10 Tips for Healthy, Glowing Skin

Hi, everyone. It's a gorgeous day, and I'd love to spend some minutes with you Talking about my 10 top tips for glowing skin. It's pretty remarkable that I'm even having this conversation with you, because if you would have told me two decades ago that I would be talking with you about glowing skin, I would be laughing, because my skin has always been problematic. As you can see, I have sensitive, fair skin. And usually when you have sensitive skin, you're going to react to sun many different things. And so for me, it was kind of trial and error. I had to figure out what worked for me and what didn't. So now I do get some nice compliments on my skin, which is very refreshing. I almost feel like laughing and telling them what I've gone through in order to get to my skin. And it's not to say my skin is perfect by any means. In fact, one slip, you know, things go wrong with my gut. Lots of stress, lots of travel. It could really put my skin into a tizzy again. So I'm always on guard. The important thing is that you just get yourself back on track. So these are 10 things that keep me on track that I thought I would share with you. The first one is pretty basic. In fact, it almost feels kind of silly to even mention. But it's good old water, and I bring a water bottle with me wherever I go. So if I'm traveling, that's especially where I like to bring water. Because with travel, we get very dehydrated. If we're stressed, we get dehydrated. So really good to be drinking from a bottle throughout the day, preferably a glass water bottle versus a plastic one. So you can minimize a lot of those endocrine disruptors that are in the plastic. So first and foremost, water. Just hydrate yourself. Your skin will show it. The second thing is looking into food sensitivities. So when I was growing up and my dad has the same skin that I do, you know, we kind of have this reactive, ruddy, Irish skin. And so whenever I would eat something, I noticed that it came after a meal. I would get this reaction, these hives, these blotches, itchy welts on me. And I started to piece it together. I wish I knew this information years and years ago, but I eventually found out that these hives were connected to food intolerances and allergies. So I've spent a lot of time, just years, even exploring what I'm allergic or sensitive to. If you go to a functional medicine practitioner, they can do Some testing to figure out what you might be sensitive to, why you might be having those reactions. Yeah, I have sensitive skin and it's not such an easy thing to deal with. But in a way I'm kind of glad that my skin lets me know if I am not sensitive or if I am sensitive to a particular food. So it's kind of a good gauge in that way. You can't miss it. The third thing that I have on my list is to work on your gut. So when I see my skin, it's almost like a reflection of my gut, what's going on with the gut. Right. So if I am not taking care of my gut, I'm not eating well, I'm not taking my probiotics. Maybe I have indigestion or bloating. This is going to impact the quality of my skin. And in fact, anytime you're constipated, this to me is the preceding factor to bad skin constipation. You should be having one to two bowel movements per day. So really important to ensure that you're getting fiber, water, your prebiotics, your probiotics. Work with a practitioner if you need some guidance on supplementation. Number four is personal care products. This is really key. And in fact, you know, I had to start reading my personal care products labels like I read my food labels if I buy things that are packaged. So I would be looking for things like gluten, which sometimes comes as hydrolyzed wheat protein, or parabens or phthalates, and looking for complicated chemical names that I know aren't good for me that are beyond kind of the vitamin name. So really look into your personal care products because our skin is our largest organ and we absorb a lot through our skin. In fact, it's been estimated that by the time the average woman wakes up in the morning and has breakfast, she's already applied about 126 different chemicals from 12 different products. And that's to her face, her body, her hair, you know, all over. So look at what you're eating at the skin level through these personal care products. Now, number five is including more in the way of plant foods in your diet. And the reason I mention that is because plant foods are filled with these colorful compounds that I love so much. Carotenoids. I'm sure you've heard of things like beta carotene, alpha carotene, beta cryptoxanthine. You probably have heard of lycopene or astaxanthin. A lot of these different carotenoids are in dietary supplements, but they're also in plant food. And what studies show is that when we eat these foods that they embed into the fatty tissues of the body because they're fat soluble. So the skin does have a fatty layer in it. And essentially what we do is we're creating added protection of the skin when we get more of these carotenoids. So if I don't feel like I'm getting enough from the diet, I oftentimes will choose a supplement so that I'm ensuring that I get a mixed carotenoid blend to provide that added protection. Alright, number six is to avoid dairy. Now why am I just picking on dairy? I just talked about food intolerances and sensitivities in general, Right? Sure. But there seems to be some specific literature on dairy specifically. So I know that I react to dairy, so I don't eat dairy products. Or if I do, maybe once in a blue moon I might have some cheese from Europe or you know, just something that I know is