My Fountain of Youth

June 15, 2016

Natural Ways to Stay “Young”

As I draw nearer to my birthday, I love all of the compliments and all of the questions I receive about how young I look. How do you stay so young? How do you do it? Have you found the fountain of youth? And I normally jokingly bypass the comments, unless it’s one of my students and I say I’m a vampire.  I love that response, especially since my hands are always so cold, I confirm the vampire claim with a tap on their hand with my cold fingers and watch the shock in their faces.  Well, NO, I am not a vampire, and NO, I have not found the actual fountain of youth. What I have found, in addition to awesome DNA, are some great habits that slows down the physical aging process.  

Water – I love to call drinking water the fountain of youth.  Although I don’t drink as much as I should or would like to, water is the number 1 natural substance that prevents aging. In April, I attempted to drink a “measured” gallon of water a day when I saw what it did for our skin, but somehow ended up drinking less water than I usually would. However, my go to drink is water.  Our adult bodies are made up of about 60% of water. We should drink about 64 ounces or eight -8 ounce glasses a day. I try to do this by drinking 2 servings of my 32 ounce water bottle each day. This is easier at work since I drink out of the water bottle, but once I’m home it’s harder to measure my water intake since I don’t usually drink from my water bottles.  I don’t drink soda, coffee, or a lot of juices, so drinking water is easy for me. Drinking water helps maintain healthy skin and a healthy body.

Green Tea –  Something else that helps preserve my youthful appearance is drinking green tea.  During the warmer months I love making and drinking iced green tea.  Living in the south, it’s my healthy version of “Sweet Tea”. I love drinking hot green tea in the colder months or when I don’t feel well (helps with cramps). Green tea is filled with antioxidants and nutrients which are great for your body and skin. This includes improved brain function, fat loss, a lower risk of cancer and many other incredible benefits. Green tea is also known for lowering your risk of dying and helping you live longer with all of it’s health benefits.

Detox Tea – Drinking Yogi Detox Tea once a week has been helpful in keeping my system regulated and it has an added benefit of clearing up my skin. Although this is not exactly natural, there are some natural ingredients, it gives my skin a natural glow which does equate to a youthful appearance.  I do not recommend this as a weight loss supplement or something to drink daily.  Like I said, I drink it was a week, and it does what I need.  If you are taking any type of medicine, you may want to drink the tea well before taking your meds, as it is a detox and may detox your meds right out of your system.

No Red Meat – Now, I can not prove that my not eating red meat is a cause of my youthful appearance (I only eat chicken, turkey, and seafood). But when I’m asked what I do or don’t do, this is something I don’t do.  I do know that beef will stay in your digestive system for days (or longer) and pork causes  other health issues.  I stopped eating pork when I was a child so I can’t say much about those side effects. I recently stopped eating beef in 2008 after having an adverse reaction.  I previously limited my beef intake in 2006.  I can say that when I ate beef, I felt full, not the I ate too much full. I felt heavy, my stomach would feel as though it was mad that I ate it.  Almost like I could feel the beef sitting in my body for all of those days and my body wanted it out.  Another thing that I have noticed, not that I wanted it to happen, I can not gain weight. I have always been small. Since 2006, I have not been able to maintain what was my normal weight up until that point. Not promoting weight loss, but a toned body does give off a youthful appearance.

Dressing for My Body, Not Just My Age – I also dress for my body type.  Wearing proper clothing can take years off. Know what works for your body shape and stick to it.  Just because something looks good on someone (or looks bad on someone else), does not mean it will look the same way on you.  I don’t necessarily dress for my age, but I still shop in the women’s section. All those rules for what you should and shouldn’t wear after a certain age went out the door with the rule for wearing white after Labor Day.  Unfortunately, clothes are not as age specific for kids as they were when I was young. Now kid clothes are cut just like adult clothes so it’s easier to make the mistakes of looking like a teen in your outfit.  When in doubt check Pinterest. Pinterest will direct you to the perfect look for almost any occasion.

Moisturize – Moisturize your skin. I started using Olay when I was in my early 20s just because an elderly woman at my childhood church used it and at 70 something had no wrinkles. I love when people say “black don’t crack.” Lies! It sure will, but, most dark skinned people are accustomed to moisturizing their skin. The more you moisturize the less you wrinkle. The same goes for sunscreen. What happens to burnt skin? It wrinkles and changes texture. Well every time you go into the sun without sunscreen that’s exactly what you are doing to your skin.  The Olay I use on my face has SPF in it, and I use it all year.  I have to admit, I must do better with wearing sunscreen on my body on a daily basis. But, if you know me, I’m usually pretty covered up in the summer because I can’t stand the AC (remember my cold vampire hands, I’m always cold).  I also use Vitamin E stick for under my eyes that is an instant wrinkle eraser.

foy body
Me in 2005 and 2016.

 

So these are the things I do or don’t do to help maintain my youthful appearance. Of not drinking (alcohol) and not smoking are some other things that help, but I don’t need to tell you what you already know about those.  I hope this answers all of your questions or gives you some positive habits to get you to preserve your youthfulness.

P.S.  Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever. – Tinker Bell

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