Look Younger, Better and Healthier

DietThe old adage you are what you eat has more truth than its coiners may have thought. Make sure your diet is ensuring you’re healthy and looking good for a long time with these tips.

1. Eat superfoods. What are superfoods? They’re foods with multiple benefits of eating them that can include slowing down aging, lowering cholesterol and even reducing your risk of cancer. These include foods like broccoli, salmon and yogurt which you should make an effort to incorporate into your diet.
2. Limit drinking. While a glass of wine or beer each day may do you some good, overindulging in alcohol could be making you look old, not to mention hurting your liver.
3. Go organic. Why fill your body with chemicals and hormones found in foods if you don’t have to? Try making the switch to organics to improve your health and well-being.
4. Eat omega-3 fatty acids. These fats, found in salmon, walnuts and flax seeds, provide a myriad of benefits. They reduce inflammation, prevent excessive blood clotting, inhibit cancer cell growth and help skin look younger and healthier.
5. Drink green tea. Green tea is filled with powerful antioxidants that can help you fight the signs of aging as well as reducing the risk of certain illnesses, fighting infection and inflammation and possibly even serving to help you lose weight.
6. Avoid highly refined foods. Foods that have been highly processed like white breads and pastas can often do you more harm than good. Stick to more whole grains as refined products break down more easily into sugars and causing you to feel hungrier sooner.
7. Get enough proteins. Proteins are an essential part of a healthy diet as they help the body to produce hemoglobin, build cardiac muscle and much more as well as helping you to feel fuller and eat less while still getting a balanced healthy diet.
8. Vary your diet. You may love carrots but eating an all carrot diet isn’t healthy, not to mention that it might turn you an unsightly color orange. Make sure you’re getting a lot of variety in your diet and eating enough dairy, fruits and veggies and proteins to keep you strong and healthy.
9. Kick the junk food habit. A little junk food now and then isn’t going to hurt you, but when now and then becomes every day it can start to become a problem. Most junk foods are loaded with chemicals, fats and sugars that can be harmful to your health can cause you to put on weight, both undesirable to looking younger and healthier.
10. Embrace antioxidants. Oxidation of bodily tissues is a normal part of our body’s interaction with the physical world, but it’s also what causes these tissues to age and degenerate over time. Antioxidants can help repair this damage and fight off harmful free radicals, so make sure you’re incorporating at least a few antioxidant rich foods into your diet.
11. Eat the rainbow. One way to ensure that you’re getting a wide variety of healthy foods is to eat a lot of colorful veggies and fruits. From leafy greens to orange carrots, these foods are packed full of nutrients that can help keep you healthy and young for years to come.
12. Eat less. Studies have shown that people who eat smaller portions and overall take in fewer calories may live longer than their more high-calorie counterparts. Of course, this should absolutely not be taken to the extreme as a certain number of calories are required to keep our bodies functioning and healthy each day.
13. Go for whole grains. Whole grains take longer to break down in our bodies, requiring more energy to eat and keeping you full for longer. When it’s possible, choose whole grain alternatives over their more refined counterparts for a healthier, more well-balanced diet.
14. Stop yo-yo dieting. These kinds of diets are not only poor ways to sustain your lower weight they can also lead to a loss of elasticity in your skin making you saggy. Commit to a weight loss and fitness program you can actually stick to so your body can stay at a healthy, happy weight.
15. Reduce your sugar intake. Foods high in sugars can not only cause you to gain weight but new studies have shown that they might actually cause you to wrinkle more as well. Sugar has been shown to speed up the degradation of collagen and elastin, the substances that keep your skin looking young and supple so cut back on the refined sugars and stick to naturally sweet treats like fruits.