really good for me. But there were three studies and actually there were more than three studies, but I took some of the more recent studies and I just thought I'd share them with you. This one I have was just published in August 2016. It was looking at the consumption of low fat skim milk, full fat milk in teenagers. And this was reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. And essentially what they found was consumption of the low fat skim milk, but not the full fat milk was associated with acne. Now then there's another study that just came out last month in July that essentially show that having full fat milk products, when you have two or more cups or glasses of milk per day, that there's an association with acne. And this was again in teenagers, this study was in Norway. So in general, what we see in some of these studies is increased consumption of dairy, increased likelihood of acne. Now there's one more study that I just had to bring up to you because I thought it was fascinating that whey protein supplementation has also been shown to be somewhat associated with acne in bodybuilders. There was this study in the Journal of Dermatology in 2012 and this was just a smaller study, five case reports of healthy men having increased outbreaks of acne with whey protein supplementation. So if you've got, if you've been doing whey protein consistently, maybe you just need to change it up. Alright, next on the list is number seven, which is avoid sugar. And of course it's impossible to avoid sugar, right? So maybe reduce sugar as much as you can. So when we have a lot of glycemic impact in our diet, a lot of sugars and sweeteners and simple carbs, what can happen is we're constantly creating this flux of insulin through our body and potentially more inflammation. So, so see if that works for you. I just think that when we clean up our diet, it's almost like we're cleaning up our insides and we just feel better, we make better choices, our mood is better, our skin is better, it's like it's all connected. Right, okay. Number eight is kind of an obscure one and I would say that maybe this applies just more to me, I'm not sure. But I do drink tea on a regular basis, on a daily basis. So I'll have green tea or white tea or any kind of botanical herbal teas. And I did look into the literature on this a little bit and found that there are some preparations of skin products where they actually put tea extracts and they see benefits for the quality of the skin. So I don't know if the tea makes a difference for me per se, but I do like getting the added polyphenols, the added phytonutrients that I know are anti inflammatory number nine. Now this would be a tough one, is to avoid or reduce stress. I know that when I'm stressed that my physiology, my gut feels it. You know, I feel butterflies in the stomach, my bowel movements are different. And so what I really like to do is to reduce stress as much as possible. And maybe it's not reducing stress as much as it is bouncing back from stress. So the more that we get into that practice of mindfulness and having some type of strategy where we can just find ourselves back into the moment and just breathe. And you know, so many ways to work on stress, obviously, but the skin really shows stress, so that's one of the things to be on the lookout for. The last tip is to look at nutrients, specific targeted nutrients that we know would be beneficial for skin. And there are going to be many. There are so many. In fact, I wrote down a couple here. One of them that I think is important is to make sure that we have the proper balance of fats. So if you don't feel like you're getting enough of the anti inflammatory omega 3 fats, it might be worthwhile to discuss with your practitioner having you take an omega 3 supplement of some sort. Right. I think that having, if you think about it, all the cell Membranes of the body have fats. So you want good, healthy, anti inflammatory fats, especially in the skin tissue, which is fatty. The second thing I think of is vitamin C. And vitamin C is good for so many different things, right? It's good for collagen, it's good for connective tissue, it's good for helping with stress and just in general helps our immune system. So making sure that you have adequate vitamin C in your diet or through a supplement. I know I take extra vitamin C at the change of seasons, if I'm traveling a lot, if I've got a lot of work pressure on me. So I make sure that I'm on the pulse of vitamin C, the other nutrient I'll mention. And of course there are many, but I'm just going to be giving you the top three. So fish oil. And then I also mentioned the vitamin C. And then I'm going to mention zinc. I like zinc. It's a mineral. You do want to be sure that you don't overdose on zinc because there is a level of toxicity. But zinc is needed for wound healing, much like vitamin A. So the tolerable upper level of zinc on a daily basis that has shown to be safe is 40 milligrams. So make sure, you know, get your levels tested from your functional medicine provider to be sure that you actually need zinc because there's a balance of all the different minerals. So you want to be sure that you're sinking those up properly. But yeah, minerals are important, just as, you know, all the different vitamins and phytonutrients as I discussed. So I hope that this is helpful. Like I said, this is a work in progress for me personally, but I know how important it is to feel really good in your skin and to feel like you're confident and you're radiant and you're glowing. So let me know what you think and I hope that this has been helpful. Take care. Bye. Bye.