You Are What You Eat.

I was doing a little ruminating (or marinating) yesterday while I was cooking.  Thinking about what we put into our body is just as important as what we put onto our skin, if not more.  How many of us are really getting 8-10 glasses of water a day, along with all of those nutrient rich, dark, leafy, greens?  Are you getting enough essential fatty acids?  We can pop vitamins and pills all we want, but our body better absorbs and breaks down what we need from actual food sources.  Now, I'm going to just throw this out there, I am not a nutritionist, I am an esthetician.  But that large, gorgeous, excretory organ is my business.  It's not just your candy coated protective layer (well it does protect) nor is it just there to keep your organs from falling out onto the floor.  It is a real, live, working organ.  It helps to regulate our body temperature by sweating, it also protects itself with the oily, waxy sebum that it produces.  So, we need to feed this organ to help it do it's job and keep us looking and feeling our best.   Here's my list for healthy, radiant skin...

1. Mangoes.  Holy lord are these amazing delicious little buggers!  These lovely, juicy fruits contain 80% of your daily requirement of Vitamin A.  They are chock full of antioxidants and vitamin A repairs and maintains skin cells.  Hows that for a super food?

2.  Avocados.  Creamy, luscious, and full of B vitamins.  This fruit is wonderful for inflamed, damaged, or red and blotchy skin.  I loved to eat the inside and then turn the skin inside out and just rub it on my face.  I do the same with mangoes.  Good stuff.

3.  Almonds.  I know you were asking where the vitamin E was.  One serving of almonds covers 150% of your daily requirement for vitamin E.  Having a dry winter, almonds will help.  They are also quite delicious and a good, healthy snack.

4.  Dark, Leafy Greens.  SO i know that this is nonspecific, but these veggies, Kale, Collards, Broccoli, Chard, all are abundant in Vitamin C.  They help to feed the skin, keep it plump with collagen and keep it healthy.  Eat up!

5.  Seafood.  Fresh, open water sourced seafood.  Essential fatty acids, omega 3, and omega 6.  Your entire body needs these.

Those are my top 5 skin foods.  I should go on to say that smoking and drinking dehydrates the skin and causes premature aging.  They both destroy the skin from the inside out.  Let's make 2012 not only the year of the dragon, but also, the year, of beautiful, healthy, glowing skin.

None of us want to grow old and into a smoker's face, like this.