Tips to look younger

Here are some tips to look younger if you’ve been feeling like you could use a boost.  Hint:  adding sweet potatoes to your diet can help!

Feeling and looking sluggish

Have you been feeling drained lately…perhaps lethargic?  Life can really beat us up sometimes and, if we’re not careful, we can start feeling tired.  Feeling tired can make us look tired.  It’ll start showing in our face, especially our skin and around our eyes.

All this can lead to any number of issues.  Which of these do you relate to?

• Pre-mature aging (wrinkles, fine lines, graying hair)
• Saggy skin
• Under-eye circles / bags

If you’ve been noticing these signs, it might be time to change things up with these tips to look younger!  So, let’s get up and start looking and feeling better!

Sweet potato booster

One of my most favorite tips to boosting my skin is by eating sweet potatoes – and actually it’s just one of my tips to look younger.  Sweet potatoes contain a lot of vitamin C and beta-carotene.  You already know how much I think Vitamin C is so great for you, especially your skin.  To recap…Vitamin C helps with collagen production.  If your skin starts to lose collagen, it will start to sag.  For this reason alone, it is one of the best foods for your skin.  (There 12 foods that I would also recommend to improve skin.)  Sweet potatoes also help to increase antioxidants.

Beta carotene benefits

Why is beta carotene so good for your skin?  Actually, there are several reasons:

• Fights against free radical damage
• Help with collagen production (just like Vitamin C)
• Helps skin repair itself
• Gives your skin the tools it needs to help premature aging

Other benefits of Vitamin C

Aside from helping with your collagen production, vitamin C helps shield you from environmental toxins.  It also helps minimize the effects of aging that is a result of the free radicals floating around.  Vitamin C also helps with cellular turnover – something we all need because, as we age, our skin cells don’t turnover as quickly as they did when we were younger.  Finally, it helps with skin’s elasticity so that it won’t sag!!!  Eating vitamin C can really help with keeping those wrinkles and fine lines from showing up on our face, making us look older and more tired than we should.

Organic or Conventional?

In order to limit our exposure to toxic chemicals, it’s generally recommended to eat organic produce.  In fact, the Environmental Working Group publishes a list each year called the ‘Dirty Dozen’ that tells you exactly which foods you should watch out for and therefore, eat organic.

In turn, they also have a list of their ‘Clean Fifteen‘.  This list tells you which produce is safe – meaning you don’t necessarily have to eat the organic version.  Luckily, sweet potatoes are on the list!  However, if you do buy the conventional version, I would still recommend peeling the skin before eating.

Other produce on EWG’s Clean Fifteen list are:  Avocados, Sweet corn, pineapple, onions, asparagus, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, cantaloupe, mangoes, and watermelon – just to name a few.  I’ll go more into why each of these are beneficial to eat for our health and our skin in the coming days so watch out for more tips to look younger!

Also, if you want a list and the explanation of some of the foods that you should watch out for, click on each one here:

1. Apples
2. Strawberries
3. Spinach
4. Kale
5. Nectarines
6. Grapes (or wine)
7. Peppers
8. Cherries
9. Peaches
10. Pears
11. Celery
12. Tomatoes