In recent years, the market for anti-aging supplements and procedures has been propelled forward as on-going stress, poor eating, and pollution are making our skin show our age quicker than ever. For women especially, preventing and slowing down this process as much as possible is at the top of the priority list, but is it possible?
Are Anti-Aging Products Real?
Surprisingly, yes. You can in fact take years off your skin with the right regime. As far as preventing aging, that’s not exactly possible as of yet—although you can substantially slow down the aging process by eating right and incorporating certain products into your routine.
After all, the old saying “You are what you eat” has proven to be true time and time again. If you don’t believe it still, just think of it this way: Every day, your hair, nails, skin, and all the cells in your body need to be replenished with nutrients so they can continue functioning at their optimum performance. There are basically three types of food you can consume:
- Junk Food: Junk food is highly processed and typically filled with carbs and calories. But, these calories are simply “empty calories” that give your body enough to store more fat, but no nutrients or minerals to replenish your cells.
- Food: In-between somewhere is food that incorporates some meats, dairy, and other natural products and give your body some nutrients and minerals, but you’re missing something…
- Health Food: Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are all in the true “healthy food” category. They’re natural, not processed, and include all the minerals and nutrients you need to supply your body with the things it needs to continue staying hydrated while keeping your skin soft, supple, and elastic.
Unfortunately, most people eat the top category the most, with some “food” added in. But, preferably, you’d flip it the other way around—getting most of your calories from health food and then adding in some meats and cheeses where needed. With a diet like that, your food intake would be nicely balanced and you would find that not only does your skin look and feel better, but you’ll also be having more energy and feeling better overall.
What Should I Take?
Now, a lot of us prefer to take the easy way out. After all, if you can keep eating somewhere in the middle and use a serum for your skin rather than eating greens every day, isn’t that a good option? If your only worry is making your skin look better (not thinking about internal health or longevity), this could be a consideration, but clearly the most preferable option is to get healthier and not need to apply chemical serums to your skin.
So, if you’re willing to go the most effective (i.e., natural) all-around route to a healthier you inside and out, incorporating some of these foods into your diet is definitely the way to go. Each of the foods on this list are proven to be effective in making your skin healthier, and we’ll even include a couple recipe suggestions for each so you can get creative with how you incorporate it.
- Berries: Who would complain about blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, or cranberries? All of these options provide your body with flavonols, vitamin C, and anthcyanins, which help reduce cellular aging. Darker colored and blue berries will have the best benefits as they have the highest antioxidant concentration.
- Try them in a fruit salad, smoothie, shake, or just by themselves! They also taste great mixed in with cereal or granola in the morning.
- Leafy Greens: You’ve heard since you were young that eating your vegetables was essential to good health. Not only will eating your greens improve your eye health, it will also provide two crucial antioxidants: lutein and zeaxanthin. Both have been proven to protect against UV exposure (which damages the DNA and causes inflammation, oxidative stress, and other issues). In turn, consuming leafy greens like kale and spinach helps reduce the risk of skin cancer.
- Eat them in a salad or in a sandwich. If you want to avoid the taste, try blending into a smoothie.
- Cucumbers: The fresh taste of cucumbers will help collagen form in your skin, which helps prevent wrinkles! This is because they are high in silica.
- Eat as part of a salad, use the juice for cucumber water, or eat sliced up by themselves.
- Guava: High in Vitamin C, Guava helps support the production of collagen and improve the skin’s appearance.
- As a fruit, it can be eaten by itself or used to make fruit salad, smoothies, or shakes.
- Tomatoes: The juicy tomatoes you know (and hopefully love) are high in lycopene, just like watermelons. This means they act as a sort of internal sun screen, protecting your skin against aging, sunspots, and UV radiation. They also support collagen production since they contain vitamin C.
- Eat in a salad, sliced up for a burger, or placed in a grilled cheese sandwich!
- Avocado: This beautiful fruit will help make your skin beautiful to. It has essential fatty acids to support healthy oil production along with biotin and vitamin E to offer nutrients to your hair and skin.
- Eat plain or turn into a butter, dip, or topping.
- Pomegranate: The seeds of pomegranates have ellagic acid in them along with punicalagin, which support anti-aging by preventing free radicals from damaging your skin.
- Eat by themselves or use as a topping.
- Wild Fish: Salmon shouldn’t be that hard to eat after a long day, right? Luckily, all sorts of wild fish can be prepared into delicious dishes with the omega-3 fatty acids aiding the skin, hair, and nails.
- Make into all sorts of delicious dishes!
- Walnuts: with a high amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids and Vitamin E, walnuts will prove beneficial when it comes to anti-aging and anti-inflammatory functions.
- Eat by themselves, as a topping, or make them into a delicious dish.
- High-Quality Dark Chocolate: With the highest quality, purist dark chocolate your can buy, the antioxidant flavanols will help reduce inflammation in your skin and help improve circulation. On top of that, it will help your skin stay hydrated and reduce the appearance of wrinkles!
- Eat as part of a delicious dessert, turn into a drink, or just shave as a topping.
