Erica Angyal is a nutritionist, health consultant and author of Gorgeous Skin in 30 Days. Since 2004 she has been the official nutritionist to the Miss Universe Japan finalists. © Kenji Maeji
‘This is the perfect little guidebook for anyone who wants a better understanding of how what we eat, drink and think can affect the way we look, feel and act. Beauty really does come from the inside out. I especially love Erica’s Gorgeous Skin action plan.’ —Miranda Kerr
‘Internationally respected nutrition authority Erica Angyal has done it again! Her latest work, Gorgeous Skin for Teens, is essential reading for all teens, educators, parents and dermatologists. Erica shatters the myths surrounding diet and acne, while providing sound, scientifically based nutritional advice. The book is a treasure trove of valuable information for the promotion of clear, glowing skin, and will set the table for a lifetime of healthy diet and lifestyle habits.’ —Dr Alan C. Logan, best-selling author of The Brain Diet
‘Erica truly shows you the secrets to great skin from within.’ —Riyo Mori, Miss Universe 2007
‘In this book Erica provides plenty of helpful advice on which foods to eat to improve the health of your skin.’ —Ana Ivanovic, tennis player, ranked #2 in the world, 11 April 2008
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First published in 2008 Copyright © Erica Angyal 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. ARENA, an imprint of Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email:
[email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Angyal, Erica. Gorgeous skin for teens / Erica Angyal. 9781741755275 (pbk.) Includes index. Skin—Care and hygiene. Teenage girls. Acne. Diet. Beauty, personal. Teenage girls—Nutrition. Lifestyles—Health aspects. 646.726 Illustrations by Ian Faulkner Set in 9.5/12 pt Helvetica Neue by Bookhouse, Sydney Printed in China by Everbest Printing Co., Ltd 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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GORGEOUSSKIN s n e e t r fo ERICA ANGYAL
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CONTENTS Bh1438M-PressProofs.indb 4
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PREFACE: THE TRUTH ABOUT TEENAGE SKIN INTRODUCTION: ACNE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD 1 SKIN 101 2 NUTRITION 101 3 KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE 4 EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS 5 THE SKIN PROTECTORS 6 THE HEALTH AND BEAUTY MYTHS 7 FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT 8 GETTING PREPARED 9 THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN 10 GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES NOTES APPENDIX INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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6 12 17 33 55 75 109 133 147 161 171 213 243 250 266 270
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PREFACE
The truth about teenage skin Oh no, it’s wake up time! The alarm rings and it jolts you out of a blissful dream. Tired and totally lacking energy, the idea of starting a new day is enough to make you want to stay under cover—you can’t even contemplate getting out of bed. But the dreaded moment arrives: the wake-up-andcheck-your-face moment! As you stumble towards the mirror for that daunting first-thing-in-the-morning inspection, you can’t stop thinking, How many zits have sprouted on my face during the night? Will my face be an oil slick? Do I have enough time to apply a ton of make-up to camouflage my bumpy red skin? By the time you get to the mirror, you are almost too afraid to look. Shock sets in as your sleepy eyes begin to focus and you get a clear look at your face. How could this be? How could I possibly have another pimple on my chin? Could this get any worse? How am I going to face my friends and be able to go out tonight? We all have experienced our own skin nightmares at some point in our lives. It happened to me, at fifteen, when I was a world away from my regular life in Australia, as an exchange student on the Japanese island of Kyushu. On my first day in class, I was in for a real shock. ‘What’s that?’ asked the girl sitting in front of me, pointing right at my face. ‘What’s what?’ I responded, not knowing what she meant.
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PREFACE ‘Those red spots on your chin,’ she said, and kept pointing at my face in front of everyone. I didn’t know what to say, and my face turned bright red. Coming from Australia, I had thought pimples were normal. But the whole class turned around and stared as if my pimples were some infectious disease! I was beyond embarrassed. I wanted to crawl under my desk. Looking around my class, I noticed that hardly anyone had any pimples. How come none of the Japanese girls and guys my age had acne? Why did they have such perfect skin? Did they have some sort of secret? I couldn’t figure it out. Here I was halfway across the globe feeling like the ugly duckling among swans. And it wasn’t just that girl that turned my first day in class into a nightmare. I still remember my first morning sitting at my Japanese host family’s breakfast table, starving. Gross, I thought. How disgusting! I had no idea how I was going to eat the food that was in front of me. I wasn’t used to soup in the morning, and this was not just any soup. This one had little fish floating in it, and their black beady eyes were staring straight at me. Right next to the soup was a small dish of this slimy brown sludge stuff that smelt like a really bad off blue cheese. ‘This is natto,’ my host sister explained. ‘Fermented soybeans, very good for you.’ Thanks, but no thanks, I thought, believing it was some kind of a joke. Well, it wasn’t.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS There were three generations living under the same roof. My host mum was busy working, so my host grandma made sure lots of interesting foods were served up first thing in the morning: raw egg, pickled vegetables, dried seaweed . . . Yuck! So for the first week I lived mostly on rice. Then I started nibbling on the more familiar-looking stuff like egg rolls and tofu dishes. After a while I discovered that some of the food wasn’t that bad at all, and I started to eat what the family ate. My host grandma even brought us yummy things like melon, sushi and red bean sweets. About a month later something amazing happened. My pimples slowly disappeared and my skin looked better than ever. My Japanese classmates didn’t have some special gene or mysterious secret after all. It was all the stuff that my host grandma was feeding me every day—a healthy diet that happened to help my skin at the same time. It wasn’t until I got back to Australia, to tuckshop food and all those sweets and snacks, that the pimples and less-than-great-looking skin staged a comeback. Ironically today, twenty-three years later, I am giving nutritional advice to Japanese beauty queens, and I am helping some of them to get rid of acne! What happened to the blemish-free Japanese complexions? Well, in the past twenty years, the typical Japanese diet has changed at lightning speed. Meanwhile, in that same period, acne rates in Japan have more than doubled. Now Japanese teenagers are getting just as much acne as teens in Australia, England and the United States.
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PREFACE My own experience in Kyushu shows that acne is not so normal. And research confirms that you don’t have to get acne just because you’re a teenager. Way back in the mid 1900s, a doctor named Otto Schaefer noted that acne was completely unknown among the Inuit Eskimos in Northern Canada. Mirroring my own experience in Kyushu, in the years before World War II doctors working on the Japanese island of Okinawa reported not a single case of acne in any of the kids, teenagers or young adults who lived there. In the 1990s doctors examined 1200 Kitavan people on the remote islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea, and big groups of Aché hunter-gatherers in an isolated jungle area of Eastern Paraguay in South America. And you know what? They didn’t find a single spot in the entire teenage population. Now think about your classmates and almost every other teen you’ve seen. It would be impossible to round up a random group of teens that is completely acne-free in Australia—or any other Westernised country. So how come all these teens living in far-flung places don’t battle with their skin? They certainly don’t all eat traditional Japanese food. Perhaps they’ve got some special sort of anti-acne gene? Sounds interesting, but nope, that’s not it. All the studies and observations point to the same thing. The societies with zero acne don’t drink Coke and eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts; they don’t have Big Macs and KFC; and they don’t munch on M&M’s in between.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS They don’t even have supermarkets, for that matter. Most of their diet is made up of natural stuff that hasn’t been processed in any way: healthy foods like fruit and vegies, fish and hunted wild game and meat. The Kitavan teens, for example, eat mostly fruit, fish, coconut and root vegies—and they virtually never have dairy products. Now think about what a typical Australian teen eats and drinks every day. Maybe a sugary cereal like Rice Bubbles with milk for breakfast, a mid-morning soft drink, a white-bread sandwich for lunch, some Twisties, biscuits or chips for an afternoon snack, and a pizza or burger for dinner, with a sugary dessert to top it all off. In 2005, a research team led by Professor Neil Mann from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology did a study with Australian teens living in Melbourne to see if a less-processed, healthier diet would clear up their skin. For twelve weeks, the teens in the study cut out virtually all processed and bad stuff and switched to a healthy diet with lots of fish, lean meat, whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables. And to everyone’s excitement, their acne improved dramatically. In fact, the study showed that simply cutting out sugar and junk food for three months was a far more effective weapon against acne than a bathroom cabinet full of antipimple products! Acne isn’t just the unfolding of a genetic timetable, and it’s not just the result of those turbulent teenage hormones. It’s all about the stuff you stick in your mouth every single
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PREFACE day. Being healthy and looking good go hand-in-hand. ‘The Gorgeous Skin Plan’ in Chapter 9 shows how you can banish those blemishes forever, and welcome healthy, glowing skin. A great diet, stressing less, moving more, and getting enough zzzs, will not only give you clear, radiant skin, but will also help you look and feel fantastic, head to toe, inside and out. And don’t worry—you won’t have to eat any weird stuff.
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INTRODUCTION Bh1438M-PressProofs.indb 12
Acne is a four-letter word One minute you have a clear, flawless complexion, and then all of a sudden everything goes crazy! Out of nowhere, spots, lumps, bumps and pimples pop up all over your face—or you realise your skin looks dull, dry and just plain blah—right when you want to look your best. So you squeeze your pimples and try to camouflage them with make-up. You put on creams, toners and lotions, or take antibiotics and other medications that promise to banish blemishes and stop new breakouts in their tracks. Yet no matter what you do, those zits keep popping up. It’s a constant battle—sometimes your acne may get worse, it may get better or it may even disappear for a while. You’re not alone, almost nine out of ten teens in the Western world go through the anguish of acne. No wonder radiant, clear skin is at the top of the typical teen’s wish-list. In fact, teenage surveys show that the desire for clear skin is ranked even higher than the desire to be thinner, smarter, taller or more attractive! This book shows you how you can kiss your blemishes and bad skin goodbye once and for all in three easy steps. It is designed so that you can read it from start to finish or read only the chapters that interest you. Either way, it’s a complete guide for getting you from where you are now to where you want to be: having gorgeous, clear skin. And it’s surprisingly simple.
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INTRODUCTION Three steps to great skin Acne, spots, pimples, and dull, dry skin don’t have to be a part of your teenage destiny.
Step 1 Say goodbye to skin enemies Everything you stick in your mouth—or don’t, for that matter—affects the health and appearance of your skin. You can probably imagine that day after day, stuff like pies, chips and doughnuts aren’t going to be doing your skin, or your body, any favours. You may be shocked at how many everyday foods can aggravate acne and other skin problems and turn your skin into a war zone. Hormones, too, can affect your skin and kick-start the whole pimple process. Here’s how it works: eating skinenemy food causes certain hormones such as testosterone and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) to go crazy, setting off a whole series of reactions that can lead to acne. Although giving up junk food isn’t easy, I promise that the results will be so worth it because you’ll look and feel fantastic.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Step 2 Eat yourself gorgeous Guess what the coolest beauty tool of all is? Presenting . . . the fork. Use it to eat your way to a brighter, blemish-free complexion. A diet packed with nutrition superstars—good carbohydrates, fabulous fats and perfect protein—can help your face look its absolute best and give you more energy. Good looks come from good health—there’s no way around it! You won’t have to count kilojoules (calories) or keep track of every snack or portion size and, best of all, you’ll get to eat yummy food. You’ll discover delicious easy menu ideas for all your meals—including power lunches for school— and snacks. Plus, you can totally mix it up and design your own diet around the stuff you love from the foods on the green light list. You’ll also find lots of mouth-watering recipes to keep you going through the day.
Step 3 Add some lifestyle protection One of the most important parts of a great skin strategy is the all-powerful skin protectors: lots of sleep, exercise and some form of regular relaxation. Each of these protectors has a huge effect on those hormones that are behind acne and other skin problems.
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INTRODUCTION Remember: if you get seriously stressed out, exhausted or turn into a couch potato, you’ll undo all your good nutrition work. Turning down your stress-meter, making sleep a priority (and not just on weekends) and keeping physically active give your skin a fighting chance to look its very best.
Put your best face forward A great diet, a balanced lifestyle, external skin care and some lifestyle protection will give you healthy, happy skin for life. Your skin has the amazing ability to rejuvenate and if you follow the food and lifestyle strategies in this book, you’ll feel better, have more energy, sleep better, get better grades, and be happier and healthier overall. You may notice some skin changes within a short amount of time, but results can sometimes take up to four weeks. Hang in there! Pimples don’t actually pop up overnight, so getting rid of them takes time. Your skin will improve, and will continue to improve as long as you follow the basic guidelines. And don’t worry if it sounds like there’s a lot of stuff to keep in mind, the step-by-step, easy-to-read ‘Gorgeous Skin Plan’ in Chapter 9 puts it all together for you. So, let’s get started.
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SKIN 101 Bh1438M-PressProofs.indb 17
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Take time to chill each day.
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SKIN 101 et’s face it, your skin was probably the last thing on your mind until you got pimples, zits, spots, or you noticed that it looked dull or dry. But no matter how much—or how little—you think about it, your skin is super important. It is the main thing that makes you look like you. It covers and protects everything inside your body, and holds you together. Think about it: without skin, your muscles, bones and organs would be hanging out all over the place. What’s more, your skin constantly protects your body from unwanted visitors, like bacteria and viruses. It helps you warm up when you’re cold, cools you down when you’re hot, and lets you touch and feel things. And when you bite your lip or skin your knee, your skin repairs itself perfectly in a matter of days, often without any trace. Your skin is pretty incredible. What appears to be just a thin covering is actually the largest and heaviest organ in your body. It’s washable, stretchable, tough and waterproof. It’s amazing to think that even if you soak in the tub for hours on end, your skin doesn’t let any water in. And when you grow, or gain or lose weight, your skin expands and contracts with your changing size. What you can see is only a tiny part of what’s going on. Underneath, your skin works non-stop around the clock performing hundreds of tasks, all while constantly renewing itself.
L
Taking it from the top Your skin isn’t just a simple flat sheet. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye. Learning how your skin works will give you the power to improve it and maintain it, and will
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS
© Kenji Maeji
To give your skin a real beauty boost, go for a salad a day with green leafies. Add some protein to balance out blood-sugar levels.
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SKIN 101 help you feel better about your face. As you can see in the cross-section below, the skin is made up of three main layers: • • •
Epidermis Dermis Hypodermis (fat layer).
As a whole, every square centimetre of your skin is packed with millions of cells along with lots of nerve endings, tiny blood vessels, glands, hair follicles and muscle fibres.
Introducing the epidermis Your epidermis is always showing, because it’s the outer layer of skin that you present to the world. This outer layer acts as your body’s natural suit of armour, protecting you from the sun, wind, rain and infections. Yet most of it’s only about as thick as a sheet of paper! It’s thickest on the bottom of your feet—where you need it for walking barefoot—and thinnest on your eyelids. The epidermis is being worn down and replaced constantly. Look at your hands for a minute. Although you can’t
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Fun skin facts About 6 square centimetres (1 square inch) of your skin is home to:
*
17 m (18½ yd) of blood vessels
* * * * *
*
65 hairs
71 m (77 yd) of nerves
100 sebaceous (oil) glands 650 sweat glands
1300 nerve endings 9 500 000 cells
see anything happening, the epidermis is a factory that’s producing new skin cells all the time. When the new cells are ready, they start moving from the bottom towards the top of your epidermis. This trip takes about two weeks to a month. And while they move up, the older cells above them die and rise to the surface. So when you look at your skin, all you can actually see are dead skin cells. The horny layer (seriously!) is the name for the outermost layer of your epidermis. You can impress your friends by using its Latin name, the stratum corneum. The horny layer is tough and strong, and the cells are tightly packed together like scales, so they’re just perfect for covering and protecting your body. But they don’t hang around for long. They soon flake off: when you wash, sit in class, scratch yourself and as you read this book. Although you can’t see it happening, every minute we lose about 30 000 to 40 000 dead skin cells. That’s almost 4 kg (9 lb) of cells every year! Your skin doesn’t wear out, though, because the epidermis is always making new skin cells. A completely new epidermis is produced about every 28 days. Anyway, the horny layer is covered with a thin film of sweat as well as sebum, an oily, waxy substance secreted by your sebaceous (oil) glands. Sebum is your skin’s natural moisturiser. Your skin literally keeps all your bases covered. Just in case any bad bacteria manage to slip through your armour, your epidermis has another weapon waiting—Langerhans cells. These special cells help defend your body from any invading bugs by activating your immune system.
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SKIN 101 What your epidermis doesn’t contain, though, is blood vessels. If you lightly scrape your skin, it will ooze clear liquid, but you’ll see no blood. Bleeding only happens when an injury penetrates deeper than the epidermis.
Digging deeper: the dermis The next layer down, out of sight underneath the epidermis, is the dermis. This layer makes up about 90 per cent of your skin’s overall thickness, and it’s where a lot of the real action takes place. The dermis is home to tons of tiny blood vessels called capillaries, which bring nutrients and oxygen to your skin cells and take away their waste. Capillaries are hard to see in young people, but you might be able to see them in your grandparents’ skin, because the dermis gets thinner as it gets older. This layer also contains nerve endings, which provide you with your sense of touch, and special cells that make your skin’s collagen and elastin. Collagen is like scaffolding, giving your skin its strength and fullness. Elastin consists of flexible fibres that work somewhat like rubber bands, so that whenever you move, your skin stretches as needed and then goes back to its original shape. The dermis is home to the sebaceous (oil) glands, too. These oil glands empty their sebum onto the skin’s surface, the epidermis, through tiny openings called pores. This natural oily substance then spreads out to form a barrier against water loss, keeping your skin moisturised, protected, soft and smooth. The flow of oil also sweeps dead cells and bacteria out of your pores.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS You may be able to see the pores on your face if you peer closely at yourself in the mirror, but don’t expect to see any pores on models in glossy magazine close-ups. Either they’ve been airbrushed out or makeup artists have spent ages applying cosmetics to cleverly conceal them. Sweat glands release sweat through their own pores, and the moisture escapes into the air (and sometimes onto your clothes). Although you can’t necessarily feel it, you sweat a bit all the time. In fact, you sweat up a storm without realising it—about 3 cups every day, no matter how hot or cold it is outside. Your hair starts in the dermis as well. Each hair on your body grows out of a tiny tube called a follicle. Hair follicles cover almost your entire body—except for your lips, palms and soles of your feet—and you’ve got more in some places than in others. There are more than 100 000 follicles on your head alone.
To see your skin’s film in action, pick up a pin with your fingers, put it down, wash your hands well with soap and water, dry them off completely, and then try to pick up that pin again. It won’t be so easy because your sticky layer is gone! But it’s only gone momentarily, as your glands will soon put out more.
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SKIN 101 Sebaceous glands are connected to hair follicles by sharing the same pores, so the oil that’s released gives your hair its shine and keeps it waterproof. But this oil is what can make your hair look greasy too. When the oil meets the sweat, however, the protective film they form is a bit sticky.
Beneath it all: the hypodermis Way down at the bottom of your skin is your hypodermis, sometimes called the subcutaneous layer or the fat layer. It’s made mostly of fat, so it helps your body stay warm and it absorbs some of the shock if you bang into something or fall down. The hypodermis also helps to keep your skin attached to the tissues underneath it.
Skin types and true colours There are different skin types and colour variations: no two are the same. Which one is yours? Oily skin: If your skin feels greasy, is often shiny, prone to spots, blemishes and breakouts, and has easily visible pores, you probably have this type of skin. Dry skin: If your face feels tight and stretched (especially after washing), if it never has areas that feel greasy, if it has flaky patches, or if your skin is very fair, you probably have this skin type. Combination skin: If your face has some oily areas (like the T-zone across your forehead and down your nose and
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS chin) but the other areas (like your cheeks) are normal to dry, you’ve probably got combination skin. Normal skin: If your skin doesn’t feel greasy, dry or have obvious pores, then you probably have this skin type. Normal skin might sound rather dull, but anybody with one of the other types can tell you it’s something to be thankful for. Sensitive skin: Truly sensitive skin is fairly uncommon. People with this skin type are often allergy prone and have sensitivities or allergic reactions to lots of different things. They also have particularly fair, thin skin and usually have blonde or red hair. Why do some people have light skin while others have olive skin or dark brown skin or any of the shades in between? It’s all due to a pigment called melanin, produced in your epidermis by special cells called melanocytes. Everyone has roughly the same number of these melanin-producing cells, but a fair-skinned person’s melanocytes make much less of the stuff than those of a person with darker skin. Melanin does more than give you your unique skin colour, it also helps protect you from getting burnt by the sun’s rays. Even though melanin is mighty, it can’t shield you all by itself, especially if you’ve got pale skin. You’ll need additional protection, particularly from the harsh Australian sun. (For more information about the sun see Chapter 6, ‘Myth 8: a tan helps clear acne’.)
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SKIN 101 Q. Freckles—I hate them. Mine are dark and stand out on my fair skin. Help! —Hannah, age fifteen A. Freckles are small flat brown, black or even orange spots of melanin found in people with fair skin. Freckles appear on areas of the skin that have been exposed to the sun, that’s why they’re sometimes called ‘sun kisses’. Fair skin equals frequent freckling and that’s just the way it is. But, hey, freckles can be cute—look at Lucy Liu. Embrace your fabulous freckle face! Freckles, however, are signs of sun damage. So make sure you protect your skin from too much sun: wear a hat, use a good sunscreen (if possible go for a non-chemical or ‘physical’ sunblock like Megan Gale’s Invisible Zinc or Avene Sunscreen SPF 30+). You only need to worry about a freckle if it gets bumpy or turns into a weird, irregular shape. If that happens, don’t freak out, have your doctor check it out, just to be on the safe side.
Why you should love your skin Your skin holds no secrets. It tells the world about your emotional state and whatever else is going on internally. When something isn’t right—if you’re stressed out, sick, tired, or most of all, not eating well—it shows up on your face. That’s because your skin is connected to all of your body’s systems, and it’s the only organ on permanent display. So become best friends with your skin. When you take care of it, your skin will do its best job. Healthy skin doesn’t just look pretty: it looks after you too.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Acne! Yikes! What’s happening to my skin? Acne is a condition of the skin that shows up as different types of bumps. These bumps can be blackheads, whiteheads, pimples or cysts. Acne vulgaris is the technical name for a zit attack. But any way you say it—zits, spots, pimples, whiteheads, blackheads, blemishes—acne still means agony, and it will probably be the most unwelcome guest in your skin’s life. If you have it, you have lots of company—almost 90 per cent of teens in most Western countries have to deal with at least an occasional breakout.
