Nutrition and Beauty

Three tactics to nourish your looks

Not only can we use nutrients from the foods we eat and drink to make our bodies healthy on the inside, but also to help beautify us on the outside. Instead of focusing on what to put onto your hair skin and nails; think about what goes into your body.

Your skin- the body’s largest organ-weighs seven to nine pounds and would cover twenty square feet if it were stretched out. Just like hair and nails, skin renews itself and grows every day. If you want flowers to grow strong and beautiful, you add water and fertilizer. If you want healthy and beautiful skin, hair and nails, you’ve got to give them the nutrients they crave.

1. Choose your beverage carefully

Drinking adequate water improves skin tone and elasticity and gives you healthy dewy skin. I may water my house plants to avoid drooping sagging, wrinkly leaves. But do I “water” my body and skin in the same conscientious manner? Drinking water or unsweetened tea throughout the day keeps your skin hydrated from the inside out to encourage elimination of toxins and improve cell turnover. It’s this constant production of fresh, healthy cells that provides a new layer of gorgeous skin cells. You can slather on all the super creamy skin lotion you want, but if you don’t drink adequate amounts of water, you won’t get the fresh, younger-looking skin you crave.

Why tea in addition to water? - The antioxidants found in all types of tea, help decrease inflammation that can lead to wrinkles. Unsweetened being the key word. Beverages loaded with sugar can promote wrinkles as well as add to our waistlines. While water and tea enhance the skin’s appearance, alcohol detracts from it. As little as four ounces of alcohol per day can dry out the skin, leading to dilation of fragile facial capillaries.

2. Eat colorful fruits and vegetables

Inflammation is all the rage lately in the health world, implicated in everything from heart disease to cancer. But inflammation can also lead to wrinkles and decrease the health and vitality of your skin. The biggest culprits causing inflammation are sugar and highly processed starchy foods such as crackers, doughnuts, and white bread. Cutting back on these foods helps you decrease inflammation, but eating more inflammation-fighting food leads to a bigger benefit.

Eating fruits and vegetables is good for your heart and may helps prevent certain types of cancer thanks to their antioxidant, inflammation –fighting ability. These colorful foods will also decrease inflammation in your skin, reducing wrinkles and giving you a younger look. Plus the vitamins found in colorful fruits and vegetables helps prevent hang nails and split, broken nails and give your hair luster and vitality. The recommended amount to eat is a minimum two cups of fruit and three cups of vegetables every day. The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more antioxidants you consume, the less likely you are to have wrinkles, lackluster hair, and brittle nails.

3. Ditch the bad fats, embrace the good fats.

Did you know that some types of fats are actually good for your skin and nails? Consuming foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon, black cod, sardines, walnuts and omega-3 fortified eggs, decrease skin irritation and reduce inflammation. Adding omega 3 fatty acid to your diet will prevent brittle, flaking nails. They also add shine and improve hair texture.

Because some research studies show that saturated fat and trans-fats, known as bad fats because of their negative effects on heart health-can also contribute to aging skin, avoid them as much as possible. Cheese, animal fats, fried foods, and fast foods contain large amounts of these bad fats. Toss some chopped walnuts on salads, choose omega-3 fortified eggs at the grocery store, and enjoy salmon often.

Feed Your Beauty

We use sunscreen to prevent ultraviolet ray damage to our skin, wear hats to protect our hair from the same damaging rays, slather on hand cream, and spend more money that we would like to admit on lotions, treatments, and spas in the name of beauty. But beauty also needs to be nourished from within. So drink more water, add walnuts and salmon to your grocery list and grab fruit for snacks. Beauty never tasted so good.

 Rebecca Coelho, MPH, RD, LD