.

• Almonds and Citrus: The sun is one of the worst enemies of healthy skin. Its rays cause free radicals in your skin to oxidate your cells; oxidation is what leads to aging and skin damage. In clinical trials, combinations of Vitamin E and Vitamin C together have been shown to have a protective effect against damaging UV rays. Almonds have one of the highest concentrations of Vitamin E, and citrus, of course, has high amounts of C.
• Spinach, Kale, Carrots: Beta-carotene is a chemical found in foods that is made into Vitamin A in the body. Vitamin A, like Vitamin E and C, has been shown to prevent skin damage in people exposed to UV rays from the sun. Vitamin A acts as a powerful antioxidant, zapping the free radicals in the skin. Spinach, kale, and carrots all have high amounts of beta-carotene.
• Cod Liver Oil and Fish Oil: The polyunsaturated fatty acids found in cod liver and fish oils help to strengthen your cells' membranes and protect them against sun damage. Since cell walls are made of fats, it's key to have an intake of the right type of fat in order to keep them functioning properly. Having healthy cell membranes makes skin cells stand up better against sun damage.
• Tomatoes and Greens: Lycopene is a nutrient that stops a certain type of oxidation in the body, called singlet oxidation. Once again, stopping oxidation is key to keeping cells from aging. Lycopene also has other benefits, such as promoting cardiovascular health by preventing good cholesterol from being oxidized into a form that is damaging to heart health.
• Green and Black Tea: Lipids, mentioned before, are important in healthy cell function; they ensure that cells keep their shape, and they control traffic in and out of cells. Teaflavins are a type of antioxidant found in teas that prevent lipid oxidation of the cells, thus promoting healthy cell functioning.
• Brazil Nuts: Selenium is a trace mineral that is used in certain proteins which act as enzymes that destroy free radicals. Thus, for these free-radical attacking proteins to function correctly, you need a bit of selenium in your diet. Brazil nuts are by far the best source of it, with nearly 10 times as much as the nearest competitor (tuna fish).
• Grapes, Grape Juice, and Wine (from red grapes): Grapes contain a wide range of great antioxidants. They scavenge superoxides, a very toxic form of oxygen that hurts cells. 
• Berries and Eggplant: Though berries and eggplant might not seem to have much in common, they both contain skin boosting chemicals that prevent aging of the cells. These chemicals, anthocyanins, catechins, cyanidins, and flavonols, act like Pac Man towards free radicals; they go through the body and gobble them up.
• Rosemary: Get out your favorite blend of Italian spices (or plant some in your garden; it grows like wildfire in temperate climates) because rosemary has a type of antioxidant you can't find anywhere else. The tasty herb contains carnosol, which scavenges free radicals and prevents the degradation of your cells' membranes. If you want your skin looking its best, you've gotta keep your cells healthy.
• Garlic and onion: The thiols in garlic and onion will protect your skin in the long run; they are chemicals that prevent cancer-causes molecules from binding to your cells' DNA.

Joy Paley is a guest blogger for An Apple a Day and a writer on becoming a radiology technician for Guide to Healthcare Schools.

Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |  
Subscribe to RSS Feeds   | Subscribe to Email Updates

Some people find that although their skin is soft and supple during the warm months, when winter arrives it turns dry. Sometimes it even cracks, particularly on their lower legs. Or their scalp skin becomes dry and flaky. Its itchy and annoying There is a reason this happens, and there is a way you can improve your skin so you don't have to use gallons of moisturiser during winter.

Soft, flexible and healthy skin is due in no small part to a good supply of essential fatty acids in your diet, particularly the omega-3 oils, and a good balance of omega-3 to omega-6 oil intake.

A healthy omega-3 intake is actually measured by ratio, rather than by absolute quantities. In the stone age, when our eating was at its healthiest, our ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 intake was around 1:2. Our modern western diet provides a far less beneficial ratio, sometimes only one part omega 3 to 10 parts omega six. Dry skin is one of the unfortunate outcomes of our modern diet.

In winter many of us tend to seek out comforting, fatty foods – like pastries, meats, chocolate, more cheese, more butter – all rich sources of omega-6 oils. This can cause a big imbalance in your omega-3 intake, resulting in a relative omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, and dry skin.

Your cell membranes are actually just oil molecules floating on water molecules. The better your omega-3 status, the more flexible your cell membranes will be – and the more soft and flexible your skin cells will be too.

By the way, the condition of the skin on your heels is a good indicator of your omega-3 status. If they're dry or even cracked, there's a good chance there isn't enough omega-3 oils in your diet.

Good sources of omega-3 oils are oily fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines.

Here are some meal ideas to help you boost your omega-3 intake over winter:

-          sardines on toast (with tomato paste is particularly nice)

-          replace your butter with avocado as a spread.

-          poached salmon with roasted vegetables

-          tuna risotto (minus the cheese!)

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink |  
Subscribe to RSS Feeds   | Subscribe to Email Updates