Facing up to acne Acne is an inflammatory condition that starts way down in a tiny world of its own, in the hair follicle unit (the follicle plus the attached sebaceous gland), which you can see in the picture above right. Here’s a quick recap: the sebaceous glands make sebum (oil), which normally travels through pores to the skin’s surface, where it moisturises
and helps to waterproof your skin. As the oil travels to the surface, it also carries away loose dead skin cells and other junk from the pores’ lining. Now here’s the new part: certain hormones can stimulate your glands to step up their oil production. The extra oil combined with the dead skin cells in the pore makes a sticky mixture, kind of like wet cement. This sticky stuff can plug up the pore and seal it shut, closing off its exposure to air. Bacteria called Propionibacterium acne (P. acne for short)—which naturally live in the skin’s pores and normally don’t cause problems—thrive in places with no
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SKIN 101 oxygen, so when the pore’s air supply gets shut off, they have a party and multiply quickly. The trouble really escalates as excess oil continues pouring into the blocked pore. It’s got no exit to the skin’s surface, so things go from bad to worse. The skin surrounding the affected pore becomes red and inflamed. And hey presto, a blackhead, whitehead, zit or cyst is born. The pore may swell up and eventually rupture, releasing its sticky debris of oil, built-up dead cells and bacteria onto the skin’s surface. What’s the difference between all those pesky spots, bumps and blemishes? Whiteheads: If a pore gets clogged up and closes but bulges out from the skin, you’re left with a whitehead. Whiteheads look like tiny, white grains of sand beneath the skin. Blackheads: If a pore gets clogged up but stays open, the top surface can darken and you’re left with a blackhead. Although most people think the black in a blackhead is dirt, the blackness is actually a reaction between the oil and melanin when exposed to air. Zits or pimples: (also called pustules) are basically the next step along and they usually develop after blackheads or whiteheads become inflamed. They’re basically pusfilled bumps that form when the skin’s inflammation gets worse. Cysts: When the inflammation in the blocked pore is really severe, the lump is called a cyst or a nodule. Cysts are
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS large, solid and painful, and can last for months. A severe case of acne with lots of cysts is called cystic acne, and this unhappy condition afflicts about 5 per cent of Australian teens.
The skin on your face, chest and back contains the highest concentration of sebaceous glands, which is why you’ re more likely to have acne in these areas. TIP
Keep your fingers off your face! A pimple you leave alone heals twice as quickly as one you mess around with.
When and why does this nightmare start? In most cases, acne starts between the ages of ten and thirteen and usually lasts for five to ten years. Acne affects guys and girls in approximately equal numbers, but there are differences. For example, guys are more likely to have more severe, longer-lasting forms of acne. Hormones play a central role in the whole acne drama. You’ve probably heard of a hormone called testosterone. Although it’s often called a male hormone, both girls and guys produce it. Anyway, testosterone breaks down into the powerful hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that regulates how much oil your skin produces. Just like too much testosterone on a footy field can cause trouble, high levels of testosterone can act like an accelerator on your sebaceous glands, making them pump out more oil. But testosterone isn’t the only hormone involved. There are others, such as insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), that can cause trouble for your skin too. IGF-1 not only steps
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SKIN 101 up oil production but also cranks up skin cell production, big time. Then, when these skin cells can’t be eliminated quickly enough, they build up and block pores. The big challenge is that the levels of these pro-pimple hormones are naturally elevated during your teenage years, which contributes to acne and all sorts of other skin problems in a major way. Fortunately, following the basic guidelines of the Gorgeous Skin Plan helps keep these hormones in check.
Severe acne can signal an underlying medical condition. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a fairly common health problem that affects teenage girls and young women. In PCOS the ovaries form abnormal cysts, and this can lead to an increased production of the androgen hormones, which in turn can result in severe acne, irregular periods and excessive hair growth and loss, among other things. Acne products won’t keep your skin clear forever There are hundreds of anti-acne products out there. Just flip through any teen magazine: it seems every second ad touts a product that promises to ‘stop new breakouts in their tracks’, ‘fight blemishes’, ‘wipe away pimples’ and provide ‘instant acne relief’. Washes, cleansers, lotions, toners, spot treatments, patches, strips, gels—phew! Most of these blemish-battling
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TIP
If you have severe acne, consult a dermatologist.
products claim that with a few applications, they can virtually eliminate the most stubborn skin condition. If only . . . Although many of the zit zappers may work in the short term, after a while their effectiveness will fade. And they generally fall short because they don’t get to the root of the problem.
Great skin from within Remember those Inuit teenagers living in Northern Canada, the Kitavan teenagers in Papua New Guinea and the Aché teenagers in Paraguay? They’ve all got the normal teen hormones, just like us, but they don’t get acne. Zero, zip, nada, not a zit in sight! And that’s all because of what they eat. Topical (surface) medications fight the symptoms, and often not very effectively. You have to attack acne where it starts: with your diet. Diet is acne’s cause and also its solution. Take care of your skin from the inside out—eat a great diet, get enough zzzs, and keep your stress levels in check—and your skin will love you for it, and you will love your skin!
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NUTRITION
1 101
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS ou’ve probably heard the expression, ‘You are what you eat’. Well, it’s true. The food you eat literally becomes part of you. It helps determine whether you become tall or short, weak or strong, thin or fat—and whether your skin looks good or not. Food can also change the way you feel—yes, it’s that powerful! During your teen years, you don’t just need any kind of food, you need fantastic food. Here’s the deal: you are in the biggest and most critical growth spurt of your life! This is the most important time to eat what’s right and give your body the nutrition it needs. Between the ages of eleven and seventeen, you’re gaining 20 per cent of your adult height and 50 per cent of your adult weight. Your bones are growing longer and stronger at a fast and furious pace. You’re forming your body’s framework for life. Sadly, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, lollies, fries and pies just don’t give your body everything it needs for its rapid growth and changes. Instead of junk, your body needs more good-for-you nutrients. And it definitely needs more kilojoules (a kilojoule is a unit of measure of energy, in the same way that kilometres measure distance) from the right foods. Eating the right food helps you perform better at every level, and you’ll have fewer icky sicknesses. What’s more, it will give you great skin and a radiant, healthy glow. To build the body you want—and to look and feel fantastic— you need to make every bite of food count. How? By making food your favourite four-letter word.
Y
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NUTRITION 101 The key nutrients Let’s get down to the basics. Your body needs to be fuelled by six types of nutrients every day: • • • • • •
Protein Carbohydrates Fats Vitamins Minerals Water.
Eating a healthy balance of the right types of protein, carbs and fat gives your body a ‘bank account’ of energy and nutrients to withdraw from on demand.
Protein: your building blocks Protein is vital for your health, because it’s your body’s main building block. Your muscles, hair, nails, skin, eyes, heart and other organs are largely made of protein. So you really need protein to support your teenage growth spurt. Protein helps your body repair itself after an injury, like a cut or broken bone. You also need it to make healthy red blood cells, fight off infections and assist in the recovery process after getting sick. Examples of protein foods: Protein is found in animalbased foods—eggs, chicken, turkey, lamb, beef, pork and fish—and dairy products—yoghurt, milk and cheese. It’s found in plant foods, too—like legumes, whole grains, nuts
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Check out ‘Protein power’ in the Appendix to see how much protein is in your favourite foods.
and seeds. Even fruit and vegies contain small amounts of protein. The specific protein you need depends on your age, size and activity level. You use protein every single day, so you’ve got to get some good-quality protein daily to have great skin and avoid a whole stack of health and beauty problems. In general, growing teens need about 1 gram (¹⁄ 32 oz) of protein daily per kilogram of their body weight. So if you’re 50 kg (112 lb), you need about 50 g (1¾ oz) of protein a day. Q. What about those high-protein diets like Atkins? —Megan, age thirteen A. High-protein diets including the Atkins Diet typically restrict the amount of carbs you eat. The problem is that your body was designed to run on good carbs, and you absolutely need them to fuel your body and keep your brain working. When you exclude carbs from your diet, you miss out on the vital nutrients they provide for growth—and you’re dropping some of the healthiest foods, like fruit and vegies—the sources of fibre. Remember, your teen years are the most critical time to provide your body with the right nutrition by eating from all the major food groups in the best possible balance.
Beefing up Q. I’m really skinny, and I try to eat huge amounts of food to gain weight, but it just doesn’t work. People make fun of me and call me anorexic, but I really do eat! Can you help me? —Sarah, age fifteen
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NUTRITION 101 A. Here’s the deal on gaining weight: junk food will plump you up, but that stuff lacks the nutrients your body needs. To gain weight safely, eat healthy snacks between balanced meals. You need to eat a little more, between 1260 and 2100 kilojoules (300 and 500 calories) a day, if you can. Nuts are great. A high-protein diet is good for gaining weight too. Protein-rich goodies include eggs, fish, yoghurt, nuts, lean red meat, chicken, turkey and soy products. Also, splurge on full-fat yoghurts, almond butter on wholegrain bread and granola bars. Then, add a bunch of complex carbs, like brown rice, wholemeal (wholewheat) bread and vegies. Oh, one more thing: you can always add some energy shakes to your diet. Yum! Another way to bulk up? Lift weights. Do upper and lower body exercises every other day. As for being teased, some people have a super high metabolism and no matter what they eat they just don’t gain weight—you don’t need to feel bad about this. As long as you eat lots of nutritious food and your body’s needs are being met, you shouldn’t have to explain yourself to anyone. It’s tough to be different but in ten years, you’ll probably be pretty happy about your high metabolism.
Carbohydrates: fuel for your engine Carbohydrates, or carbs for short, are a major ingredient in vegies, fruits, grains and legumes, such as lentils. But with all the low-carb and no-carb products being advertised out there, you’d think carbs are evil. Not so!
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The body breaks down carbs into glucose, which is a form of sugar. Glucose is used for many important functions in the body—especially for providing energy, so that you can think, breathe and move—and is the main source of fuel for your brain. If you lack carbs, you get fatigued, dizzy and moody. Carbohydrate-rich foods keep you revved. All foods give you energy, but carbs do it especially well. Carbs also play other important roles in your nervous system, muscles and organs. Q. Why is blood sugar such a big deal? And what does insulin have to do with it? —Chloe, age fifteen A. Blood sugar is to your body what petrol is to your car: it’s the fuel that makes it go. If your car ran out of petrol, it would splutter, cough and come to a stop. If you ran out of blood sugar, you would soon go into a coma and die—it’s that important. To stay alive every organ and cell in your body depends on a steady supply of blood sugar for energy. Blood sugar is a good thing—but you can have too much of a good thing. Your goal is to keep your ‘tank’ of blood sugar full, but not too full. One of the key tools in achieving this goal is a hormone called insulin, which is made in your pancreas. Think of insulin as your own personal fuel-injection system, because its job is to ‘inject’ blood sugar into your cells. When you eat, your digestive system turns the carbs in your food into glucose, your pancreas cranks up the production of insulin, and the insulin sends the glucose into your cells. Goal achieved!
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS You may have heard about ‘bad carbs’ and ‘good carbs’. What’s the difference, and what do they have to do with your skin?
Simple carbs = bad Certain carbs have always been, and always will be, the bad guys. These are the simple carbs, which are sometimes called refined carbs because they’ve been processed—like white flour, white sugar and most other white foods. Refining takes out all the good stuff, so these foods have little or no nutritional value. We’ll call them ‘junky carbs’. Junky carbs are digested quickly and cause your blood-sugar level to rise quickly. Have you seen the Glycaemic Index (GI) labels on stuff in supermarkets? The GI is a measurement of a food’s effect on blood-sugar levels. The higher the GI number, the more the food pushes up your blood sugar. Junky carbs are generally high GI. Examples of junky (simple) carbs: White bread, sugar, biscuits, cakes, lollies, bagels, doughnuts, cereals like Rice Bubbles, potato chips, soft drinks and pastries. Eating junky carbs causes your blood-sugar levels to skyrocket. This bumps up your insulin level, which causes a whole hormonal cascade that can lead to acne. So the junky carbs are the ones you’ve got to give the boot to if you have acne, pimples, spots, blemishes or dull skin.
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NUTRITION 101 Complex carbs = good Complex carbs are the good-for-you carbs. They’re rich in nutrients, including vitamins and fibre. And because fibre produces a slower and smaller rise in blood sugar, they’re also low GI. Plus, they slow digestion, so eating complex carbs leaves you feeling fuller for longer. Complex carbs are a time-released energy source, and prevent those ups and downs in blood-sugar levels that can trigger cravings and bad food choices. When your blood-sugar level is stable, you don’t crave high-sugar foods, like doughnuts, for instant energy. These good carbs are the ones you want to eat for great skin, as they don’t spike blood sugar and insulin. Examples of complex carbs: Most fruit (although some tropical fruit like mangoes, bananas and pineapple tend to be quite high on the GI) and vegies, whole grains (including barley, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, brown rice and wholegrain breads) and legumes (including lentils, chickpeas and beans).
Fibre = good Fibre is another kind of good carb. It’s part of the plantbased foods that you can’t digest (like the skins, seeds and tough cell walls), so it moves through your system and out the other end. Because your body doesn’t absorb it, it doesn’t provide any kilojoules (calories) for energy, but fibre does a bunch of other helpful things. Fibre is sometimes called ‘nature’s broom’. It expands and passes through your digestive tract, and it gives your
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS insides a good, gentle clean-out. This is one of the ways that fibre helps keep your digestive system in top form. Eating fibre-rich foods fills you up and leaves you feeling satisfied for longer. Fibre slows down your digestion, which puts the brakes on the release of blood sugar into your bloodstream. And that’s why fibre-rich foods are fantastic for your skin. Examples of high-fibre foods: Fruit, vegies, oats, barley, lentils, peas, beans and whole grains.
Fats: your staying power Don’t be scared of fats! Most fats aren’t evil—they’re just misunderstood. Like carbs, not all fats are created equal. There are good fats, bad fats and terrible fats! You absolutely need good fats for brain development (your brain is 60 per cent fat), balanced hormones, immune function, eyesight, wound healing, maintaining your metabolic rate, absorbing certain vitamins, glowing skin and shiny hair and much more. In short, you need good fats for life! Fats insulate your body and protect your vital organs from temperature change and physical trauma. And fats can make food taste so yummy.
Figuring out fats The three natural forms of fat are: Saturated—found in animal sources, like meat and dairy products; Monounsaturated—found in cold-pressed olive and canola oils, avocados and nuts;
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NUTRITION 101 Polyunsaturated—found in vegetable oils, linseeds (flaxseeds) and fish. Included in the polyunsaturated group are the essential fatty acids or EFAs, which your body can’t make itself. You need EFAs as much as you need vitamins and minerals. There are two types of EFAs: Omega-3—found in fish, linseeds (flaxseeds) and walnuts; Omega-6—found in vegetable oils, seed oils and nut oils. Finally, there’s a seriously bad form of fat, called trans fatty acids or trans fats, which is typically artificial and is sometimes listed on labels as hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils. If you want great skin and good health, avoid trans fats! Still too complicated? Let’s summarise it simply.
Good fats to eat more of, found in: ☺ Healthy oils—olive, flaxseed, macadamia nut, pumpkin seed, coconut, avocado and cold-pressed canola oil ☺ Linseeds (flaxseeds) ☺ Nuts—almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews, hazelnuts, etc. ☺ Fish—salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, etc. ☺ Avocados.
Fats to eat less of, found in: Butter Refined oils—sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn, cottonseed Ice cream Full-fat cheese Processed meats.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Trans fats to avoid completely, found in: Power bites Snacking can help you avoid energy crashes by keeping your blood sugar steady. Eating a combination of complex carbs and protein with a dash of healthy fat is your smartest energy booster. Try easy options like almonds (or other nuts) mixed with natural yoghurt or almond butter smeared on apple slices. Yum!
Margarine Snack foods—chips, crackers, some biscuits, commercial popcorn Baked goods—doughnuts, pastries, pies, sausage rolls Junk food—burgers, fries, nuggets, etc. Fried foods—hot chips, etc. Palm oil The good fats, especially the face-friendly omega-3s, are an absolute must if your goal is gorgeous skin. They help moisturise and keep your skin hydrated from the inside out. Extra virgin jokes aside, when it comes to oils there is a huge variation in quality, even among the healthy oils. Look out for oils that say cold-pressed, extra virgin, or even organic cold-pressed. They’re more expensive, but coldpressed oils are the highest quality oils available. They’re generally extracted by a simple mechanical pressing operation and without the use of high temperature, which can destroy some of the beneficial compounds found in the oils. Most commercial salad dressings unfortunately include oils that are refined. They often use heat (i.e. they aren’t cold-pressed) and other processes that can damage many vitamins and phytonutrients naturally found in the oils. So when you buy oils, make sure they are cold-pressed.
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NUTRITION 101 these vitamins are and where Vitamins: vitalising your body What to get them You’ve probably heard your mum or granny say, ‘Eat your spinach—it’s packed with vitamins!’ But what exactly are vitamins? Vitamins are a group of thirteen vital nutrients that your body needs in tiny amounts to grow and stay strong—and just about everything else. You can’t live long without them. Although your body is a powerful machine that’s capable of manufacturing many things it needs, it can’t make vitamins. Luckily, you can get them from the food you eat. Different foods contain different vitamins, each with a special role to play. Think of vitamins as a softball team: it doesn’t matter how good your pitcher is, if you don’t have all your other fielders, you won’t have much of a game—you need the lot.
There are two basic types of vitamins: fat-soluble (these dissolve in fat) and water-soluble (these dissolve in water)—and you need both types for great skin. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fatsoluble. When you eat foods that contain fat-soluble vitamins, those vitamins end up being stored in your fat tissues and liver. Then they wait around in storage until your body needs them—some for a few days, some for up to six months. Water-soluble vitamins, like C and the B vitamins, don’t get stored for very long. Instead, they travel through your bloodstream and then whatever isn’t used gets filtered out by your kidneys and comes out when you go to the bathroom. Because they don’t stick around, you need to replace them often. Here’s a rundown of the key vitamins for healthy, glowing skin:
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NUTRITION 101 Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Best sources: eggs and cod-liver oil. You can also get vitamin A from foods like carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin (squash), broccoli, rockmelon (cantaloupe) and spinach. These are rich in a substance called beta carotene, which your body can convert into vitamin A. Beauty benefits: vitamin A is key to keeping dry, flaky skin at bay, plus it’s essential in the normal shedding of dead skin cells that would otherwise plug up your pores.
Best sources: oranges and other citrus fruits, kiwifruit, broccoli, parsley, capsicums (peppers), tomatoes and strawberries. Beauty benefits: vitamin C is a fantastic antioxidant and an absolute must for gorgeous skin. It guards cells against damage, promotes cell renewal and blood circulation, and helps the healing process. It’s also needed to create collagen for firm skin.
B vitamins
Best sources: egg yolks, sunflower seeds, avocados, nuts, green leafy vegies and whole grains. Beauty benefits: vitamin E is another powerful antioxidant that helps protect your skin cells from damage, and your tissues need it for repair and healing.
There are eight B vitamins. Best sources: leafy green vegies, whole grains, chicken, egg yolks, legumes (like lentils), lean red meat, fish and bananas. Beauty benefits: the big-beauty B vitamins help with just about everything. They help rebuild and repair skin tissue, and are needed to keep your skin in top form and function, including your sebaceous (oilproducing) glands.
Vitamin E
Check out ‘Vitamin power’ in the Appendix for more info on vitamins and their best food sources.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Minerals: movers and shakers Like vitamins, minerals aren’t needed in large amounts, but they are essential to good health and great skin. Your body uses minerals to carry out countless daily functions, which include building strong bones and teeth, transporting oxygen from the lungs to all your tissues, making hormones, and keeping your heart beating. There are two basic groups of minerals: macro minerals and trace minerals. Macro means large in Greek, so this term is used to indicate that you need these minerals in greater quantities. The macro minerals include calcium, magnesium, sodium (salt) and potassium. You only need the trace minerals, like zinc, iron, copper, manganese, chromium and selenium, in tiny quantities. Here’s a rundown of the key minerals you need for healthy, glowing skin:
Zinc Best sources: oysters, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), Brazil nuts, almonds,
poultry, legumes (like lentils), peas, beans, cabbage and lean meats. Beauty benefits: zinc is a zit-zapper extraordinaire! Not only does it help prevent your skin’s glands from overproducing oily gunk, but it reduces inflammation, promotes healing and is vital for healthy collagen too. When you don’t get enough zinc, you increase the production of all those pimplepromoting hormones.
Sulphur Best sources: fish, eggs, beef, lentils, garlic, and some vegetables, especially the cabbage family (they are sometimes called cruciferous vegetables and include Brussels sprouts, broccoli, bok choy, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, watercress and Japanese wasabi), celery and onions. Beauty benefits: sulphur is another must for gorgeous skin. The cells in your skin’s outer layer, as well as your fingernails and hair, are especially rich in this mineral. Sulphur gives gloss to your hair and strength to your nails.
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NUTRITION 101 Selenium Best sources: seafood, salmon, whole grains, nuts (like Brazil nuts), garlic, lean meats and mushrooms. Beauty benefits: selenium is a star antioxidant that also protects your skin cells from damage and inflammation. Studies show selenium levels are significantly lowered in people with inflammatory acne.
Magnesium Best sources: dark green leafy vegetables, almonds, cashews, buckwheat, Brazil nuts, tofu, brown rice, dried figs, apricots and avocados. Beauty benefits: magnesium puts the brakes on inflammation. It also lowers your stress hormones. Stress seriously messes up your skin, and if you don’t get enough magnesium, your production of sebum is stepped up.
Calcium Best sources: dairy products such as cheese and yoghurt, canned salmon
and sardines with bones, leafy green vegetables such as bok choy, broccoli and spinach, nuts such as almonds, and sesame seeds. Beauty benefits: calcium is needed for skin cell turnover as well as skin repair, and it’s absolutely vital for great bones and healthy teeth.
Iron Best sources: red meat, liver, poultry, oysters, fish like tuna and salmon, eggs, whole grains, legumes, spinach, almonds, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), dried fruit like figs, prunes and raisins. Beauty benefits: this mineral is needed for haemoglobin, the key pigment in red blood cells which transports oxygen to different parts of the body, including skin. So iron ensures that skin glows from within.
Flip to the Appendix on page 256 for more info on minerals like calcium and iron, that are especially essential during your teen years.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The fabulous phytos: fighting for your face For a long time it’s been known that people who eat lots of fruit and vegies are much healthier than those who don’t. Everyone thought this was because fruit and vegies are so rich in vitamins and minerals. But, as it turns out, they also contain thousands of other substances. These substances, called phytonutrients (or phytochemicals), give plants their colour: they turn a tomato bright red and a carrot orange. On top of that, they’re nutritional superstars. Despite its high-tech ring, the word phytonutrient simply means ‘nutrient from a plant’. We’ll call them ‘phytos’ for short. Some of them, like zeaxanthin and beta cryptoxanthin, sound like something from another planet, but you’ve probably heard of one or two, like beta carotene or flavonoids. So what are they? Phytos aren’t classed as essential nutrients—not yet anyway—but you’ve got to go for these every day. Here’s why: phytos naturally safeguard plants against disease, insects and other dangers in the environment. So they’re actually a plant protection system—and when you eat them, they protect you too. Phytos are vital for great skin and good health because many of them act as powerful antioxidants, which help fend off damage and fight off the bad guys known as free radicals. You can think of free radicals as ‘molecules gone wild’—and when molecules go wild, they’re up to no good. To give you an example, tomatoes contain a phyto called lycopene, which is a pigment that makes a tomato bright red. It also acts like a sun-shade for the tomato, protecting
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NUTRITION 101 it from getting sunburnt. And once it’s in your body, it helps protect you in a similar way. These pigments don’t just make plants pretty; they also make you pretty. Here’s a rundown of the key phytos you need for healthy, glowing skin:
Beta carotene Best sources: carrots, apricots, rockmelon (cantaloupe), pumpkin (squash), sweet potato and green leafy vegies. Beauty benefits: beta carotene is a major player in keeping acne at bay. It accumulates in your skin to help protect against sun damage and keeps skin soft and smooth.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Lycopene Best sources: tomatoes, guavas, watermelon, apricots and pink grapefruit. Beauty benefits: lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that protects your whole body from all sorts of damage, including the harm to your skin caused by the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. If you have acne, you’ll want to up your intake of all things lycopene. Research shows that it helps bring down levels of those acne-inducing hormones.
