BEAUTY FOODS 101

I get so many questions from you guys about how to eat for healthy skin and glowing hair. Nourishing your body with enough key nutrients is vital to strong and healthy hair and also clear, radiant, and glowing skin! Lifestyle is also important for optimal skin and healthy hair. That means making sure you’re getting enough sleep, moving your body and stimulating your natural detoxification systems, managing stress, and drinking enough water throughout the day. Your diet is also super important for flowing hair and glowing skin. If you want to nourish your skin from the inside, check out these top 10 beauty foods to add to your diet and read my advice for optimizing your diet for natural beauty.

BEAUTY ON THE INSIDE

Our skin is the largest detoxification organ in our body, so inflammation, food intolerances, stress, digestive issues, lack of sleep, dehydration, and hormonal imbalances are bound to pop up in the skin in some fashion. That might look like acne, dry skin, conditions like eczema, or general lackluster skin. Our skin requires enough energy and healthy calories to keep it healthy, tight, and glowing. Healthy skin especially thrives from B vitamins, minerals like zinc, healthy fats, and protein. Nourishing our bodies from the inside will always show on the outside, therefore the most important thing you can do to get healthy skin now is to start from the inside to support your health on a cellular level. Here are my top 10 foods to add to your diet to get that glow.

01 TURMERIC

A spice with powerful medicinal properties due to its high amounts of nutrients, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, and phytonutrients to fight inflammation. Read an in-depth post here https://www.goodandwelltips.com/health-benefits-of-turmeric/

02 SPIRULINA

Blue-green algae is high in plant protein, chlorophyll, vitamins, and minerals perfect for overall health but also for nail health (especially with the amount of protein and iron found in spirulina).

03 DARK LEAFY GREENS

Rich in vitamin K and vitamin A, which help our cells reproduce healthy skin cells and moisture retention in the skin. Dark leafy greens(https://www.culinarynutrition.com/guide-to-dark-leafy-greens-how-to-use-them/) also contain iron, which is important for healthy blood flow and oxygenation of our skin cells.

04 PROBIOTICS

Probiotics are the army of good bacteria keeping a balance with the naturally occurring “bad” bacteria and yeast in our digestive system. It may be helpful for those suffering from allergies, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), chronic gut inflammation, bacterial overgrowths, constipation, eczema, and more.

05 ALOE

Not the kind you put on after a sunburn, but the same gel and latex derived from the plant and used in aloe lotions for skin. Ingesting aloe has been shown to help retain water, reduce depression, and ease digestive issues.

06 CHAMOMILE

An herb used in teas and tinctures to aid in digestion, reduce swelling, fight bacteria, and promote calm and ease.

07 MACA

An adaptogenic root vegetable (from the broccoli family) grown in Peru. It’s been used for centuries by the South American cultures as a great source of minerals that may help with hormonal balance, a positive mood, and more.

08 REISHI MUSHROOMS

My favorite medicinal mushroom aka adaptogen. The active constituents that make these mushrooms “medicinal” are primarily polysaccharides including beta-glucans and triterpenes that make help enhance the immune system(https://www.selfunite.com/ways-to-boost-your-immune-system/) and fight inflammation.

09 NUTRITIONAL YEAST

Incredibly rich in B vitamins and protein. B vitamins (especially biotin) are important for the health of our hair, skin, and nails.

10 AVOCADO

My favorite skin food of all time! Rich in vitamin E, fiber, B vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants all of which keep your skin glowing, soft, and youthful.

BOOST YOUR BEAUTY

We all know the more that we treat the inside of our bodies with care on a cellular level, the more our body can absorb and utilize those nutrients to make us not only FEEL really great, but also keep our hair healthy and strong and make our skin glow from the inside out. Zinc, B vitamins, selenium, protein, healthy fats, fiber, magnesium, and vitamins E, A, and C are just some of the few nutrients our hair and skin need. Eating a whole foods diet is the most important, but sometimes it’s nice to give your body a boost in the form of supplements if you don’t regularly consume these beauty foods.

5 Buzzing Health Foods

If you’re looking to take your health to the next level, it may be time to mix things up and throw in some new ingredients and foods into your diet. Regular changes in your diet ensure that your body doesn’t become too used to the foods that you are eating and in turn, stop absorbing the nutrients from them. Adding new foods also ensures you are exposed to different vitamins and minerals that may not be in other foods you typically eat. Check out these 5 new health foods and see if you can add them to your diet!

1) Chlorophyll

If you’re thinking this is the same stuff that is in plants to make them green, you are 100% correct. And because of that, it is a nutrient powerhouse for your body! It’s like eating all the nutrients, antioxidants, and detoxing elements of leafy greens in a concentrated liquid form. Easy to add to warm water first thing in the morning, as you would a slice of lemon, you can also add it into smoothies and smoothie bowls for a big green health boost（https://www.healthline.com/health/liquid-chlorophyll-benefits-risks）.

