Want Beautiful Skin? Foods to Eat to Make Your Skin Glow

March 16, 2012 by

Beautiful SkinHave you ever heard the expression “you are what you eat?”

When it comes to beautiful skin, it couldn’t be truer. The healthier your diet is, the more your skin will look firm, even, clear and healthy.

If you have a poor diet it can leave your skin looking blemished, sallow, dry, red, irritated or otherwise unattractive.

No matter how many expensive face creams and cleansers you spend your money on, changing your diet will have a much greater effect of the overall look of your skin.

Here are a few delicious and healthy foods that will give you glowing and beautiful skin:

Water: The number one change you can make to your diet to improve your skin is to drink more water. It will help your skin look moist and soft, and it will flush out toxins from your body.

Cantaloupe: High in antioxidants, this delicious fruit will help your body to absorb free radicals and reduce skin problems.

Broccoli: This vegetable is very high in Vitamin A, which is the vitamin which encourages your body to create new skin cells. If you eat more broccoli, your skin will be renewed more quickly and the healthy and fresh skin will show through.

Salmon: This tasty fish, as well as other fishes such as tuna and sardines, is full of Omega 3. This is a type of “good fat” which our body needs, and it will help to reduce inflammation in the skin.

Grapefruit:  This zesty breakfast treat is high in Vitamin C, which helps to delay or reduce wrinkles in the skin.

Lean Red Meat: If your skin is looking pale and sallow, you might have an iron deficiency in your diet. Lean red meat which is low in fat is a healthy way to increase your iron intake. If you don’t eat red meat, eggs are an alternate source.

Almonds: This snack is filled with Vitamin E, which protects your skin against sun damage.

Include these healthy items on your next supermarket shopping trip, and see if they make a difference in the health and appearance of your skin!

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Is Your Weight Loss Plan Sustainable?

March 5, 2012 by

It’s a never ending cycle.

You start to feel a bit chubby and unhappy with what you see in the mirror. So you throw away all of the junk food in your kitchen and head to the supermarket and buy nothing but lettuce and lean chicken breast.

Diet ScaleYou strictly deny yourself all donuts and forgo your morning late for green tea instead. You buy a gym membership and brand new yoga pants and start sweating it out on the treadmill every single day.

Flash forward to one month later. You are again sitting on the couch in your sweatpants after a hard day at work, eating an entire pizza to yourself and guzzling from a two liter bottle of Coca Cola.

What happened?

If you are prone to going 100% into a fitness routine, and then burning out and resorting to your old unhealthy habits after a short while, it’s time to ask yourself if your weight loss plan is sustainable.

For a change in your fitness to be sustainable, you need to be able to continue it for a long period of time so that it becomes a long term, ongoing habit in your life.

For example, when you strictly limit yourself to 1,200 calories per day and lose 5 pounds in one week to fit into your favorite jeans for a hot date you might have achieved the results that you wanted but this method of weight loss is not sustainable.

If you are starving yourself, you are going to eventually crack and start eating again and all of the weight will pile back on again.

The only way to lose pounds for good is to make changes to your habits which will last for the longer term.

These changes should be:

Achievable: It’s admirable to try to hit the gym twice every day, but you also have a lot of other things to do in your day. Start with every second day instead and your goal will be much more easily achieved, which will help you not give up as easily.

Balanced: Strictly limiting yourself to certain foods will not last long, and this type of withdrawal sets you up to crave a huge junk food binge. You’re not going to give up on ever having another piece of chocolate cake for the rest of your life, are you?  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Allow yourself dessert a couple evenings per week, and a cheat meal on the weekends so that it is easier to stick to your routine. You will crave your guilty pleasures less if you indulge in them every now and then.

Healthy: Eating nothing but salads for a week will make you drop pounds quick, but if you continue that diet for the long term you will become very malnourished. You need protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and even a small amount of healthy fat. Don’t starve your body; treat it right by giving it the healthy meals it needs to survive.

Once you make permanent changes to your routines which are sustainable, you will be able to stick to them for the long term and see fantastic results!

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Trying to Lose Weight? Eating to Get the Most Out of Your Workout

January 23, 2012 by

Did you know that the food you eat before and after working out can have an impact on how effective your exercise regime is? Strawberry Smoothie

Working out takes energy, and the food that you use to fuel that energy makes a big difference. When you fuel up on the right nutrients you can superpower your workout and make the most of your time in the gym.

What to Eat Before the Gym

Some people swear by working out on an empty stomach, but studies have shown that because you have no food in your system to use as fuel this can cause your body to burn your muscle reserves for energy.

You are going to the gym to build muscle, not deplete it so it is better to eat a small meal before working out to give yourself some energy.

This meal should include lean protein, lots of fiber, complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, and a small amount of fat. These types of foods take longer to absorb and make you feel fuller for longer, and they provide lots of fuel to energize you for your workout.

A great pre-workout snack would be whole wheat bread with peanut butter and a banana, scrambled eggs and toast with fruit, or a protein shake or smoothie made with yogurt and fruit. If it is less than one hour before the workout, go for a small meal but if you have more than two hours before you get to the gym you can eat more.

What to Eat After the Gym

Once you are finished working out, you should be drinking lots of water to replenish the sweat that you have lost.

Within one hour of finishing your workout, you should have another small snack with high quality protein, because this will help build your muscles and aid your body in recovering.

Nourishing your body with healthy proteins and complex carbs before and after a workout will give it the fuel to build muscle and become stronger.

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