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You are what you eat when it comes to skin-deep affects of aging

That old adage “You are what you eat” applies to your skin. Nicolette Pace, a dietician and nutritionist who has been featured on television and in magazines, notes, “Good skin relies on an adequate supply of essential nutrients. Some studies indicate that it’s indeed possible to delay aging and get an improvement in skin condition by improving your diet.”

And improving it can be as easy as eating certain key food that can help with everything from wrinkles to dark spots to sagging skin. You won’t believe how good fighting aging can taste, Pace testifies.

Tomatoes

They’re so much more than a pretty salad topping. They’re packed with vitamin C, which helps build collagen and makes skin look firmer and plumper. They also have lycopene, which protects skin from UV (ultraviolet) damage and improves your vascular system. According to Pace, after six weeks of eating tomatoes regularly, all that extra circulation will give you a noticeable glow.

Berries

Blueberries and raspberries are Pace’s top picks. They contain flavonoids, polyphenols, vitamins, probiotics, and tons of antioxidants. If you’re concerned with the effect your environment — anything from pollution to elements in your water — is having on your skin, add more berries to your diet. “They can even promote cell regeneration for new skin,” said Pace.

Green tea

In order to keep skin looking as young as possible for as long as possible, the cells need to regenerate correctly. (Cells that mutate can lead to everything from uneven pigmentation to cancer.) “Green tea has lots of antioxidant power, as well as a chemical call EGCG,” said Pace. “In multiple studies, it was shown to help cells grow properly and maintain a healthy life cycle.”

Yogurt and Kefir

To fight redness and irritation, Pace recommends introducing foods with more probiotics, like yogurt, into your diet. Their “skin-friendly” condition skin “inside and out,” Pace said. Look for natural, unprocessed products to get the highest concentration of living probiotics. Kefir is a cultured milk product that’s similar to yogurt, but has up to three times more probiotics than yogurt. You’ll find it in the dairy case where it’s often sold as a drink, thanks to its thinner consistency. While medical researchers are still figuring out the link between gut bacteria and skin, studies have shown that probiotics reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. Problems like acne, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and rosacea may all improve.

Fish

If your skin is chronically dry, add healthy fats to your diet. They help moisturize skin from the inside out. Wild salmon, for instance, is high in omega-3 fatty acids, one of the best fats . Other omega-rich fish include sardines and Atlantic mackerel.

Nuts

Nuts are another source of good fat. Their anti-inflammatory properties can help with conditions like acne, psoriasis, and eczema. While walnuts contain the most omega-3s, all nuts, including almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, and pistachios, are good for health when eaten in moderation. Instead of a handful of chips when you feel hungry, eat a handful of mixed nuts to see the skin-smoothing benefits.

Avocados

Like nuts and fish, avocados have a lot of good-for-you (your skin included) fat. They are also high in glutathione. By flushing toxins from your system, glutathione helps with acne and wrinkles and slows the development of certain cancers.

Want to eat something that’s anti-wrinkle? Try avocados, which help flush toxins from the hody.

If you’re craving something sweet, honey is better for you than other types of sugar. Honey is anti-viral and an antioxidant, and it doesn’t cause inflammation in the body and skin the way regular sugar does.

 

 

srmedia by — March 1, 2021 in Food, People
Question: Where’s the protein in plant-based nutrition? Answer: It’s right there

As a health coach, nutritionist and personal trainer, I’ve experienced firsthand the shift toward more people turning to plant-based nutrition rather than animal-based foods. And when they do, the first question that converts face from friends, relatives and naysayers is what I call The Protein Question.

The question is so ubiquitous for those that adhere to a plant-based diet that one would think the hospitals are filled with ashen-skinned, protein-deprived vegans. Ironically, it is quite the opposite. Following a whole-food plant-based diet has many health benefits, including lowering your risk of obesity, diabetes and inflammation.

Back to the question: I’m sure you have already guessed that it is…“But where do you get your protein from?”

We are definitely a country obsessed with protein, and lately we seem to be on protein overload.  So here’s a piece of information which might surprise you—and silence those protein fanatics once and for all: The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein, as of now, is .8 grams per kilogram (kg) of body weight. Elite athletes, body builders may require a bit more. However, this is pretty standard for most people.  And it’s fairly easy to get that amount of protein from a plant-based diet.

