Let me tell you a secret. The key to a glowing skin isn’t in your beauty bottles, it’s in the kitchen. Sure, your skin takes from your genes, but taking good care of your skin also means eating right. You can fight off acne or delay wrinkles, with just a few changes in your eating regime. Here are my top healthy superfoods for a glowing skin:
Do Eat Tomatoes
Tomatoes are the first food on my glowing skin diet. They contain Lycopene that boosts your collagen. Collagen fights against wrinkles by giving your skin a firm and youthful look. Lycopene, in tomatoes also, reduces skin damage caused by sun exposure. Cooking the tomatoes adds to its nutritional value, so enjoy those tomatoes in a curry or a soup form.
Do Drink Green Tea
From the numerous proven benefits of green tea, a glowing skin is also one of them. Green Tea contains Polyphenols. These are antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties. This means that regularly drinking green tea protects your skin from aging and also prevents acne. However, we would advise against drinking more than two cups of green tea every day to avoid excess intake of caffeine. Too much caffeine isn’t good for your skin either. When buying green tea, opt for green tea brands with tea leaves instead of tea dust.
Do Eat Protein Rich Foods like Fish and Seafood
Your skin starts showing signs of aging when the formation of collagen starts to decrease. Collagen is the structural tissue in your skin cells and it’s made primarily of amino-acids. Your body gets these amino acids from proteins. When you decrease the amount of protein in your diet, your skin sags. Your eyes become puffier. Plus, protein is also good for your hair and nails. You can add more protein to your diet by consuming seafood, eggs, beans, white meat poultry, lean beef, Milk, and Cheese.
Do Eat These Green Veggies
We have all heard, “If it’s green, it’s good for you”. For greens, darker is also better. There are some green vegetables that are especially good for your skin too. These healthy skin foods are avocados, spinach, kale, and arugula.
Avacodos
Avocados are rich in Vitamin C and E. Vitamin C helps produce our body’s collagen. This will help keep your skin supple, firm and wrinkle-free. The antioxidants in Vitamin E moisturizes your skin and hair. Plus, avocados have anti-inflammatory properties that can keep acne at bay.
Spinach
Spinach contains high amounts of Vitamin A. This contains retinol that delays the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. Spinach also contains iron, which is good for both your skin and hair.
Kale
The Kale smoothies you might be watching your favorite celebrities and coaches drink actually contains good amounts of Vitamin A and C. No wonder their skin glows like that.
Arugula
Arugula contains a high amount of sulfur that also promotes collagen production in your body.
What not to eat for a glowing skin
Other than the above superfoods for glowing skin, here are some foods that you should avoid for your skin and also your health:
Don’t Eat Too Much Sugars
Sugar isn’t just bad for your waistline; it’s bad for your skin too. Processed sugar fastens the process of aging in your skin. They do this by attaching themselves to the collagen and elastin in your body and breaks them down. Other than that, sugars aggravate acne and Rosacea in your body.
Simple Carbohydrates are the worst for your body. You can find them in bread, pasta, fried food, candy, ice-creams, fizzy drinks, fruit juices, white sugar, brown sugar, and jam.
Don’t Drink Alcohol
Alcohol dehydrates your skin. How does it do that? For your liver to digest alcohol, it produces acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a by-product of the enzyme produced during alcohol digestion. This byproduct dehydrates your skin and leads to premature aging in the form of wrinkles and fine lines.
Alcohol is your body also releases histamine in your blood that dilates your blood’s capillaries. This gives the appearance of skin redness.
Alcohol also makes your skin prone to acne, blackheads, and whiteheads. These if not treated on time can lead to permanent scarring of your skin.
Don’t Drink Too Much Caffeine
Caffeine works in pretty much the same way as Alcohol. It dehydrates your skin and releases toxins in the body which are harmful not just for your skin but also your body.
Want your beautiful skin back? If you think you need more than just a guide on superfoods for glowing skin, get in touch with me to talk about your skin’s health.
About Safaa Elbanna
Safaa Elbanna is a certified Homeopath and Skincare Practitioner. Safaa helps busy working ladies to avoid the aging effect of physical and mental stress, especially on the skin through natural homeopathy medicines and techniques