2) Maca

This little Andean root is showing up in lots of places, and with due reason: it is great for the endocrine system and is packed with lots of different vitamins and minerals, including magnesium, which is good to help you sleep. The endocrine system is responsible for regulating our hormones, which regulate several processes in our body such as the stress response and blood sugar control. Keeping this system in check can go a long way in helping prevent further health issues. Add Maca to your smoothies, baking, or add into homemade chocolate. Click HERE (https://www.goodandwelltips.com/food/)for the delicious Cranberry Wellness Smoothie Bowl featuring maca root pictured above.

3) MCT Oil

You may have heard of this oil via Bulletproof coffees, where you add some oil to your coffee for a boost of healthy fats. Adding healthy fats to your diet is important to aid in digestion and elimination, helps keep your skin and hair healthy, contributes to energy levels, and helps you feel full. Medium-Chain Triglyceride Oil (MCT) is extremely beneficial to the body because it is composed of fats that the body can use for daily vital tasks, not fat that is stored. Furthermore, it helps your body metabolize nutrients and burn calories.

4) Baobab Powder 

The star of the show in this powder is the high magnesium levels. Magnesium is an essential mineral that many people are deficient in without realizing it. This important mineral is a muscle relaxant, helps you sleep, and plays a role in fighting adrenal fatigue (something very common amongst people who are regularly under physical or emotional stress, especially athletes). This powder helps fight acidity in your body, helps increase your energy, and has a slightly citrusy flavor. Add it to smoothies, or to tropical banana soft serve!

5) Teff

This grain has been around for a long time, but it’s just now starting to take hold in mainstream media and is increasingly popping up in recipes and on blogs around the web. Used by the Ethiopians for centuries in their famous fermented flatbread, Injera, this gluten-free grain is high in iron and calcium and is also a great source of plant-based protein, making it a nutrient-packed grain that works in everything from bread to cookies to cakes to porridge. Grab some at your local health food store as flour and add it to your baked goods, or buy it in the whole grain form and cook it for breakfast instead of your usual oats!

5 Simple Ways To Naturally Detox Your Body

If you have read detox diets on the Internet before, you are probably put off for life. There are so many scary detox diets out there, making people believe they need to live off green, leafy vegetables and saltwater if they are to cleanse their bodies.

We don’t advise this by the way; fad detox diets don’t produce lasting results. In fact, there are many different and easy ways to detox your body naturally for bone health, reduced stress, weight loss, and other benefits. Below, we are going to take a look at five simple ways you can get started. Read on for more information https://www.selfunite.com/.

1. Take a hot bath once a week with Ginger or Epsom salts

Detoxifying your body isn’t always about your food intake. You can release toxins by having a bath in Epsom salts or Ginger. This will help your body to sweat, and Epsom salts, in particular, are beneficial because they contain Magnesium Sulfate. When we are feeling stressed out, we lose Magnesium Sulfate, and so this is a good way to replace it via absorbing it through the skin.

2. Reduce the amount of unhealthy fats, alcohol, tobacco, salt, caffeine and sugar in your daily diet

Chewing tobacco or smoking can severely mess up the body.  Smoking can make it difficult to breathe because it gums up the villi in your lungs. If you chew tobacco, the symptoms are even worse, as some of these toxins will end up in your mouth. Aside from this, make a conscious effort to reduce your sugar intake and limit the amount of alcohol and caffeine you consume, as they both work against your body’s natural detoxing efforts https://www.selfunite.com/superfoods-body-detox/, as they dehydrate body. Finally, stay away from processed, pre-packaged foods, as they contain huge amounts of sodium.

3. Eat whole foods

It is important to eat whole foods, i.e. raw vegetables and fruits, as much as you can. Fast foods and processed foods are overflowing with preservatives, additives, salt, sugar, and fats, which act as poisonous toxins in your body. Plus, they lead to excess weight gain, which is the last thing you want when detoxifying your body.

4. Eat plenty of fiber

The next point is to make sure that you consume plenty of fiber. Incorporate plenty of vegetables, fruit, and whole grains into your diet. Adequate water and fiber are so important, as they work together to push toxins through your colon and out of your body. All types of fresh fruit are effective when detoxing. However, make sure you do not eat it with your meal, or just before or just after. It needs to be consumed on its own. Aside from this, green and red vegetables, as well as beetroot is recommended. Artichokes have excellent liver detoxifying properties, and onions, broccoli, and cauliflower are also recommended.

5. Drink at least eight glasses of water every day

We touched on the importance of water in the former point. Not only does water work with fiber to get rid of toxins, but it also helps you to sweat better, which is another way it gets rid of toxins. Plus, if you only drink water when you are thirsty, you are probably dehydrated.

