Three Anti-Ageing Foods that You’ll Actually Want to Eat

You want to stay looking young and gorgeous for as long as possible, but all that anti-ageing wellness seems like a lot of bother, doesn’t it? People inject their faces with botox, slather themselves with expensive creams and even undergo surgery in their quest for youth – surely there’s a better way than that? Some people turn to dietary wellness to delay ageing, but that still means you have to bother with oily fish and broccoli that you don’t really like. Fortunately, there are some anti-ageing foods that you actually want to eat.

 

Dark chocolate – Let’s start with the good stuff, shall we? Although you may feel guilty for munching away, dark chocolate is actually hugely beneficial to your wellbeing. As it is made of cacao, dark chocolate contains more antioxidants than almost any other food, being a rich source of polyphenols like catechin, epicatechin and procyanidins. These antioxidants work to open your blood vessels and protect your nerves from injury and inflammation.

 

Red wine – If sitting around with the girls and sharing a bar of Bourneville isn’t enough to help you look younger, get out your wine glasses. Red wine contains a compound called resveratrol which activates the genes in your body that slow cellular ageing. A wealth of evidence has shown that the resveratrol in red wine stimulates your body’s production of SIRT1. This is a serum which blocks diseases by speeding up your cell’s energy production centres, known as the mitrochondria. Made with the dark skin and seeds of grapes, red wine is also heart healthy because it contains high levels of polyphenols.

 

Yoghurt – While it may not be quite as exciting as red wine or dark chocolate, yoghurt is still a yummy food that delays the signs of ageing. Yoghurt’s rich levels of calcium help to guard your wellbeing against osteoporosis – a disease in which your bones become brittle and are more likely to fracture. Plus, yoghurt contains the good bacteria that help to maintain the health of your gut and reduce your chances of age-related intestinal illness. That’s only if you eat yoghurt; if you apply it to your skin, yoghurt fights acne, works as a moisturiser, prevents premature ageing, relieves your sunburn and reduces discolouration. This is because yoghurt contains lactic acid, which dissolves dead skin and tightens pores.

Categories: Dark Chocolate, Red Wine, yoghurt

4 Foods that Reduce the Appearance of Age – Inside And Out

While there’s no real fountain of youth or ageing cure, the foods you eat can make a significant difference in the appearance of age – inside and out. According to anti-ageing wellness expert Dr. Jennifer Landa, Chief Medical Officer of BodyLogicMD and author of The Sex Drive Solution for Women, ‘A diet loaded with excess sugar and refined carbohydrates not only leads to extra pounds, but can also cause cross-linking of collagen that leads to premature wrinkling and saggy skin.’ So what goods can help you to maintain your youthful glow?

First and foremost on Dr Landa’s list is blueberries. ‘Blueberries have the highest antioxidant quotient of all the species of berries,’ she explains. ‘Blueberries are anti-bacterial and antiviral – full of special antioxidant molecules (polyphenol) that have been shown to stop replication of the hepatitis C virus. This super fruit also contains another polyphenol, pterostilbene, which has been shown to improve cognition in rodents.

However, if that’s a little too healthy-sounding for your taste, dark chocolate can also give your wellbeing a boost. Dr Landa notes, ‘Dark chocolate contains more antioxidants than almost any other food, including polyphenols like catechin, epicatechin and procyanidins. These strong antioxidants help promote opening of the blood vessels and protects the nerves from injury and inflammation.’ She adds that you should choose dark chocolate bars that are minimally processed and have cacao content of at least 70%. Or, even better, mix 100% powder cacao with coconut oil for a delicious treat.

For something a little more savoury, Dr Landa recommends broccoli, as it may lower your risk of certain forms of cancer.  ‘It is rich in sulforaphane, a potent antioxidant that protects against free radical damage and carcinogens,’ she says. ‘Broccoli has a diverse number of nutrients in its raw form; however, to activate the bioavailability of sulphoraphane, broccoli must be gently steamed or blanched.’

Finally, don’t forget to snack on almonds. Dr Landa asserts, ‘Almonds have multiple benefits including fibre, alpha tocopherol (a form of vitamin E) and magnesium and copper. Known medical benefits include lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. Almonds may also play a role in reducing elevated blood sugar levels, making them a great food for fighting diseases and conditions, like metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.’

Categories: almonds, broccoli, Dark Chocolate

How to Fight Belly Fat with These Four Foods

Let’s be honest; if you want to lose weight, chances are that you want to lose it in the belly area. Very few of us will look in the mirror and say “I love it when all my other body parts look trim, but I wish my belly was bigger and fatter” (except for maybe one female character in Pulp Fiction who did want a pot belly – but Bruce Willis wasn’t keen on the idea if memory serves). So what foods can help you to target belly fat specifically?

 

Firstly, when your sweet tooth starts tingling, and you find yourself in the confectionery aisle (how did that happen?!) try dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is closer to chocolate’s purest form, which, although it may be surprising, can actually help you lose weight. According to a study carried in 2005, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, participants who ate dark chocolate were more sensitive to insulin and less resistant to it compared with the study volunteers who ate equal quantities of white chocolate.

