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| Face Lift Foods... |
I hope the title grabbed you a little. It was meant to. I feel moved to make some inroad into the sticky subject of cosmetic surgery. I can not for the life of me see why someone would want to have needles (and big needles at that) stuck into their beautiful skin to make themselves look younger. I know many people struggle with the idea of getting older and seeing the changes in the mirror that we cannot control, can be really challenging for some. However, to me, injecting fillers and using toxic chemicals to make yourself feel better, really isn't the answer.
My very first singing teacher told me that her lines and creases were hard earned and she was dammed if she was going to try and get rid of them using some cream! I also met someone recently who asked me if it was not ok to grow old anymore? I agreed with both of these ladies. The cosmetic surgery industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the Western World. I say the Western World because how you look on the outside really is a first world problem, I believe. We have become so fixated with the outside that we rarely take a look to see what is going on on the inside. Please don't get me wrong, I am all for looking well, your best even, but not at any cost. We are the first generation of Botox users and only time will tell what impact this will have on the generations that come after us. How crazy is it that 50 year olds want to look like 35 year olds? I am reminded here of a book called Mutant Message Down Under, where one American woman goes walk about in the Australian Outback with some Aboriginal indigenous tribes. For me, one of the most memorable pieces of that book was when the woman's hair dye was coming out and her hair was changing colour from who knows blonde to brown or grey or brown to grey, however, the shock of the Aborigines was so apparent. They thought she was dying. Her hair was changing colour for no reason (in their eyes). We are not allowed to grow older in our Western World and what a shame that is. We can most definitely shave years off our looks and biological age through diet and adopting certain lifestyle choices and when a person looks younger than their years done through diet and natural techniques, then absolutely wonderful. But these people are rare and have usually dedicated their lives to cleansing and detoxing, which is also not for everyone. If everybody is so afraid of growing and looking older and mums strive to look like their 21 year old daughters, then what's the point to growing old at all? If I could chose this life again, I would chose to live in a society where your gifts and talents where honoured, rather than how you look, which of course, changes naturally with time. I believe that we have lost the ability to respect our elders and listen to the wisdom that they have to offer. If we are still looking outside for our improvements, then we really are in trouble as a generation. Balance and acceptance is the key to being beautiful from the inside out.
There are lots of blogs on healthy eating, sites on nutrition and experts in the field all claiming to have the answers. However, I have always thought that there was quite a distance to cross from those that eat well and are fairly savvy about the the ins and outs of good, healthy eating to those that don't. After many years of cleansing and watching my own diet, I like to see myself now as someone who follows the 80/20 rule. The 80 is normally good (except on holidays in Italy last week!) and the 20 is bad. How bad? Chips, I love chips! They remind me of nights out when I was younger, trying to get a taxi home from Dublin City Centre and having to wait an eternity for it, so what better way to kill an hour but with a bag of chips! However, as most of you will know and I hope I won't insult anyone's intelligence, but skin is from within so, following the chip diet wouldn't do much for your luminosity and radiance. We must move towards a dose of colourful, watery fruit and veg and healthy fats if we are to truly shine from within. And so, after I have expunged some of my bug bears, I finally move on to the title of this post, Face Lifts and Food.
The best way to have great looking skin that is still firm well into the years and has good levels of elasticity is to eat the right diet for you. This will mean finding out what foods are supportive of your own personal body and what foods are irritating to it. A good book to read is Peter Dadamo's book, Eat Right for Your Blood Typ. In it he lists the foods that are best suited to each of the blood groups and there are some very eye opening facts to read and learn about. Following my own blood type diet, not too strictly of course, has made a tremendous difference to my own skin. Also, I have found great benefit in knowing your what Ayurvedic constitution you are. For example, if you are prone to overheating, and have a Pitta constitution, you might like to stay away from hot and spicy foods that will cause more heat to build up in your body, which can cause the skin to flush as a way to release this overheating from the system. Foods that support and nurture us are foods that are not overly processed, in their natural state and haven't travelled too far and so will retain many more of their anti-oxidants. Eating foods very high in anti-oxidants will help repair the damage caused by free radicals. The more are tissues are affected by free radicals, the quicker we will age.
The final point I would like to add about food and ageing is the link between a high carbohydrate, modern Western diet and the ageing of our skin. A diet packed with fizzy drinks, white breads and pastas is a diet full of simple sugars. We release the hormone insulin to deal with this amount of sugar in our bodies. The skin is most definitely affected by too much sugar in the system. When we have too much sugar in our system or a very sudden rise in the levels, a process known as a "glycation reaction" takes place. This causes a material to cross link collagen and elastic fibres. They essentially fuse together and they lose their ability to stretch. When this happens, our skin doesn't bounce back as quickly as it might have and is another reason why eating a more balanced, wholefood, healthier diet is the best way forward if you want to look bright and beautiful well into old age.
I will be teaching a workshop on this exact subject at Chrysalis this Sunday, 6th July 2014 at The Greystones Holistic Centre, Greystones. If you would like further information, please feel free to contact me on any of the usual channels or see the events page on this blog.
Best wishes,
Ruth.
