What Exercise Can Do for Your Skin

One of the best ways to multiply the benefits of your all-natural skin care regime is to maintain a balanced exercise routine. A program that combines aerobic exercise with strength training and stretching promotes beautiful, youthful-looking skin in the following ways:

• Increasing circulation Improved blood flow to skin cells ensures the delivery of oxygen and nutrients needed for collagen renewal and flushes away environmental toxins and excess fluids. These actions improve skin elasticity and firmness, reduce puffiness, and give your complexion a healthy pink glow.
  
• Reducing stress By decreasing your level of tension and anxiety, exercise helps your facial muscles to relax, softening crow’s and expression lines and slowing the development of new ones.
  
• Restoring hormonal balance Exercise helps control acne by keeping the levels of androgens  produced by our adrenal glands in check. High levels of these male hormones can over-stimulate the oil glands in our skin, resulting in clogged pores and breakouts.
  
• Toning muscles Weight training, Pilates, and yoga  increase of the strength and flexibility of the muscles and connective tissue that support our skin, reducing the visibility of cellulite and creating a toned, taut appearance. 

By optimizing the cellular functioning of the skin and its underlying tissues, exercise revitalizes our skin. The fresh radiant complexion that results is not only beautiful to look at, but also visible proof of our skin’s health. This inextricable link between the appearance of our skin and its physiological functioning is at the heart of my holistic approach to skin care.

To be truly effective, the ingredients in your skin care products must go beyond temporarily smoothing and hydrating the skin surface. Unless their active ingredients are also nourishing cells and stimulating their renewal, the most expensive cleansers, toners, and creams in the world will fail to make any significant improvement in the appearance of your skin.

In many respects, the rejuvenating effects of skin care ingredients such as the plant-derived caffeine, hops, horsetail, and other natural circulatory stimulants, AHAs, anti-inflammatories, relaxants, and antioxidants in my LaVie Organique™ product line mirror those of exercise. Both play an essential role in keeping our skin fit, toned, and beautiful for a lifetime.

Get Fit for Fun!

Almost everyone knows that exercise will help us live longer, healthier lives, but even these benefits aren’t enough to move some people to get physically fit. As exercise holdouts see it, life is short so why waste it doing something you hate?  The very thought of being able to drag themselves to the gym at the age of 90 makes these confirmed pleasure-lovers want to lie down on the couch with a Twinkie.

But the fact is, the results of exercise include many benefits that even the eat-drink-and-be-merry crowd will find appealing.

Living It Up—You may intend to maintain a fun-filled social schedule throughout your life, but if you persist in a sedentary lifestyle you’ll probably end up too tired to get up from your easy chair. Forget about dance clubs or even late night TV—you won’t have much time for an enjoyable evening when your bedtime is 9 o’ clock. Exercise boosts energy levels by enabling our bodies to metabolize glucose more efficiently, building muscle, and promoting restful sleep. So whether you'd rather dance till dawn or stay up all night surfing the Web, a few hours of exercise a week will help keep you fit for a lifetime of pleasure. 

No More Dieting—A regular exercise routine is the answer to the creeping weight gain that begins in early adulthood. A combination of aerobic exercise and strength training is the most efficient approach to raising your baseline metabolism. Once you’re fit, the number of calories you burn increases—even when you’re taking a nap.

Being Happy—Research results published in The American Journal of Preventative Medicine have shown exercising 3 to 5 days is an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression. Exercise is also a great stress reliever. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Association recommends exercising for 15 to 30 minutes, three to four times per week as a way to reduce the harmful effects of stress on our bodies. Even if you’re not worried about your heart or your blood pressure, exercise can make your life more enjoyable by lightening your load of anger, tension, anxiety, and frustration.

Looking Good—The sooner you start exercising, the longer the reflection you see in the mirror will bring a smile to your face. Exercise not only slims and tones your body, but also plays a vital role in maintaining smooth, youthful skin by optimizing the conditions for collagen renewal.

I’ll go into more detail about these benefits in future blog spots.

The Awful Truth About Exercise

Speaking of “exercise allergies,” you may be able to run on a treadmill without breaking out in hives but nevertheless suffer an equally unpleasant reaction to the very thought of entering a gym. What’s the cure for this kind of exercise allergy? The list of recommendations from fitness experts always begins with the same tip: Choose an activity you truly enjoy. In many cases cases, this hint does the trick. But in others, it can actually prove downright discouraging. The truth is, for some people, exercise will never be fun.

People who hate exercise often think of themselves as clumsy and un-athletic and recall gym classes as painfully embarrassing. I have clients and friends who would describe themselves this way but have still managed to implement successful fitness routines. Were they suddenly motivated by a miraculous surge of willpower? Did they finally learn to love intense physical exertion? Not at all. In most cases, they simply made a logical choice.

The breakthrough came for one woman as she stared enviously at the sleek body of a passing runner. “As usual, I started blaming genetics for cursing me with this lazy, uncoordinated, and increasingly flabby, overweight body. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have to like running or perform like track star to have a runner’s body—I just had to run. When I realized that a few hours a week of temporary discomfort was the price of escape from a lifetime of hating my body, exercise suddenly seemed like a pretty good deal.”

