10 Anti-Aging Vitamins + How To Include Them In Your Diet (Infographic)

While you can certainly slather on as many creams, serums, and tonics as you want that promise anti-aging benefits, when it comes down to it, nothing is going to keep you looking young and fresh like what you're putting in your body.

That's right: It's totally possible to erase years from your face — and keep them off — simply by changing your diet. It doesn't have to be a major change; just adding a few new ingredients into your everyday meals can work wonders. The minerals, vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, and phytonutrients that will keep you looking (and feeling) young can all be found in food.

Luckily,  Thank Your Skin put together this handy chart of 10 powerful vitamins that can fight aging skin and the foods you should be eating to get each and every one of them into your system. Bookmark it, print it out, carry it with you while you grocery shop ... just make sure you're eating all of these delicious, nutritious, skin-friendly foods!

Photo Credit: Stocksy

Read More

“The Clean Eating Dinner Cookbook & Diet Plan: 14 Simple Eating Clean Dinners for Weight Loss & a Healthy Lifestyle” by Kent Burden

Because we live in a world where everything happens very fast and we are busy all the time, dinner has become the most important and consistent meal of the day. History shows things haven’t always been this way. In the Introduction of his newest Clean Eating book, bestselling author and wellness expert Kent Burden explains how in the past people had dinner in the middle of the day, and only a light supper in the evening. Of course, with our current schedules it is impossible to go back to those ideal habits, so what he does is show us how we can improve our diets by choosing to eat only healthy, fresh, natural food that is grown as organically as possible.

“The Clean Eating Dinner Cookbook & Diet Plan” is the most thorough and complete Clean Eating guide on the market. It is packed with information you will not find anywhere else, and it offers over 50 simple recipes for delicious and nutritious dinners. The food pictures are absolutely amazing, and they help readers decide exactly what recipe they want to try in the evening, after a busy day, when all they wish is to cook something that doesn’t take much effort. Forget about frozen meals and highly processed foods. Kent Burden will show you exactly how to stock your pantry so you’d always have the basic ingredients for your Clean Eating dinners.

First of all, readers need to understand that Clean Eating is not a diet plan. It is a lifestyle. It has nothing in common with those restrictive diets that cut out your favorite food from your plate. On the contrary: once you adopt this lifestyle, you are allowed to eat anything you want, as long as you pay attention to the products you use. The author teaches his readers how to read and understand food labels, so that they’ll finally be able to make well-informed choices. Removing refined sugar, GMOs, chemicals, pesticides, hormones, and overly-processed foods is crucial, because these are the things that affect our health and lead to complicated diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and various forms of cancer.

Combine Clean Eating with daily exercise, and you’ve found the key to success. Kent Burden helps his readers achieve the body they want, improve their health, energy, and self-confidence. Because dinner is the most important meal of the day for us, he teaches us how to cook it fast and easy without spending too much time in the kitchen. “The Clean Eating Dinner Cookbook & Diet Plan” is the book you need if you truly want to change something and become the best that you can be.

Find it on Amazon.

Dinner 2

Spinach, Apple & Feta Salad with Rosemary Baked Chicken and Potatoes

If you don’t do a lot of cooking from scratch but want to start, baking chicken is a good place to get your feet wet. The baking process itself is pretty simple. Add the chicken to a hot dry oven and wait for the internal temperature of the chicken to reach 165 degrees and violá, you have baked chicken. Chickens' mild flavor tends to lend itself to a variety of marinades, glazes and spices and by simply experimenting you can find the one you and your family like best. This meal is simply delightful and incredibly healthy. It is packed with Vitamin A, K and folate as well as lean protein, omega 3 fatty acids, potassium, copper, iron and fiber. You can bring gourmet flair to your dinner by replacing the red potatoes with fingerling potatoes or a combination of Yukon gold, red and purple potatoes (often packaged as red white and blue potato combo). The spinach apple & feta salad is a great healthy starter that combines sweet apples with creamy feta (goat cheese works well too) and gives the whole family the fruits and veggies they need to stay healthy.

