Did you know your skin can 'diet' too?

Life seems to be a constant change of diet or 'eating plan' to keep us feeling fit and healthy. Well did you know your skin can diet too?

Diet and lifestyle are important to our all over well being. I feel like I've spent my life on a 'diet'. In recent years I've learned not to call it a diet but instead a healthy eating plan. A healthy eating plan to enrich my life and make me feel better. Food is the fuel that keeps our bodies performing each day so it's really important that you treat it as fuel. Did you know that the food you eat will help determine the condition of your skin as well as the shape of your body? Eating the right food will make sure your skin gets all the nutrients it needs to stay hydrated, healthy and youthful.

Skincare is important but you also need to feed your skin on the inside too. We can break the food diet into two categories - foods to avoid and food to include. The easy one is the foods that you need to include to keep your skin in it's optimum condition. You just need to remember vitamins, essential fats and antioxidants, as well as lots and lots of water to keep it hydrated.

So what are the ideal diet foods for our skin? As you can imagine it's all the unprocessed fresh foods that do your skin good. You can get the vitamins your skin needs from fresh fruit and vegetables.

What to eat

Vitamins A, B, C, D and E:

Certain foods will contain more than one Vitamin so you can load up on the multi-taskers to get all your skin loving vitamins in at the same time.

Vitamin A: Get it in all things orange - vegetables like sweet potato, pumpkin, butternut squash, apricots, goats cheese and liver is also a really good source of Vitamin A.

Vitamin B is found in red meat, eggs and in wholegrains.

Vitamin C is is in fruit and veg. If you load up on your greens you'll get plenty of vitamin C which we actually don't make naturally in our bodies at all.

Vitamin D can be found in oily fish like tuna and salmon, eggs and milk.

Vitamin E is found in nuts and seeds like almonds, sunflower seeds, avocados, sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

Essential Fatty Acids (Omegas 3 and 6):

Get your Omega 6 from leafy greens, seeds, meat and vegetables. Omega 3 is found in oily fish like mackerel and salmon, certain nuts like hazlenuts and walnuts and edamame beans or mungo beans.

Uisce and loads of it

What not to eat

Sugar, sugar and sugar!

Processed food in general.

Foods high in salt.

To much dairy is often associated with acne so if you feel your spots are aggravated by dairy intake you could consider cutting back on it.

Alcohol should be avoided or taken in low quantities as it dehydrates your skin.

Do you find your diet affects your skin?