 

If you’re after something a little more tart, go for tart cherries. A study from the University of Michigan, carried out in 2007, fed rats small quantities of tart cherry powder. The results revealed that the rats lost 17% of their belly fat in as few as three months. Another study, this time from 2009 and published in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, showed that vinegar may be the way to go for a tart fat buster. The results showed that people who consumed an acetic acid compound found in vinegar along with fatty food developed less body fat than those who didn’t consume the acetic compound.

 

Finally, you’re probably already aware of the health benefits of green tea. This is the beverage of choice for many wellness enthusiasts, as green tea is rich in phyotchemicals and antioxidants, but the fact that green tea may also aid in weight loss puts it at the top of the list for just about everyone else. According to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Nutrition, the catechins in green tea may speed up your body’s metabolic rate and promote fat loss, especially in the abdomen.

How to Fight Belly Fat with These Four Foods

Categories: Dark Chocolate, green tea, Vinegar

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: How to Get Back on Track

No one finds break ups fun or easy (and if someone says otherwise, they’re lying!). You can tell yourself it will be alright in the end, but the meantime can be a mean time so what can you do to speed up the process and get that break up behind you ASAP?

According to Dr. Daniel G. Amen, author of The Brain in Love, ‘When we love someone, they…actually occupy nerve-cell pathways and physically live in the neurons and synapses of the brain. When we lose someone through a break up our brain gets disoriented. Since the person lives in neural memory connectors, we expect to see them, hear them, feel them and touch them. When we cannot touch or talk to them as we usually do, the brain centres where they live become inflamed looking for them.’

So break ups, then, affect you physically, which means that you can get back on track using practical, tangible methods. Start by brewing up some St. Johns Wart Tea. Break ups initiate a fight-or-flight response, which means your brain often reacts with depression, anger and sadness, as well as irrationality and hyper-sensitivity. Though it sounds a bit loopy, St. John’s Wart – whether in tea or pill form – relaxes your feelings of anxiety and brings your brain back to a natural state.

While you’re sipping your mug of St. John’s wart, crack out the dark chocolate! No, this isn’t another romantic comedy moment in which you binge on chocolate while crying and singing along to “All by myself”, but chocolate is a practical way to help your brain. When eaten in moderation, dark chocolate has a positive effect on your wellbeing and cognitive health, as it contains phenylethylamine (PEA). This is chemical your brain creates when you’re falling in love, releasing endorphins and boosting your mood.

Finally, show yourself some love. This means loving yourself in the sense of doing nice things for yourself, and staying healthy, but your brain will also benefit if you love yourself in the, ahem, dirtier sense of the phrase. Having an orgasm gives your brain a rush of serotonin and dopamine, which will increase your mood and make you feel like a sexual person again. Just because you’re not having sex with your ex anymore doesn’t mean you should stop having sex with yourself, and what better way to show yourself that you really don’t need him!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: How to Get Back on Track

Categories: break ups, Dark Chocolate, St Johns Wort

Could You Boost Your Brain Power With These Five Foods?

As you get older, it seems a simple fact of life that you will, one many occasions, be late for work because you just couldn’t find your car keys. However, if you’re sick of forgetting where you put them (or you want your boss to like you a little bit more!) you can boost your brain power with five simple foods.

Firstly, ‘going green’ isn’t just a matter of environmental wellness, but it should also occur in your mug! A recent study gave participants a whey-based, green-tea-containing soft drink while performing a working memory task, and found that the subjects had a better activation in their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) compared to the control group. DLPFC is an area that plays a key role in working memory, and so the scientists concluded that green tea extract may enhance brain engagement during cognitive processes,  and even prevent neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Another green food to improve your cognitive wellbeing is avocado. The fat content in this produce is composed of healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, which are known to decrease your risk of hypertension. Among the late to middle-aged population, hypertension has been associated with cognitive decline, but high monounsaturated fatty acid intake has been found to protect against this.

Next, soy or soya has been shown to increase your plasma dopamine levels, which have several important implications in behaviour, cognition, and reward-driven learning. The same researchers also found that, due to their immuno-modulatory effect, soybeans can balance your stress hormones, and improve your brain circulation and energy metabolism.

Also, sweet potatoes tend to only appear on the table on special occasions, but their abundance of carotenoids means they should have a lot more prevalence in your diet. Carotenoids, which give sweet potatoes their rich orange colour, are both anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, meaning that they may help improve cognitive functioning in the elderly. However, according to previous research, the low concentration of plasma in carotenoids is associated with cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment, and so, as excessive sweet potato intake may produce the desired opposite effect, moderation is key.

Finally, dark chocolate may have beneficial effects to the brain. A recent study has shown that the regular consumption of cocoa flavanols might be effective in improving cognitive function in elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment, especially with regard to verbal fluency, executive function, and cognitive flexibility. However, though chocolate gives you a punch to your mental performance, unfortunately, this is not an excuse to keep eating it until you get diabetes and your leg falls off. Again, it’s a matter of everything in moderation.

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Could You Boost Your Brain Power With These Five Foods?

Categories: Dark Chocolate, green tea, Working Memory