Helping Your Skin Age Gracefully
July 23, 2018
Do you find yourself looking in the mirror, only to find more wrinkles than you remembered? The wrinkles you are seeing could have more to do with some of your daily habits than you think. Today we are discussing the best foods, supplements and lifestyle habits that will help your skin age gracefully.
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Transcript
CASSIE: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. As a lead in to this morning's show, I have a question for all of our listeners. Have you ever looked in the mirror and said to yourself, "oh my goodness, not another wrinkle?" Maybe you've even thought, what can I eat or what supplements can I take or just what can I do so these wrinkles stops showing up? Well, today you're in for a great show. Today we're going to be talking about the best foods, the best supplements, and the best lifestyle habits that will help your skin age gracefully. I'm Cassie Weness, registered and licensed dietitian and joining me to cohost today's show is Carolyn Hudson, who's also a registered and licensed dietitian. So with that, hello Carolyn. It's good to be back on the air with you.
CAROLYN: Good morning. Good morning to all you listeners. You know, Dishing Up Nutrition is brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness, a company specializing in helping people follow a real food eating plan for long-term health and well-being, and it's true that eating real food really does help you age gracefully. On the other hand, that sugar and processed carbs and oh my goodness, those bad fats are often the cause of wrinkles. You know, as you reach for that cookie or maybe that morning muffin or a brownie or caramel roll, do you realize that another wrinkle may just be waiting to appear in that mirror. I would say, "oh no, I don't want any wrinkles" and I know you don't want to hear it, but when you eat sugar, you're actually making wrinkles.
CASSIE: So true. Sugar is one of the many habits that can lead to too many wrinkles. Let's think about some other daily habits because the wrinkles you're seeing in the mirror could have more to do with some of your daily habits than you think. Maybe you have a habit of gardening or working in the yard without a hat or maybe in the past like me. You laid outside most every day in the summer to get that great tan.
CAROLYN: Oh yeah. Growing up on the lake, I didn't even realize that I was out in the sun every day.
CASSIE: Right. We didn't realize that. I mean, that's a good point. We didn't realize it was bad. I had a lot of friends that went to the tanning salon regularly back in the day to get that perfect tan. Like we said, we didn't realize how bad it was for us then, but hopefully today, all of you listening understand how damaging those habits were to our skin. Back in the day maybe we thought it made us look more beautiful or younger or more healthy, but let's think about what was really happening. Whether it was every day in the sun in the summertime or regularly going to the tanning bed, we were causing chronic damage and actually chronic sun damage is one of the most common causes of wrinkles. Now I get it. As a teenager, you most likely were not aware that the countless hours in the sun could result in wrinkles today, but it's the truth. The more you can stay out of the sun, the more you're going to decrease your chance of getting wrinkles and the more you're going to decrease your chance of getting skin cancer. And I'll just say for today, my advice is the next time you step outside to do some gardening, wear a wide brimmed hat to cover and protect your face.
CAROLYN: Yeah. And actually Cassie, did you hear they were talking about sunscreen and sunglasses. Sunglasses. Did you hear that thing on the news the other day? They said that a wide brim hat is more protective for your eyes than the sunglasses. So I thought that was very interesting. So lots of reasons to wear a wide brimmed hat now, right?
CASSIE: I'm just thinking maybe I should stop and do some shopping on the way home because even if you're not going to be gardening, if you're going to be out at the lake or like you were talking about maybe going up to your cabin soon, a wide brimmed hat in those situations would be good too.
CAROLYN: Yes, absolutely. So there are times when you're just outside too long and may get too much sun exposure. So what can you eat on a daily basis to help protect your skin? You can start with something very simple such as eating strawberries and blueberries. Those berries, they're packed with antioxidants and vitamin C. In fact, just one cup of strawberries contains about 85 milligrams of vitamin C compared to an orange that has less vitamin C. So dip your strawberries in a bowl of melted dark chocolate. Yum, yum.
CASSIE: All you have to say is chocolate and I am all in.