Think about it: We all do things we don’t really like to achieve the results we desire. How many people actually love flossing their teeth? Or getting up at 6 a.m. and commuting miles to work? But whether it’s false teeth or the unemployment line, once we consider the ugly alternatives to taking care of business, life's routine chores almost always seem doable. 

The good news about exercise is that it works regardless of how you feel about it. That means you can enjoy its benefits without trying to do the impossible. You can finally stop struggling to change yourself into a perky physical fitness fan. The fact is, letting go of the belief that working out should be the most enjoyable part of your day can actually relieve a lot of the pressure and frustration you associate with exercise. 

Still not convinced you can do it? Then stay tuned for my upcoming blogspots. 

Allergic to Exercise?

I have always been a strong advocate of a regular exercise routine as one of the most important things we can do to maintain not only our health but also beautiful, youthful-looking skin. Of course not everyone is a fan of vigorous physical activity, and those who just can’t seem to get themselves off the couch will sometimes claim they’re “allergic to exercise.”

In fact, this claim is no joke to those who suffer from exercise-induced urticaria. As their bodies start to heat up and sweat during exercise, people with this condition will break out in an itchy red rash or big swollen hives. The main culprit involved in this allergic reaction is histamine—a chemical released from our tissues that causes inflammation and swelling by expanding the capillaries underneath the skin surface. In most cases, taking an over-the-counter anti-histamine can relieve these symptoms. 

A related condition, exercise-induced anaphylaxis, is far more serious. Intense physical activity can trigger this life-threatening reaction in people who have been exposed to a food, medication, or other substance they are severely allergic to. Symptoms include swelling of the throat, difficulty breathing, and nausea. Anaphylactic reactions require immediate medical treatment.

In addition to taking allergy pills, people with simple urticaria can control their symptoms by adopting the following practices:

·      Exercise in the morning or evening when temperatures are cooler. Avoid working out in extremely humid conditions.

·      Wear loose cotton clothing. Synthetic fabrics often irritate the skin.

·      Wash new workout clothes before wearing. High concentrations of substances such as sizing, dyes, and pesticide residues in fabrics can also result in skin irritation.

·      Use an anti-inflammatory cream. Creams and lotions that contain plant-derived anti-inflammatories such as aloe vera 200X, white willow bark extract, and white tea are all good choices.

I’ll be writing more about the importance of exercise to achieving a healthy holistic lifestyle in my upcoming blog spots.

Sugar and Wrinkles: Part 2

Controlling Diet-Related Skin Damage

A balanced lifestyle is the first step to minimizing the premature aging linked to high blood sugar levels—and to restoring strength and resiliency to the skin’s collagen fibers. Here are a few simple changes you can make that will have a visible impact on your appearance.

Optimize your carbohydrate tolerance You can have your doctor test how well your body handles carbs or use an over-the-counter kit to check your blood sugars levels yourself. If the results point to diabetes you will need medical supervision for condition. If your results are in the borderline range you should try these strategies to reduce your blood glucose levels.

·      A regular, vigorous exercise routine.

·      Weight reduction.

·      A low-glycemic diet Include more good carbs (whole grains, beans, and vegetables) and stay away from white flour, sugar, potatoes, and other foods that cause rapid swings in blood sugar.

·      A blood-sugar lowering supplement such as cinnamon extract.

·      Add more B vitamins, bioflavonoids, and antioxidants to your diet.

Adopt an anti-aging skin care regimen High-quality natural skin care products, such as my Lavie Organique™Proprietary Blends contain a potent combination of botanicals, organic extracts, and vitamins that can help repair free-radical damage,  relieve inflammation, and promote collagen renewal, These ingredients include the following:

·      Antioxidants  from white tea leaf, soap bark extract, and sea buckthorn seed

·      Caffeine 

·      Co-Q10 

·      Horsetail extract  

·      Capsicum from Hugarian chili peppers 

·      Lactic acid

·      Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate (Vitamin C)

·      Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)  

·      Pomegranate (Punica granatum linn) seed extract 

·      Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A) 

·      Rose hip (Rosa canina) seed powder  

·      Vitamin E 

·      White willow bark extract  

Sugar and Wrinkles: Part 1

If you aren’t already limiting your intake of junk food for the sake of your waistline, then consider what over-consumption of sugar and highly refined carbohydrates can do to your face. Scientists have established that foods that cause an immediate spike in blood sugar levels contribute to two physical processes linked to skin aging.

Inflammation Inflammation is a double-edged sword. When we have an infection or injury, the increased flow of blood and immune cell activity that characterizes inflammation is essential to healing. But chronic inflammation is another story entirely. The buildup of free radicals in our tissues that accompanies this immune response leads to the death of healthy skin cells. The resulting breakdown of the collagen and elastin fibers needed for firm, resilient skin shows up on our faces as wrinkles and sagging.

Glycation Excess sugar in our bloodstream can actually attach to the protein and DNA molecules in our tissues. This process, known as glycation, contributes to a host of health problems, including cataracts, stiff joints, and hardening of the arteries. When sugar bonds to the proteins in our skin’s collagen fibers, they become less elastic and begin to tear and crack, causing loose skin and deep wrinkles.

Fortunately, a holistic approach to this kind of skin damage can help you achieve a more youthful appearance. I’ll give you the details in my next blog spot.