Spinach, Apple & Feta Salad

Dressing Ingredients:

•    1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

•    3/4 cup olive oil

•    1/4 tablespoon wild honey

•    1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

•    1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Salad Ingredients:

•    6 cups fresh baby spinach

•    1/2 cup chopped walnuts

•    1/4 cup crumbled feta

•    1/4 cup sliced apples

Directions:

Put vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper in a bottle and shake well to combine. Toss spinach with nuts, feta and fruit. Give dressing another shake and drizzle over individual servings right before you serve dinner.

Rosemary Baked Chicken and Potatoes

Ingredients:

•    2 tablespoons olive oil

•    1 tablespoon paprika

•    1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped

•    1 teaspoon sea salt

•    1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper

•    2 cloves garlic finely chopped

•    6 bone-in organic free range chicken thighs and legs (about 2 pounds)

•    1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, halved

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix oil, paprika, rosemary, sea salt, pepper and garlic in large bowl. Add chicken and potatoes; toss to coat well. Arrange potatoes in single layer on foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan that has been buttered.  Bake 15 minutes. Push potatoes to one side of pan. Place chicken on pan.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes longer or until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender, turning potatoes occasionally. Serves 4.

Read More

“How to Stay Young and Fit No Matter How Old You Get: Anti-Aging Secrets” by Sharon J. Scott

The fact that everyone is afraid of aging comes as no surprise. But, sometimes, aging has nothing to do with feeling old and acting as if you were old. Life and different troubles or dissatisfactions can make someone feel old when, in fact, physically and mentally they are perfectly young. They may have all the reasons to enjoy life, but, somehow, they don’t see this. Sharon J. Scott’s guide, “How to Stay Young and Fit No Matter How Old You Get: Anti-Aging Secrets”, is the perfect read for anyone who feels tired and unhappy because they believe they are too old to feel otherwise. Even though this book is aimed at readers over 40, it can be useful to anyone, regardless of age.

In writing this book, the author adopted a unique perspective on things: the truth is that all people are young, they just need to be reminded of it. So, Sharon J. Scott’s guide isn’t trying to teach readers what they need to do in order to start feeling young again, but it’s actually trying to show them that they have always been young, and most of the aging process is something that is only happening because they allow it to happen. The book isn’t trying to fix the problem of growing old, because that would mean the readers need to accept this as a fact and then try to deal with it. Rather, what it is trying to do is convince people that age isn’t a problem, and all they need to do is improve their lifestyle, eating habits, and way of thinking in order to see that.

“How to Stay Young and Fit No Matter How Old You Get: Anti-Aging Secrets” discusses all the aspects people should be aware of when it comes to the aging process and what they can do to slow it down. Actually, the first thing the author does is to dedicate an entire chapter to explaining what the aging process truly is and how it should be understood. Then, the next chapters deal with wellness, attitude, emotional health, how to stay spiritually young, and also discuss the problems of stress, nutrition and physical exercise.

One of the best things about this book is that it teaches readers they should never look for easy methods that promise youth, beauty, and energy. They need to understand that pills and expensive cosmetic treatments are not the solution. It all comes from within. It’s all about how you choose to think and feel, and these two can be educated through the tips and techniques Sharon J. Scott offers in this amazing guide.

Find it on Amazon.

Read More

Chocolate could prevent obesity and diabetes, study suggests

More than a third of US adults are obese and are, therefore, at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But new research suggests a surprising prevention strategy for both conditions - eating chocolate.

In a mouse study, led by Andrew P. Neilson of the Department of Food Science and Technology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, researchers discovered that a certain antioxidant in cocoa - the main ingredient in chocolate - prevented mice from gaining weight and lowered their blood sugar levels.

This is not the only study to suggest that consuming chocolate can prevent such health conditions.