CAROLYN: You're all over it, right? And you have a delicious treat with additional antioxidant protection because that vitamin C helps to build the collagen which is that layer of cells under the skin so that it really helps you look young. And both sugar and sun break down that collagen. So you want to have sufficient antioxidant protection.
CASSIE: And I love that you mentioned strawberries dipped in melted dark chocolate. That is a summertime treat that my whole family loves. If you listening are looking for something easy and a little bit fancy to take to the next gathering at the family lake cabin, Carolyn just gave you a great idea. It's easy, isn't it? You just wash up those strawberries. I always leave the greens on top, it just looks a little more elegant, and let them dry and then once you dip them in that melted dark chocolate. I just lay them out on parchment paper and it doesn't take long for it to set up in that chocolate to get hard. So there's a great idea that will also provide skin protection. Speaking of skin protection, I'm going to share something that I do personally because maybe the listeners can make use of this information. I take a vitamin C supplement, especially during the summertime. I'm really intentional about taking an added vitamin C supplement in addition to the berries and you know, bell peppers and other things I eat that are loaded with vitamin C. On any given day I try to get between 500 to 1000 milligrams of vitamin C. I like to take it in a powder form, so I just mix it in a little bit of water, but certainly there are some good brands that come and tablet form as well. It's just that added summertime skin protection. As I think about, so that's the vitamin C piece, but if I think about other foods that we eat to give us additional protection from the sun to foods that come to top of mind are sweet potatoes and carrots. Sweet potatoes and carrots are loaded with beta carotene and beta carotene is an important antioxidant. Now, I'm betting our long time listeners know what an antioxidant is, but if you're new to the show, I'll just give you a short definition. An antioxidant is basically a substance that we find in real food that protects our body from damage basically from the inside out. So if you don't have anything on the menu yet for your dinner meal this evening, how about alongside whatever meat you decide to grill up because I think it's gonna be a great night for grilling. How about you serve some baked sweet potatoes and slather them in butter. That is going to give you a great defense shield against the damaging effects of the sun because you're going to get that beta carotene in the sweet potato and I talked about that being an antioxidant. And butter, especially if you buy a good brand of organic butter, first of all, it has vitamin A and that's just a great nutrient for the skin, but also later in the show, Carolyn and I are going to talk about the benefits of healthy fats when it comes to protecting our skin and butter is actually one of those healthy fats and delicious fat. Love that butter, especially on top of a sweet potato. And let's not forget about our kids. You know my kids, I'm sure like many out there, are out in the sun a lot. They're out playing with their friends. They're out playing summer sports. So I'm very intentional during the summer months about preparing real food for them several times throughout the day to help protect their skin from the damage of the sun.
CAROLYN: Yeah. And these foods are also full of antioxidants that not only protect them against wrinkles but also help protect them from skin cancer due to exposure to those really harmful rays of the sun. So Cassie, it's almost time for our first break. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Clients often ask, "okay, what vitamin supplements should I take for my skin?" And I like to keep it really simple and I don't like to overwhelm my clients at all, but I always recommend the vitamin C that you were just talking about, about a thousand milligrams of vitamin C to help build that collagen that we're talking about. Next, I recommend 4 soft gels have essential fatty acid, GLA or gamma linoleic acid. And lastly, I make sure my clients are taking sufficient amounts of vitamin D3. Most people need somewhere between 3000 and 5000 milligrams daily. So taking vitamin C, GLA, and vitamin D3 is a great start.
CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Before we get back to talking about skin health and staving off wrinkles, I want to let all of the listeners know that starting August 4th, we are setting out to build a nutrition community of like-minded people that can learn and support each other. We're doing this by offering five unique 90 minute classes for only $10.
CAROLYN: That's a steal.