Protein is a concentrated source of amino acids which are the building blocks of muscle and other functions, and all plant foods contain various amounts of amino acids. Animal protein is just a more concentrated source, but (and here’s the key) more isn’t necessarily better. Because most animals are not carnivores, and certainly all animals that we as humans consume fall into that category, they get their nutrition from plant foods, so animals end up just being the middle man.

What all of the above means is that eating a wide variety of whole plant foods (vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, fruits) along with a proper amount of calories according to individual needs will ensure that you get all the protein and amino acids you need to sustain healthy muscle mass. It’s as simple as that, and in addition, plant-based foods also contain fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients and polyphenols–things that animal protein products don’t.

The good news is that absolutely anyone can go plant-based, as there are no nutrients found in animals that aren’t already found in plants. The only exception is B12, which is actually a bacteria found in diminishing amounts due to the recent concerning trend toward worldwide soil depletion. As such, animal feed has had to be supplemented with B12.  The ironic part of this is that B12 deficiency can actually be found in anyone, not just vegans. This is easily addressed by taking a daily or weekly supplement.

I’m not entirely sure where this fascination with ensuring that vegans get their protein came from. It’s lovely to imagine that meat-eaters have such a worry about our daily nutrient intake because of some concern for our health. But I tend to think it’s because they want to rationalize their own carnivorous diets by dismissing plant-based as lacking in protein and nutrients.

So when the next person asks where you get your protein—and you know they will—tell them to speak up because your hearing is gone from lack of protein. I kid. Tell them you get your protein from everything you eat on your plant-based diet, with a little help from a nutritional supplement or two.

 

Roxanne Lavin, who wrote this article,

Healthy food selection with fruits, vegetables, seeds, superfood, cereals on gray background

is a health coach and plant-based nutritionist based in Las Vegas, Nev.

srmedia by — February 8, 2021 in Food, People

Many people are of the opinion that when dieting for weight loss, it is all about counting calories. If you want to lose weight, you just eat fewer calories or do extra exercise to burn more calories. That’s it, just one of those two options. But that isn’t true.

The idea is, all diets are just a means of getting people to eat fewer calories. If you follow a vegan diet and lose weight, then that’s just because cutting out animal products caused you to eat fewer calories. It doesn’t matter that you just ate vegetables, it just matters that you got less total energy from food.

The idea would be the same if you switched to a keto diet and lost weight–the diet must have worked because you ate fewer calories. Not because you didn’t eat sugar, not because you were in a state of ketosis.

The concept is derived from the assumption that the body can be imagined as a simple energy-burning machine, where any extra energy you eat must be stored as fat. You burn some average amount of calories every day from exercise and basic metabolism. Likewise, if you don’t eat as many calories as you burn, it is assumed that those missing calories from your diet will be made up for by your body burning its own fat. Then it’s assumed that you can just determine how many calories you burn in a day, and then extra calories eaten above that number must lead to fat gain and eating fewer calories than that number leads to body fat loss. That’s it, no other details to worry about. This would work the same way regardless of what one is eating.

This concept holds some appeal because it borrows the language of energy-balancing from physics and appears to be rooted in common sense. However, this fails to consider how the body actually processes energy, which is complex and involves a wide variety of chemical pathways. The body doesn’t just burn the food in a pure oxygen environment, as food companies do to assess the food’s total energy content. In fact, the calories in some foods many not even be fully absorbed by the digestive system. And this also doesn’t consider how food consumption can impact hormones, which can also affect whether body fat is stored or broken down.

There are a lot of factors at play beyond just counting calories. This is particularly clear when you consider the research on short-term fasting, where one might skip breakfast or eat all of their meals within a fixed time window such as eight hours. Consider a recent randomized, controlled trial which demonstrated quite conclusively that when it comes to obesity and health, generally there are dietary factors other than simple caloric intake.

This study in question compared groups of mice that were fed a very unhealthy diet. One group of mice were allowed to eat at any time. The other group were only allowed to eat during an eight-hour window. The total amount of food provided was the same, and both groups ended up eating the same number of calories every day.

So, if counting calories was the only important factor in a diet, you’d expect the two groups of mice to end up about the same healthwise, right? That’s not what happened. At the end of the experiment, the mice that were allowed to eat whenever they wanted were hugely overweight, had unhealthy livers, and the equivalent of type 2 diabetes in humans. That’s what normally happens to mice with this particularly unhealthy diet. But the interesting part is that the group of mice who could only eat during an eight-hour window were perfectly healthy. They were normal weight and had no applicable health problems. The mice looked hugely different.