Earlier this year, Medical News Today reported on a study claiming that chocolate, as well as wine and berries, protects against type 2 diabetes, while other research found that teens who eat lots of chocolate tend to be slimmer.

Such studies claim that the reason chocolate may have these health benefits is because of the flavanols it contains. These are types of antioxidants.

But the researchers of this most recent study say that not all flavanols are the same. In fact, cocoa has several different types.
Dark chocolate
Good news for chocolate lovers: a certain flavanol in cocoa may help prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes.

In their study, published in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry, the investigators set out to determine exactly which flavanol may be responsible for preventing weight gain and lowering blood glucose levels.

For the research, the investigators assigned mice to one of six different diets for 12 weeks.

These consisted of high- and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with either monomeric, oligomeric or polymeric procyandins (PCs) - types of flavanols. Mice were given 25 milligrams of these flavanols each day for every kilogram of their body weight (25 mg/kg).
Oligomeric procyandins most effective

The research team found that a high-fat diet supplemented with oligomeric PCs was the most effective for maintaining weight of the mice and improving glucose tolerance - a factor that could help prevent type 2 diabetes.

Commenting on the findings, the researchers say:

    "Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest antiobesity and antidiabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study.

    Additional studies of prolonged feeding of flavanol fractions in vivo are needed to further identify the fractions with the highest bioactivities and, therefore, the greatest potential for translation to human clinical applications at reasonable doses."

The investigators point out that the doses of flavanols used in this study are significantly lower than doses used in past research and are more feasible when translated into flavanol levels for human consumption.

"Therefore, our data suggest that moderate doses of cocoa flavanols or cocoa powder have the potential to be more effective in human clinical trials than previously thought," they add.

According to previous research, the health benefits of chocolate may reach further than decreasing the likelihood of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Medical News Today recently reported on a study claiming that eating 70 g of dark chocolate every day could reduce the risk of atherosclerosis - the thickening and hardening of the arteries.

But interestingly, this study did not attribute this benefit to the flavanols that chocolate contains. Study participants ate either regular dark chocolate or chocolate with added flavanols. Both types of chocolate had the same effect.

"We provide a more complete picture of the impact of chocolate consumption in vascular health and show that increasing flavanol content has no added beneficial effect on vascular health," says study researcher Prof. Diederik Esser, of the Top Institute Food and Nutrition and the Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, both in the Netherlands.

Other research claims that hot chocolate could help prevent memory decline. Again, the researchers say this finding was not down to flavanols.

Read More

Morning rays keep off pounds

A surprising new strategy for managing your weight? Bright morning light.

A new Northwestern Medicine® study reports the timing, intensity and duration of your light exposure during the day is linked to your weight -- the first time this has been shown.

People who had most of their daily exposure to even moderately bright light in the morning had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) than those who had most of their light exposure later in the day, the study found. (BMI is a ratio calculated from a person's weight and height.)

"The earlier this light exposure occurred during the day, the lower individuals' body mass index," said co-lead author Kathryn Reid, research associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "The later the hour of moderately bright light exposure, the higher a person's BMI."

The influence of morning light exposure on body weight was independent of an individual's physical activity level, caloric intake, sleep timing, age or season. It accounted for about 20 percent of a person's BMI.

"Light is the most potent agent to synchronize your internal body clock that regulates circadian rhythms, which in turn also regulate energy balance," said study senior author Phyllis C. Zee, M.D. "The message is that you should get more bright light between 8 a.m. and noon." About 20 to 30 minutes of morning light is enough to affect BMI.

Zee is the Benjamin and Virginia T. Boshes Professor of Neurology and director of the Northwestern Medicine Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Research Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She also is a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

"If a person doesn't get sufficient light at the appropriate time of day, it could de-synchronize your internal body clock, which is known to alter metabolism and can lead to weight gain," Zee said. The exact mechanism of how light affects body fat requires further research, she noted.