CASSIE: That is a steal of a deal. That's the sale price for sure, so join us if you can just pick a location near you that works. You can take one class, you could take two classes or you can take all five of these popular classes. Here are the titles to choose from, Getting a Good Night's Sleep, Good Foods for Good Moods, The Magic of Minerals, Eating to Reduce Pain and Inflammation, and a very popular one, Five Steps to Boost Metabolism. And if you're at all interested, I encourage you to sign up today because the spots are going fast. You can call 651-699-3438 to reserve your place or you can go to weightandwellness.com and sign up online. We were talking about real food, beta carotene, vitamin C, all these great things that can help protect our skin. I wanted to mention, you know, I talked about making some baked sweet potatoes and slathering them in butter for your evening meal tonight. If baked sweet potatoes don't really excite you, here's another idea to make those sweet potatoes. You can take a couple of raw sweet potatoes, cut them really thin, melt some coconut oil, a good amount of coconut oil, in a big pan on the stove top, and then put those sweet potato slices in there and cook them until they're brown and crispy.
CAROLYN: I love those.
CASSIE: It's sort of like a healthy sweet potato chip. And not only will you get that beta carotene from the sweet potato that we talked about as being an antioxidant for your skin, but coconut oil gives you even more protection. It's a saturated fat. And we'll be talking about why that's important in just a bit. And like we said, they're delicious and they're easy. So double bonus.
CAROLYN: Absolutely. And another food that I really, really love for meals or snacks is avocado. It is really high in vitamin E. Vitamin E is another one of those antioxidants that we've been talking about. And Vitamin E is also a very key player in that anti-aging and in preventing your skin from aging because of that exposure to the sun.
CASSIE: So if you haven't historically been an avocado eater, how can you add them to your real food meal plan? Well, a couple of ideas come to the top of my mind. One is to take half of an avocado and either just slice it up or cut it up into cubes. Put that on your plate next to that, put your scrambled eggs and then you could cook up some vegetables and put that on your plate too. Can you visualize that?
CAROLYN: I put egg on top of my avocado. I mix it all together. It tastes lovely together.
CASSIE: I might try that because I was just thinking the salt and pepper on the avocado on the side separate but together.
CAROLYN: I do a fried egg.
CASSIE: And I would leave the yolk a little runny. That sounds really good Carolyn, I'm going to try that. Another idea is if you have an avocado that's a little overripe, so it's getting a little too squishy, added to your morning protein shake. It adds a thickness and a creaminess that I just love. It doesn't really add flavor, but you get the nutrients and the thickness from it. Then one other idea that comes to mind, and this is especially good if you have any dairy sensitivities or dairy allergies in your family like my family does. Instead of doing the traditional deli meat rollups that we sometimes talk about where you take the nitrate free deli meat and spread full fat cream cheese on it. If you're sensitive to dairy, you can take avocado and either slice that on the deli meat or if it's a really soft avocado, you can spread it and then roll up the meat. It's great for snack time to do two or three of those along with like a vegetable carbohydrate.
CAROLYN: One of my favorites, of course, is guacamole. I love guacamole and I eat it with vegetables.
CASSIE: Okay. Because I'm like, where are you going with this? Are you going to talk to me about corn chips? That might get us fired.
CAROLYN: I don't do the corn chips. I do a variety of vegetables with my guacamole. And summertime I'm always bringing that as one of the appetizers to any of the parties so that I know I'm going to have my healthy fats, healthy carbs, and that's going to help protect my skin while I'm at that summer picnic. So we know that those chips, those corn chips if you have those that turns into that glucose or sugar, right?
CASSIE: And we already talked about sugar causes wrinkles so stay away.
CAROLYN: Right and that sugar creates another thing, free radicals, we haven't talked too much about that. But that those free radicals, they can cause a lot of damage to your skin and you're gonna end up with wrinkles, right? So if you're not an avocado lover, maybe you're going to want to supplement with some vitamin E, maybe about 400 to 800 milligrams of quality vitamin E. I like vitamin E Complex 1 to 1 or Vitamin E with Selenium, which are both from Metagenics.