Flavonoids Best sources: broccoli, apples, onions, berries and tea (black, green and white teas). Beauty benefits: flavonoids (a group of related phytos) encourage healthy skin-cell function by strengthening the walls of the capillaries that bring nutrients to your skin. Flavonoids also speed cell turnover and repair.
Polyphenols Best sources: dark (bittersweet) chocolate (hooray!), raw cacao, green tea and fruit like lychees, strawberries and grapes. Beauty benefits: antioxidant-packed polyphenols help speed up cell repair, encourage healthy cell function and improve the look of dull skin by increasing cell turnover.
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NUTRITION 101 Anthocyanins Best sources: blueberries, dark cherries, pomegranates, purple cauliflower, black grapes, beetroot and basically any other fruit or vegie that’s purple—even those yummy acai berries from Brazil. Beauty benefits: the anthocyanins are bursting with antioxidant power, they’re anti-inflammatory, and they improve blood supply to your skin.
Variety is the spice of life Thousands of different phytos have been identified and scientists are still discovering more. With so many phytos, you can imagine that they do lots of healthy things in addition to making your skin look gorgeous. No wonder your mum or granny nags you to eat your fruit and vegies. Getting the benefits of many phytos is why it’s so important to eat a wide variety of different coloured fruit and vegies.
Water: the river of life Did you know that your body is made up of 60–70 per cent water? After oxygen, it’s your most important life source. Every single system in your body relies on it, and without regular topups, you wouldn’t survive for longer than a few days. Getting enough water is critical for transporting nutrients and oxygen to all of your cells. Water regulates your
Did you know? Just like us, cells grow old and die. When old cells die, new ones replace them. Within 120 days every single one of your red blood cells is replaced by a new one. And the whole top layer of your skin is replaced every single month. So feeding your body good nutrition is key to building and maintaining a healthier body and skin from the inside out.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Moisture zappers Unfortunately, you can’t count soft drinks, frappuccinos and iced teas as part of your daily water intake—they’re far too heavy on sugar, and too light on water. The other problem with all those drinks is that caffeine (found in coffee beans, tea leaves and cacao) is a diuretic, which means that caffeinated drinks cause you to urinate (pee) more, sapping the moisture right out of you and your skin.
temperature, flushes out wastes and toxins, and performs countless other vital functions to keep you alive and healthy. Plus, being well-hydrated gives you beautiful skin. Water is the number one dull-skin reviver. Dehydrated skin looks ashen and grey, but hydrated skin looks moist and plump. It’s really important to keep yourself—and your skin— hydrated by drinking about eight glasses of water a day. If you exercise, you’ll need even more water to replace the fluids you lose through sweating. And by water, I mean water, not soft drinks, tea or coffee.
Putting it all together By now, you might be wondering how you can put all this info together. It’s easy: make sure you eat some protein, complex carbs and good fats with each and every meal and snack. That way you’ll get all the nutrients you need to grow, burst with energy, and look and feel fantastic. What’s good for your face, is good for your health—and what you do now can make a huge difference to your health later in life. Remember: the process of building great skin and a healthy body is in your hands, and it all starts with the food you eat every day.
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KISSTHE SKIN
ENEMIES
GOODBYE
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS ow that you’ve got the nuts and bolts of nutrition under your belt, it probably isn’t hard to figure out that a hamburger, some fries and a Coke aren’t exactly your best beauty choice. But you’d probably be surprised to find that many other seemingly healthy foods, like bagels, blueberry muffins, milkshakes and Rice Bubbles, that you put in your mouth every day, can trigger breakouts and turn your skin into a war zone. In this chapter we’ll uncover all the foods that are your skin’s worst enemies—especially if you are plagued with acne or with an oily, dry or troubled complexion. Say goodbye to these skin enemies and you’ll beat your acne once and for all. And you’ll be on your way to glowing, happy skin and better health for life. Let’s get straight to the all-time ‘skin baddies’:
N
• • • • • •
Sugar and all junky carbs Dairy products (especially milk) Soft drinks Trans fats Fast food Fat-free diet.
If your goal is clear, radiant skin, these are the guys you have to get rid of. There’s no way around it: these foods set off a whole series of reactions—kind of like a domino effect—that leads to breakouts.
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© Kenji Maeji
KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Skin enemy 1: sugar and junky carbs Giving up the sweet stuff is the single most important step you can take to get clear, blemish-free skin because sugar and junky carbs promote and aggravate all forms of acne. It’s not just the sugar you sprinkle on your Cornflakes or stir into your coffee, it’s the rest of the junky carbs as well: yes, all those yummy biscuits, cakes, crackers, refined cereals, muffins, doughnuts, bagels, white bread, chips, lollies and soft drinks. Remember the blood sugar info in Chapter 2? Here’s an example of how it can happen to you: • • • • •
You eat a yummy bagel and jam or a Krispy Kreme doughnut your blood sugar soars insulin and certain other hormones go into overdrive your skin steps up production of that oily goop called sebum hey presto, a perfect breeding ground for pimples is created.
Okay, one little bagel may not take you directly to breakout city. But say you eat a bowl of Rice Bubbles for breakfast, a white-bread sandwich for lunch, some biscuits or chips as an afternoon snack, and then a pizza for dinner: it all adds up to huge amounts of sugar and junky carbs. And this kind of high daily consumption causes a real problem for your skin.
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Eating lots of sugar and junky carbs causes your blood-sugar level to stay high all day long. Your insulin level stays high too—and it’s a continually high level of insulin that triggers the hormonal cascade that leads to pimples.
Sugar shocker
For more details on this whole hormonal situation, flip to the section on ‘Technical stuff’ in the Appendix.
A blueberry muffin for breakfast, a can of soft drink for afternoon tea, a piece of cake after dinner . . . It doesn’t seem like you’re consuming tons of sugar, but if you’re like most teens, you’d be shocked to learn how much of the stuff you’re actually getting, even if you don’t eat sweets or add sugar to anything. On average, teenage girls down about 8 tablespoons of sugar a day! Do this experiment: spoon out ten teaspoons of sugar onto a plate. Wow, that’s a mountain! Now pour it into a glass and add water. That’s how much sugar is in the average 340 ml (12 fl oz) soft drink! Sugar sneaks into so many foods. In fact, it’s hidden in virtually all packaged and processed foods. Soups, cereals, sauces, tomato sauces, yoghurts, breads—you name it, it’s probably in there.
Beware of prepared non-fat foods! They’re often packed full of sugar or artificial sweeteners to make them all the more appealing and addictive.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Sneaky ways of saying sugar Dextrose Sucrose Glucose Galactose Maltose Fructose Lactose Table sugar Brown sugar Castor (superfine) sugar Glucose syrup Corn syrup Golden syrup High fructose corn syrup Fruit juice concentrate Mannitol Maple syrup Invert sugar Raw sugar Molasses Treacle
Get sugar savvy Sugar comes in many forms and is sneakily disguised on many labels by manufacturers who want to make their products look less sugary. Don’t be fooled—check out the list on the left to acquaint yourself with all the different ways of saying one thing: sugar. Kick the sugar habit Skipping sugar is truly the single most important thing you can do to get clear, gorgeous skin fast. So, each time you reach for another sugary snack, remember: sugar and junky carbs can blow it for your skin big time. And, while it’s not a biggie now, overdosing on sugar messes with your skin’s collagen, which can mean sagging, early wrinkling, and brown spots further down the road.
Go low GI As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Glycaemic Index (GI) is an easy tool to help you sift through the sweet stuff. A food’s GI score reflects how much that food pushes up your blood-sugar level. Scores range from 0 (water) to 100 (table sugar). Foods with a score of 70 or more are considered high GI. You’d be surprised at what foods rank extra-high on the scale—even so-called health foods like rice cakes, baked potatoes, Cornflakes and shredded-wheat cereals. Unfortunately, if you’re a fairly typical Australian teenager, you’ve probably been eating high-GI foods all your life.
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Diet diary Nikki, Year 7 Meal
GI score
Breakfast: Rice Bubbles with milk Lunch: chips and gravy Snack: two choc-chip cookies Dinner: curry with rice
Rice Bubbles: 81 for 30 g (1 oz) Hot chips: 75 for 150 g (5½ oz) Cookies: 57 for 50 g (1¾ oz) Rice: 65 for 150 g (5½ oz)
What’s the big deal about a high-GI number? As you might have guessed, it comes back to insulin again. If a food bumps up your blood-sugar and insulin levels, it’s likely to put bumps on your skin too. Research clearly shows that acne thrives on a diet full of high-GI foods. Professor Neil Mann from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology conducted a study with Australian teens, and concluded: ‘Eating rapidly digested carbohydrate foods [high GI] which are mainly processed snack foods, biscuits, cakes, pastries and bread along with rice, potatoes and sugary drinks causes a rapid increase in blood-sugar levels and insulin production in the body. This causes blocked skin pores as well as an overproduction of oil in the skin pores. The trapped oil then becomes infected and acne results’. For healthy, blemish-free skin, always opt for foods with a GI score of less than 55. These low-GI foods cause a smaller, slower rise in your blood-sugar and insulin levels,
Check out the ‘GI power’ chart in the Appendix so that you can sift through the sweet stuff. You can also go to this handy website to find the GI of almost any food: http://www.glycemicindex. com. Click on the ‘GI Database’ tab on the left side of the page, then type in the name of the food you’re interested in, and you’ll get its GI.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP Want to know a clever way to lower your food’s GI? Squeeze lemon juice over it. Adding lemon or even vinegar to a carb- rich meal has been shown to lower its GI score by up to 30 per cent! It’s thought to work by putting the brakes on your stomach’s emptying, which slows the rate of digestion.
so they are far less likely to trigger breakouts. As a bonus, low-GI foods provide a slow release of energy that will keep you going and going. So nix the high-GI foods. Low-GI doesn’t always equal healthy Sometimes, however, low GI isn’t so good. You’ve probably noticed your school’s tuckshop has introduced lots of low-GI options. That sounds great, but the problem is that low GI doesn’t always equal healthy. Potato chips are low GI, and so are chocolate cake and chicken nuggets—but they’re high in trans fats and other things that are bad for your skin and your health. So it’s helpful to remember that in general, low GI or not, the less processed a food is, the better it is for you.
Spice it up with cinnamon This yummy spice is what makes apple pie taste so good, and cinnamon has some surprising health and beauty benefits, too. Studies have found that just ½ teaspoon of cinnamon significantly reduces blood-sugar levels and improves blood-sugar metabolism. This is great news, because as you know, you want to keep your blood-sugar low to prevent breakouts and beat acne, and it’s very easy to add cinnamon to what you would normally eat. Even soaking a cinnamon stick in your tea produces this blood-sugar lowering effect!
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Simple food switch Sure, lollies may be fat-free, but just one innocent-looking snake has more sugar than a sugar cube, plus artificial colours and flavours. So when you start crashing at 3 p.m., do yourself a favour and have a sugar hit from nature instead. An orange, an apple or a slice of pineapple should do the trick.
Sweeten up your life naturally Don’t worry, you don’t need to say goodbye to all things sweet. To sweeten things up from time to time, raw honey, stevia, agave syrup or xylitol are all great choices (most of these are available at health food stores). These don’t bump up blood-sugar levels as much as other sugars do. But stay away from artificial sweeteners. Some of them have never even been proven safe. And although they’re kilojoule-free (calorie-free), that doesn’t mean that you’ll lose weight or be healthier if you use them. In fact, studies have shown that artificial sweeteners actually cause people to eat more. There have also been more health complaints about the synthetic sweetener aspartame than any other food additive on the market today. How come? In your body, aspartame breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. Remember formaldehyde from science class? It’s a smelly, toxic chemical used to kill bacteria and preserve dead bodies. Yuck! Who wants to eat that?
For girls only: PMT pimples If you’re plagued with pimples just before your period, you can blame it on your shifting hormone levels. After ovulation (the release of an egg from your ovaries which happens about fourteen days after your period starts), hormonal changes make your body more sensitive to sugar and junky carbs than usual—probably right at the time that you crave these foods the most! For the sake of your skin, it’s absolutely essential that you cut back on these foods, and make sure you include some protein with every snack and meal, to balance out your bloodsugar levels.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Skin enemy 2: dairy Cow’s milk is right up there among the top acneaggravators. When you look at the GI chart, milk and dairy products rank pretty low, so you’d think they’d get a big thumbs up. But research has shown that milk causes a strong insulin response, even though it’s low GI. Scientists believe that the lactose (the sugar that’s naturally found in milk) and other components in cow’s milk (such as whey and casein) increase insulin secretion. Studies show that choosing milk as your primary protein source for just seven days doubles your insulin levels. It’s even been shown to spike insulin when combined with other food at a meal. Milk also promotes acne in another way: drinking milk is associated with higher levels of that pimple-promoting hormone—IGF-1, which we discussed in Chapter 1. IGF-1 sends a signal to your skin’s oil glands to step up production of oil and you know where that leads.
Ditch the dairy Lots of research backs up the acne–milk connection. In the late 1960s the Californian dermatologist Dr Fisher studied 1088 of his teenage patients for ten years and found that milk was the main contributor to their acne. He also reported that their acne tapered off as the teens reduced their milk consumption.
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE More recently, scientists at Harvard University in the US analysed food records from 47 355 women dating back to their teen years and found that: •
• •
Teens who had three servings of milk daily were 22 per cent more likely to have severe acne than teens who had one serving or less Non-fat (skim) milk actually causes worse acne than full-fat milk Non-fat milk is higher in certain proteins that stimulate the skin’s oil production, triggering acne.
So if you do have acne, cutting back on milk is essential. You can go ahead and enjoy your yoghurt though. The fermenting process that turns milk into yoghurt causes lactose to turn into lactic acid, so yoghurt doesn’t appear to bump up insulin levels. Plus it contains lots of the good bacteria that help keep your digestive system in top form.
Calcium boosters You’ve seen all those milk-moustache ads and maybe you’re worried that if you give up milk, you won’t get enough calcium. Fortunately there are plenty of other ways to ensure adequate intake of this important mineral, like eating more leafy greens, sesame seeds and canned salmon. Goat’s milk and sheep’s milk are high in calcium and are great alternatives to cow’s milk. Rice, almond, soy and oat milks are good high-calcium substitutes too.
Flip to ‘Mineral power’ in the Appendix to check out the top non- dairy food sources of calcium.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Skin enemy 3: soft drinks Soft drinks are a special category of junky carbs because they’re a pure sugar rush. It’s no wonder they’re called ‘liquid lollies’! Here’s what many Australian kids drink every week:
Age 16–18 12–16 8–11
Soft drinks 3 litres (104 fl oz) 1.8 litres (62½ fl oz) 1.2 litres (44 fl oz)
Approximate total sugar 72 teaspoons 43 teaspoons 29 teaspoons
That’s a serious stack of sugar! Unfortunately many other drinks, like cordials, flavoured mineral waters, sports drinks, fruit drinks and iced tea drinks, aren’t any better than soft drinks. Check out these sugar shockers: a typical 500 ml (17 fl oz) blackcurrant juice drink has 14 teaspoons of sugar; a 380 ml (13 fl oz) energy drink, about 13 teaspoons; a so-called healthy 500 ml (17 fl oz) tea, 11 teaspoons—that’s even more than a Coke! By the way, it’s not just acne and pimples that you have to worry about when it comes to soft drinks. Research suggests that a high intake of soft drinks can also cause: • • •
Weight gain Tooth decay, cavities and tooth erosion Broken bones and osteoporosis.
The caffeine in many soft drinks can make you irritable, give you headaches and disturb your sleep. And to top it
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE all off, soft drinks are a complete brain drain. Why? They can affect your brain function and your mood by interfering with your calcium absorption. Calcium is one of the substances used by nerves in order to ‘talk’ to each other and pass along electrical signals. So as you can see, soft drinks and all sugar-sweetened drinks are a definite no-no if you want great skin and good health.
Fruit juice alert! If you think a glass of orange juice first thing in the morning is super healthy, think again! In the process of juicing the fibre is removed, leaving lots of sugar. If your stomach is empty, your body absorbs all this sugar super fast, and when it hits your bloodstream it triggers a huge insulin spike. So go for whole fruit instead.
Skin enemy 4: beauty busting fats The types of fat you eat can make the difference between having radiantly gorgeous skin or a dull, blemished and troubled complexion.
Bad skin fats Trans fats (hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils) Refined polyunsaturated oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean) Saturated fats (in processed meats)
TIP If you can’t give up your morning glass of juice, dilute it half- andhalf with water. That way it won’t be as concentrated and you won’t get that insulin spike. It’s not going to taste as good as usual the first few times you drink it, but your taste buds will slowly adjust. And always enjoy your juice with some food.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Full-fat dairy products (including ice cream) Palm oil Indulging in too many of these bad fats is a sure-fire way to sabotage your complexion and end up with greasy skin, large pores, pimples or—surprisingly—dry and flaky skin.
Trans fat traps Biscuits Chips and pretzels Crackers Doughnuts Fast food Fried foods Margarine and vegetable shortening Commercial mayonnaise Muffins Nuggets Pies, party pies and sausage rolls Some commercial salad dressings Some nut butters like commercial peanut butters and Nutella
Trans fats: skin trap Of all the fats you learned about in Chapter 2, trans fats are definitely the worst. Trans fats are ‘fake fats’ found in most processed foods, especially baked goods. They’re produced by food manufacturers and are added to food to improve taste and texture (creaminess), and increase shelf life (these oils don’t go bad). The sneaky thing about trans fats is that they’re not labelled as trans fats, but as partially hydrogenated oil or hydrogenated oil. And if you go into a supermarket and read the ingredient list on just about any package, some kind of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is sure to be in the top three or four ingredients. Trans fats are formed when liquid oils are made into solid fats—like margarine—and when foods are fried. Trans fats occur naturally in fat from beef, pork and lamb, but only in teeny amounts (less than 2 per cent). It may seem like a tiny amount, but according to the US Food and Drug Administration, eating more than 2 g (1/16 oz) of trans fats daily over a period of time could seriously affect your health. To give you an idea how much this is: a large order of fries at a fast-food restaurant could easily contain 7 g (¼ oz) of trans fats but—wait for it—a Hungry Jack’s Whopper and regular fries has a whopping 23 g (¾ oz)!
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Any foods fried in polyunsaturated oil, like French fries, are cooked in trans fats. This includes fish and chips too— and the batter on the fish soaks up lots more fat. So when you eat fish, make sure it’s either grilled or lightly pan-fried (sautéed).
If you are having complexion problems— such as pimples, very visible pores or acne — you’ll especially want to avoid any oil that’s been fried. Short-term stir- frying with some antioxidant-rich garlic in the mix is fairly safe, but cooking and frying in oil at high temperatures isn’t. Why are trans fats so bad for my skin? You have about 75–100 trillion cells in your body (try counting out all those zeros!) and each cell’s membrane is made up of fats. When you eat lots of good fats, like olive oil and the fats in fish, nuts and avocados, they make your cell membranes flexible, so the cells can absorb nutrients well and respond properly to your hormones—including insulin, the hormone that triggers acne. But when you load up on bad fats, they end up being deposited in parts of your cell membranes that should really be filled by good fats. When trans fats build up in your cell membranes, they can become stiff and inflexible, causing a whole stack of health and beauty problems. Inflexible cell membranes make it much more difficult for nutrients to get into your cells, including your skin cells. Blood circulation can become sluggish, which contributes to greasy pores, acne and dry, flaky skin.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS
TIP Stick to coldpressed olive, avocado, macadamia nut or flaxseed oils. A few other oils to consider are walnut, mustard seed, coconut or pumpkin seed. Steer clear of margarine: a little unsalted butter is always a better bet, as is some avocado or hummus.
Stiff membranes make your cells less responsive to messages from your hormones and other important molecules. As a result, you can end up pumping out more insulin than normal—seriously bad news for your skin. In terms of general health, trans fats also have a nasty habit of bumping up levels of bad fats and cholesterol in your body—yes, even in teens—which greatly increases your risk of future heart disease. Another very good reason to avoid trans fats. So when you combine refined sugar, junky carbs and trans fat—say a doughnut and a soft drink—what do you get? A complete recipe for a skin disaster.
Refined vegetable oils Aren’t vegetable oils like sunflower and safflower supposed to be healthy? The big problem is that most vegetable oils these days are refined and we’re eating far too many of them. Refined vegetable oils are full of omega-6 fats. Omega-6 fats, described in Chapter 2, are important for health when eaten in the right amount. But eating too many omega-6 fats is bad news if you have troubled skin: it’s like putting your foot flat to the floor on your inflammation accelerator. And they can cause dead skin cells to stick together, which can block your pores. The problem is most of us get huge amounts of omega-6 fats in our diet without realising it. Virtually all processed and takeaway food is loaded with them. Even salad-eaters can’t get away from them, as most commercial dressings are made with refined oils.
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Saturated fats Eating too much saturated fat—found in red meat, ice cream and full-fat dairy products—can be a problem as well, especially if you’re plagued with bad skin. Saturated fat has been shown to boost levels of the pimplepromoting hormones (including androgens and IGF-1). And according to a US-based doctor, Dr Alison Levitt, saturated fats inflame the skin, inviting puffy pores and angry pimples. So choosing your fats carefully is key to improving your skin and your health.
Skin enemy 5: fast food It goes without saying that fast food is the equivalent of a toxic waste dump for your body and skin. Fast foods are turbo-charged with sugars, bad fats and junky carbs that pollute your body, and I won’t even mention what they do to your skin! If you fuel yourself with junk, your engine won’t run well for anything—sports, school, study, you name it. But if you really can’t resist a burger attack, try a Sensational Salmon Burger and Spicy Sweet Potato Fries (see the recipes in Chapter 10). I promise, they’re just as satisfying.
TIP You’re busy working on the weekend, you don’ t think you have time to pack a healthy lunch or snack, and fast food seems to be the easiest thing to grab — but it will undo all your good work. Go for something delicious and nutritious, like a sushi roll or a SumoSalad. SumoSalad offers a range of salads, wraps and lots of other healthy but tasty takeaway options (find your local SumoSalad at www.sumosalad. com).
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Skin enemy 6: fat-free diet
TIP Fats get a bad rap, but good fats give you shiny hair, glowing skin and good joint movement. P lus they can help fill you up, keep weight off and they make food taste good. So, enjoy some good fat each day— just don’t overdo it.
This may come as a surprise, but a fat-free diet is a bigtime skin sin. Living on lettuce, fat-free yoghurt, diet soft drinks, non-fat salad dressings and rice cakes will ravage your looks and ultimately cost you your health and beauty. You can’t go fat-free and expect gorgeous, radiant skin. You need good fats for that healthy glow and to help beat inflammation. A deficiency of good fats eventually leads to an imbalance in your hormones. If you cut out all fats for the sake of your weight, your skin will be lacklustre, dry and dehydrated—not a pretty picture. About 30 per cent of the total kilojoules you eat each day should come from fat. So if you eat 8400 kilojoules (2000 calories), then about 2520 of these kilojoules (600 calories), which is equal to about 70 grams, should come from good fats.
