Ready, set, GLOW! When (& why) to eat for skin that's radiant AF

You know, I probably should have started with this. Last week I shared what to eat for radiant skin. Sure, there’s specific nutrients that pack a powerful punch when it comes to taking care of your body armor, but there are no crazy secrets. I think everyone knows the not-secret is … don’t eat garbage. That’s the “trick” to solving so many problems. I don’t know, maybe people read that last blog hoping to find a quick fix. They’d have had to make it all the way to the P.S. statement at the bottom to find that implementing the simple, not-garbage-eating not-secret to find out taking care of yourself actually is kind of a quick fix, at least when it comes to skin. All of your skin cells regenerate about every 28 days, so each day your skin can glow harder 1/28th at a time. It adds up pretty fast.

When to eat is probably more valuable information to share with you. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, I’m talking fasting and snacking. So, I guess it is more about when not to eat. Simply put, you may want to experiment with intermittent fasting and reducing/eliminating snacks between meals for loads of healthy reasons.

Intermittent fasting is a tool you can throw in your toolbox. Here’s my favorite way it can support your skin goals:

Autophagy

Think of autophagy as a waste management process within you to cleans up cellular debris from constant cellular regeneration, recycles what it can, and eliminates the rest along with the toxins created through normal biological processes within the body or taken in from outside. It also plays the role of quality control – sometimes you create sucky cells, and autophagy bounces them out of your body club. There is a lot going on in that bod of yours. When you overwhelm your body with a near constant stream of food working its way through your digestive tract, autophagy is deprioritized. This leads to buildup and improper cellular regeneration.

When autophagy is working full-force, not only are your new skin cells going to be in their prime condition (assuming you’re getting proper nourishment), but you clear out all the gunk. You can say goodbye to that unnecessary extra skin that sticks around after weightloss or baby-birthing! You won’t need to do any juice cleanses to detox for that glow – your body’s own detox processes will be operating so well they won’t need the extra help. (I won’t go too far down this rabbit hole, but many cleanses do more harm than good anyways, so you’re better off just supporting your body’s natural processes.) When you turn on autophagy on the regular, not only can you slow aging, but research suggests it reverses aging in many ways – not just in your skin, but also in your brain.

Honorable mentions

Intermittent fasting can also get your blood sugar under control, improve hormone function, and reduce inflammation. All of which will add to that glow among many, many other benefits!

Insight into action

Alrightie, you’ve probably heard about intermittent fasting before, and it may seem crazy pants to you. People practice it in all sorts of ways that can seem totally intimidating, inconvenient, and impractical: OMAD (one meal a day), full day fasts, and the ever popular but still kind of a stretch for many people 16/8 fast.

Based off what I know about Satchin Panda’s research with his team over at the Salk Institute (where the double-helix structure of DNA was discovered!), my recommendation is to get started with keep your eating window to 12 hours each day and do your best to limit snacking. Totally doable! If you so desire and are doing well on this 12-hour window, here and there maybe shrink that window to 10 or 11 hours. That’s kinda where I hang out, but I take it day by day.

Full disclosure, IF isn’t for everyone. If you opt to try it out, just think of it as an experiment. You may have to tweak things here and there to develop a way to practice IF that works best for you. What works for you now might not always be so. It can be especially tricky for women, so be sure to listen to your body. Red flags to watch out for: trouble sleeping, missing periods, and getting a little too stressed about “perfectly” executing on your plan.

Let me know if you have any other questions about IF or autophagy that I can answer for you. I would be thrilled to help you get started using this tool to support your health. You might get into it to eat away your sagging skin, but you’ll can get SO much more out of it! I’ve got your back 😉

Thanks for reading!
Caitie

P.S. IF isn’t the only way to activate autophagy. Moderate exercise (among other things) can also turn that process on – especially resistance and interval training. Having trouble sticking to your workout routine? Here’s the info you’ve been missing if you’re missing your workouts -> FREEBIE

P.P.S. Like I said, what I cover in this blog series is pretty simple… but not always easy to implement. Change is hard! So if you’ve tried to make changes before and “failed,” don’t beat yourself up. It’s how our brains are designed. When you’re ready to take things to the next level and figure out how to make decisions for your health and your life stick give me a call – first one’s free 😉

SOURCES

Castro-Obregon, Susana. “The Discovery of Lysosomes and Autophagy.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 2010, www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-discovery-of-lysosomes-and-autophagy-14199828/.

He, Congcong, et al. “Exercise Induces Autophagy in Peripheral Tissues and in the Brain.” Autophagy, Landes Bioscience, Oct. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463459/.

Kim, Hei Sung, et al. “Autophagy in Human Skin Fibroblasts: Impact of Age.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences, MDPI, 1 Aug. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121946/.

Kobayashi, Satoru. “Choose Delicately and Reuse Adequately: The Newly Revealed Process of Autophagy.” Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26235572.

Levine, Beth, et al. “Autophagy in Immunity and Inflammation.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 20 Jan. 2011, www.nature.com/articles/nature09782.

Longo, Valter D, and Satchidananda Panda. “Fasting, Circadian Rhythms, and Time-Restricted Feeding in Healthy Lifespan.” Cell Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 June 2016, w ww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388543/.

Mizushima, Noboru, and Masaaki Komatsu. “Autophagy: Renovation of Cells and Tissues.” Cell, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 11 Nov. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22078875.

“Satchidananda Panda.” Salk Institute for Biological Studies, www.salk.edu/scientist/satchidananda-panda/.

Tan, Chen-Chen, et al. “Autophagy in Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Implications for Pathogenesis and Therapy.” Neurobiology of Aging, Elsevier, 28 Nov. 2013, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0197458013005873.

Zapp Machalek, Alisa. “How Cells Eat In.” National Institute of General Medical Sciences, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 21 Aug. 2013, www.nigms.nih.gov/education/Inside-Life-Science/Pages/how-cells-eat-in.aspx.

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