Tips For Healthy Skin

Don't have time for intensive skin care? Pamper yourself with the basics. Good skin care and healthy lifestyle choices can help delay the natural aging process and prevent various skin problems. Get started with these five no-nonsense tips.

1. Protect yourself from the sun

One of the most important ways to take care of your skin is to protect it from the sun. A lifetime of sun exposure can cause wrinkles, age spots and other skin problems — as well as increase the risk of skin cancer.
For the most complete sun protection:

• Use sunscreen. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15. When you're outdoors, reapply sunscreen every two hours — or more often if you're swimming or perspiring.
• Seek shade. Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when the sun's rays are strongest.
• Wear protective clothing. Cover your skin with tightly woven long-sleeved shirts, long pants and wide-brimmed hats. Also consider laundry additives, which give clothing an additional layer of ultraviolet protection for a certain number of washings, or special sun-protective clothing — which is specifically designed to block ultraviolet rays.

2. Don't smoke

Smoking makes your skin look older and contributes to wrinkles. Smoking narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outermost layers of skin, which decreases blood flow. This depletes the skin of oxygen and nutrients that are important to skin health. Smoking also damages collagen and elastin — the fibers that give your skin its strength and elasticity. In addition, the repetitive facial expressions you make when smoking — such as pursing your lips when inhaling and squinting your eyes to keep out smoke — can contribute to wrinkles.
If you smoke, the best way to protect your skin is to quit. Ask your doctor for tips or treatments to help you stop smoking.

3. Treat your skin gently

Daily cleansing and shaving can take a toll on your skin. To keep it gentle:

• Limit bath time. Hot water and long showers or baths remove oils from your skin. Limit your bath or shower time, and use warm — rather than hot — water.
• Avoid strong soaps. Strong soaps and detergents can strip oil from your skin. Instead, choose mild cleansers.
• Shave carefully. To protect and lubricate your skin, apply shaving cream, lotion or gel before shaving. For the closest shave, use a clean, sharp razor. Shave in the direction the hair grows, not against it.
• Pat dry. After washing or bathing, gently pat or blot your skin dry with a towel so that some moisture remains on your skin.
• Moisturize dry skin. If your skin is dry, use a moisturizer that fits your skin type. For daily use, consider a moisturizer that contains SPF.

4. Eat a healthy diet

A healthy diet can help you look and feel your best. Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. The association between diet and acne isn't clear — but some research suggests that a diet rich in vitamin C and low in unhealthy fats and processed or refined carbohydrates might promote younger looking skin.

5. Manage stress

Uncontrolled stress can make your skin more sensitive and trigger acne breakouts and other skin problems. To encourage healthy skin — and a healthy state of mind — take steps to manage your stress. Set reasonable limits, scale back your to-do list and make time to do the things you enjoy. The results might be more dramatic than you expect.

Healthy Food Products Without Scary Ingredient Lists

If you walk into your local grocery store, many of the food products you'll find have long and scary ingredient lists with hydrogenated this's, and hydrolyzed that's. The things added to foods these days can be difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. Do you have any idea why disodium guanylate, sodium diacetate, or silicon dioxide is added to your food? Probably not, but the good thing is that there are plenty of healthy food products out there that have ingredient lists that are much less intimidating. Here are a few to help whet your appetite. (Full disclosure: this site and the writer of this article have no affiliation to the products or companies mentioned in this article)

1. Bolthouse Carrot Juice
Bolthouse carrot juice is a healthy and refreshing beverage that consists of a single ingredient: carrots. There are no added preservatives or sweeteners so you know you're getting the real deal. All you get is carrot juice, you can't get much simpler than that. If you've never had carrot juice before, it doesn't taste like it's derived from vegetables. It tastes very sweet, rich, and creamy.

  2. Mott's Apple Sauce
Apple sauce isn't just for kids and can make a quick and healthy snack for any grown man. Mott's Natural apple sauce consists of three simple ingredients: apples, water, and vitamin C. If you go and buy some apple sauce for yourself, make sure to look at the ingredients to make sure you don't get anything with added sweeteners. Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are commonly added to apple sauce.  

3. Bottled Water
Drinking water instead of artificially sweetened soft drinks is a great way to improve your diet and overall health. Most soft drinks are loaded with sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and just add empty calories to your diet. Drinking these types of soft drinks can lead to weight gain and tooth decay. Why not drink something better for your health and less expensive than buying soft drinks? To cut the costs of drinking filtered water, you can buy a water filter and get the clean taste of bottled water at your home without the high price.

 4. All Natural Peanut Butter
Peanut butter can be filled with unhealthy additives. For instance, hydrogenated vegetable oils, containing trans fatty acids, are commonly added to peanut butter to improve its smoothness and texture. Sugar is also commonly added to peanut butter to improve its taste. This can make peanut better less healthy than it should be. The only thing you really need in peanut butter though is peanuts and salt, and that's exactly what you get from some companies. Check the ingredient lists to find the healthiest peanut butter for you to snack on.

 5. Quaker Oatmeal
Eating oatmeal is a simple and cheap way to improve your diet and overall health. Quaker oatmeal contains only oats and can be easily prepared in the microwave. If you have trouble getting over the blandness of oatmeal, try adding fresh cut fruit and honey to improve the taste.

 6. Sunmaid Raisins
Raisins, unlike a lot of other dried fruit products, hardly ever contain any added sugar or oils. The next time you go to the grocery, read the ingredient lists for dried fruit products and you might be surprised at how much garbage is added to dried fruit. Another reason why raisins are great is because they're so easy to store. You can stash a bag in your car or office to help overcome unwanted food cravings. If you don't like eating raisins plain, try adding them to cereal, oatmeal, or salad.

 7. Fischer Mixed Nuts
Eating some mixed nuts is a great snack to hold you over between meals. Because nuts are so high in protein, they stick to your bones more and will make you feel more full than a candy bar will. The ingredient list on Fischer Mixed nuts is very unintimidating with just an assortment of nuts, oils, and salt.

 Bonus: FruitaBu Smooshed Fruit Flats
FruitaBu smooshed fruit flats, made mostly out of organic fruit, are a healthy alternative to Fruit Roll-ups and other fruit snacks. They are also sweet enough to satisfy even the biggest sweet tooth. So if you love candy, but want to eat healthier, give these smooshed fruit flats a try.