The study will be published April 2 in the journal PLOS ONE. Giovanni Santostasi, a research fellow in neurology at Feinberg, also is a co-lead author.

What's the Magic Number for Low BMI?

Many people do not get enough natural light in the morning, Zee said, because the American lifestyle is predominantly indoors. We also work in poorly lit environments, usually about 200 to 300 lux. In the study, 500 lux was "the magic number" or minimum threshold for having a lower BMI. Even on a cloudy day, outdoor light is more than 1,000 lux of brightness. It is difficult to achieve this light level with usual indoor lighting, the scientists noted.

Light May Be Next Frontier for Weight Loss

"Light is a modifiable factor with the potential to be used in weight management programs," Reid said. "Just like people are trying to get more sleep to help them lose weight, perhaps manipulating light is another way to lose weight."

Santostasi, a physicist by training, developed a new measure for the study that integrates the timing, duration and intensity of light exposure into a single number called mean light timing or MLiT.

He searched for a correlation between light exposure timing, duration or intensity in the study raw data, but none of those factors individually were associated with BMI. It was only when he began combining parameters, that he saw "the strong signal" when all three were examined together.

"I saw that what seemed to be most associated with body mass index was not just how much light you receive but when you get it and for how long," Santostasi said.

The study included 54 participants (26 males, 28 females), an average age of 30. They wore a wrist actigraphy monitor that measured their light exposure and sleep parameters for seven days in normal-living conditions. Their caloric intake was determined from seven days of food logs.

Befriend Your Body Clock -- Get Morning Light

The finding emphasizes the importance of "circadian health" in which exposure to light and dark is synchronized with your internal body clock. "We focus on how too much light at night is bad; it's also bad not to get enough light at the appropriate time during the day," Zee said.

As part of a healthy lifestyle, people should be encouraged to get more appropriate exposure to light. Workplaces and schools should have windows. Employees should be encouraged to go outside for lunch or breaks, and indoor lighting should be improved in the school and workplace "This is something we could institute early on in our schools to prevent obesity on a larger scale," Zee said.

While duration and timing of sleep was not linked to the results, "owl" chronotypes, who stay up later and sleep later, would be a population affected by later light exposure. But even "larks," those who wake early, would be affected by lack of early light if they stayed inside in the morning.

While the study wasn't designed to examine how light exposure affects body fat, previous research at Northwestern and elsewhere shows light plays a role in regulating metabolism, hunger and satiety.


Source: sciencedaily.com

Read More

5 Reasons Your Weight Is Stuck

Stuck in a weight-loss rut? Turns out you're not alone. Those last 5-10 pounds are often the hardest to lose. MyFitnessPal – the largest digital health company with more than 50 million users -- surveyed its users to find out what's keeping them from reaching their ultimate goal. Turns out there's five primary reasons those last few pounds seems to stick around longer than the ones before.

Elle Penner, MyFitnessPal's registered dietician, came up with tips to combat each and every one of those pitfalls that's keeping the number on your scale from going down. Click through the next few pages to find out how to get out of the rut and back to losing weight.

Strong sweet tooth

54 percent of MyFitnessPal users say dessert is a major obstacle to weight loss. Penner said it's important to keep a tally of miniature treats. 3-4 "snack-size" treats and a handful of M&Ms can quickly add up to the fat and calories of full-size desserts. "Even if you don't have time to track every morsel of food you eat throughout the day, a little snacking insight can go a long way in preventing sneaky weight gain."

People hate veggies.

Nearly 1 in 10 people said not eating vegetables is the culprit. Try to get your fruit and veggie servings in early in the day, said Penner. "The oh-so-popular green smoothie is the perfect way to get in a serving of veggies before you even get to the office. Try adding low-fat yogurt, milk or nut butter. It will up the protein and help keep you satisfied and focused throughout the morning."

Carbs are the devil.