CASSIE: Great Supplement Company. I love Metagenics. And if you want to learn more about either one of those vitamin E supplements that Carolyn just mentioned, the vitamin E Complex 1 to 1 or the Vitamin E with Selenium, you can go to our website at weightandwellness.com and just click on "vitamins" and you can read all about those and what's in them and you can even order them online if you would be interested in that. So that's the avocado piece. Here's another food that is great to protect your skin from wrinkles and from skin cancer, wild caught salmon. Actually, any wild caught fatty fish helps to protect your skin. I know there are listeners out there that are not salmon lovers. My husband is one of them. He thinks salmon tastes too fishy, but there are other fatty fish that will give you the benefit as well. Halibut is one of them. And that's a very mild fish, but it's got a decent amount of the omega-3 fish oils in it to protect your skin and if you want a great recipe for halibut, go to our Weight and Wellness Cookbook, page 98. There's a delicious recipe called Halibut with Potatoes. And I know I talked about this last week, but I want to mention it again, our Weight and Wellness Cookbook is on sale this month, so until the end of July, it's still on sale at a 15 percent discount. I can see it's almost time for break, but I want to mention one more great recipe out of that cookbook that has those omega-3 fish oils and that's the Salmon Loaf recipe on page 199. It uses canned wild caught salmon. It's got wild rice in there, so it's easy to make and it's gluten free. If you don't have our cookbook yet, you can go to weightandwellness.com and order it there, or you can stop in any one of our seven office locations to purchase that cookbook.
CAROLYN: So it is time for break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. One very simple habit that may very well have you looking younger and healthier is to drink 8 to 10 glasses of pure filtered water. So here's a thought, could you substitute water for your coffee or drink an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee that you consume in a day? We all know that coffee is dehydrating to your body and it dries out your skin. So as a result, your skin will wrinkle more easily. So drinking the 8 to 10 glasses of water daily is a simple yet very effective habit to prevent wrinkles.
CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. If you're just joining us, I'm in studio with Carolyn Hudson. I bet most of you listening each week and don't realize how much time we put into this program and I just realized Carolyn, I said, if you're just joining us, I'm here with Carolyn. I didn't say who I am. I'm Cassie Weness. I just wanted to mentioned that we do spend a lot of time researching for Dishing Up Nutrition. Depending on the topic, we put in 10 to 12 hours a week. We probably put in another four or five hours, again, depending on the topic, just making the show understandable and conversational so that it reaches our listeners where they're at. I guess what I'm saying is because of all the time we put into the show each week, we would really love your feedback so that we know if we are serving your needs, are you learning? Are you using the information that we're sharing with you? Are you encouraging your family and friends to listen either to our live broadcast of Dishing Up Nutrition or to our podcasts? And are you writing any reviews on iTunes about our podcasts? We truly feel honored to present our radio show and our podcast to you every week. We have a passion about sharing this message that eating real food matters and our goal is to reach people worldwide. We certainly have a health crisis here in the United States and many other countries do as well. Eating real food is a simple message, we know this, but when you implement this message meal after meal day after day, it becomes a life changing habit. So do let us know how we're doing. You can either send us an email at email@weightandwellness.com. You could also call the office to give your feedback. That number is 651-699-34378. Or as I mentioned earlier, you can write a review on iTunes.
CAROLYN: Cassie, I just thought I'd mentioned. I know that most of us as counselors actually have clients kind of worldwide. I have one right now that's in the Channel Islands off the coast of England. So it's really fun. It's a little hard to get our time schedules right, but we do have listeners worldwide and that's really cool. So before we went to commercial, I was mentioning the importance of drinking plenty of water to keep your skin healthy. You know, a general rule of thumb that I'm sure all of you have heard is that you should have about 8 to 10 eight ounce glasses every day and I think that's a really good starting point. But also here is another great little tests that you can do right now to see if you've been drinking enough fluids. It's one of those skin tests. So if you're listening at home or in a place where you can do this along with me, this test will tell you if you're well hydrated or if you need to grab another glass of water right now. So here's what you do. Use two fingers to pinch up some skin on the back of your hand and then let go. The skin should actually spring back to its normal position in less than a couple seconds. If it doesn't, guess what? It's time to go pour yourself another tall glass of purified water.
