A Diet That Helps Clear Your Skin
Your skin is the largest organ of your body. Your body supports your skin from the inside, but free radicals, the sun, and environmental pollutants are constantly impacting your skin from the surface.
You need to make sure you’re supplying your body with everything it needs to maintain the health of your skin. You can return the favor by eating a balanced diet and using the right products to promote your health. In fact, the American Academy of Dermatology Association recommends using acne products for at least four weeks to see results.
What is a Diet for Your Skin?
A diet for your skin isn’t necessarily a diet. People associate diets with plans like paleo or keto. A diet for your skin is eating a well-rounded diet where nothing you aren’t allergic to is off-limits.
It’s more important to ascertain that you’re getting the proper vitamins and nutrients for your body to function optimally. A well-balanced diet will affect your body from head to toe. It should consist of:
- Vegetables, like tomatoes and sweet potatoes
- Salmon, rich in omega-3s
- Flaxseed oil
- Probiotics
- Leafy green veggies, like spinach, broccoli, and kale
- Nuts like walnuts, sunflower seeds, and chia seeds
- Whole grains, brown rice, pasta and quinoa
- Non-dairy products, such as almond milk, soy milk
You’ll notice it all over -- not just in your complexion.
Eliminating Allergens
If you’re allergic to or sensitive to something, whether it be in your diet or something you encounter in your environment, your body will respond. This response usually involves redness and swelling that is often visible on the outside.
Consider someone with a pollen allergy. Their eyes get puffy when springtime rolls around. Blood vessels may be negatively impacted by sniffling and sneezing. You can observe the effects of an allergy on someone’s physical appearance.
If you believe you have allergies or sensitivities to some of the things you may be eating, it may be wise to speak to an allergist. Eliminating these foods from your diet can improve the way you look and feel.
Meeting Your Macronutrient Goals
Your body needs fat, protein, and carbohydrates to nourish and repair itself. Healthy fats are crucial for healthy skin. Your body uses omega fatty acids to help create the body’s natural lipid barrier, protecting the skin and retaining moisture.
A low-fat diet can make it more difficult for your body to intuitively care for your skin. Proteins are necessary for manufacturing healthy cells and supporting muscles.
Your body needs protein to create collagen and elastin, the two proteins responsible for maintaining the tone and elasticity of your skin.
Water Intake Matters
Water is one of the most essential parts of your diet. While it’s the least exciting thing to ingest, it’s absolutely invaluable to your body. The majority of your body is water. If you aren’t getting enough water, you’ll be worse for it. Dehydration can make the skin appear dry or aged. Make sure you’re getting your recommended daily water intake.
Vitamins In Your Diet
You should be getting the recommended daily amount of every vitamin in order to promote optimal health. These vitamins happen to be critical in the growth of new skin cells and the maintenance of healthy skin.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a major player in collagen synthesis. Without vitamin C, your body can’t maintain healthy or firm skin. It’s also necessary for the formation of collagen used in wound healing. Scars need vitamin C to keep themselves together. Vitamin C deficiency is extremely rare, but it can lead to slow wound healing or old wounds reopening. If you find that your acne scars or shaving nicks take forever to resolve, try consuming more vitamin C.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E plays a role in sebum production. Sebum is the oil your skin produces to protect itself. If you have very oily skin, you’re probably getting enough vitamin E in your diet. You only need about 15 mg a day. If you have dehydrated skin, upping your vitamin E intake may encourage your skin to balance itself.
Vitamin K
Vitamin K is a key contribution to the body’s healing processes. Vitamin K can impact the appearance of things like stretch marks, dark spots, dark circles, and scars. It isn’t a miracle cure for the signs of aging, but by encouraging and fortifying your body’s healing response, Vitamin K can help to reduce the damage that may exacerbate the appearance of aging signs.
Antioxidants in Your Diet
Antioxidants are often touted as a miracle for almost every skincare concern. While no single compound or ingredient can make your skin ageless or impervious, antioxidants are powerful tools to have on your side.
Antioxidants occur naturally in many plants. They’re present in coffee, berries, tea, chocolate, carrots, leafy greens, and even rice. Many vitamins double as antioxidants. It’s hard to find a plant that doesn’t contain at least a modest amount of valuable antioxidants.
This leads to the bigger question: What do antioxidants actually do? What are they, and what makes them so special?
Antioxidants aren’t a special type of vitamin or nutrient. They’re vitamins and nutrients that serve two purposes. They provide your body with what it needs to be healthy, and they also sacrifice themselves to prevent harm.
Free radicals and pollution attempt to destroy cells. They want to rip away electrons, damaging healthy cells and leading to potential health concerns. Free radicals and air pollution also land on your skin and damage the cells on the surface.
Antioxidants are always willing to spare their electrons. Rather than allowing harmful invaders to damage your perfectly good cells, antioxidants give themselves up -- the work to mitigate potential damage in real-time.
Supporting Your Skin From the Surface
While antioxidants in your diet help to keep your skin clear and youthful, they need a little backup. Applying antioxidants to the surface of your skin helps to protect you from free radicals and pollution floating in the air.
Antioxidant skincare acts as a barrier. It’s almost like wearing a comfortable, flexible, weightless glove on your face. The free radicals can’t reach the surface of your skin to cause damage.
Combining Your Diet with a Skincare Routine
Making mindful choices about what you eat and taking care of your skin are both necessary acts of self-care. You need to support your skin from the inside and the outside. Caldera + Labs is designed to deliver your skin over 3.4 million topical antioxidant units to improve the way your skin looks and feels.
We created and completed the first antioxidant study of its kind to evaluate our antioxidant content and to study its skin benefits in the long term. Our regimen works to combat signs of aging and improve skin health.
Our organically grown and sustainably wild-harvested botanicals are selected for their well-researched skin health benefits and their substantial antioxidant content. We’ve created a simple routine that only takes a few minutes every morning and night.
Start by cleansing with The Clean Slate. Gently blot your face dry with a soft, clean towel. Then, apply a few drops of The Good serum.
The Good is extremely concentrated and designed to provide benefits through the surface of your skin, penetrating to promote skin health from within. Top it off with The Base Layer moisturizer to seal in the serum’s benefits and create a deeply hydrating antioxidant-rich barrier.
Enjoy a balanced breakfast packed with protein, vitamins, and antioxidants. Then you’re ready to head out for the morning. It’s really that simple.
Sources:
Omega 3 Fatty Acid and Skin Diseases | Frontiers in Immunology
An Overview of Your Skin | Cleveland Clinic