Pass on the processed There’s so little nutrition in most packaged and processed foods that you may as well be eating the cardboard box. Packaged foods also contain all sorts of chemical preservatives, flavours and colours as well as bad fats and stacks of sugar, which do nothing to contribute to good health and great skin. Check out the ingredient list on any processed product you buy. If you don’t recognise what an ingredient is, or if it doesn’t sound natural, don’t eat it.
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KISS THE SKIN ENEMIES GOODBYE Allergy alert
Oh, and one more thing. Food allergies can trigger all sorts of bad skin situations, including acne. The main offenders are wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, fish, soy and gluten (found in wheat, rye, barley and oats). If you suspect you could be allergic or sensitive to wheat or gluten, for example, tell your mum or dad. Your local doctor will be able to do a simple blood test for gluten sensitivity. Or you could try removing wheat and/or gluten and all foods that contain them from your diet for twelve weeks and see if your skin improves. Now you know just how many of the foods you eat every single day can trigger breakouts. Does this mean having to cut out all your favourite foods forever? Absolutely not, but if you’re serious about getting rid of your acne, you’ll want to get rid of the skin baddies too.
Gorgeous skin action plan •
Say so long to sugar. Sweeten your life naturally with some stevia, xylitol, raw honey and agave syrup.
•
Pass on junky carbs — like biscuits, cakes, sugary cereals, doughnuts, pastries, bagels, white bread, chips and lollies. Take a sugar hit from nature instead with a handful of dried figs, apricots, pears or dates (dates are sky high on the
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS GI, so make sure you eat some protein like almonds with them). •
Get gorgeous by going low GI. Get friendly with the GI chart, avoid high-GI foods and opt for low-GI alternatives.
•
Ditch the dairy, except for natural yoghurt and small amounts of cottage cheese, feta and other low- fat cheeses. Boost your
calcium intake with leafy greens, almonds, sesame seeds, hazelnuts, canned sardines and salmon. •
S low down on the soft drinks. Remember they’re ‘liquid lollies’. Satisfy your thirst with water, and if you need some flavour, add a splash of unsweetened apple or cranberry juice or a twist of lemon or lime.
•
Trash trans fats found in doughnuts, muffins, fast and fried food, margarine, biscuits, crackers, chips, nuggets and Nutella. Use more good fats like olive oil, raw nuts and avocados.
•
Avoid palm oil (found in some biscuits, muesli, chips, crackers, and commercial popcorn) too, as it’s a known acne-promoter.
•
Give all junk foods and fast foods the flick. They’re a nutritional wasteland. Remember: the less processed the better for your body and skin. Cut back on refined oils—like corn, safflower, sunflower and soybean.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS
EAT
YOURSELF GORGEOUS Bh1438M-PressProofs.indb 75
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS n the outside, you’d certainly believe from reading all those amazing skin care ads that your skin is just waiting for some fantastic new cream to magically erase your pimples and problem areas. But the real key to greatlooking skin is—you guessed it—on the inside. It’s all about the food you eat. So what are the sensational-skin foods? The freshest fruits and vegies, good-quality protein (like fish), good carbs, the right fats and even a little dark (bittersweet) chocolate. This chapter covers all the foods you need to create the clearest, healthiest skin ever.
O
Build beauty from the inside out Remember, your skin cells are replacing themselves at a fast and furious pace. They depend on what you eat and drink every day for their nourishment. Luckily, there is a whole stack of fantastic food for your face. A nutrient-packed diet is the foundation for a clear complexion. Sure, some people are blessed with amazing skin from their mum and dad—but for most of us, those rosy, glowing cheeks don’t just happen. Good looks come from good health, there’s no way around it. With so many yummy temptations out there, it’s really difficult to make healthy choices all the time. It often seems so much easier to munch on potato chips, biscuits, snack bars, sweets or takeaway than to have a healthy snack loaded with skin-protecting nutrients. Eating the right type of food sometimes takes more time and effort, but the rewards are huge. I promise! Even small changes to your diet can make a big difference in how your skin looks and how you feel. And
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS creating a healthy diet doesn’t have to mean giving up all the foods you love. As you’ll see, eating can still be enjoyable and fun.
Beauty bite: slow down instead of chowing down
The power of fruit and vegetables
Most of us don’t chew our food into small enough pieces. This can cause digestive problems and keep us from absorbing nutrients as well as we should. So, don’t just chomp a few times and swallow your food nearly whole. Instead, chew each mouthful at least a dozen times on each side of your mouth—take a minute to enjoy the food.
If your goal is gorgeous, clear skin, you need to make sure you are eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegies every single day. They’re really nutrient dense, meaning they contain more vitamins and minerals than most other foods. They’re also packed with all those powerful plant phytos mentioned in Chapter 2. Phytos act as antioxidants, which work to protect you and your skin from sun damage, free radicals, toxins and inflammation.
An antioxidant demo
Cut an apple in half, dip one half in lemon juice and leave the other half alone. In about an hour, you’ll notice that the half that was left alone is brown— this is the result of the damage caused by contact with the oxygen (oxidation) in the air — and the half dipped in lemon juice is still crisp and white. Why the difference? Lemon juice contains vitamin C, which is an antioxidant, so coating the apple with lemon juice creates a shield against oxidative damage. The same thing happens when you eat lots of antioxidants in fruit and vegie form: they help shield you from free radicals — the bad guys.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP Hands up if you find vegies boring? For more fun and extra flavour, cut up a colourful raw vegie selection— think carrots, celery, red capsicums (peppers), cucumber, broccoli and green beans — and dip them in freshly made hummus or guacamole. Yum! P lus, these dips contain good fats that help fight inflammation.
Girls need all the antioxidants they can get. According to research at the University of California in the US, girls experience more oxidative (free radical) damage to their cells than guys. Studies have found that those women who ate the most fruit and vegies had the least oxidative damage to their cells; so did the women who had higher levels of vitamin C in their bloodstream. All the more reason to increase your intake of fruit and vegetables.
Put out inflammation with phytos We’ve all experienced inflammation, like a swollen knee after tripping over something, or a painful sunburn. But another kind of inflammation that you can’t see or feel may be going on deep within the cells in your body. It’s called silent inflammation, and it plays a major role in conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Even more importantly for your skin, silent inflammation is one of the main causes of acne. As it turns out, certain foods actually help protect your body from inflammation: healthy fats from fish, avocados, raw nuts and olive oil, and lots of fruit and vegies. And then there are all the bad foods (like the stuff we discussed in Chapter 3) that promote inflammation. Even too much stress and too little sleep can step up inflammation. When you decrease inflammation in your body, your brain works better, you feel happier and more energetic, your skin becomes clearer and more radiant, dark undereye circles and puffiness go away, and spots and bumps diminish or disappear completely. Everything gets better!
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS So you want to do as much as possible to put the brakes on silent inflammation.
Add an avocado for a beauty boost
Eat your colours: bright is best
Don’t be scared of the natural, healthy fats found in avocados: they’re anti-inflammatory and they’re fantastic for your skin. Try avocado as a super spread on wholegrain bread. Plus, studies show that if you throw some avocado into your salad, it’ll boost your absorption of healthy phytos.
Think colour. Green, red, orange, yellow. And I don’t mean M&M’s. When it comes to natural foods, the brighter and more vivid their colour, the higher they usually are in antioxidants and phytos. Make it your mission to eat loads of fruit and vegies with different colours every single day, so you’ll get all the great benefits. Go for sweet potatoes over potatoes, blueberries over bananas. When you make a salad, go for dark cos lettuce and throw in some baby rocket (arugula) leaves rather than using a pale iceberg lettuce. Studies have shown that eating plenty of colourful food, like beetroot, spinach and blueberries, raises the antioxidant protection power in your bloodstream by a whopping 10–25 per cent. Some fruit and vegies are more antioxidant-rich than others. On page 80 is a list of the top twenty, so make sure you’re eating heaps of these. Here are some great ways to boost your daily intake of antioxidants and other phytos: Breakfast: add fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or prunes to natural yoghurt. Soak dried fruit, such as prunes, apricots and peaches, in water overnight, sprinkle with flaked almonds or pecans, and serve with natural yoghurt. Lunch and dinner: try a gazpacho soup made with tomatoes, green and red capsicums (peppers), red onion,
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Top ten fruits
Top ten vegetables
1. Blueberries 2. Prunes 3. Blackberries 4. Raspberries 5. Strawberries 6. Red delicious apples 7. Granny Smith apples 8. Cherries 9. Plums 10. Gala apples
1. Artichokes 2. Broccoli 3. Red cabbage 4. Red (Pontiac) potatoes 5. Brown onions 6. Asparagus 7. Yellow, orange or red capsicums (peppers) 8. Beetroot 9. Spinach 10. Sweet potatoes
Source: Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, June 2004
cucumber and lemon juice. Eat a mega-green salad of baby spinach leaves, avocado, broccoli florets, artichoke hearts and green capsicum (pepper). Make a Greek salad with tomatoes, red and green capsicums (peppers), cucumber, black olives, red onion and low-fat feta cheese. And don’t forget to add an olive oil dressing, to help your system absorb the fat-soluble phytos. Dessert: go for every bright fruit you can think of. Papaya with lime juice, fruit salad with mango, rockmelon (cantaloupe) and red grapes or a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and red or black currants. Mmmm.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Drinks: sip fresh fruit and vegetable juices. Carrot, tomato, mango and orange juices are great for your skin. Fresh strawberry or raspberry smoothies make a delicious alternative (use natural yoghurt, and organic oat, soy, or almond milk instead of cow’s milk). Snacks: munch on mixed unsalted raw nuts, sunflower seeds and pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raisins, dried blueberries or cranberries, carrots or cherries. And while we’re on the subject, there’s a whole bunch of other yummy antioxidant-loaded foods, including nuts, like pecans, walnuts and hazelnuts, and herbs and spices, like oregano and cinnamon. Dried fruit, like prunes, figs and dates, are sky high in antioxidants too. And dark (bittersweet) chocolate is rich in antioxidants. There are so many super healthy hits you can get from nature, you won’t feel deprived. When it comes to pesticides, some fruit and vegies get sprayed more than others. On page 82 is a list of the fruit and vegies that have the most and the least.
Fill up with fibre The benefits of eating lots of fruit and vegies don’t seem to stop. They are packed with fibre that’s essential for healthy digestion and elimination, which in turn helps prevent blemishes and breakouts. If things aren’t moving along (literally) in this department, constipation can add to your acne worries. Studies have found that increasing fibre is helpful in clearing up acne. Fibre contributes to acne control by
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The dirty dozen
The cleaner crowd
buy these organic
lowest in pesticides
Peaches Apples Capsicums (peppers) Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Pears Grapes Spinach Lettuce Potatoes
Onions Avocados Sweet corn (frozen) Pineapples Mango Asparagus Peas (frozen) Kiwifruit Bananas Cabbage Broccoli Papaya
Source: Food News from the Environmental Working Group in the US
slowing the body’s absorption of carbs and keeping blood sugar from spiking. And another reason to go for lots of fibre-rich foods: they decrease your levels of those acneinducing androgens.
Tomatoes: a clear-skin standout Remember lycopene, that phyto found in tomatoes? Well, if you have acne, you’ll want to make tomatoes your new best friend because lycopene has been shown to reduce levels of those pesky pimple-promoting hormones.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Lycopene is a fat-soluble phyto, so you need to eat some fat along with it to get its full benefits. Sauté tomatoes in olive oil or enjoy tomato sauce or tomato paste in soups, stews and casseroles.
Get a great glow But wait, there’s more! The many nutrients in fruit and vegies improve circulation in your skin and give you a great glow by keeping the skin’s tiny capillaries super healthy. They’re also natural vitamin C powerhouses—which keeps your skin’s collagen firm and healthy. The more fruit and vegies you eat, the more amazing your skin tone is likely to be. And to top it all off, a study found that elderly people who had eaten more fruit and vegies over their lifetime had fewer wrinkles. You’ve probably figured out by now that the acne-free Aché, Kitavan and traditional Japanese teens have a much higher intake of phyto antioxidants than their counterparts in acne-prone Western cultures. So for healthy, happy skin eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables every single day.
A better-health bonus The phytos found in fresh fruit and vegies do even more than keep your skin happy. They help guard against lifestyle diseases—like heart disease and diabetes—plus they protect against early ageing. The more antioxidants you have floating around in your bloodstream, the more protection you’ll have, and the healthier you’ll be. Your skin will look gorgeous and your body will be glowing on the inside too.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Organic advantages Organic food isn’t just for tree-hugging hippies. It’s good for your health as well as your planet. Here’s one reason why: organic crops are grown in soil that hasn’t been contaminated by lots of nasty chemicals (pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers), genetically modified (GM) organisms, and other potentially toxic additives. Here’s another reason: organically grown produce has more nutrients. Studies have found that organic fruit and vegies average 20–30 per cent higher (and sometimes much, much higher) in a wide variety of different vitamins and minerals. New research also shows that organics have much higher levels of antioxidants too. Crops that are naturally stressed by insects produce phytos to protect themselves. But if crops are sprayed with pesticides, they don’t need the natural protection of their own antioxidants, so they produce less of them, which means fewer phytos for you. So you get a double benefit if your fruit and vegies aren’t sprayed with pesticides: tastier fruit and vegies, and more nutrition without the chemicals. I know you’re probably not responsible for the shopping in the house, but if you can, encourage your mum or dad to opt for organics when available. Most supermarkets stock organic fruit, vegies, eggs, chicken, meat and yoghurt these days. Although it’s a little more expensive, eating organic offers many fantastic health benefits for you and your whole family.
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Berries are bursting with antioxidant activity
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP If you’re getting fewer than 1 –2 tablespoons of good fats each day, your skin may not be able to lubricate itself. What’s more, your body may not absorb enough vitamin A, which your skin needs to look its absolute best.
Face fats As shocking as it may sound, some fats are not only good for you, but they are essential every single day. Good fats give you a rosy glow and a well-hydrated complexion. Cutting them out of your diet can cause all sorts of skin problems, like dry, flaky skin, eczema, psoriasis and acne. A deficiency of good fats can result in dry, brittle nails and dull hair too. All the different types of fat play a huge role in regulating your hormone levels and increasing or decreasing inflammation in your body, so choosing to eat the good fats and avoid the bad ones is a key factor in acne control. Remember that a major trigger for acne is your skin’s over-production of sebum (oil), caused by high or imbalanced hormone levels in your body. Good fats can actually prevent the build-up of too much oil in your pores and, as a result, help prevent acne outbreaks. Some of the healthy fats, like omega-3s, also have powerful antiinflammatory properties that help troubled skin.
Face-friendly fats Olive oil—extra virgin, cold-pressed Flaxseed oil—organic, cold-pressed Walnut oil—cold-pressed Pumpkin seed oil—cold-pressed Coconut oil—virgin, cold-pressed Avocado oil—cold-pressed Macadamia nut oil—cold-pressed
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Nuts and seeds are packed with protein
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Boost your lycopene levels with a tasty Gazpacho soup
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Olive oil
TIP
Include plenty of extra virgin olive oil in your diet for good health and great skin. It’s rich in heaps of different vitamins and fabulous phytos, and is a big reason why people living in the Mediterranean region (such as Spain, Greece and Italy) are super healthy and live for so long. Even though you’re years away from your first wrinkle, research has found that people who eat lots of olive oil get fewer wrinkles. What on earth is ‘extra virgin’? That means the oil comes from the olives’ first pressing, so it contains more of these fabulous phytos. ‘Cold-pressed’ is also important, as heat processing generally means that you lose out on some of the beneficial vitamins and phytos.
The taste of flaxseed oil takes a bit of getting used to, and it’s certainly not everyone’s favourite! So if you can’t stand it straight from the spoon, disguise it in a smoothie or use it in salad dressings, adding some lemon juice, fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar to mask its taste.
Flaxseed oil
Coconut oil
Flaxseed oil contains all the important types of fats for gorgeous skin and great health. It’s highly anti-inflammatory (great news for acne sufferers), plus it helps keep your skin moisturised from within. Flaxseed oil is super sensitive to heat, though, so it can’t be used in cooking.
When you think of coconut oil, you probably think of summer and all those yummy-smelling coconut body lotions. But it doesn’t just smell nice, coconut oil gets the thumbs up for great health and good skin. It’s actually a saturated fat and for years it was wrongly accused of bumping up cholesterol levels and
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Help stabilise your blood-sugar level after eating sweet fruits by taking tiny sips of extra virgin olive oil.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS clogging arteries. But it turns out that not all saturated fats are the same. Coconut oil contains a healthy type of saturated fat called medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs), and one in particular called lauric acid. Lauric acid has anti-viral and anti-microbial properties, so it helps protect your body against viruses and other unwanted visitors. Another bonus is that coconut oil is burned quickly for energy rather than stored as fat, and it may actually boost your metabolism. On top of that, coconut oil is very heat-stable. This means it doesn’t break down and create problemcausing free radicals during high-heat cooking like some other vegetable oils. Just make sure to choose an unrefined (virgin) coconut oil.
Avocado oil
Avocado oil is packed with super healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamins (including vitamin E, vitamin C and folic acid), antioxidants and phytos. It’s an excellent salad and cooking oil, and a great alternative to olive oil. Avocado oil also makes a yummy green dressing mixed with lemon juice, herbs and vinegar. Macadamia nut oil
Macadamia nut oil is the richest of all the oils in the healthy anti-inflammatory monounsaturated fats. It also has a great nutty flavour and makes delicious dressings and dips, and it’s especially good for sautéing and stir-frying.
Caring for your oils All oils—especially flaxseed—gradually go off from exposure to light and air. Spoiled oil isn’t good for you, and usually tastes weird too. So make sure you buy your oils only in small quantities and keep them in a cool, dark place (sometimes they’re available in dark bottles). Buy flaxseed oil refrigerated from a health food store and keep it in the fridge at home.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP Fat phobics, take note. Eating good fats doesn’t make you fat. In fact, it may do quite the opposite. In the right balance, the good fats (especially the omega-3s) boost your body’s metabolism, which increases the number of kilojoules (calories) you burn daily.
Health and beauty benefits of good fats: • • • • • •
Help hydrate your skin and keep it dewy-looking Improve blood flow and nutrient delivery to your cells Aid absorption of your beauty-boosting vitamins and phytos Help produce and regulate hormones Fend off eczema, psoriasis and hair loss Prevent inflammation.
The importance of eating the right fats doesn’t stop with the list above, either. You may remember from Chapter 3 that every single one of your body’s 100 trillion cells is surrounded by a membrane made of fats. These membranes need good fats to keep them flexible, so that they can absorb nutrients better and be more responsive to instructions from your hormones, including the allimportant insulin. As you start eating more of the skin-friendly fats, you’ll be amazed at the difference in your complexion. Hard and dry patches, greasy pores, pimples and bumps begin to disappear. Your skin will look and feel soft and smooth. As an added bonus, you’ll also feel great and be bursting with energy.
Forget fat-free salads If you go to the effort of making and eating a healthy salad, you want to get the most out of it, right? Well, whatever you do, don’t have a fat-free salad. Some phytos that are so great for your skin, like lycopene and beta carotene, are fat-soluble, so you must eat fat along with any salad for your body to absorb all the phytos and get their benefits.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Brain food Whatever you do, make sure you avoid junk food, especially the highly processed baddies (chips, cakes, pastries, biscuits, etc.) that are full of trans fats. These very bad fats pile on the kilos, mess with your skin and clog up your brain. Researchers reported that rats raised on the rodent equivalent of junk food struggled to get through a maze and took longer to remember solutions to problems they’d previously solved! It’s pretty easy to eat the right food for your brain, and your skin. Breakfast: first, go to the top of the class (at least nutritionally) for eating breakfast. Many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces school performance. But don’t eat just anything for breakfast. According to research, kids who started their day with soft drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average seventy-year-old in memory and attention tests. Eating toast for breakfast instead resulted in a better performance—and interestingly, even better results came from a breakfast of beans on wholegrain toast. That’s because beans are packed with fibre and protein, both of which balance blood-sugar levels and keep you feeling full. Lunch: a smart choice for lunch is some canned fish (like salmon, mackerel or tuna) with a salad. Fish offers goodquality protein to help keep you going and is super high in omega-3 fats, which boost brain power. Eggs are also a great lunch option, because they’re packed with protein and have been shown to improve memory.
Food for thought It’s hardly surprising that what you eat has a direct effect on how you think and feel. When it comes to nutrition, your brain is the greediest organ in your body, and it also has some special requirements. Luckily for us, skin food and brain food overlap a lot.
Flip to Chapter 9 for lots more breakfast ideas to keep your brain in top form from the get- go.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Fish for your brain Fish and other types of seafood contain a natural chemical (Dimethylaminoethanol or DMAE), which improves your skin tone and helps protect your cell membranes. Because this same chemical is naturally produced in your brain, seafood is often called brain food. Teen brains and skin need more fish and fewer fries. Flip to Chapter 9 for lots more snack suggestions to sharpen you up.
Finish off your lunch with natural yoghurt, and you should be ready to face the challenges of the afternoon. That’s because yoghurt contains a brain-boosting natural chemical, which makes you feel alert. Mid-afternoon snack: don’t forget to munch on something like a handful of almonds and a piece of fruit, to maintain your blood-sugar level. Dinner: fish or lean meat with lots of vegies. The phytos and antioxidants in vegies keep your brain in tip-top condition. A study in the US found that a diet high in antioxidants improved the brain skills (learning and memory) of thirty-nine ageing beagles—proving that with the right foods, you can teach an old dog new tricks!
Vegies for your brain Did you know that vegies help keep your brain sharp as your birthdays accumulate? Research indicates that eating about three servings of vegetables per day, compared to only a single serving, slows the decline of brain function by a whopping 40 per cent! A high intake of green leafy vegetables (like spinach) was most strongly associated with this benefit. Imagine what could happen if you eat the recommended five or more servings every day.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Dessert: finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries—they’re packed with skin-nourishing nutrients. In a study of rats that were fed these specific fruits, the rats showed improved coordination, concentration and short-term memory.
Get hooked on fish Seafood is packed with omega-3s—the fabulous face fats. These beauty-boosting fats maintain good blood flow to your skin, make your skin softer, smoother and more radiant, and help beat blemishes and inflammation. Studies show that people who eat the most seafood have the lowest rates of acne. All those teens with zero acne, like the Eskimos, Kitavans and the Japanese a few decades ago, consumed a lot of omega-3s from fish and seafood. Research also shows that people with higher intakes of these omega-3s have lower levels of acneinducing androgens, and people who do have acne are twice as likely to consume no fish at all! If you’ve got acne or other skin problems, you want to make sure you eat stacks of omega-3s. Fish that are super rich in these protective fats include salmon, sardines, mackerel and anchovies. Don’t despair if you’re a vegetarian, though: you can get your omega-3s from walnuts, linseeds (flaxseeds) and dark leafy greens.