So there you have it – five ways you can naturally detoxify your body, and we are sure you will agree with us when we say that they are all fairly easy changes you can make. So, why not get started today? You will be shocked by how much of a difference the five changes can make.

The Fastest Way to Stop a Bad Mood

Just looking at two people walk, you can probably tell that the person with some pep in his step is happier than the one shuffling along, shoulders stooped. Our ability to read body language tells us this. But this walking style–mood connection may also work in the opposite direction, according to research published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.

Canadian researchers found that inducing people to walk in a happy style put them in a better mood than those who were prompted to walk in a depressed style. 

“As social animals, we spend so much time watching other people, and we are experts at retrieving information about other people from all sorts of different sources,” says Nikolaus Troje, PhD, a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Senior Fellow at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. In other words, your body language doesn’t just communicate to other people; it also impacts your own mood and feelings.

“It just shows how strong the link is between the mind and body,” says Danny Penman, PhD, author of Mindfulness. “We’ve all been taught to believe that the mind and body are fundamentally separate, and it just doesn’t seem to be the case at all.”

Penman explains a famous study where researchers showed people a funny video. Half of the people were asked to hold a pencil horizontally in their teeth (mimicking a smile) and the other half were asked to hold a pencil through pursed lips. They found that the smile-mimicking group rated the video as funnier than the other group did. 

“We seem to think as much with the body as we do with the mind,” he says. As is apparent from this study, the way our bodies are behaving influences how we feel about a situation. “The great thing about mindful walking is that it reestablishes on a very deep level the connection between the mind and the body.”

Mindful walking is a meditation exercise in which, instead of sitting, you walk. Penman says that anyone can practice mindful walking simply by paying full, conscious attention to what you are doing: the feel of ground under your feet, of your hips moving and arms moving, of your knees bending, and of a foot lifting off of the ground. By being conscious about your walk, you can short-circuit a negative mood caused by bad posture that you fall into not even realizing that you’re doing it. 

“If you adopt a more purposeful, more cheerful style of walking, it will become self-reinforcing,” Penman explains. “So you start the day feeling miserable, but if you purposely walk taller with a ‘happy gait,’ as it were, it will just reinforce itself through the rest of the walk. You wouldn’t have to be purposefully cheerful for the rest of that journey, it’ll just happen quite naturally.”

Exercise Before Breakfast for ‘Profound and Positive’ Changes

Study finds that those who exercise before breakfast burn double the amount of fat than those who exercise after.

We hear much about miraculously effortless ways to burn fat – pills, potions, supplements, superfoods, you name it – and most of them turn out to be little more than pipe dreams. But now researchers from the Universities of Bath and Birmingham seem to have found onto a way in which people may actually be able to burn double the amount of fat for the same effort – no miracle potion required.

This trick? Exercise on an empty stomach. Yes, you still have to exercise – but if you are exercising already, according to the study you could be doubling some of the benefits by simply adjusting the timing.

The study included 30 men who were classified as obese or overweight, and compared results from two intervention groups (who ate breakfast before/after exercise) and a control group (who made no lifestyle changes), explains the Fitmc.

After six weeks, they concluded that the participants who exercised before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who exercised after breakfast. They found that this was happening because of lower insulin levels during exercise after having fasted, meaning more of the fat from fat tissue and the fat within muscles was being used as fuel.

The researchers found that the muscles from the group who exercised before breakfast were more responsive to insulin compared to the group who exercised after breakfast, despite having had the exact same training and food intake. The muscles from the pre-breakfast exercisers also had greater increases in key proteins, especially those involved in delivering glucose from the blood to the muscles

“Our results suggest that changing the timing of when you eat in relation to when you exercise can bring about profound and positive changes to your overall health,” said Dr Javier Gonzalez of the Department for Health at the University of Bath.

“We found that the men in the study who exercised before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who exercised after,” he added. “Importantly, whilst this didn’t have any effect on weight loss, it did dramatically improve their overall health.”

And yes, there’s that: There was no difference in weight loss. But that the pre-breakfast exercisers were better able to respond to insulin means they were better able to keep blood sugar levels under control and potentially lower the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Pretty remarkable just for changing the time of exercise versus eating.

That the study included just men is a bit of a bummer for women looking for a similar health boost, but they decided to focus on men only to test the proof-of-principle. They promise that future studies will explore the same principle for different groups, including women.

“This work suggests that performing exercise in the overnight-fasted state can increase the health benefits of exercise for individuals, without changing the intensity, duration or perception of their effort,” said co-author Dr Gareth Wallis of the University of Birmingham. “We now need to explore the longer-term effects of this type of exercise and whether women benefit in the same way as men.”

In the meantime, I’m going to keep exercising before breakfast – I prefer not working out of a full stomach anyway, if a little profound and positive fat-burning happens along the way, all the better.

The study was published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.