47 percent say love for bread and pasta keeps them off-track So, Penner said, consider taking a temporary weight loss vacation. Put it on the back burner for a week or so, just aim not to gain any weight, and come back with a fresh mind to reset your habits, she said. "When life gets really busy or stressful, avoiding additional weight gain is an achievement in itself," she said. " Set yourself up for success and pick back up on your weight loss efforts when you have the time and energy to dedicate to doing it healthfully."

Emotional eating.

Turns out more than half of us blame binges on mood swings. Penner said getting new workout gear could help. It sounds superficial, but nice workout gear really can make you feel better during a workout, and be an incentive to get you moving. "Rather than rewarding yourself with an indulgent meal when you hit a new health goal," she said, "invest in your next one by adding a new item to your workout wardrobe."


No me time.

More than 20 percent of users report they don't have the time to cook or exercise. Penner said to stock the pantry. "When they're on sale, stock up on canned beans and tomatoes, herbs and spices, nuts and whole grains like quinoa, rolled oats and whole wheat pasta. Having a stash of healthy pantry staples will save time and money." Instead of buying packaged convenience foods, filling your pantry with these healthy staples will give you a solid foundation for preparing more nutritious meals at home.

Source:  abcnews.go.com

Read More

Average Obese Woman Gets 1 Hour of Exercise a Year

Obese men don't do much better, breaking a sweat only 3.6 hours annually, researchers say

A new study suggests that obese women get just one hour of vigorous exercise a year, while obese men don't do much better at fewer than four hours.

The findings startled the researchers, whose main focus was finding better ways to measure how much exercise people get.

"They're living their lives from one chair to another," said Edward Archer, a research fellow with the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "We didn't realize we were that sedentary. There are some people who are vigorously active, but it's offset by the huge number of individuals who are inactive."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in three people in the United States is obese, a step above being overweight. Obesity boosts the risk of cardiovascular problems such as heart disease and stroke, diabetes and some cancers.

One expert did note that the definition of vigorous exercise was very limited in the study, and the researchers themselves acknowledged that the device used to track physical activity did not measure swimming or biking very well.

In the new study, researchers examined the results of a 2005-2006 government survey of adults aged 20 to 74. Among other things, the survey tracked the weight, diet and sleep patterns of nearly 2,600 adults.

Accelerometer devices were used to track their movements, providing insight into how much they exercised.

The study defined "vigorous" exercise as activities that burn fat like jogging and jumping rope, but not sexual activity. According to Archer, who was at the University of South Carolina when the study was conducted, sex isn't as much of a fat-burning activity as certain other kinds of exercise so it doesn't qualify as vigorous.

The researchers found that the average obese woman gets the equivalent of about one hour of exercise a year. For men, it's 3.6 hours a year.

"The data was there, but no one looked at it and parsed it the way we did," Archer said. In the big picture, "there is a great deal of variability; some are moving probably a fair amount. But the vast majority [of people] are not moving at all."

What kind of lives are the most inactive people living? "I think they're living the typical life. They drive their children to school, they sit at a desk all day long, they may play some video games and they go to sleep," Archer said.

John Jakicic, chair of the department of health and physical activity at the University of Pittsburgh, praised the study but cautioned that its definition of "vigorous" is limited and not based on a person's fitness level. For some very obese people, for instance, just general walking could be considered vigorous, he explained.

What to do?

As little as 30 minutes of exercise five days a week can stop weight gain and improve health, study author Archer said. "People don't understand that [you] don't have to go to the gym and lift weights and run marathons to have dramatic impacts on your body. Standing rather than sitting, walking rather than taking your car, they have huge impacts on your health over time."

Jakicic agreed that little changes can have a big difference. "Traditional exercise approaches are not the way to try to get obese people active -- the barriers are just too great," he said. "However, we showed a number of years ago that encouraging multiple brief periods -- five to 10 minutes two to three times per day -- was an effective way to get individuals active initially. Once they started to become more active in this way, they started to add even more activity."

The study appeared recently in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Source: webmd.com

Read More