CASSIE: Mine sprung right back into place. But I remember taking the Weight and Wellness Series the first time when I had first found Nutritional Weight and Wellness and the teacher recommending that we do that and my skin did not spring back into place. So I've certainly changed my habits for the better. This conversation reminds me that, as we talk here about water, it reminds me of something I heard one of our Weight and Wellness teachers ask the class one time. She said, do you want to be a raisin or do you want to be a grape? And she had a raisin to show and she had a grape to show. So I don't know about all you listening, but I want to be a grape. I don't want to be a wrinkly old raisin. So if you answered grape, just be sure you're intentional about getting at least 8 to 10 eight ounce glasses of water a day. It really does plump up that skin and help to stave off wrinkles.
CAROLYN: Right before we went to break this time, we were talking about salmon and halibut, but what's so beneficial for your skin with by eating those things. There was a study done in England that found that fish rich in omega-3's actually guards against sunburn and any changes in the DNA that can then lead to cancer. And of course if you are not a fish lover, again, I'm going to recommend guess what? About 4,000 milligrams of omega-3 fish oils and one to two teaspoons of cod liver oil daily. Oh, remember hearing those stories of how your grandmother lined up your mother and all her siblings in the kitchen and had them each take a teaspoon of cod liver every morning. She knew that cod liver oil was so good for the immune system and protected the skin from sun damage.
CASSIE: My mom tells that story and I forget if it was her brother or her that used to go hide in the cupboard. Back then it wasn't deodorize.
CAROLYN: It didn't have the flavor.
CASSIE: Yeah, so I can imagine, but cod liver oil truly has the trifecta of nutrients when it comes to skin health. Of course it has that omega-3 fish oil that you were talking about, Carolyn. It also has vitamin A great nutrient for healthy skin and it has vitamin D and you mentioned the importance of vitamin D earlier in the show for protecting our skin. At our house the kids and I take the brand Omega-3 Care, so it's Omega-3 Care Cod Liver Oil and it darn good. It's deoderized, it tastes kinda like a lemon drop.
CAROLYN:I have that. That's what I take.
CASSIE: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of refreshing actually. Now, probably everybody listening knew before this program even started today, that fish oil and cod liver oil are healthy fats, but how many of you listening know that saturated fats are healthy and actually can protect us from wrinkling before our time? So on that note, I'd like to get into a little nutrition science about the importance of saturated fats. So when we say saturated fats were thinking of things like butter and lard and coconut oil, bacon fat, some people even cook with duck fat, that would be another saturated fat. I just love the science behind how these fats are so great for our health and I love teaching others about how these real fats are good for us. And I think too Carolyn, as we teach about how the real fats are good for us, we should talk about how the factory fats or sometimes we call them the manmade fats are bad for us.
CAROLYN:Yeah. So all those refined fats.
CASSIE: Yes, refined fats, the refined oils, I mean they're bad for so many aspects of our health, but one of the many not so great things they do is cause wrinkles.
CAROLYN:Boy, you know, and this is really interesting, our bodies contain almost 40 billion cells. I'm going to say that again, 40 billion cells. Each of these cells are surrounded by a membrane and that protects the inside of the cell from the outside environment.
CASSIE: When I think of the outside environment as it relates to our skin health, of course, one of the things that comes to my mind right away is the damaging effects of the sun on our skin.
CAROLYN: Yeah, so here's a little more of that nutrition science for you that may have you saying, did I hear you right? At least one half of that cell membrane, remember we have 40 billion of those cells, must be made up of saturated fat for the cell to work properly. This means is very important to eat sufficient amounts of saturated fat to avoid those wrinkles.
CASSIE: Wait, now did you say one half of each of our 40 billion cell membranes should be saturated fat. That's why I eat so much butter. I knew there was a reason.
