Moisturizing lotions and potions are popular during the cold Massachusetts winters, where the harsh outdoor weather turns into a warm, but dry condition when you enter a building. While moisturizers and lotions are good skin care ideas, most skin care problems require more than just surface treatment. They start on your insides and require healthy eating habits. Not every person is alike, so changes to your diet actually depend on the skin care problem you face.
What’s your skin type?
Some people have normal skin, which requires the traditional skin care techniques, like cleansing or moisturizing. Others have oily skin, dry skin or a combination with oily skin on the T-zone area that includes the nose and forehead. To find out what type you have, just wash your face and don’t follow up with a moisturizer after you dry it. If your skin feels tight or has flaky red patches, it’s probably dry. Take a tissue and blot the skin. If it’s oily in the T-zone but not in other areas, it’s a combination. However, if you blot your face with a tissue and there are signs of oil or it’s shiny or you have large visible pores, you have oily skin.
The older you are, the more chance your skin is dry.
As you age, your skin tends to hold less water, so that firmer look you get after a shower quickly fades to flaky dry skin. You can help prevent that by drinking more water. Other changes to your diet can include eating fruit like watermelon that contains a lot of water. Boosting vitamin A in your diet and vitamin C can also be beneficial, so add an extra helping of broccoli and munch on some red bell peppers for a snack. Avoid drinks with caffeine as they can act as a diuretic, reducing the fluid in your system. Foods with healthy fat and the protein necessary to make collagen, like avocado, also can improve skin.
Oily skin or acne prone skin needs to make other choices.
Although it may sound counterproductive, eating foods that are high in healthy fat can actually help oily or acne ridden skin. For instance, avocado, salmon and flaxseed provide anti-inflammatory properties that can help. Coconut can also add healthy fat and help prevent acne outbreaks. The anti-inflammatory properties of green tea can also provide anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties to help prevent blemishes.
- Keep wrinkles at bay by including food like eggs in your diet. Eggs are both high in protein to help elasticity and cell regeneration and also high in fat to decrease the potential of wrinkles.
- One of the worst types of food for the skin is anything with added sugar, as well as processed carbohydrates. Both can cause inflammation and are especially bad for combination skin.
- Reducing the amount of sugar helps prevent acne, but some people find that eliminating unhealthy fat and dairy also helps. However, some studies show that consuming Greek yogurt may be good for the skin, even if you have acne.
- To give your skin a glow, consider eating tomatoes. The lycopene in tomatoes is an antioxidant to help protect the skin. Consuming bone broth can help aging skin, since it’s rich in collagen.
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