These results show us quite clearly that diet isn’t just about counting calories.  Even though they ate the same number of calories, one group of mice was quite obese and the other group maintained a healthy weight.  Now, this is an animal study, so the results can’t be directly applied to humans–it merely points the way for further research.  But on the positive side of an animal study, animals don’t lie about how much they ate, how much alcohol they drank, or how many cigarettes they smoked on their surveys. So you really do know with a much higher degree of certainty what those mice ate and how much of it, so the results are all the more convincing.

This is very good news. Caloric restriction isn’t a very good tool for weight loss, so we should be glad that it’s not the only one available.  That’s why so few people have success losing (and keeping off) weight with very popular caloric-restricted diets. If this is surprising, consider the Women’s Health Initiative, the most ambitious, important weight-loss study ever undertaken. This enormous randomized trial involving almost 50,000 women evaluated a low-fat, low-calorie approach to weight-loss. They were persuaded to reduce daily caloric intake by 342 calories and increase exercise by 10 percent. Researcher projected a weight loss of 32 pounds over a single year based on their understanding of thermodynamics. When the final results were tallied in 2006, the experiment proved the opposite of conventional thinking. Despite good compliance, over seven years of calorie-counting led to virtually no weight loss–not even a single pound. Therefore, something we now know is the endocrine system must have superseded the overly simplified thermodynamic arithmetic associated with the concept of caloric restriction.

If your main goals are to lose weight, don’t simply jump to calorie restriction. If you want long-lasting results, you need to better understand your body.

 

Dr. John Jaquish, who wrote this article, is a research professor at Rushmore University and the inventor of X3, a bone density-building medical device used by professional athletes and Olympians and professional bodybuilders.

 

 

srmedia by — January 21, 2021 in Food, People

The following mealsite locations in Pierce County and King County are offering takeout meals for seniors through the Catholic Community Services nutrition program. On-site dining at these locations and others is still suspended, due to pandemic restrictions.

PIERCE COUNTY

Buckley Senior Center: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 811 Main St., 360-829-0190.

Eatonville Community Center: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 305 W. Center St., 360-832-3361, extension 102.

Fife Community Center: Wednesday, Friday. 2111 54th Ave. E., 253-896-8662.

Gig Harbor Senior Center: Monday, Wednesday. 6509 39th Ave. NW., 253-851-3511.

Japanese: Wednesday. Tillicum Community Center, 14916 SW. Washington, 253-584-1280.

Parkland: Monday, Friday. Trinity Lutheran Church, 12115 Park Ave. S., 253-537-0201.

Puyallup Senior Activity Center: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 210 W. Pioneer, 253-841-5447.

Ruston Senior Center: Monday-Thursday. 4716 N. Baltimore, 253-756-0601.

Steilacoom Senior Center: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. 2301 Worthington, 253-581-1076.

Sumner Senior Center: Monday – Friday. 15506 62nd St. E., 253-863-2910.

Tacoma: Beacon Senior Center, Monday-Friday, 415 S. 13th St., 253-301-3369. Lighthouse Senior Center, Monday-Friday, 5016 S. A St., 253-426-1282.

Tillicum Community Center: Monday, Thursday. 14916 SW. Washington, 253-584-1280.

University Place Community Center: Friday. 2534 Grandview Dr. W., 253-564-1992.

KING COUNTY

Auburn Senior Activity Center: Monday-Friday. 808 Ninth St. SE., 253-931-3016.

Black Diamond Community Center: Tuesday, Thursday. 31605 Third Ave., 360-886-1011.

Des Moines Senior Center: Monday-Thursday. 2045 S. 216th St., 206-878-1642.

Issaquah Senior Center: Tuesday, Friday. 75 NE. Creek Way, 425-392-2381.

Kirkland: Tuesday, Friday. Peter Kirk Community Center, 352 Kirkland Ave., 425-587-3360.

Pacific: Tuesday –Friday. 100 Third Ave. SE., 253-929-1154.

Seatac Senior Center: Tuesday-Thursday. 13735 24th Ave. S., 206-973-4683.

srmedia by — January 7, 2021 in Food, People