Complexion Boosters: Keep summer skin beautiful

Summer is well under way! It’s the time of year where we need to protect our skin from the damaging effects of UV exposure that can lead to wrinkles, photo-aging and even the beginning stages of skin cancer. In recent studies, researchers have found that an array of antioxidants can protect specific skin cells against UVA and UVB induced damage. Exposure to UV light accounts for 90 percent of the symptoms associated with premature skin aging, and most of the effects by age 20.

Keep your skin youthful from 20 to 60

Skin in your 20’s: Your skin tends to be more stable than in your teens, usually oiliness and spots will disappear. You really do not see any visible facial lines yet, but if you look closely you will notice your expression marks will start forming. Some men and women will still see some acne depending on hormonal changes and cravings.

Solution: Make sure your diet is full of antioxidants like lutein, gogi berry, mangosteen, tomatoes and blueberries to support sun protection and skin elasticity. Drink lots of water and avoid smoking.

Skin in your 30’s: This is definitely a decade where you will begin seeing any overexposure to smoke, alcohol, pollution and UV light on your skin, that occurred in your teens and 20’s. You will begin to notice visible fine lines around the eyes and mouth and your cellular repair process begins to slow, which leads to weakened collagen. Skin may look duller and darker and may take longer to recover from late nights or stress.

Solution: Spend a little more time on learning what is good for your body. Choose the types of foods that enhance your metabolism, energy and provide beautifying properties from within. Supplementing with antioxidants like pomegranate, grape seed, green tea and alpha lipoic acid, which provide protection from free radical damage (the rusting effect of our cells). Increase your diet with vitamin A, E and C to boost your immune and diet for healthy looking skin and body. Try Sequence XO’s Fusion antioxidant supplement to help protect your skin. Learn more about our products

Skin in your 40’s: Wrinkles and spider veins will become more apparent during this stage of our lives if we did not protect our skin in earlier decades. Discoloration, uneven skin texture, dryness and dullness are more apparent.

Solution: Avoid yo-yo dieting, this will only add to dullness of your skin and create havoc on your hormones. Instead try portion control and don’t forget the most important meal of the day – breakfast. Women who eat breakfast tend to be 10 pounds lighter than woman who skip it all together. Try drinking your breakfast with yogurt, protein blended with a low-carb antioxidant beauty mix, like Sequence XO’s Radiance beverage powder. Learn more about our products

Skin in your 50’s and 60’s: Pigmentation and sagging skin are usually the biggest problems in this stage of our lives. Unless you have exercised regularly, you will see the effects in loss of tone and muscle. Also cellular regeneration and circulation will slow causing flaky patches, dullness, goose pimples and fragile skin spots.

Solution: Diet and exercise is very important to keep skin and muscles healthy. Increasing your protein and essential fatty acids like omega 3’s are crucial in keeping bones and joints healthy. Adding supplements with antioxidants, essential fatty acids, phyto-nutrients, protein and minerals are very important to the health of your collagen (muscles, connective tissue, joints, skin, hair and nails). Try Sequence XO’s Radiance to boost protein and phyto-nutrients in your diet. Learn more about our products

Have a question? Comment? Please email us, we’d love to hear from you.

Is your water aging you?

There are many different forms of water available for your drinking pleasure. It’s important to understand the benefits of each to ensure that you are drinking and topically using the right type of water for healthier skin and body. According to Dr. Dennis Gross, tap water contains heavy metals that can act as free radicals, which can destroy collagen. Even by washing your face with tap water can lead to impurities and heavy metals to cling to your skin, creating a breeding ground for damage to occur throughout the day.

What kind of water is best for you?

Below is the list of the most popular water options available and explanations of how they benefit your health.

Ionized water
What is it?
Water treated with electrolysis to remove acidic particles, such as sodium, calcium, iron, copper, chloride and bromide. The water has been purified from most impurities except organic compounds.

Benefits:

• Acts as a natural antioxidant
• Helps with the body’s natural oxygen production
• Stabilizes body’s acid/alkaline balance – balancing the body’s pH
• The molecular structure of ionized water is smaller, which allows for easier passage into the cells and tissues
• Used externally, ionized water is beneficial for healthy skin, hair and scalp

Distilled water
What is it?
Water that has been heated to a boiling point eliminating impurities from the water as it vaporizes. Through a distiller, the vapor water is then cooled to become pure liquid water while the impurities such as the metals, ions, minerals, and contaminants are disposed of.

Benefits:

• Helps to flush out impurities from the body
• Allows the proper “flushing” of the blood through the kidneys, not having to have to deal with other impurities found in un-distilled water.
• No impurities, just pure H2O
• Acts as a solvent in the body by dissolving nutrients so they can be assimilated by the cell
• Collects “rejected” minerals and flushes them out as waste

Filtered water
What is it?
Water that has been filtered through a carbon based filter to remove chemical agents such as chlorine.

Benefits:

• Ensures that only organic minerals are retained in the water
• Helps to remove synthetic compounds, which turn into vapor at relatively low temperatures leading to toxins in the body if not removed

Comments? Have questions? Please feel free to email us

Curbing the ‘bad’ cholesterol for a healthier heart

Many of us have heard that there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol, but do you know what each one does within in the body? HDL, or the ‘good’ cholesterol, is known to protect the heart from disease and tends to carry cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where it’s passed from the body. We need the ‘good’ cholesterol to help create hormones like adrenalin, estrogen and testosterone. Whereas, LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol actually accumulates on artery walls hardening into plaque that can block blood flow leading to stroke, heart disease or a heart attack.

Foods that can raise your ‘good’ cholesterol and help protect your heart

To help keep the ‘bad’ cholesterol at bay try adding some of these great foods to your diet:

Garlic – Clinical trials have shown that eating about two cloves of garlic per day may help prevent clogging of the arteries and reduce your risk of a heart attack. But it’s not only the amount you eat but also how you prepare it that may be the trick to enhancing the benefits. Chopping or crushing garlic in a press and letting it sit for 10 minutes releases more of its therapeutic properties. So the next time you add garlic to your recipes make sure you chop it and let it sit.

Adding garlic: stir one teaspoon of chopped garlic into 2 tablespoons of low-fat mayo to use on sandwiches or wraps.

Extra-virgin olive oil – Olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fats, which can lower LDL when they replace saturated fats in the diet. “In fact, every 1 percent decrease in your intake of saturated fat – can reduce your LDL level by 2 percent,” says R.D. Melissa Ohlson. What you need to watch out for is replacing your saturated fat with carbohydrates like white bread or low-fat cookies, which can lower your LDL’s, but they also lower your HDL as well.

Adding unsaturated fats by cooking with olive oil, avocado, and nuts will help keep your cholesterol in check.

Almonds – A recent study from the University of Toronto found that adults, who ate an ounce of almonds a day as part of a healthy diet, lowered their LDL levels by 13 to 20 percent. Almonds are particularly heart-healthy because they have the most vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant known to help protect the heart.

Adding almonds: toast the almonds with spices or herbs in a pan at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes to bring out the flavor!