CAROLYN: We still keep hearing that saturated fat is bad, saturated fat is bad.
CASSIE: I know, when will that message I ever get out of here?
CAROLYN: I dunno, but I know that I'm not worried about saturated fat at all. So butter and coconut oil are both wrinkle reducing types of oils and they work from the inside out. When you eat vegetables cooked in saturated fat or you add some butter to your broccoli or sweet potato, you are actually reducing your risk of developing wrinkles and even skin cancer.
CASSIE: Yes, but what if you are one of the many that bought into that low-fat message or even that fat-free message or worse, are you somebody that still believes the refined vegetable oils like the soybean oil and the canola and the corn oil and the cottonseed oils are healthy for you? Do you believe that? Here's the truth, low-fat eating, fat-free eating, and certainly cooking with those refined vegetable oils I just mentioned are really bad for your health and really bad for your skin.
CAROLYN: Oh, I can't believe it. It's time for our last break here. So you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. If you're struggling with joint pain such as that painful knee or shoulder or elbow or back, please join Dar and Marcie next week as they interview Dr. Robert Silverman. He's the author of Inside Out Health which gives simple solutions you can use to reduce your pain level naturally.
CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition as you regular listeners have heard time and again on this program, real food affects every aspect of our health. Certainly it affects our skin health and we're talking about that today, but real food affects our joint health. It affects whether or not you're going to develop diabetes. It affects our cardiovascular health and of course it affects our mental health and our memory. So the question becomes how do you get on the real food bandwagon? Well, one easy way in one way that I love to recommend is the Weight and Wellness Series of six classes and we're starting up another round of this Weight and Wellness series in early October. So I just want to encourage everyone to come and get a solid foundation to build your health on. You can sign up today for the six week class or we also have our Weekend Weight and Wellness Series being offered in October as well. It starts the evening of Friday, October 12th runs all day Saturday, October 13th, and then the first half of Sunday October 14th. That weekend Weight and Wellness Series is all the information that you get in the six weeks, but it's crammed into those three days. It works well if you have a job that just doesn't allow you to commit to six weeks in a row or we almost always get some out of state people or out of town people flying in for that Weekend Weight and Wellness Series or driving in for that Weekend Weight and Wellness Series. So that's an option too. Let this fall be a new beginning for you. If you want to learn more or if you want to sign up for either the six weeks series or the Weekend Weight and Wellness Series, you can call the office at 651-699-3438. Or you can also sign up online at weightandwellness.com. And while we were on break, we had a caller that was asking if we would repeat the amount suggested for the fish oil supplements. So we were talking earlier about the protective benefits of the omega-3 fish oils. And if you're not a fish lover and want to get it in supplement form, a great place to start is 4,000 milligrams of a high quality omega-3 fish oil supplement. And when we say 4,000 milligrams, they just want to say, pay attention to the serving size. Sometimes that means 4 gel caps, sometimes that means 8. It depends on the brand. But 4,000 total. And then also one to two teaspoons of cod liver oil.
CAROLYN: Yeah, that's a great start, isn't it? So before we went to break, we were talking about those saturated fats. So the truth is when you do not use healthy saturated fats or even monounsaturated fats such as olive oil and those avocados that we were talking about earlier, your cell membranes and actually suffer. So when you use those bad refined vegetable oils rather than good saturated and monounsaturated fats, your cell membranes actually become really stiff and kind of crusty and they break down and as a result your cells lose their protective coating and that allows the damage of your cells to occur from certain foods and of course your lifestyle factors.