Snack smart when you study Cramming for exams is a major danger zone because you’re stressed out and busy, and you don’t have time to prepare lots of healthy food. Don’t give in to junk food cravings—skin snack instead. Keep stuff handy like baby carrots, almonds, fruit, dark (bittersweet) chocolate chips (not a ton of these, though), and take little breaks now and then for a munch moment. These snacks will keep you going and going without wrecking your good-skin plan.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The benefits of fatty fish Lean seafood, including cod, sole, crab and prawns, have about 1 /20 the amount of the good fats as oily fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines. Fish fingers and deep-fried fish contain even less. So don’t shy away from eating those good fatty fish. And even though some types of fish contain ten times more fat than others, it’s all still relatively little compared to lean meats. Fish has all the protein of beef, and less than half the fat.
Awesome omega-3s You’ve read that omega-3s help your skin, and as it turns out, they protect your brain, they can boost your mood and lower levels of stress hormones. In fact, research shows that people with the lowest levels of omega-3s in their bloodstream were more likely to report depressive symptoms and have a negative outlook on life. Unfortunately, most of us in more Westernised societies aren’t getting enough omega-3s. How do you know if you’re getting enough of these? The answer is simple: if you’re eating fatty fish at least two or three times a week, or take a fish oil supplement daily. If you aren’t, you’re likely to be deficient in these good fats that are so essential for your skin and your health. If you can’t stand seafood, take 1000 mg (¹⁄ 32 oz) of a fish oil supplement each day. It has the same amount of healthy fats as a 150-g (5½-oz) serving of salmon, and it doesn’t even taste fishy.
Don’t worry about mercury You might have been scared off fish and seafood because of all the media coverage about mercury. Mercury is a toxic element that’s found naturally in the environment, and nearly all fish contain trace amounts of it. But you certainly don’t want to avoid seafood altogether; the key is to vary your fish choices as much as possible and to cut back on having too much of the long-lived deep ocean fish.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) recommends eating several serves of fish and seafood per week, avoiding high-mercury fish. Here’s a breakdown: salmon, sardines, mackerel and anchovies are not high in mercury, but swordfish, shark, tuna, king mackerel and marlin are. Anyway, the benefits of seafood far outweigh any mercury risks.
Sensational salmon Although salmon is a sensational skin food, most of the salmon available today is farmed and doesn’t offer all the health benefits of wild salmon. Farmed salmon are fed soybean pellets which make their flesh lower in the healthy omega-3s. And because they’re raised in crowded net pens, they’re also fed antibiotics to ward off various diseases that are common in captivity. Try to eat farmed salmon only occasionally, and whenever possible, seek out wild salmon. Canned salmon is generally wild. You can also get omega-3 fats in sardines and mackerel and from vegetarian sources as well, like walnuts, linseeds (flaxseeds) and some leafy green vegies. On top of their protein and healthy fats, seafood offers antioxidants too. Astaxanthin, for example, is the red pigment that gives salmon, prawns and lobster their pinkred colour. It’s a powerful antioxidant similar to beta carotene in carrots, but is thought to be ten times stronger than that fellow phyto. Astaxanthin may also protect you from the sun’s UV light.
TIP Eat your fish baked, poached, steamed, grilled or lightly pan- fried. Avoid deep- fried fish. The deepfrying process destroys the beneficial fats.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Free- range poultry Chicken, turkey and eggs are all great sources of protein. Fried chicken doesn’t count though as it’s packed with bad fats. Make sure it’s grilled or baked. Most commercial poultry farms pack thousands of animals into close quarters and they’re given antibiotics, and some are fed genetically modified (GM) grains such as soy. So encourage your mum or dad to buy organic or free-range poultry and eggs.
You are what you meat Of all the different meat choices out there, you’re probably wondering what the right kind is for your skin and your health. Most of the meat available at your local butcher shop or supermarket is grain fed. This means, for example, that the cows have been fed grains (like corn) for several months to fatten them up. The problem is that when cows eat lots of grain, this increases their fat content—especially the fats that aren’t as great for you, like saturated fat and omega-6 fats. Grass-fed beef is far healthier than grain-fed beef, and tastes better too. How come? Cows that munch on grass all day, as they would naturally do, end up with a healthier mix of good fats in their meat, and less of the bad fats. Grass-fed beef is also much higher in vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene. Plus grass-fed beef is up to three times leaner than grain-fed beef.You are what your animals eat too!
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Go for grass-fed over grain-fed meat whenever you can. Organic meat is an even healthier option, because organically raised animals aren’t given any unnecessary antibiotics or growth-promoting hormones.
Jumping for soy You don’t have to become a soy nut to add more soy to your diet. Experiment with miso, tempeh or tofu. Munch on seriously yummy edamame—whole soybeans boiled in their skin—(check out the recipe for Edamame on page 219 in Chapter 10). What’s in it for your skin? Well, a number of studies show that whole soy products, including soy flour, reduce levels of acne-inducing androgens. Soy products also contain the fabulous phytos called isoflavones, which boast strong antioxidant activity.
Check out this site to find out more about the benefits of eating organic grass- fed meats. http://www. samthebutcher.com.au/ (you can also order online).
Great grains Are you confused by all the different types of bread out there? There used to be just white and brown. Now when you go to the supermarket, you see high-fibre white bread, low-GI bread, bread with soy and linseed (flaxseed), bread with extra calcium or omega-3s, and many more . . . But what kind is the healthiest? Think whole grain when it comes to your skin. Whole grains haven’t been refined, so they still include the bran, the germ (the good part of the grain) and the thin skin. Together, these grain components are super rich in vitamins, minerals (like zinc and selenium), fibre,
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS
The good grains Brown rice Kasha Millet Wild rice Barley Quinoa Buckwheat Amaranth Oats Rye
antioxidants, phytos, oils and proteins. Eating them helps keep your skin firm, smooth and supple. Because whole grains contain lots of fibre, they’re also much more low GI than their refined counterparts. So always choose the wholegrain, wholemeal (wholewheat) or multi-grain version of any product: brown rice over white rice, wholegrain or wholemeal (wholewheat) pasta over the white flour version, rolled oats over instant oats. You get the idea. To wind up with the right grain products, you need to read labels carefully. But you also need to be a bit of a detective because some of the so-called wholemeal (wholewheat) breads are made of a mixture of wholemeal (wholewheat) and refined white flour, and the label doesn’t tell you how much wholemeal (wholewheat) you’re getting. If you can, test the package with your hands for the bread’s weight and feel: heavier, denser breads are a surer bet that they are wholegrain and are less refined.
What’s quinoa? Chances are you may not be familiar with this exotic whole grain from South America, but it’s time you were introduced. Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) has a light, mild nutty flavour and a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture. It’s packed with protein, good fats, fibre and B vitamins. Quinoa is great hot in casseroles, soups, stews and stir-fries or cold in salads. The seeds cook very quickly, in only 15 minutes. You can also add nuts and fruit to cooked
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS quinoa for a breakfast porridge to eat with soy milk. Yum! (There’s a recipe for this in Chapter 10).
Beautiful beans Beans and legumes, like chickpeas, lentils, kidney, black, navy and pinto beans, are a near-perfect food. They are high in fibre, B vitamins, iron, calcium and magnesium, very low in fat and low GI and are packed with phytos and antioxidants. They’re high in protein too, so they are a great alternative source of vegetarian protein, especially when combined with whole grains like brown rice. Puree them into dips and spreads, or add them to salads, soups, stews and casseroles for extra protein oomph.
Go nuts Best nut bets Almonds Macadamias Walnuts Pecans Pistachios Hazelnuts
Nuts are packed with good fats, protein and other nutrients, and they provide excellent antioxidant benefits. The essential fats found in nuts can help keep your blood sugar stable for a few hours after you eat them—and that can actually promote weight loss because it allows your body to burn kilojoules (calories) from its own fat stores— and it helps curb cravings for carbs and sugar too. Most nuts contain the minerals magnesium and zinc, which help to fight sugar cravings! Plus, the healthy fats found in nuts can help suppress the hormone that makes you feel hungry. Nuts are high in kilojoules (calories) though, so it’s best not to eat more than 2–3 tablespoons at a time.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Almonds are a serious superfood for your face because they help prevent those trouble-making blood sugar and insulin spikes, and they’re full of fantastic fats. Plus, exciting new research shows that adding almonds to a carb meal can bring its GI number down. Walnuts are another excellent choice because they’re high in those beauty-boosting omega-3s and contain the powerful antioxidant melatonin, which regulates your beauty sleep. Despite their name, peanuts aren’t actually true nuts. They’re part of the legume family and are related to peas, lentils, beans and chickpeas. If you’re in love with peanut butter and can’t bear the thought of giving it up, try substituting almond butter. It’s seriously just as yummy in a sandwich, or for a satisfying snack that tastes great, try it spread on wedges of apple or pear.
Nut preparation Eat your nuts fresh, raw and unsalted, or roasted and only lightly salted. Canned, highly salted and packaged roasted nuts are not recommended, as bad fats are often added to them in processing. You can buy raw nuts at any good supermarket or health food store. Some people suggest soaking nuts overnight in plain or filtered water before eating them because that’s thought to improve your body’s absorption of their nutrients. It’s great if you have time to do it, but don’t worry about it if you don’t! Your skin will be very happy with unsoaked nuts.
Peanut problem If you have acne, you might be better off avoiding peanuts and peanut butter. Or you could try cutting them out for a month, then ease them back into your diet and see what happens.
TIP Soy nuts, although not technically ‘nuts’, are also a good choice for snacking because of their healthy fats and protective flavonoid phytos. Pepitas (pumpkin seeds), sunflower seeds and chick nuts (made from chickpeas) are tasty and nutritious as well.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Drink up
TIP If you find plain old drinking water boring, add a splash of unsweetened apple or cranberry juice or a wedge of lemon or lime. That way it’s tastier and you’ll drink more too.
You know you need to be drinking more water, and for more than one good reason. Drinking six to eight glasses of water every day will get your skin looking healthier and more hydrated and it’s vital for flushing toxins and helping to prevent blemishes. Sleepiness and fatigue can be a sign of dehydration, so drink plenty of water throughout the day. To rehydrate and revive yourself, choose water over kilojoule-filled (caloriefilled) soft drinks and other sweetened drinks. Go for filtered, spring, sparkling, natural mineral or purified water. Avoid tap water if you can because it contains chemicals (like chlorine) that aren’t great for your health or your skin.
Liquid nutrition Green tea for gorgeous skin? Studies show that green tea is a powerful skin protector because of its antiinflammatory and antioxidant actions. It appears to have a hormonal effect too, as it blocks the conversion of the acne-causing hormone. Green tea also increases blood levels of the minerals zinc and selenium, which you need to help fend off and prevent acne. To top it all off, it has a calming effect on the body and the mind. Freshly brewed green tea is the way to go. Studies show that the fresh-made stuff contains up to a hundred times more antioxidants than the stuff you purchase in bottles.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS And bottled tea is usually so full of sugar that it’s nothing more than another ‘liquid lolly’ pretending to be healthy. Occasional juices, smoothies and herbal teas are good for you too, as long as you’re also drinking lots of water. Carrots are bursting with beta carotene, which helps lower your skin’s production of that greasy goop involved in acne. This antioxidant also helps repair skin damage and improves your skin’s overall health. Other beta carotenerich foods include sweet potatoes, green leafy vegies, apricots and rockmelon (cantaloupe).
Substitutes for sweets If you live for sugar, finding stand-ins for all your favourite sweet snacks can be challenging. But when it comes to being seriously sweet, naturally dried fruits like dates, raisins, apricots and figs give sugary snacks a run for their money. What’s more, many dried fruits are sky high in antioxidants. One interesting study reported that figs boost the antioxidant power of blood, even 4 hours after eating them. What’s particularly exciting is that figs were shown to reduce the cell damage caused by drinking a high-sugar soft drink. (But that doesn’t mean you should start downing soft drinks and chasing them with figs.) If you’re a chocolate lover, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s a true beauty booster. No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Research has found that the antioxidants in dark (bittersweet) chocolate, called polyphenols, keep skin hydrated, lessen the effects of sunburn and improve skin’s texture. Researchers aren’t sure why, but suggest that it’s because polyphenols increase blood flow to the skin.
Carrot juice cocktail Get in the habit of downing a carrot juice a few times a week. Feeling adventurous? Add some parsley, spinach and beetroot for extra phytos and other nutrients, or mix in some unsweetened apple juice for a sweeter variation.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS And get this: dark (bittersweet) chocolate even improves how your body responds to insulin. It’s a chocoholic’s dream come true. But the green light only goes for dark (bittersweet) chocolate. The darker the chocolate, the more antioxidants it contains. Unfortunately, milk chocolate and white chocolate don’t get the go-ahead, as they’re mostly pure sugar and bad fats. You need to look for high-quality dark (bittersweet) bars with 70 per cent or more cocoa solids or pure cocoa powder. Pure cocoa powder can be pretty bitter by itself, so you’ll need to sweeten it up with some honey, xylitol, stevia or agave syrup. You can use cocoa powder to make a yummy hot cocoa. Substitute soy, rice or oat milk for cow’s milk, and sprinkle with a little cinnamon. So when you’re in need of a sugar fix, snack on some dried fruit, Bliss Balls (see page 218 in Chapter 10) or a piece of dark (bittersweet) chocolate.
Chocolate cravings are all in your head Chocolate contains small amounts of phenylethylamine (PEA), a substance your brain produces when you feel happy or are in love. Eating chocolate causes the brain to release feel-good endorphins that boost your mood. It also increases the brain’s level of another neurotransmitter (brain chemical) called serotonin, which also promotes positive feelings. The mild rush we get from all these neurochemicals may explain why some people say they’re addicted to chocolate.
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EAT YOURSELF GORGEOUS Turning up your glow Some of the information in this chapter may seem confusing or even overwhelming, but remember, it takes time to adjust to new habits. It takes self-discipline to make healthy food choices too, but the short-term and long-term rewards for your skin are enormous. Good eating habits go a long way towards giving you boundless energy, mental brilliance and a great glow. I promise—it really does get easier as you go! Huge changes are going on in your body right now, and probably in your life too. The way you eat today can make a big difference to how you look and feel during your teenage years and for many years to come. With your clear-skin basics in place, a blemish-free complexion will be yours in no time.
Gorgeous skin action plan •
Make fruit and vegies your mission. Eat at least five to seven servings every day. Include as many bright colours and as much variety as possible.
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Get into good fats. Up your intake of olive oil, avocado, fish and raw nuts. Make sure you have 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil every day.
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Feast on lots of fish. Aim for at least three meals a week of your favourite fish or other seafood.
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Go whole grain. Ditch the refined and swap white bread for wholegrain breads, white rice and pasta for wholegrain rice and pasta.
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Pay attention to protein. Include lots of poultry, eggs and lean meat (free-range, grass-fed and organic, if possible). If you’re a vegetarian make sure you are eating nuts and combining your legumes (like lentils) and whole grains (like brown rice) for lots of healthy protein.
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Beat the sweets. When a craving hits, hit it back with some dark (bittersweet) chocolate, dried fruit, a handful of almonds and raisins or some coconut flakes.
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Drink up. Make sure you drink about eight glasses of water every day. Experiment with green tea, herbal teas and unsweetened juices.
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Skin snack. Stick with healthy treats like baby carrots, raw nuts, fruit, rice cakes with avocado or hummus, apple wedges dipped in almond butter, berry smoothies and natural yoghurt with fruit and nuts.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS e’ve covered the skin-enemy foods and the foods for getting gorgeous skin, so what’s left? Well, there’s a whole stack of other things you can do that make a huge difference in creating and maintaining beautiful, blemishfree skin. Getting enough shut-eye and regular exercise seem like common sense, but studies show that many teens just aren’t getting enough of either. Most teens are seriously sleep-deprived and are more likely to favour a comfy position on the couch than getting moving, or late-night texting rather than snoozing. Then there’s the big S word: stress. Just being a teenager can be stressful with so much going on and so many changes all at once. Most teens these days are under huge pressure to do it all: excel in school, be popular, look great, play sport, take on various after-school activities and juggle all sorts of family and social stuff. It all adds up to serious stress, which can aggravate acne and just about every other skin condition. Sleep, exercise and keeping your stress-meter turned down have a whole heap of protective benefits for your body and mind. Not only will your skin sparkle, but you’ll feel happier, healthier and more energetic too.
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Get moving Exercise is absolutely vital for proper growth and development during your teen years. Exercise boosts brain power, builds healthy bones and provides countless other health benefits. It’s also one of the best ways to beat
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stress. And for beautiful, blemish-free skin, you’ve got to exercise regularly. So let’s get straight to what exercise can do for your skin. Exercise brings more fresh nutrients—from all that super healthy food that you’ve been eating—and oxygen to your skin cells. How? Getting your muscles moving and your heart pumping increases circulation, which means that more nutrient-rich blood can travel more quickly to more areas of your body, including the largest organ: your skin. The result of increased circulation to your skin cells is a gorgeous, healthy glow. Perhaps the most dramatic effects of exercise are its skin-clearing benefits for acne-prone skin. How? Exercise helps balance your hormone levels by bringing down the pimple-promoting ones, like insulin, while boosting the good ones. At the same time increased circulation helps your skin flush out toxins that can make it look dull, spotty and blotchy. Plus, exercise promotes and accelerates your skin’s healing. According to Dr David Berman, medical director at the Berman Skin Institute in California, ‘There’s a lot of evidence that shows that when you exercise your level of stress diminishes, so your adrenal glands are producing less of these male-type hormones that are part of any acne flare-up.’ If you want proof, think back to any situation that significantly increased your stress levels—like finishing off an important project on a tight deadline or studying for exams—and you’ll probably remember that you had a breakout or two.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS What’s growth hormone? Growth hormone (GH for short) is a super important hormone released by a pea-sized gland in the brain called the pituitary gland. GH’s job is to stimulate the production and growth of new cells. We absolutely need this hormone in order to reach our peak height, so GH levels rise steadily throughout puberty. GH is secreted throughout a 24-hour cycle in bursts or peaks, especially during the deepest phases of sleep, which is why we need plenty of sleep to ensure healthy levels.
‘Almost everyone’s skin flares when they are under stress, but especially those who already have acne,’ says Dr Berman. Exercise, he says, can help control these flareups. ‘By reducing stress, it tends to quiet the adrenals. There is less hormone output, which in turn helps control acne.’ Insulin levels begin to decrease after just 10 minutes of doing some sort of aerobic activity, and they continue to decrease until you have done about 70 minutes of exercise. Regular exercise also increases your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which is a good thing if you have acne. This increased sensitivity to insulin means that your cells take up the glucose (blood sugar), so it doesn’t hang around in your blood and cause problems and elevate those pimple-promoting hormones (such as IGF-1). Couch potatoes don’t get this benefit, and they’ve also been shown to have higher levels of that acne-promoting hormone, IGF-1. Regular exercise increases sweating and that’s a great thing for skin. According to Dr David Goldberg, clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, sweating can unclog pores and have a positive effect on breakouts. ‘In the long run, people who exercise have a better complexion overall. If they have acne, it’s better controlled, and if they have occasional breakouts they are definitely less severe, and clear quicker and easier,’ he says.
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Skin- cancer shield You can add protection against skin cancer to the long list of exercise’s benefits. When researchers exposed mice to ultraviolet-B (UVB) light (the wavelength of light that can cause skin cancer), the mice with continuous access to running wheels developed 32 per cent fewer skin tumours than the mice that didn’t have running wheels. Why the difference? Exercise enhances cell turnover and thereby replaces sun-damaged cells with new, healthy ones more quickly. But don’t get the idea that regular workouts are an excuse to go and bake in the sun unprotected.
Brain booster A study in the UK found that school kids who exercised three or four times a week got higher than average exam grades at age ten and eleven. Aerobic exercise is believed to boost mental powers by getting extra oxygen and nutrients to your energy-guzzling brain. Even simply walking for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. And every extra kilometre that you walk per week has measurable benefits. It’s a dream come true for those who don’t like studying.
TIP Make sure you drink enough water before and during exercise. Having lots of fluids, especially water, increases blood flow, flushes out those skin-dulling toxins and replaces the liquid you’ve lost by sweating. In turn your skin will look better and be healthier.
Stay in shape Exercise is by far the best way to stay in shape. When you go on a crash diet or cut down your daily kilojoule (calorie) intake, your body doesn’t realise that you want to lose
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weight; instead it mistakes your attempt to lose weight for a shortage of food, and it slows down your metabolism so as not to starve.
How much exercise do I need? Although almost everyone knows how important exercise is for a healthy life, most of us just aren’t getting the amount of exercise we need. The Australian government guidelines recommend growing teenagers get at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise every day! I know it sounds like a lot, but all the sports you do at school can count towards this amount. Moderate-intensity activity causes a slight but noticeable increase in breathing and heart rate. A good example is a brisk walk, at a pace where you can comfortably talk but not sing. Other examples include medium-paced swimming, cycling or mowing the lawn. Vigorous activity makes you huff and puff to the point where talking in full sentences is difficult. Good examples are netball, basketball, speed walking, fast cycling, aerobics, circuit training, football, squash and brisk rowing.
Exercise energises
What’s metabolism mean? In simple terms, metabolism is the rate at which your body breaks down the nutrients in food to produce energy. For example, someone with a fast metabolism uses kilojoules (calories) more quickly, and this can make it easier for that person not to put on extra weight. Studies suggest that your baseline metabolism is determined at birth. But having a naturally slow metabolism certainly doesn’t mean that you have to gain weight.
Exercise revitalises you in several ways: it speeds up your blood flow and your breathing rate; it brings more oxygen to your heart, lungs, brain and muscles—less oxygen makes you tired, more oxygen (to a certain degree) perks
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP After school, jump and dance on an exercise trampoline while listening to music. This is a great way to get more blood circulating to your brain so that you can focus better on your homework.
you up—and working out is fun (especially with friends), so it peps you up physically and mentally.
Simple ways to get more active You can easily build exercise into your day by making it part of getting where you want to go. If it’s close enough, don’t rely on Mum or Dad to drive you; walk, cycle or rollerblade instead. Take the stairs instead of taking the lift. You may not think it’s doing much, but every step adds up to a better butt. Take your dog for a walk around the neighbourhood. Put your favourite music on and dance like crazy around your bedroom. You’ll have so much fun that you won’t even notice you’re working out. All these sorts of activities can contribute to your daily exercise quota. Remember, some activity is better than none, and more is better than a little.
Get some shut- eye Sleep is food for the brain and gives your body a minivacation every night. It’s no surprise that Sleeping Beauty captured the heart of her prince—a hundred years of beauty rest did wonders for her looks. But seriously, amazing things happen to your body while you sleep: damaged cells are repaired, your immune system is revitalised and your energy and brain power are recharged. You need quality sleep for just about everything else too, including good moods.
