Simple tips for eating from the inside out.
by Kimberly Snyder
We’ve all heard the adage that we are what we eat. And it’s true! What we ingest assimilates into our cells and has a profound effect on our energy, how we feel, and, yes, even how we look. We have to pay attention not only to the nutritional benefits of what we eat, but also to how our body digests each item, and how much of an impact the food we eat has in terms of the waste, mucus, and toxins left in our systems—which can all contribute to the aging process and making our skin look dull.
Our food choices directly impact our ability to keep ourselves youthful and maintain glowing, smooth skin. Here are a few great healthy tips to keep you looking beautiful.
1. Max out on raw greens. The living enzymes housed in uncooked greens and vegetables are a powerful beauty secret. They contribute to skin health by acting as catalysts that assist body processes like digestion, detoxification, and rebuilding. By assisting the body’s energy-intensive digestive process, enzymes free up energy for other tasks, like repairing and rebuilding the skin—the body’s largest organ. Unfortunately the valuable enzymes, proteins, and vitamins found in plants are heat sensitive and can be damaged or destroyed by normal cooking temperatures. In fact, cooking can easily destroy a food’s entire enzyme reserve. So pack as many raw salads, veggies, sprouts, and fresh herbs into your diet as you can! An easy way to get a large amount of them at once is from a green smoothie.
2. Add açai to your diet. Açai is loaded with beneficial nutrients and antioxidants, including omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, minerals, key vitamins, and fiber. The omega-3s found in açai maintain the structure and fluidity of cell membranes, facilitating the inflow of nutrients and the outflow of waste products, which promotes youthful, smooth, and radiant skin by keeping epidermis cells hydrated and strong. Acai is a key component of the Solution (my all-in-one skin-care formula that firms skin, helps smooth the appearance of fine lines, improves collagen synthesis, and is filled with vital nutrients), as it’s also extremely beneficial when applied topically.
3. Drink detox tea. Our bodies are constantly exposed to toxins from the environment, our diet, and chemicals from products we put on ourselves, which promote illness and can accelerate skin aging. The liver acts as the blood’s filter, so when it becomes overloaded, it will stop effectively filtering and neutralizing the toxins that enter the body. These excess toxins continue circulating and are deposited in fatty tissue, building up over time. The long-term effects of this are manifested externally in the form of wrinkles and spotted, leathery skin. One of the easiest—and tastiest—ways to promote healthy liver function is to drink detox tea two to three times per week.
4. Switch to Celtic sea salt. Celtic sea salt is unique among salts because it is sun-dried—a process that allows 70 minerals and trace elements, enzymes, and even marine microorganisms to remain intact. Other sea salts are kiln-dried, which causes valuable magnesium and most other minerals to evaporate. Regular table salt is worst of all, being irradiated and denatured sodium chloride. It not only has no nutritional benefit, but it also depletes the skin’s natural hydration.
5. Eat more onions. This everyday food has a considerable amount of sulfur, which helps cleanse the skin and liver and rebuilds connective tissues like collagen. Onions are also an exceptional source of usable quercetin, which works to eliminate free radicals, protects and regenerates crucial vitamin E, and decreases capillary fragility.
6. Add sea vegetables to your diet. Sea vegetables are about 12 times richer in minerals than average vegetables. They are an especially good source of iodine, which regulates the metabolism by feeding the thyroid iron, vitamins B6 and B12, and magnesium, which opens over 300 different detoxification pathways in the body. Throw sea vegetables like dulse, hijiki, and arame in salads or make nori wraps; all are available at any health food store.
7. Sprout your seeds and nuts. A raw, dry nut is dense in calories and encased in inhibitor enzymes, which keep it from sprouting before it is in a safe environment. The sprouting process changes the constitution of the nut, making it more like a plant. The nutritional benefit is that the proteins in sprouted nuts are more easily assimilated into the body. Here is a simple method for spouting almonds: Place them in a bowl of filtered water, cover, and place in your refrigerator for 24 hours. Rinse well several times and peel off the outer coating of the almond before eating. A handful is a wonderfully nutritional, filling snack. Throw a few in a bag and take them to work!
8. Snack on figs. Raw or dried, figs are an excellent blood purifier. Since blood transports nutrients to cells throughout the body, the cleaner the blood the more beautiful the skin. The tiny seeds in figs are not only packed with nutrients, but they also help draw out and dissolve waste, mucus, and toxins from the intestinal tract.
9. Eat olives and olive oil. Olives are the most mineral- and calcium-rich fruit of all. They are high in magnesium, amino acids, and beneficial omega fatty acids. Olive oil is a superior source of squalene, an unsaturated oil and an oxygen carrier that smoothes the skin and is an excellent antioxidant.
Model Kimberly Snyder, founder of Envision Beauty, is also a certified nutritionist, living-foods chef, and yoga instructor. For more tips and recipes, you can also visit her blog at http://www.kimberlysnyder.net or read more about her on Modelinia.