CASSIE: The foods and lifestyle factors that are the worst offenders and can cause premature aging, especially if you have broken down cell membranes like you just mentioned, Carolyn, are eating too much sugar, eating fried foods, too many beers or cocktails or glasses of wine. And we hear about that a lot during the summertime. People are like, really? You want me to give up? Well, if you don't want to wrinkle. Also, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavorings, chemical preservatives, of course, MSG. All of these things can cause premature aging as well as too much sun and of course smoking. And what happens is these eating and lifestyle habits create free radicals. And one of the many ways free radicals can damage our bodies is by creating wrinkles. Just talking about wrinkles, I was reminded here, have a friend that I sort of grew up with back home, she's maybe five years older than me, but she dated my brother's best friend, so I knew her that way and I knew her through sports. Anyway, growing up, she had beautiful skin. She was cute, athletic, and then I ran into her at our hometown church one Christmas about 10 years ago now, so she would have been about 40 and this was after not having seen her for a decade or more and I was really taken aback by how many wrinkles she had on her face. Then as we talked, I made the connection. She talked about her love of sugar and she talked about how oftentimes when she would make a nice dinner meal for her husband and her four kids, I remember her specifically talking about a pot roast and vegetables. She said, I always sit down and eat with them, but oftentimes I just pour myself a bowl of cold cereal with skim milk. So there we have cold cereal, our long time listeners know is just sugar and skim milk adds even more sugar. No wonder she was wrinkling much too young.
CAROLYN: Yeah. Not having those good healthy fats and too many carbs, right? There are many other lifestyle habits that can lead to more wrinkles. Lack of sleep is certainly one of those lifestyle habits that can lead to more wrinkles and we are a nation of poor sleepers. I can't tell you how many people think that five to six hours of sleep per night is enough, but it's not, not for our skin. So we should be trying to sleep at least eight to nine hours a night, and if you did that for two months, I'm pretty certain that you'll be pleasantly surprised when you look in the mirror and see how refreshed and younger you look.
CASSIE: And those dark circles under your eyes will be gone. You'll look beautiful. Now I know well from past personal experience, some of you listening are thinking, well, that sounds just great, but I can't sleep. I would love to, but I just can't sleep. My body won't do it. So if you're one of the millions of Americans having trouble either getting to sleep or staying asleep, there is hope at Nutritional Weight and Wellness, we've helped so many people overcome their lack of sleep problems. Many of you may not realize that poor sleep is usually a nutrition problem. So if you're one of the millions of adults in this country who suffer from sleep problems, come in for a nutrition appointment so we can help you to get a good night's sleep.
CAROLYN:And if you really want to get serious about preventing wrinkles or even repairing some of the damage that's already been done to your skin. We highly recommend scaling back on the amount of sugar that you consume, either in the foods that you eat or don't forget about those beverages that you drink.
CASSIE: Like some of those foo foo iced coffee drinks are so loaded with sugar. There have been a lot of studies done that have shown sugar and processed carbs are highly inflammatory. Now, we also know that not all sugars are created equal when it comes to damaging your skin. Many of you may have heard that regular white sugar is not good for your skin, but the research has found that high fructose corn syrup is extremely damaging for our skin, not to mention other aspects of our health. So what foods are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup? Well, I'm pretty sure most all of you listening know that pop is on that list and if you have kids, educate them about high fructose corn syrup. I'm always telling my kids to avoid pop and I'm always teaching them to look in ingredient lists for high fructose corn syrup and to avoid it now and they'll be happy when they get to be 40, 50, even 60 and they don't have wrinkles. And I have found that when we teach our kids and they know better, then they make better choices.
CAROLYN: Oh absolutely. Okay, so pop has got that high fructose corn, but what other foods are loaded with that? Candy, of course, especially hard candy, like those things that you suck on and most candy bars. Again, check out the labels, read the ingredients. The good news is that most organic dark chocolate bars do not contain high fructose corn syrup, but be smart shopper and check the label to be sure before buying them. Ask yourself, why am I buying food that is bad for my health and gives me wrinkles? Sometimes manufacturers try to trick us and most people think of yogurt as a really good food, but a lot of the yogurt is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. So many people actually believed that granola bars are good and healthy, but again, I encourage you to read the label.
CASSIE: Yes, always read ingredient lists and stay away from the high fructose corn syrup. Well, I think our time is up here, so our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food in simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for listening and have a great day.