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Along with exercise, you’ve also got to get loads of sleep for great skin. Make it your mission to hit the sack early. The teen years are the time that you need the most sleep ever—even more than younger kids. Also, GH is secreted throughout a 24-hour cycle in bursts or peaks, especially during the deepest phases of sleep, which is why we need plenty of sleep to ensure healthy levels. Studies show that fifth and sixth graders can be wide awake all day after about nine hours’ sleep, but teenagers need ten hours to be alert all day long. The chemicals (like GH) behind the biological changes of puberty are released mainly at night. From early to mid-puberty you may notice an increase in your overall sleepiness, because your need for sleep increases during this time of major growth and development. Your natural sleep cycle changes during the teen years. When you turn about ten or eleven, your biological clock shifts to about an hour later, so as a result you naturally feel like going to bed later and getting up later. The shift in your sleep cycle explains why you sometimes aren’t tired at 11 p.m. but you feel super sleepy in the morning when you have to get up for school, and why you seem to need unlimited sleep to catch up on the weekends. It also means that if you’ve got an extra early start or any sort of before-school activity, you’re going to be sleep deprived.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Australia’s sleepy teens For today’s plugged-in, super busy and often time-starved teens, sleep is often the first thing to be sidelined. At the very point your need for sleep increases, many of you are actually getting less and less. Researchers think that up to 90 per cent of Year 10 students don’t get enough sleep! And modern technology (the Internet, chatlines and texting) certainly isn’t helping. A recent study of Australian teenagers found that 42 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls were chronically sleep deprived to the extent that it impaired their concentration in school. Sleep was most elusive for female students because they were typically the most eager SMS users. There’s even a name for it now: junk sleep, which basically means the length and the quality of sleep aren’t enough to give the brain the rest it needs to perform properly at school. The Sleep Council in England has warned that junk sleep could rival unhealthy junk food as a major lifestyle issue for teens. Gadgets in bedrooms, such as computers and TVs, are fuelling poor-quality junk sleep. Studies carried out by the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University in England also found people who used mobile phones at bedtime took twice as long to drop off. Using a mobile phone before going to bed interferes with brain activity in the same way coffee does, making it more difficult to fall asleep.
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Beauty sleep, blood sugar and blemishes There’s a good reason why it’s called beauty sleep: your skin’s rate of cell renewal (a function essential for fresh, healthy skin) and the nourishment of skin cells reach a peak while you sleep. But when you don’t get enough sleep, your skin can start looking dull. And then there’s the badge of fatigue: puffiness and dark circles under your eyes, which seems to make everything look worse. Going without enough zzzs can make you more prone to skin problems. This is because a lack of sleep sends your levels of stress hormones into overdrive, so you don’t regulate your blood sugar well. Remember, blood-sugar imbalances up the odds of getting acne. During sleep, however, your stress hormones chill. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you don’t stand a chance of beating blemishes. So for the sake of your skin, don’t skimp on sleep.
What’s melatonin? Melatonin is an important hormone that’s secreted in your brain by your pineal gland when it gets dark. So it’s sometimes called the hormone of darkness. Melatonin regulates your 24-hour body clock and sleep-wake cycle. In addition, it’s a powerful antioxidant and boosts immune function.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Messing up your melatonin Exposure at night to bright artificial lights, like a computer screen, has a detrimental influence on your body clock. When you’re on your computer or watching TV before bed, the light of the screen suppresses the release of melatonin, tricking your body into thinking that it’s actually daylight, and this makes it really difficult to fall asleep. If you combine the effect of the bright light with talking on the phone, watching an exciting program, listening to loud music, IM-ing or doing some of these at the same time, it can easily tip the balance at bedtime—making it more difficult for you to sleep. Even if you’re really sleepy, all the stimulation may keep you from noticing just how tired you are.
Brain builder Of course, a shortage of sleep affects every single part of your life, not just your complexion. It’s been linked to rebellious behaviour, depressive symptoms, obesity, anxiety disorders and poor grades. Skimping on sleep does awful things to your brain. Being tired when you take an IQ test can knock 7 points off your score, and sleepiness affects performance on regular exams too. Problem-solving, planning, learning, concentration, memory and alertness all take a hit. If you’ve been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk! And you don’t need to pull an all-nighter as two or three late nights and several early mornings can have the same effect.
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TIP Eating within 2 hours of bedtime isn’t the best idea. You won’t sleep as soundly because you’re still digesting your food. Better plan: eat earlier in the evening.
Luckily, it’s reversible. If you’re not sleep deprived, extra sleep can still benefit you. If you get an extra hour or two of shut-eye, you’ll perform much better than you normally would on tasks requiring sustained or continuous attention, like taking an exam. As you sleep, your brain memorises what you studied and learnt that day. Surfing the web or messing around on Facebook into the wee hours coupled with an early morning alarm clock is a recipe for exhaustion. Getting to bed at a decent hour has an extremely important purpose: sleep is muchneeded downtime for your body and mind to rejuvenate. Get some shut-eye!
S leep strategies If you have trouble sleeping, here are some strategies to take you directly to snoozeville: • Keep sleep stealers out of the bedroom. Switch off the computer and the TV an hour before bed to keep their bright screens from signalling you to stay awake. Try a calming activity like reading a book or taking a bath to let your brain and body know it’s time to wind down. • Texting your friends or talking on the phone may seem like a relaxing outlet when you’ve had a stressful day, but these things can make you feel more active and alert when they’re close to your bedtime. Save all those stimulating activities for earlier in the evening and switch off your phone at least an hour before bed. Make a pact with your friends to cut back on all
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late-night texting and emailing: doing it together will make it a lot easier. If you find it difficult to switch off and your mind is buzzing, try a form of relaxation such as deep breathing or even a few yoga moves. A study found that yoga helps with insomnia and sleep difficulties by boosting melatonin. Forgo the frappuccino after noon. Caffeine may make you all buzzy and energetic, but it can seriously interfere with getting a good night’s sleep. Research has found that teens who consume the most caffeine sleep less at night, take longer to fall asleep, and are more likely to fall asleep during the day. Remember, caffeine is also found in tea, cola and chocolate. If you still spend ages staring at the ceiling, a study found that lavender can help you drop off. You might go into a deeper sleep and feel more refreshed in the morning too. Researchers recommend a few drops of lavender essential oil on your pillow. The longer your exposure to the scent, the longer you’ll sleep. (You can buy lavender essential oil at most health food stores.) Don’t try to go from a million miles an hour directly to zero. For example, you can’t study for an exam, turn off the light and go straight to sleep. You need some down time—some bridge time. Take a soothing bath, add a few drops of lavender oil, read something relaxing and drink some calming herbal tea (like chamomile). Go to bed at the same time every night and wake at roughly the same time each morning. And don’t sleep more than 2 hours later than usual on the weekends. You should wake up every morning feeling refreshed. If
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you’re still waking up feeling tired, you need more sleep. Make sure your room is dark. Any light that trickles in, including a night-light, can cause sleep disturbances.
Remember, it’s only natural that you want to go to bed later because of your body clock’s shift. But don’t use that as an excuse to put sleep on the back-burner. Make it a priority to get a great night’s sleep every night. Your skin, and the rest of you, will thank you.
TIP Try a recovery nap of about 20 minutes in the afternoon to help you catch up on missed sleep.
Take time to chill every day Do you ever feel like you’re caught up in a complex juggling act, balancing school, homework, sport, part-time jobs, friends, family life, social stuff, siblings and more? Today’s teens often feel overcommitted, overworked and seriously stressed. In fact, Reuters Health reports that onethird say they feel stressed-out on a daily basis. Some good stress is healthy and it can be a great motivator. When we’re excited and passionate about something, we set high goals for ourselves and we stretch and challenge ourselves to meet those goals. That’s great. But too much stress can cause burnout and exhaustion, and it can seriously aggravate all skin conditions.
Stress and your skin Even if you follow the Gorgeous Skin Plan diet to a T, exercise regularly and get enough sleep, but you aren’t chilling every day, you’re much more likely to experience
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS What’s cortisol? Cortisol is a major stress hormone. In small amounts, cortisol helps you deal with stress and protects you from its damaging effects. But when you’re constantly stressed, day after day, you’re pumping out far too much of it.
acne. More stress, more acne. Stress increases acneinducing androgens, a number of other inflammatory chemicals, and a chemical called substance P that activates your skin’s oil glands. According to New York-based dermatologist and psychiatrist Dr Amy Wechsler, ‘To put it simply, the level of certain hormones—namely cortisol—increases in the brain when we’re stressed. This hormone travels to the skin and creates inflammation around hair follicles and pores leading to acne.’ People with acne have higher levels of cortisol. Having too much of this hormone doesn’t only affect your skin: it can cause blood-sugar imbalances, decrease your bone density and even reduce your ability to learn and communicate. On top of triggering new pimples, any sort of emotional stress may get in the way of effectively tackling existing pimples because when you’re under stress, your immune system is not functioning up to scratch. According to New York-based dermatologist David Orentreich, if bacteria inside a clogged pore get into surrounding tissue and cause an infection, the body may be less able to fight it, possibly resulting in a larger inflammatory cyst. All sorts of stressors can trigger acne. Research in college students has found that their acne flared right up when they felt stressed out from exams. So, when you’re studying take at least one 15–30-minute break to go for a walk or do some yoga or a mini-workout. Remember, exercise is an excellent stress-buster and increases endorphins in your brain.
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De-stress Before all this news sends your stress levels soaring, remember there are lots of things you can do to put the brakes on your skin situation. Finding ways to relax your body and mind can reduce your chances of facing an anxiety-induced flare-up. Whatever you do, resist the urge to pull an all-nighter. Instead, give your skin time to repair itself by hitting the sack at a decent hour. Getting a good night’s sleep gives you more energy to study the next morning. Your stress hormones are chilled out when you’re sleeping, and you’ll look better from being well-rested. Chatting with friends can help you vent. And when you’re having a snack, reach for good-for-your skin foods like fruit, vegies and nuts rather than processed, packaged or greasy food. Don’t forget to drink loads of water too. A specialised group of doctors called psychodermatologists, or skin shrinks, treat acne and other skin disorders from an emotional perspective. Part of their approach is to identify the key things in their patients’ lives that may be stressing them out. Every system in the body affects every other system, and what happens in the brain definitely trickles down and affects the skin. Dr Ted Grossbart, a clinical professor of psychology who specialises in skin problems at Harvard Medical School in the US, points out that our skin is very closely connected with our nervous system. This means that any thoughts or feelings you have, good or bad, can affect your skin. Anger, depression and anxiety affect the immune system, which can cause or aggravate skin troubles. Even
Calm down to curb cravings When you’re stressed out, it’s so tempting to reach for a sugary snack. Here’s a quick tip to curb bad food cravings: lie on the floor with your legs propped up against the wall and breathe deeply for a few minutes. By the time you get up, you’ll be able to think clearly about your food choices.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS the stuff that you may not be aware of—feelings bubbling under the surface—can trigger all sorts of skin conditions. That’s why positive emotions can make your skin glow. Now that you know there’s an intimate link between your skin and your thoughts and feelings, what can you do about it? It may sound kind of weird, but your thoughts create chemicals that flow into your bloodstream and affect the function of your entire body. Just thinking positively has a big impact on your stress levels and how your skin reacts. You can start by being more accepting of yourself. Don’t worry so much about what other people are thinking and doing. That’s their problem, not yours. Believe in yourself and hang out with positive, supportive friends. Try to be the best you can, and don’t compare yourself to anyone. There is only one you on the planet. Q: I’m captain of the softball team, violinist in the school orchestra, one of the top students in my class with 3 hours of homework a night, and I take art classes. I never have more than 5 minutes to breathe! I’m stressed! Help, what can I do? —Katie, age fifteen A: Ask yourself, Do you enjoy all your activities enough to put up with this hectic pace? If the answer is no, knock off one or two of the things you don’t look forward to (besides homework, of course). Rather than doing half a dozen things and feeling as though you are spread too thin, it’s more important to pick something you care about passionately and devote your energy to that.
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THE SKIN PROTECTORS
You already know that stress from exams or sleep deprivation can trigger or worsen your acne, but you should also try to identify other emotional stressors that may be affecting your skin, for example, taking on too many activities, pressure to get good grades or having problems with peers, your friends or your family. Take note of what’s going on when your skin erupts. Keep your personal journal up to date, recording all your thoughts and feelings. You may find your acne is associated with challenging exams at school, some other stressor—or if you’re a girl, your period. Once you see a pattern, you can try to reduce the problem through stressrelieving exercises. Don’t sweat the small stuff
Stress is a natural part of life. But when it hits, find positive ways to keep it in check. Jog around the track, take a bike ride, do karate kicks, talk it out. Talking about problems with your friends or family helps reduce their impact on your life and health. Close your eyes; take long, slow, deep breaths; and chill. Laugh often and loud
Laughing is a great way to de-stress. A number of studies have found that laughing lowers your stress hormones (especially cortisol), boosts all sorts of immune system cells and releases endorphins and other positively powerful chemicals into your body.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Relax
It’s very important to build in enough down time every single day to relax and recharge your batteries and turn down your stress-meter. Find a relaxation technique that works well for you. Whatever you choose, try to do it every day, for 20 minutes if you can—and not just when you’re stressed. What else can relaxation do for you? Deep relaxation stimulates your brain to send soothing, calming messages throughout your nervous system. As a result, your circulation increases, your cortisol level stays low, your output of the good hormones that control healing and cell replication improves and your endorphins provide a feelgood factor. Here are a few relaxation techniques you can try: • Find a quiet place to calm down. Breathe deeply and slowly. Close your eyes and count to ten. Imagine that you’re in a happy, peaceful place. Squeeze and then relax each part of your body to release tension. Stretch your arms and legs, and gently roll your neck. • Lie or sit in a comfortable position and focus only on your breathing. If thoughts come into your mind, just bring your attention back to your breathing. Do this for at least 10 minutes if you can. • Sit in a comfortable position and focus on a lit candle. Take a deep breath and simply stare at the flame of the candle. Focus on the area at the base of the wick where the flame’s colour is blue. Watch how the colours subtly change as you stare into the flame. Take deep, calming breaths while relaxing and focusing on the candle flame. It helps to be in a darkened room, but it’s still effective if you’re in a brightly lit space.
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© Kenji Maeji
THE SKIN PROTECTORS
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Go to www.gorgeousskin- for- teens.com to download this guided meditation to your MP3 player or iPod.
• Zen out! To feel super relaxed and calm your cortisol, experiment with yoga positions and breathing techniques. • Take a long, hot bath, watch a funny DVD, go for a run with your dog, read a chapter from a good novel or play beach volleyball with your friends. Remember exercising, sleeping and de-stressing are the protectors that can boost your health and get you to your goal of having the best skin ever.
Gorgeous skin action plan •
Make it your mission to exercise for an hour each day. Find an exercise that you love so you can stick to it and enjoy it.
•
Build exercise into your day. Walk or cycle to get somewhere or sit on a Swiss ball to help tone your abs while you’re on the computer.
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Give yourself a great night’s sleep every night, not just on weekends. Aim for at least 9 hours per night. Don’t let sleep stealers keep you up when it’s time to hit the sack.
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Chill out at some point every day and take some time to breathe.
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Have fun! Don’t let life be all stress and work—you need to find the right balance.
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HEALTH &BEAUTY MYTHS
THE
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS f you’re wondering why this is important, remember that you’re in the biggest and most critical growth spurt of your life. If you are between fifteen and eighteen you’re in the process of putting on the finishing touches for adulthood. For girls, this means adding some fat padding. For boys, it means adding muscle. These changes can encourage girls to cut kilojoules (calories), nutrients and certain food groups to stay slim, while boys may overeat to satisfy their appetites. Both can lead to health problems down the road, and cutting out some of the vital nutrients can be downright dangerous. Then, of course, there’re all those beauty myths: tanning gets rid of acne, popping pimples helps them go away faster, the more you wash your face, the faster you’ll get rid of your acne, and so on. And what about the sun? Is it completely bad? Should we be shielding our skin from the sun completely? Let’s get it straight once and for all.
I
All-time myths
Myth 1: without milk you can’t build strong bones You’ve probably seen those ‘Got Milk’ ads everywhere, the ones with all those celebrities telling you that you just have to have milk to be healthy and build strong bones. But studies clearly show that on a nation-by-nation basis, people who consume the most milk have the weakest bones and the highest rates of osteoporosis! So why is it that milk-drinkers tend to have more bone breaks than people who consume milk infrequently or not at all? The real answer is not how much calcium we eat in our
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS diets, but how much calcium we prevent from leaving our bones. When we eat lots of protein, including milk of course, this increases the production of acid in the blood, which can be neutralised by calcium from our bones. While we may be getting lots of calcium, we’re also flushing out lots too, so we’re coming out way behind in the calcium equation. If you really want to get more calcium, the best place to find it is where grass-fed cows get it in the first place: green, leafy vegies.
Myth 2: diet soft drinks are good if you want to lose weight Research shows that artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, found in low-kilojoule (low-calorie) soft drinks may act as appetite stimulants—making you eat more. These artificial sweeteners are also thought to be toxic to the human body. So, you are in a complete no-win situation if you drink them and want to lose weight.
Myth 3: skipping meals is a good way to lose weight Skipping meals to lose weight is another bad idea. You’re far more likely to overeat at the next meal because you’re so hungry. And when you miss out on meals, your body believes you’re going into starvation mode, and your metabolism slows down. Skipping breakfast is a bad idea too, because eating in the morning jump-starts your metabolism.
No-kilojoule (no-calorie) = no weight gain myth Normally, when you eat enough carbohydrates, one of your key brain chemicals, called serotonin is released, and you get that relaxed, full feeling. But when you combine aspartame with carbs—say, when you eat a sandwich with a diet soft drink—the aspartame stops the brain making this chemical, meaning that you don’t get that feeling of having had enough. You continue to eat and drink, often having more substances containing aspartame, and the cycle continues. So, if the label says ‘sugar-free’, don’t even think about it, for the sake of your health and your skin.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Myth 4: dieting works Get-thin-quick schemes never work. Ninety-eight per cent of dieters gain back the weight. Eating healthy meals in smaller portions and adding regular exercise is the only weight-loss program that really works. Depriving yourself usually leads to bingeing and overeating anyway.
Myth 5: you have to start dieting young to be thin later The more diets you’ve been on, the more likely you are to struggle with food and weight as an adult. Dieting can also lead to eating disorders. So skip it.
Myth 6: drinking water helps you lose weight While heaps of water is good for you and vital for clear skin, it won’t increase the rate at which your body burns kilojoules (calories). But you’ll definitely be getting far fewer kilojoules (calories) during the day if you down water instead of soft drinks.
Myth 7: fasting is a great way to get thin If you don’t eat for a few days, you’ll see a dramatic weight loss, but you’ll lose mostly water weight (you’re dehydrated). Also, your body can’t tell the difference between total fasting (eating nothing) and starving. When you fast, your body starts trying to conserve its resources (i.e. kilojoules (calories)).
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS Starvation lowers your body’s ability to burn fat efficiently and it lowers your metabolic rate. When starved you’ll feel awful and move less, so you burn fewer kilojoules (calories) because you’re more sluggish. Also, your body will crave twice as much after starving, and you’ll gain what you lost and then some. Plus, it’s dangerous. Fasting can result in deficiencies in a number of vital vitamins and minerals, which in turn can cause infections, skin conditions, poor wound healing, hair loss, exhaustion, and if it goes on for long enough, it can stunt your growth. Q. What are the short-term effects of extreme dieting? —Olivia, age sixteen A. Extreme dieting is seriously bad news for developing teens. You’re in a phase of rapid growth and when you cut back on even a small amount of kilojoules (calories) you’re not getting all the nutrients (like calcium, iron, protein, and essential fats) you need. Extreme dieting can mess with your growth and development in every single way. There are stacks of other effects of extreme dieting including: lack of energy, irritability, depression, fatigue and muscle loss. Dramatic weight loss can lead to irregular and problem periods for girls, and if it goes on for long enough it sometimes can interfere with
reproductive function. And, of course, your metabolism will slow down to a crawl, and when food is available again, it’s stored immediately as fat. Q. What are the long-term effects of extreme dieting? —Megan, age fifteen A. Staying on a highly restrictive diet for a long period of time can cause all sorts of lasting damage to your body. It can stunt your growth and cause hormone imbalances, hair loss, dry skin, brittle bones, a weakened heart, liver and kidney damage and irregular or no periods in girls. And it’s probably not a big deal for you now, but it can make your body and skin age before its time.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Myth 8: eggs are unhealthy because they bump up cholesterol Don’t be fooled, eggs don’t bump up cholesterol. The only thing that eggs boost is healthy carotenoid antioxidants— lutein and zeaxanthin. These two weird-sounding antioxidants are fantastic for your skin and eyes. Plus eggs are an excellent source of protein.
Myth 9: osteoporosis is an old woman’s disease Women in their twenties and thirties can get osteoporosis. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. But if you don’t get enough nutrients (especially calcium, magnesium and vitamin D) or if you’ve been cutting kilojoules (calories) for long enough, that’s a recipe for an increased risk of osteoporosis.
The big beauty myths The facts seem confusing when it comes to creating clear skin. So let’s pop those myths.
Myth 1: the black stuff inside blackheads is deep-down dirt Contrary to popular belief, the dark stuff inside a blackhead isn’t dirt. A blackhead is an open pore, clogged with a combo of dead skin cells and sebum (oil), that’s exposed to air. It’s that simple. To help keep blackheads away, be sure to exfoliate, gently.
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS Myth 2: the more you wash your face, the fewer breakouts you’ ll have Hygiene isn’t related to the development of acne. Washing your face each day gets rid of dead skin cells, excess oil, and surface dirt, but too much cleansing or washing too vigorously can lead to dryness and irritation—which can actually make acne worse. Dermatologists usually recommend gently washing— not scrubbing or rubbing—the face no more than twice a day with a mild cleanser and patting the skin dry. Try to steer clear of harsh exfoliants or scrubs, which can irritate blemishes, and toners that contain alcohol, as they can dry out the skin.
Myth 3: popping pimples will help them go away Even though popping a pimple seems like a good idea, and makes it look less noticeable, popping can cause the zit to stay around longer. How? Popping or squeezing can push bacteria from the zit further into the skin, making the area around the spot even more inflamed and red. Sometimes, popping a pimple causes a scar to form; and scars, in the form of dents and pits, can last forever.
Myth 4: you can’t wear make- up or shave if you want clear skin You don’t have to forgo cosmetics as long as the products used are labelled ‘non-comedogenic’, which means they won’t block your pores. Be sure to wash off any make-up before you go to bed.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Tea tree oil is a natural anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory agent that will help send your pimples packing. Try these remedies:
Natural zit blitz 1 1 drop of tea tree oil (available at most health food stores) ½ cup water Combine tea tree oil and water. Use a cotton bud to swab this mixture directly on blemishes. This mixture can be kept in a sterilised jar for several weeks.
Natural zit blitz 2 5 drops of tea tree oil 5 drops of lavender oil 1 teaspoon hazelnut oil or aloe vera gel Combine ingredients and mix well. Apply mixture to the affected area. You can use this treatment regularly, but back off if your skin becomes dry. This mixture can also be stored in a sterilised jar for several weeks.
If your make-up is irritating your skin or seems to be causing breakouts, stop using the product and see a dermatologist. For guys with acne, you can shave with an electric razor, but go lightly around blemishes to avoid nicking the skin and causing irritation and infection.
Myth 5: if you keep getting breakouts, you should use more acne medication until your breakouts stop When it comes to over-the-counter medications containing active ingredients such as benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid, more isn’t better. Using too much can actually worsen acne because it leads to dryness and irritation.
