Healthy Eating Affects Your Skin and Your Waist

How you eat affects your appearance. Your skin especially shows the results of eating right. Getting in the habit of healthy eating, along with a good skin care regime, can help take years off you appearance and it is not that hard. Good eating has an anti-aging affect on your skin too. It also has the benefit of helping to keep you at a healthy weight.

Processed foods can play havoc on you. They contain large amounts of trans fats, sugar, preservatives and who knows what else. It seems it is so much easier to grab a box of whatever than to start from scratch, but at what cost?

Wheat Bread

What foods make up a good diet? Fruits, vegetables, low fat protein, low fat dairy products, whole grains and good fats.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are very accessible today. These are easy to prepare and add the antioxidants that your body needs. Most grocery stores have fresh vegetables prepared for you in cut up portions ready to eat or cook. You can also get fresh frozen fruits and vegetables with no sugar or salt added. Aim for 7-9 servings a day. Not only is it good for you, but it will help fill you up and lose weight at the same time. Fruit juice counts as a serving, but it does not have the fiber or make you feel full like the fruit does. What are 9 servings? It sounds like a lot, but it really is not. An example of a day could be:

Breakfast: a piece of fruit with your cereal. 1

Mid-morning Snack: fruit and nuts. 2

Lunch: salad with lettuce, fresh broccoli, celery, carrots, onions, and mushrooms. 3 & 4

This could even be three servings, depending on how much vegetable you add.Mid Afternoon snack: Either fruit or raw carrots and celery. 5

Dinner: Tomato Salad, Baked sweet potato, steamed cauliflower. 6,7,8

Dessert or Bedtime snack: Baked apple. 9

Add low fat protein in the way of chicken, lean pork or beef, and fresh fish or shell fish and you will have a well rounded day. It is good to have protein at most meals. Also, if you add protein with a snack, it will help you to feel satisfied.

Nuts and seeds are a good source of protein and fiber and help you to feel full, but be careful as they are high in calories. Low fat cheese is also good for both daily and protein.

What are whole grains? They supply the needed fiber to your diet. Check the labels on your breads and other products. If it does not say 100% whole wheat, it probably is not. Many types of bread say wheat bread, but have little if any whole wheat in them. Pasta now comes in many forms of whole grains. It used to be that whole wheat pasta did not taste all that good, but today it is very palatable, and it is an easy way to get the needed fiber into your diet. An easy way to get a lot of your fiber is in cereal. Some has as much as 15 grams of fiber. Check the labels and aim for at least 5 grams. Most of the high fiber cereals have less sugar, too.

The good fats are olive oil and other vegetable oils, especially canola, safflower and the nut oils. Stay away from ANY trans fats. What about butter or margarine? According to the latest research, a trans fat-free margarine is the best. It does not have the saturated fat that butter has. You can also use olive oil as a dipping sauce with your bread instead of a spread. It is important that you have fats in your diet, so use them. I keep a bottle of olive oil on my counter and use it for most everything. I even use it in baking! No one is the wiser.

Try eating this way for a while and you will see a difference in your skin and also in your waist line! Good nutrition benefits you all over. You will see it from head to toe and you will feel better.

Healthy Eating Affects Your Skin and Your Waist

If you would like to see more on a good skin care regime, visit my websites:

http://www.beauty-fromheadtotoe.com

http://www.beauty-fromheadtotoeblog.com

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