How Diets Can Help You Look And Feel Younger

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Want to look and feel younger? Well really, there’s just one rule… seek out nutrients! By extension, this also means you’re better off avoiding those sugary carbs and processed foods like chips, crisps, cake, chocolate bars, pasta, and rice.

These foods spike your blood sugar and lower insulin sensitivity, thereby increasing your risk of diabetes (which you’re at increased risk of as you get older anyway!). Meanwhile, these foods increase your caloric intake without offering any nutrients that could benefit your skin, hair, teeth, or nails. So why eat them? Instead, seek out fruits, vegetables, salads, meats, berries, fish, nuts, and all that good stuff you would find in nature.

Here are a few examples of diets that can help put you on the right track:

The Mediterranean Diet
The Paleo Diet
The Slow Carb Diet

Eat a Lot or Eat a Little?

Here’s another question: should you eat a lot, or eat a little?

This is actually one of the most important questions to ask when looking younger is your goal! On the one hand, there is a school of thought that says you should eat very little. This strategy is called ‘Calorie Restriction’ and does exactly what it says. The thought here is by restricting calories, you can actually reduce the rate of your Aging and thus stay looking younger, and for longer.

How does this work? According to proponents, eating less means that your mitochondria work less and thus produce fewer free radicals as a result. The body is forced to rely on ketones and it becomes very energy efficient (eating a low-carb diet could have a similar effect, as could intermittent fasting).

Studies show that mice that live on very low-calorie diets can extend their lifespan by as much as 30% and there are plenty of enthusiastic people online trying this strategy right now. Does it work for humans? It’s currently too soon to tell. But with all that said, there are definite drawbacks to this strategy too.

For one, it makes malnutrition likely. While proper calorie restriction shouldn’t lead to malnutrition, it is of course much harder to get everything your body needs while eating a very low number of calories. It’s also largely unfeasible for a lot of us and not much fun. And there’s another argument too: that actually, having a little puppy fat will help to make you look younger as you age.

Skin Care for Anti-Aging

Anti-aging skin care is also about lifestyle, and how we treat our bodies will be reflected in the appearance of our skin. While soaking up the sun will help us to look bronzed and healthy in the short run, over time it will lead to damaged skin cells which will create more wrinkles in our old age.

This can lead to age spots and more problems because the UV waves of the sun damage the cell walls and cause mutations. Sunblock and getting shade can help prevent this to a great degree. Similarly, it’s important to get lots of sleep. During sleep, the body repairs the damage done to the body throughout the day and can rejuvenate the skin.

One of the ways in which this works is through the release of a growth hormone, or HGH, which is a hormone that encourages anabolism in the body making it repair wounds, rebuild muscle, replace damaged cells, and encourage growth in the muscles and bones. In addition to sleep, another way to encourage the natural production of growth hormones is to exercise and take hot showers, both of which will trigger an anabolic cycle.

Creams and Other Products

The most obvious aspect of skin care is the use of anti-aging creams and products. These will work in multiple ways, both protecting your skin from outside attacks from UV rays and environmental factors, and providing your skin with important nutrients and antioxidants applied topically. They can also hydrate the skin or even tighten it in some cases to provide instantly visible benefits.

You should make sure that you follow a routine and apply your face creams in the morning and at night before bed. This routine should begin with an exfoliating cream or face wash which will remove dead skin cells (that can otherwise interfere with the mechanisms of the moisturizing creams and nutrients).

Exfoliating can also make your wrinkles appear shallower by bringing your skin down to the same level and it will give your skin more of a healthy glow (dead skin tends to look a little greyer). All this is instantly going to make you look and feel younger.

Finally, a rejuvenating moisturizer should be applied which should contain vitamins A and E both of which are vital in skin repair and collagen. Some creams actually do include collagen but there is some dispute as to whether this can actually penetrate deeply enough into the lower levels of the skin in order to have any benefit.

Some products, such as Bio Oil, claim to use carrier molecules and other strategies to get around this limitation. Take a look at the back of the pack when using any moisturizer and look for things like biotin (vitamin B7), retinol, green tea extract, CoQ10, etc. Be wary of bold claims though and be sure to check reviews before parting with hard-earned cash.

In summary, your diet along with certain cosmetics can go a long way in helping you look and feel younger. By no means is this medical advice or a guarantee, but following one or some of these options may help.