Myth 6: you can catch acne from other people While certain types of acne do involve bacteria, it’s located in the hair follicle under your skin, so it can’t be passed on through contact. So, kissing or touching someone with acne won’t cause you to get it.
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS Myth 7: skin should be perfect all the time Perfect skin all the time is a myth. Our skin changes constantly. The only perfect skin you’ll come across is airbrushed skin! So don’t compare yourself to anyone else.
Myth 8: a tan helps clear acne While catching rays may temporarily help dry up oiliness, the short-term benefit isn’t worth it. Sun exposure increases the size of the oil-producing glands in your skin and can make your pores appear larger, and it can actually increase blackheads over time. Unprotected tanning also leads to premature ageing and puts you at an increased risk of skin cancer. If you’re using any prescription acne medications (including oral contraceptives, which are often prescribed to help clear up acne), it’s especially important to stay out of the sun and away from tanning beds. These drugs can make your skin extremely sensitive to sunlight and the rays from tanning booths. Hey, sunshine!
While we’re on the subject of the sun, there’s so much confusing information out there. Is the sun good? Bad? How much do you need? And should you completely shun the sun? Like chocolate and most other yummy things in life, a little bit is good, but too much of it can blow your beauty big time. Having sun-kissed skin makes us feel healthier. And almost two-thirds of teens think they look better with a tan.
TIP Your shampoo and toothpaste can play a part in some breakouts. If you tend to breakout on your forehead, then the culprit could be your shampoo or any of your hair products. If it’s around the mouth, then it could be your toothpaste. Try switching products to see if this makes a difference.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS We absolutely need sunshine to stay healthy, to make vitamin D (which builds strong bones and boosts our immune system), to get a good night’s sleep and to feel good. But too much sun is the worst destroyer and ager of skin that you’re likely to encounter. In your teenage years, you probably don’t give much thought to wrinkles: they happen to older people. But it takes twenty to thirty years for sun damage to appear, so the damage you do now won’t show up until your mid-thirties or forties. And this is when you will seriously regret all that excessive soaking up of the sun. Still not convinced? Have you seen a wrinkled bum? Probably not, because most bums rarely see the light of day! Most are still soft and baby-smooth. So, hold on, does that mean we need to completely shun the sun? There are a number of researchers, including Dr Michael F. Holick, a professor of medicine and dermatology from a prestigious university in the US, who believe that small amounts of sun exposure have powerful health benefits. While too much sun causes wrinkles and raises other health concerns, Dr Holick has shown that a lack of proper sun exposure can cause serious health problems. How come? Well, we absolutely need vitamin D to stay healthy and the sun is our main source—it provides about 75 per cent. Vitamin D is generated by the skin’s exposure to the sun’s UVB rays. What’s so important about vitamin D? Vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption, and without it you could develop a condition known as rickets, which makes your bones as bendy as Barbie’s.
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS Vitamin D also plays a vital role in your immune system. Research has found that low levels of vitamin D increase the risk of almost every single cancer there is, from breast cancer to colon cancer. What about skin cancer?
Scientists agree that the sun increases the risk of skin cancer, but wait for it, research has shown that it’s actually protective against the deadly form called melanoma. Here’s a quick 101 on skin cancers. Skin cancer is basically divided into two classes: • •
Melanoma Non-melanoma.
Non-melanoma has the highest cure rate of any cancer—95 per cent. But on the other hand melanoma can be deadly. Even though melanoma accounts for only about four per cent of all cases of skin cancer, it causes 79 per cent of skin cancer deaths. Non-melanoma skin cancer is quite strongly linked to cumulative sun exposure (i.e. spending day after day in the sun, like outdoor workers, farmers, lifeguards, etc.). On the other hand the dangerous melanoma has been linked to occasional, intense exposure (frizzling in the sun and burning to a crisp once a year). Studies have found that outdoor workers have higher rates of the far less dangerous non-melanoma cancers, but they have a lower risk of all other cancers. And one study has found that in people diagnosed with melanoma, those who have a greater history of sun exposure actually have a better chance of surviving the disease.
Tanning bed trauma Don’t get cheated into thinking solariums are a safe substitute for the sun: 15–30 minutes in a tanning salon is equivalent to an entire day at the beach. Just one trip to a tanning salon can produce DNA damage that can cause skin cancer. So solariums are a complete no-win situation for your skin.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The bright side of the sun
TIP Just 20 minutes of sun exposure without sunscreen enables your skin to produce about 20 000 IU of vitamin D. You’d have to drink about 400 glasses of milk to get that same amount!
Recent research conducted at Stanford University in the US found that brief periods of unprotected exposure to the sun might actually be good for your skin. How come? Sunlight triggers the production of vitamin D within the body. The researchers found that this action causes your immune cells to travel to the outer layers of your skin, where they are available to protect and help repair damage such as that caused by sun exposure. Safe sunning
To figure out how much sun you need, Dr Holick suggests you consider how long it would take your skin to turn pink (not burnt, just pink) if you went out at lunchtime, with no sunscreen, say in summer. Then go out for one-quarter of that time. So, for example, if it takes 40 minutes for you to go pink, you would need just 10 minutes in your cossies two or three times a week. That’s it. It’s all about getting safe sun. Just enough to top up your vitamin D needs, but not a single sunbeam more! Whatever you do, never, ever let your skin burn. Your skin will thank you forever if you avoid the big burn.
Myth 9: smoking has nothing to do with acne Smoking is a major beauty buster and you’ll especially want to avoid lighting up if you’ve got acne. Research clearly shows that acne is much more widespread in cigarette smokers; and the more you smoke the worse your acne is likely to be.
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THE HEALTH & BEAUTY MYTHS Why? Smokers have higher levels of testosterone, and the more you smoke, the higher the testosterone. Yes, that’s right, testosterone is the hormone that can step up oil production in your skin. Smoking also promotes inflammation, lowers antioxidants, and just to top it all off, it can mess up the metabolism of the beauty-boosting omega-3 fatty acids.
Myth 10: drinking doesn’t affect your skin You know that you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol until you’re eighteen, but if you do, you won’t be doing your skin, your health, or your brain any favours. In fact, it’s one of the worst things you can do for so many reasons during your teenage years. Animal studies have shown that alcohol drunk during the teenage years can affect the key parts of the brain involved in memory and learning, especially a structure called the hippocampus, which is involved in memory. Studies have found that those who drank the most had a much smaller hippocampus. Now, you’ll need your memory, I promise, in years to come! But statistics show a quarter of all twelve to fifteen year-olds are current drinkers, and while that proportion hasn’t changed that much in twenty years, the amount they’re drinking has increased steadily. This increase is believed to be due to Breezers, bourbon and Coke, and all the other ready-to-drink drinks, that make alcohol appealing to younger palates. Now, health issues aside, you don’t want to be drinking for the sake of your skin. These sorts of drinks are super
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS high in kilojoules (calories). Each gram of hard alcohol contains 29 kilojoules (7 calories)—more than any other type of food except fat—and the kilojoules (calories) it gives you are empty because there is no nutrition in them. This equates to ‘minus’ beauty points. Many of these drinks are also packed with sugar, which will send your blood-sugar levels soaring. Another thing: alcohol is a diuretic, so it will sap you and your skin of moisture. It depletes your body of B vitamins too, which help keep nails hard, hair thick and skin luminous. A deficiency of B vitamins can result in dry, thin skin. Alcohol also causes blood vessels to dilate, creating puffiness around the eye. So drinking alcohol is a no-win situation for your skin.
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GREAT
FEELING
INSIDE OUT
FROMTHE
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS ‘ ’m too short . . .’ ‘I’m too fat . . .’ ‘I’d be much happier if I
I
was skinnier and had longer legs . . .’ ‘If only I could get rid of those freckles and pimples . . .’ ‘I’d be much more popular if I had straight hair and a small nose . . .’ If any of these thoughts ever whirl around inside your head, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Sure, it’s not easy being a teenager and feeling good about yourself in today’s world. Your hormones are going crazy, you’ve got the pressure to fit in, be popular, the stress to do well at school, to get things together. And on top of all this, you’re constantly being bombarded with these images of perfection: the ideal body and skin as shown in magazines, movies and on TV. It’s not just perfect skin; everyone seems to have the perfect body too. Being unrealistically thin has become the beauty ideal, from models on the runway to your favourite celebs on the red carpet. And you are confronted with all of this while your body is constantly changing; the pressure on how you should look is huge. It’s no wonder so many teens feel inadequate and negative about their bodies. Most teens are plagued with self-doubt and insecurity from time to time; it’s a natural part of growing up. But it becomes a problem when feelings of not being good enough begin to take over and become your main focus. Instead of accepting your uniqueness, you start to reject the very things that make you special.
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FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT Chasing an illusion ‘There are three billion women in the world that don’t look like supermodels and only eight who do.’ Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
Unfortunately, many of us look to models as the ideal definition of body size and beauty. But in reality, they’re naturally far from perfect. These models start out as normal, but through the use of high-tech photography and computers, they become the image of perfection. By using special lighting, angle shots and airbrushing any scars, lines and imperfections are removed without a trace. In fact, most of the pictures you see in ads and magazines today are digitally altered in some way. Even celebrities get airbrushed. And, on top of that, don’t forget that most celebs and models have the best make-up artists, stylists, hairdressers, personal trainers and chefs working for them around the clock. There is so much work going on behind the scenes that we don’t get to see. If we all had that much help, believe me, we’d look that way too. For a reality check, watch the ‘Dove Evolution’ video, which shows what’s really going on behind the scenes. The images of women and men in ads today are intended to sell products. Unfortunately they don’t promote a positive or healthy self-image. The media is a powerful force, but remember it’s not reality.
www.campaignforrealbeauty. com.au/ or you can also check it out on YouTube.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Getting real Have you ever thought about how these unreal images actually affect you? If you tend to feel worse about yourself after seeing these images, well, you’re not alone. Research has shown that young teenage girls who look at pictures of thin, idealised models have higher rates of depression, lower self-esteem, and are more likely to develop seriously unhealthy habits. The desire to be thin causes lots of girls to take up smoking (to curb appetite), cut down on consuming too many kilojoules (calories), abuse laxatives, overuse saunas, over-exercise, and even cut back on drinking water. When you have a negative body image, you generally have a distorted perception of your size and shape, which can lead to feelings of shame and anxiety. Psychologists and counsellors agree that a negative body image can be a direct cause of low self-esteem; the more negative the perception of your body, the more negative you feel about yourself. Being unhappy with your body can affect how you feel about yourself as a person. It’s not uncommon for people who think poorly of their bodies to lose confidence and have problems in other areas of their lives, including their relationships. All you need to do is open the latest issue of a teen or women’s magazine and you’re likely to be bombarded with this message: keep losing weight because you can never be thin enough. In reality, only about 4 per cent of women genetically have the ideal body currently portrayed in the media. So it’s no wonder studies suggest that as many as 90 per cent of girls want to reduce their body size. This thin
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FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT ideal of beauty is impossible for most people to achieve and it comes at a great risk of hurting your health. Peer-group influence has a huge impact too. If your friends value thinness and engage in unhealthy diets and ways to lose weight, you’re more likely to do the same just to fit in. Resist this trap and never compare yourself to anyone else. You are a unique and perfect you. As Judy Garland, the famous actress from the 1940s and 1950s who starred as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, said: ‘Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.’ Having a healthy body image means feeling comfortable and at home in your body. It means that you know how to take care of yourself and that you strive to be the best person that you can be in all aspects of your life. Teens with high self-esteem have the ability to handle the stressful stuff that gets thrown their way. And, most importantly, a strong sense of self allows you to accept yourself for who you are—you won’t feel the need to change yourself for your friends or anyone else. As Eleanor Roosevelt, author and wife of the thirtysecond president of the United States, famously said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent’.
You’re a change in progress Just being a teenager means your body is constantly going through mega changes. During puberty the bones in your legs and arms grow long; if you’re a girl, your hips widen, breasts start to develop, you get curvier, hair grows in new places, your waist becomes fuller, and you gain some
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS weight; if you’re a guy, your voice gets deeper, you’ll gain a lot of weight, your muscles develop, your chest and shoulders get broader, and hair starts to grow under your arms, and on your legs and face. As well as the obvious physical changes you are experiencing, you’re also faced with how you feel about yourself. It may feel weird to be filling out, like maybe you’re getting fat, but remember this is all so normal. It’s natural to gain weight rapidly—usually 20 kg (45 lb) or more—during the pre-teen and early teenage years. Before puberty most girls have about 19 per cent body fat, the desired shape that’s promoted in the media, and after puberty about 22 per cent body fat. This weight gain prepares your body for your monthly periods and, ultimately one day, for having a baby. So it’s normal that the figure you have at fourteen won’t be the same at age twenty-two. It’s important to accept these changes as we grow up; everyone goes through it. Remember there is perfection in all shapes and sizes. Your body type is uniquely yours, but, of course, your family genes help to determine your ultimate shape. Some girls have naturally larger builds and aren’t meant to be skinny. Others are naturally really thin, and no matter how much they eat, they don’t put on weight. The key is to accept and appreciate the body type you are, and move on to being as healthy and beautiful as you can be.
‘Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical’. Sophia Loren
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FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS What you can do Be comfortable and enjoy your body and its abilities. The most beautiful women are those who have confidence and respect themselves, whatever their shape or size. Question the messages of advertisements. Instead of saying, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ ask, ‘What’s wrong with this ad?’ If you’re sick of what you see in magazines, write in and tell them why it really bothers you. Set your own standards instead of letting someone else set them for you.
Radiate from the inside out It’s essential to take care of the outer stuff, but it’s also super important to look after your inner self too. Your appearance is only one small factor that contributes to your confidence, happiness and success in life. Even though it sounds kind of uncool, beauty really does start on the inside. It’s probably hard to focus on the whole inner-beauty stuff if you’ve got a horrible angry mess on your face—selfconfidence and self-esteem can take a huge hit if you’ve got acne. We all have insecure moments; those times when we don’t feel smart enough, attractive enough or good enough—and we feel like the whole world knows it. Don’t worry, these feelings are so normal and all you need is a little positive self-talk to help you get through it.
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FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT By using positive self-talk, you can instantly make yourself feel better. Look in the mirror and say: ‘I like myself’ or ‘I like who I’m becoming’ or ‘I will not allow acne to determine my sense of self’ or ‘I may not like my skin at the moment, but it’s already getting better.’ It’s all about being comfortable in your own skin.
How to love yourself and your bod Feeling good about yourself and your body makes you happier and more successful in everything you do. So, ignore all those weird cues you get about women’s looks from the media and instead remind yourself often that you are lovable and cool just the way you are.
Feel- good checklist Just by taking a few feel-good minutes each and every day, you’ll enjoy a whole new outlook that will make you look and feel fabulous: Make time for yourself: Sit by yourself for about 5 minutes every day. Breathe deeply, and think only positive thoughts (no negative self-talk allowed). This is your special time to focus on and take care of yourself. Stay positive: Encourage friends to say only nice things about their own, as well as other people’s bodies (and the same applies to you). The old saying prevails: If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS End the compare-a-thon: Never, ever compare yourself to others. Instead, celebrate your strengths, and commend yourself on them at least once every day. If you want to change something about yourself, do it for yourself, and not for anyone else. Get strong: Girls who focus on their physical strength rather than on their appearance are, on the whole, happier and healthier. Also, exercise keeps your body healthy, beats stress, balances moods and generally makes you feel better about yourself. Love, respect and accept yourself as you are: Nobody’s perfect. Remember, you are your own worst critic. So, instead of thinking about your so-called flaws, focus on the good stuff and accept your unique self. If you want to earn respect from others, you must respect yourself first; others will follow your lead. Develop your talents: Focus on your accomplishments, acknowledge your achievements and nurture your talents. Challenge yourself with new stuff. In order to feel really good about yourself, you need to feel that you are able to achieve and do things well. Find your passion: Discover something that you’re really passionate about. Doing the things you love makes you feel good about yourself. Be creative: Sometimes we let our lives overtake us, but exploring your creative side and experiencing brain-tingling intellectual challenges are exciting and feel good in every way.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Compliment others: When someone has a great idea, a sunny, positive outlook, charms you with their personality, has achieved a goal, or just plain makes you feel good— make sure you tell them. It feels great to make others feel good. Treat yourself kindly: You are your own best friend, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Next time you’re tempted to be tough on yourself, think of how you’d respond to a close friend in the same situation, then treat yourself with the love and respect you’d give them. Hang out: Always surround yourself with positive people and build tight friendships and strong family bonds. Why? People with warm, loving personal relationships tend to live longer, healthier and happier lives. Imagine the ideal you: If you could picture the best you, what exactly would you be like? Think of all the people that you look up to and pinpoint what it is that you admire about them: this will give you some idea about the positive changes that you can make. Stretch out of your comfort zone: Trying out for the soccer team, auditioning for the school play or rallying for a way-out cause you believe in can be easier said than done. Go ahead and rise to the challenge; surprise yourself and do things you normally wouldn’t do. Stepping outside the familiar provides opportunities to discover new passions and to learn new and exciting things about yourself that you never knew existed.
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FEELING GREAT FROM THE INSIDE OUT Take chances: Don’t wallow in what-if’s. Jump at oncein-a-lifetime opportunities so you aren’t left wondering what the outcome would have been if only you had done X. Try out for the debating team or make a new friend by inviting the new kid at school to join you and your friends to see a flick. If you don’t make the cut or your new friend declines, that’s okay. You are in no worse position for trying and you know that you gave it your best shot; there is always next time. Give of yourself and your time: Get involved in the art of giving. Volunteering your time to others—like working for a community organisation or heading up a school club— will boost your self-esteem and you’ll be doing worthwhile things for your school and community. Believe in something: Take a stand about what you believe in—help the homeless, save the whales, go green and clean up the environment, or get involved in some other cause that you are passionate about. Resist the temptation to gossip: We live in a gossipmad world. But gossip is toxic and hurts people. If you’ve ever been gossiped about, you know just how terrible it feels. Make a pact with your friends to never say unkind things about others.
‘Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.’
Check out the website of Goldie Hawn (Kate Hudson’s mum): Words Can Heal. www.wordscanheal.com
Mother Teresa
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Be happy: You can always brighten someone’s day with a fabulous smile. Happiness is contagious, so try smiling at a familiar face across the classroom or laughing at your parents’ bad jokes. If everyone smiled and laughed more often, the world would be a much happier place.
‘There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.’ Marguerite Gardiner Blessington, Countess and novelist from nineteenth-century England
You are a unique, amazing and original person; there’s no one else out there quite like you. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Embrace and accept yourself for who you truly are. Once you get this (and hopefully by now, you have), you’ll be home-free and on the road to destination feeling-great.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS lanning and preparation count when it comes to getting great results. Getting your family to support you makes a big difference. I know you probably aren’t responsible for the shopping in the house, but if you have time, it would be great to go shopping with your mum or dad and help them out. I recommend that before you go, sit down with pen and paper, and make a weekly menu plan and shopping list. That way, you’ll be certain to have on hand all the healthy essentials you need to prepare your meals. Okay, so where do you start?
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TIP If you live for sugar, you’ ll want to start cutting back on the sweet stuff slowly. This will be the most difficult part, but you can do it. And if you absolutely can’t resist, have the sugar hit after a meal, so it won’t spike your bloodsugar level as much.
Clear out the cupboards It’s time for the big cleanout! All those high-carb treats and junk foods lurking in the cupboards will call out to you at some point in time. You may want to hide the tempting treats like biscuits, chocolate—except the dark (bittersweet) kind, crackers, chips, sugary breakfast cereals, snack foods and anything else that may sidetrack you along the way. Read all labels and get rid of anything with artificial sweeteners or high-fructose corn syrup. Don’t forget to sift through the fridge too. Banish the bad fats: refined cooking oils—like corn, safflower and sunflower, margarine and anything that contains trans fats (hydrogenated oils). Organise a separate shelf for all your stuff.
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GETTING PREPARED Substitutes for sugar lovers Stevia, also called sweetleaf or sugarleaf, is a non-kilojoule (non-calorie) herbal sweetener from a plant native to South America. Not everyone likes its aftertaste, but it’s about three hundred times sweeter than sugar and makes a great sugar substitute. Agave syrup is a natural sweetener from a succulent plant native to Mexico. Agave syrup is low GI too, so it doesn’t cause spikes in blood sugar. It tastes great and contains vitamins and minerals not found in processed sweeteners. Xylitol is another natural sugar substitute with the same sweetening power of sugar, and no bitter aftertaste. It’s found naturally in some plants, fruits and vegetables. Xylitol has a very low GI of 7, so it won’t bump up blood sugar. Raw dark honey in small amounts is also a good option—and it contains face-friendly phytos too.
Become a super shopper Read on for a no-fail shopping list and tips. Remember the key to eating well is to have all the healthy essentials on hand.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS The brighter the better
TIP A good rule to remember is that if food is made by nature and you’re eating it in its natural form, then it’s a great choice.
Red, yellow and green fruit and vegies are rich in beta carotene, vitamins C and E and other antioxidant phytos. These hot colours for a healthy complexion help protect your skin cells from all sorts of damage. Remember soft-skinned fruit, like peaches, apples, nectarines, strawberries, pears and grapes, absorb more pesticides. Buy these organic when you can. Can’t always afford (or find) organic? Not to worry. When organic isn’t an option, there are plenty of lunchtime favourites that are low in pesticides, like bananas, pineapples, mangoes and kiwis. And any fruit and vegies (even if they are sprayed) are better than eating none. Before you go shopping, write down the names of five richly coloured fruit and vegies that you really like, then add two to the list that you’re curious about and are willing to try. Use the following as your ultimate shopping checklist, choose fresh fruit and vegies in season, wholegrain foods and be sure to keep organised and well stocked up.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Gorgeous carbs Vegetables Artichokes Asparagus Avocados Beetroot Broccoli and broccolini Brussels sprouts Cabbage—Chinese, savoy, green, red Capsicums (peppers)—red, orange, yellow Carrots Cauliflower Celery Cucumbers Dark leafy greens—spinach, bok choy, kale, silverbeet, watercress Eggplants (aubergines) Garlic Green beans Green soybeans—in shells Lettuces—cos, iceberg, mignonette, butter Mushrooms—button, field, Swiss brown, shiitake, Portobello, enoki Onions—white, brown, red Peas
Pumpkin (squash)—butternut, jap, Queensland blue Radishes Rocket (arugula) Shallots Snow peas Spring onions (scallions) Sweet potato Tomatoes Zucchinis (courgettes)
Fabulous fruit Apples Bananas Berries—strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries Cherries Grapefruit Honeydew melon Kiwifruit Lemons Limes Mangoes Oranges Papaya Peaches Pears Plums Prunes Rockmelon (cantaloupe)
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GETTING PREPARED Great grains
Lovely legumes
Barley Brown rice Brown rice pasta Buckwheat Natural muesli Oats, unprocessed Quinoa Soy pasta Wholegrain couscous Wholemeal (wholewheat) pasta Wild rice
Chickpeas Dried peas and beans—black beans, kidney beans, navy beans, pinto beans, black-eyed peas, cannellini beans, split peas Lentils
Best bread bets 100 per cent wholegrain breads Dark rye bread Pumpernickel bread Wholegrain pita bread
Flours Arrowroot powder or cornflour (cornstarch) Baking powder Brown rice flour Rye flour
Perfect protein Canned salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel in water or olive oil Free-range chicken Free-range eggs Free-range turkey Fresh fish—mackerel, salmon, sardines, anchovies, ocean trout, tuna Goat’s milk or sheep’s milk cheese— feta, goat’s curd, haloumi, chèvre, kefalograviera Goat’s milk or sheep’s milk yoghurt Grass-fed organic lean meats Natural yoghurt Tofu/tempeh
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GETTING PREPARED Fabulous face fats Avocado oil (cold-pressed) Canola oil (cold-pressed) Coconut oil (virgin or unrefined) Extra virgin olive oil (cold-pressed) Flaxseed oil (cold-pressed) Macadamia nut oil (cold-pressed) Sesame oil (cold-pressed) Pumpkin seed oil (cold-pressed)
Nutritious nuts and seeds Almonds Brazil nuts Cashews Hazelnuts Macadamia nuts Pecans Pepitas (pumpkin seeds) Pinenuts Pistachio nuts Sesame seeds Sunflower seeds Walnuts
Season your dishes Apple cider vinegar Balsamic vinegar Jalapeño chillies Mustard—Dijon, wholegrain
Natural sea salt—look out for Celtic sea salt Pepper—white, black Tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) Mirin (Japanese rice wine) Miso Red wine vinegar
Sweeten up your life Agave syrup Applesauce (unsweetened) Brown rice syrup Carob powder Coconut flakes/shredded coconut Coconut milk/coconut cream Dark (bittersweet) chocolate—70 per cent cocoa or more Dates (remember dates are sky high on the GI, so enjoy them in moderation and eat them with a protein source like almonds to blunt the bloodsugar response) Date sugar Dried figs Maple syrup Raisins Raw cocoa powder Raw honey Stevia Xylitol
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Spice it up
Jars and canned stuff
Basil Bay leaves Chillies Cinnamon—sticks and ground Coriander (cilantro), fresh Cumin—seeds and ground Curry powder Garlic Ginger—fresh and ground Ground coriander Ground nutmeg Ground turmeric Mint—fresh and dried Oregano—fresh and dried Paprika Rosemary Thyme
Almond butter Anchovy fillets Canned diced tomatoes Canned legumes—chickpeas, lentils, cannellini beans, navy beans, butter beans Capers Hummus Olives Organic chicken stock Tahini (sesame seed paste)
Drinks Green tea Rice milk Soy milk Tomato juice Unsweetened apple juice Unsweetened cranberry juice Water
Frozen Blueberries Cherries Corn Mixed berries Peas Raspberries Strawberries
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THE
GORGEOUS
SKIN PLAN
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS ou might be thinking, I really want to look and feel great, but how am I going to remember all the stuff I need to do? Don’t worry, this chapter puts everything we’ve talked about into a complete program, so you won’t have to remember a thing. The idea is that you use the Gorgeous Skin Plan to completely design your own program: you pick and choose what you’d like to eat from the breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack options or, if that sounds too hard, you can follow the suggested two-week plan. Flipping through these pages, you’ll see that it’s not a restricted eating plan. It certainly doesn’t mean going hungry, eating gross food or giving up everything you love. And you won’t even have to count kilojoules (calories), measure portion sizes or keep track of each snack along the way. You’ll discover that each meal is a balance of good protein, low-GI carbs and yummy good-for-you fats. Plus every meal contains a powerhouse of those beautyboosting phytos, to give your skin a gorgeous glow. The goal is to keep those blood-sugar, insulin and hormone levels in check—the major key to clear, radiant skin and good health. The Gorgeous Skin Plan is more than just a program for getting a clear, radiant complexion. There are so many other health, body and mind benefits: you’ll perform better at school, sleep better, have more energy, and be happier and healthier. The benefits of the plan are two-fold: you won’t just look great, you’ll feel great, too. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. Sometimes it will be tough to give up some of those foods that you love, especially those super addictive sugary snacks, but as you
Y
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN go along, it does get easier and more enjoyable, and ultimately it’s worth the odd sacrifice. Imagine the end result: see yourself in the mirror with clear, radiant, blemish-free skin, feeling fantastic. And once you start seeing these results, you’ll want to stay on track. Looking good does equal feeling good. Try to follow the plan for a full twelve weeks. I know it sounds like an eternity, but pimples don’t pop up overnight.
What happens if you slip up? On some days you’ll get it right, on others you won’t. That’s normal. It’s a fact of life. You can’t always be perfect. There are so many temptations and times when you have zero opportunity to prepare anything healthy. Don’t worry, even if you slip up occasionally (we all do!), you’ll still be getting the health and beauty benefits. Keep positive and stay focused and try to stick to the plan as best you can. Follow the overall guidelines and you’ll learn to avoid the key beauty busters, like sugar, junky carbs, trans and other bad fats, soft drinks, white flour, chips, takeaway, junk and packaged foods. Avoiding sugar, sweets and junky carbs is going to be one of the hardest parts of the program, but remind yourself that high insulin levels promote inflammation and kick-start the whole acne process. During the twelve weeks you’ll want to get 9–10 hours of shut-eye each night, keep your stress-meter in check and do some form of exercise that you love. So, don’t forget: stress less and sleep more.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Here are some ways to make sticking to the plan more enjoyable:
Do it together Ever tried to do some sort of training by yourself? It’s tough. So if you can, do it with your best friend or a group of friends. It will make it so much more fun and if you work as a team, you’ll help keep each other motivated. You could start a Facebook or an email chain. Send each other lists of what you’ve eaten, how much exercise you’ve done, and what progress you’ve made. It will help keep you focused.
Take a shot Another way to keep you inspired is to take a photo of yourself before you start the plan and again after twelve weeks. Or you can even take one at the start of each month or each week. Sometimes we forget how we’ve changed and can’t see how we look every day. You could also shoot a video or a video log, if that’s your thing. Tip: To get the best results, make sure you take the photos in exactly the same situations—for example, take them wearing the exact same clothing and in the same light. That way it will be easier for you to compare.
Keep note of your success Remember that everyone is different, so what may work well for your best friend may not work for you. Download
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN the personal journal from the Gorgeous Skin for Teens website www.gorgeous-skin-for-teens.com and use it to take note of everything you eat and drink. This can help you get a clearer idea of what might be triggering your acne or making it worse. Also when you feel tempted to stray, keeping a journal can help to keep you focused. Take note of your sleep, stress levels, exercise, moods and any changes in your skin. Do this with your best friend or a group of friends to help keep you motivated. Recording your daily progress will keep you on track—and when people keep a written record of their progress, they tend to get better results. Go to Gorgeous Skin for Teens/Get connected, where you can chat with other teens and share information about what works and what doesn’t, and get other tips and ideas.
Goal set Set a clear goal for yourself. Goals can be a powerful motivator. They’re like a bridge between knowing what you can do and actually doing it. Your goal could be something like getting lasting blemish-free skin or looking and feeling fantastic.
Get your family in on it Now, you’re going to have to get your whole family involved because it’s going to be tough to stick to it if everyone else is chowing down on hot chips, pizza and other types of takeaway. The entire family will reap the benefits too.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Here are some overall guidelines for the Gorgeous Skin Plan: • Skip the empty kilojoule (calorie), sugar-filled foods, including soft drinks, doughnuts, bagels, muffins, pastries, sugary cereals and lollies. • Ditch the dairy, especially milk, ice cream, full-fat cheeses and any yoghurt packed with sugar or artificial sweeteners. • Cut out the junky carbs, like white flour, white breads, white rice, pasta, potato chips, crackers, cakes, biscuits and all sugars. • Say goodbye to all junk, takeaway, fast and fried foods, and most packaged and processed foods. • Aim for as many servings of colourful fruit and vegies every day as possible. Have at least one salad per day with lots of dark green leaves. • Always eat protein with each meal and snack. This balances out blood-sugar levels and will stop you reaching for that sugary snack. • Eat lots of different varieties of fish: mackerel, tuna, salmon, sardines, snapper, and aim for at least four servings a week. • Use olive oil as your primary oil. Avoid margarine and trans fats, and limit corn, safflower and sunflower oils. • Become best friends with the GI chart and avoid too many foods with a score over 50. Combine good protein, good fat and good carbs with each meal and snack. • Keep hydrated. Drink at least six to eight glasses of water a day. Add a twist of lemon or lime or a splash of unsweetened apple or cranberry juice.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN GORGEOUS SKIN MEAL GUIDELINES Breakfast Eating breakfast is an absolute must to keep your bloodsugar levels balanced and to give you energy to start the day. If you’re not big on breakfast or don’t have much time before school, have some yoghurt with fruit and nuts or whiz up a smoothie. Make sure you always include some protein like yoghurt, eggs or nuts.
Lunch The key to midday energy is to eat vegies and protein, and to top it off with a little good fat. Get as creative as you can with your school lunch. Stuff a wholegrain pita pocket with lots of vegies and some chicken, fish, eggs or tofu. Hummus, toasted pinenuts, macadamia nuts, sesame seeds and walnuts make tasty and healthy additions. See Power Lunch suggestions in this chapter on page 179 for lots more yummy ideas.
Dinner Your dinner choices will depend on what everyone else is having. Where possible, go for fresh fish, free-range chicken, lean organic grass-fed meat and lots of low-GI vegies and whole grains, like brown rice and quinoa. A little garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and fresh herbs will make just about any vegie taste great. If you like to cook, help your mum or dad out. Better yet, surprise everyone by cooking dinner.
TIP Never, ever skip breakfast. If you don’t eat in the morning, your body thinks you’re starving and will slow your metabolism down to a crawl to conserve energy.
TIP Try to eat at least one salad a day, and go for dark green leafy vegetables, like rocket (arugula), cos lettuce or spinach, to give your skin a real beauty boost.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP It’s important to always pack some healthy skin snacks for when you get the munchies between meals so that your blood sugar doesn’t bounce up and down. Don’ t go hungry. Eat stuff like dry- roasted almonds, apples, yoghurt, carrots or edamame (boiled soybeans in their skin) to refuel as the need arises.
Snacks This is the most challenging time to make beauty-friendly choices. There are so many yummy temptations out there and the options seem endless. But remember, giving in to these treats is the easiest way to undo all your good work. Stick to the foods on the snack list. Remember, you can get as creative as you like with the food in the ‘Green light list’ in the Appendix. Try to follow the overall guidelines, that way you’ll get the best results. It’s actually all so simple: get rid of the bad foods, add the good foods, stress less, move more, and make sure you’re getting your zzzs. That’s it. And for twelve weeks watch the transformation take place. * An asterisk next to the menu item indicates that the recipe can be found in Chapter 10.
Breakfast Choose one or two options: Cavewoman Muesli* with fruit and soy/rice milk or coconut milk/cream Omelette or scrambled eggs with vegies and a piece of fruit ¾ cup slow-cooked rolled oats topped with 2 tablespoons chopped almonds/walnuts and fruit Poached or soft-boiled eggs with wholegrain toast, avocado and grilled tomatoes Smoothie with your favourite fruit, yoghurt, soy/rice milk and a handful of walnuts
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Scrambled Tofu* with rockmelon (cantaloupe) slices or other fruit Hot Quinoa Cereal* with soy/rice milk, chopped fruit and crushed nuts, like almonds ¾ cup natural yoghurt with your favourite fruit, chopped nuts, like walnuts, and a drizzle of honey Natural Bircher Muesli* with soy/rice milk or coconut cream and fruit Scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms and chopped herbs, wholegrain toast and 1 piece of fresh fruit
TIP Sprinkle some ground cinnamon on your cereal, porridge (oatmeal) or sliced apple to help lower blood-sugar levels.
Lunch Choose one option: Wholegrain pita pocket stuffed with fresh vegies, avocado and hummus, a handful of roasted almonds, 1 piece of fresh fruit Salad and tuna sandwich on pumpernickel, a handful of trail mix, 1 piece of fresh fruit Grilled chicken breast, salad with dark green leafies, handful of raw nuts and raisins, 1 piece of fresh fruit Can of salmon/tuna/mackerel with salad, 1–2 slices of gluten-free bread or corn/rice crispbread, hard-boiled egg, 1 piece of fresh fruit Wholegrain sandwich with turkey, cottage cheese, beetroot, lots of fresh vegies, 1 piece of fresh fruit, a handful of trail mix At home options: Lentil and Vegetable Soup*, 2 pieces wholegrain rye bread, 1 piece of fresh fruit
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TIP Don’ t drink juice on an empty stomach. Juices have double the amount of sugar of fruit and no fibre to slow down the absorption. Remember the goal is to keep bloodsugar levels in check.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP Toast nuts like almonds in a pan and add them to your salad for extra crunch.
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Omelette with fresh vegies, green leafy salad with avocado, wholegrain rye bread or gluten-free bread Superfood Salad* with 1 small can of salmon, wholegrain bread or toasted pita pocket
Pack a power lunch Okay, so how do you tackle lunch at school, when everyone around you is eating stuff from the tuckshop? First, you need to have the right gear—your lunch box is one of your greatest assets. Make it seriously cool and get as creative and colourful as you can. Ask your mum to buy a good insulated lunch box, a mini reusable freezer pack and lots of different-sized resealable plastic containers. Or you can go for a Japanese lunch box, which has all sorts of interesting compartments. And if you do this with friends, it will be ten times easier. Instead of using a freezer pack, you can freeze half a bottle of water, in the morning top up the other half with water and add it to your lunch box. It will keep your lunch cold and fresh during morning classes, and by lunchtime it will have thawed out and be ready to drink. Lunch prep tips: Soggy sandwiches are no fun. Wash and dry salad vegies, using a paper towel to dry them thoroughly. Spread hummus instead of butter—it’s yummy plus it helps prevent your sandwiches from going soggy. Remember variety is the spice of life. Vary your lunch as much as possible; the same food every day can be boring.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN
*
Prepare as much as possible the night before so the morning rush doesn’t come between you and a healthy lunch.
Wraps and sandwiches You and your friends can have fun stuffing yummy wraps (made with wholegrain pita pockets) and making sandwiches (made with wholegrain, rye or pumpernickel breads). Use your creative talents and see what combinations you can come up with; the only limit is your imagination. Here are some filling ideas: Shredded or grated raw vegies, like cucumber, carrot, celery, beetroot, cos lettuce and spinach Hard-boiled eggs Chicken or turkey breast slices Canned tuna, mackerel, sardines or salmon Sun-dried tomatoes Hummus Tabouli Ricotta or cottage cheese Leftover roast meat with grated carrot, chopped lettuce and chutney Almond butter and grated carrot Chopped cooked chicken with cos lettuce and a healthy homemade mayonnaise made with olive oil Avocado.
* ** ** ** ** ** *
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Sushi rolls If you want to get seriously adventurous you can make your own sushi rolls. Think of a sushi roll as a sandwich and it’s sure to get your imagination rolling as to what to fill it with. Sushi rolls are a great way to use up leftover vegies, cooked fish or chicken, and you can try all sorts of ingredient combos. Mix and match the things you love. Have fun with: Vegetarian—avocado, red capsicum (pepper), carrot, cucumber, asparagus, pickled ginger Chicken—marinated chicken strips, shredded lettuce, red capsicum (pepper) Seafood—crab stick or tuna, avocado, red capsicum (pepper), cucumber Tofu—thinly sliced cucumber or carrot, avocado, radish, snow pea sprouts, tofu and toasted sesame seeds.
* * * *
Other lunch- lifting ideas
* *
Make fabulous feel-full salads. Salads are great in theory. Problem? They often leave you hungry an hour or so later. The trick is to include plenty of protein, which will help fill you up. Try adding nuts—like almonds or walnuts; lentils or chickpeas—they’re high in protein and fibre and low-fat; ricotta or cottage cheese. Add zip to tuna salad. Try using low-fat cottage cheese instead of mayonnaise. Add chopped apples and grated carrots. If you like curry dishes, add a dash of curry powder. Tamari almonds are great with tuna salad too.
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* * *
Liven up almond butter sandwiches. Sliced bananas are a great addition to an almond butter sandwich or instead of banana, add apple and a little ground cinnamon. Dress up chicken salad. Add apple, pineapple and a mixture of healthy mayonnaise and yoghurt seasoned with curry powder to the chopped chicken. If you want to make a sandwich out of it, take pita bread with you and fill it with the salad just before eating. Make the most of handy hard-boiled eggs. Slice the eggs and spread the bread with a little soy mayonnaise or hummus, add some spicy Dijon mustard, lettuce or chopped watercress.
Bring your thirsty thermos In winter you can bring along a thermos filled with a hearty lentil and vegie soup to warm you up. In summer or when it’s hot, blend a delicious fruit smoothie using unsweetened apple juice, strawberries, bananas or other fruits you love. Pour into a thermos, refrigerate and pack it in the morning before school.
Snack pack savers Bring small meals, like a turkey sandwich, carrots and hummus or almonds with an apple, for any after-school activities or sports stuff and refuel as the need arises. Besides stabilising your energy level, eating food every 3–4 hours can curb cravings.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Snacking on nutritious food also improves your mood and helps you stay sharper and more focused. And as a bonus, eating continuously throughout the day keeps your metabolism fired up. Here are some ideas to get you through those tummy rumbles late morning and early afternoon:
* * ** ** ** ** ** *
Nuts (like almonds or walnuts). Lots of schools have banned nuts because some kids have severe lifethreatening allergies to the slightest trace of nuts. Check with your school first to see if it’s okay to bring nuts along Lentils (add some spice with salt, onion powder and chilli powder) Chickpeas (season with chilli powder and paprika) Dried fruit (like apple rings and apricots) Chopped fruit (like apples or pineapple) Natural yoghurt Banana chips Homemade trail mix Sushi rolls Hard-boiled eggs Mini rice cakes with hummus Vegies (like baby carrots, celery, strips of capsicum [pepper], cauliflower, broccoli) in one sealable container and a dipping sauce (like hummus) in another Celery sticks filled with cottage cheese and raisins.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN Choose snacks wisely Make your snacks as nutrient-dense as possible. Look for food that is high in fibre, contains lean protein and unsaturated fat—like cottage cheese with fresh fruit, half an apple with almond butter, or a couple of high-fibre crackers with almond butter or hummus. Snacks that are packed with sugar or junky carbs (like lollies or potato chips) will give you a quick burst of energy, but then you’ll crash and end up feeling even more tired and sluggish later on. Choose fresh foods such as fruit, vegies and nuts, which have far more nutrients—and fewer kilojoules (calories)—than packaged stuff.
P lan ahead If you decide exactly what you’re going to snack on that afternoon, you’re a lot less likely to eat something sugary from the vending machine or the tuckshop when you’re ravenous. Bring a couple of snacks with you—an apple, yoghurt, raw almonds or edamame (boiled soybeans in their skin).
Smarter ways to snack Make an event out of snacking. Sit down, put the food out on a plate, and drink a glass of water first. This will force you to eat slowly and your mini meal will feel far more substantial.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Mixed nuts
D Bad
F Better
The average nut mix has protein and good fats, but a handful of twenty nuts packs 775 kilojoules (185 calories) and 17 g (½ oz) of fat.
A 50-g (1¾-oz) chunk of dark (bittersweet) chocolate contains the same amount of fat, but dark (bittersweet) chocolate is rich in antioxidants, which is good for you and your skin.
F Better
C Best
Replace half the amount of nuts with dried cranberries and raisins. You’ll get more skin-friendly antioxidants with only half the fat.
Have half the amount of dark (bittersweet) chocolate, melt it and drizzle it over strawberries. You’ll get an iron boost from the strawberries plus lots of vitamin C.
C Best Stir the nuts and fruit into natural yoghurt for extra protein and calcium. This snack will fill you up for longer.
Chocolate
D Bad A 55-g (2-oz) chocolate bar has 1215 kilojoules (290 calories) and 16 g (½ oz) of fat. It may be rich, but it won’t satisfy you for long.
Chips
D Bad Just 50 g (1¾ oz) of chips has 1050 kilojoules (250 calories) and 15 g (½ oz) of fat. They’re usually packed with salt, trans fats and artificial additives too.
F Better Plain rice crackers cut out half the amount of fat and kilojoules (calories).
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN C Best
Beating pre- meal munchies
Opt for rice crackers (or a small portion of plain corn chips) and dip them into hummus or salsa. Salsa is fat-free and rich in vitamin C.
Lollies
Sometimes waiting to cook or eat a meal can trigger the munchies. So use some of the snack ideas we’ve just discussed or chop up some raw vegies, such as carrot, cucumber, zucchini (courgette) or broccoli, and dip them in almond butter or hummus.
D Bad
Dinner
Sure they may be fat-free, but just one innocent looking jelly frog or a strawberries and cream has more sugar than a sugar cube. And we all know what sugar does to our skin.
F Better Opt for some dried fruit, like figs or dates stuffed with almonds, or a few pieces of dark (bittersweet) chocolate.
C Best Go for a sugar hit from nature. Munch on an apple, some pineapple or an orange with some raw almonds.
* * * * *
Grilled salmon brushed with a little olive oil with stir-fried vegies and garlic and steamed brown rice Cajun Chicken with Avocado, Lime and Chilli Salsa*, mixed green salad, Sweet Potato Mash* and couscous Tomato and vegetable pasta sauce with wholegrain/corn/rice pasta, mixed salad Swordfish with Herbs* with couscous or quinoa, roast vegies and salad Grilled Red Snapper with Tomato Salsa* with steamed spinach drizzled with olive oil, small mixed green salad with avocado
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Spicy Carrot Soup* with Moroccan Beef Salad* Grilled Miso Salmon* with Sweet Potato Mash* and stir-fried vegies Vegetable and Tofu Stir-fry*, small mixed green salad with avocado, brown rice or rice noodles Sensational Salmon Burger* with Spicy Sweet Potato Fries*, green leafy salad
Spice it up Adding flavourful herbs and spices to your food—instead of butter, oils, creamy marinades and other highkilojoule (high-calorie) options—not only cuts down on the number of kilojoules (calories) you eat, it also boosts the flavour of your food. And, perhaps most important of all, herbs and spices have great health benefits— from soothing your digestion to helping maintain healthy blood-sugar levels— and they’re high in antioxidants. You can make any meal exciting by adding fresh herbs—basil, bay leaves, coriander [cilantro], dill, parsley, oregano, tarragon, thyme, sage, rosemary and mint; spices—cayenne
pepper, ginger, cumin, ground coriander, lemon pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, pepper and sea salt; seeds— toasted sesame seeds, crushed pepitas (pumpkin seeds); and flavourings—tamari (wheat-free soy sauce), orange, lemon or lime juice and crushed garlic.
Sweet stuff
* ** *
Grilled Figs with Macadamia Nuts and Ricotta*, soy yoghurt or coconut cream Cocoa Banana Frozen Dessert* Peaches and Strawberries with Honey Ricotta* Peaches with Macadamia Nuts and Almond Cream*
Smart snacks Choose from the following: Almond, Coconut and Banana Power Muffins* Yoghurt Pops* Bliss Balls* Banana Oat Bars* Wedges of apple or pear dipped in almond butter
* ** **
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN
© Kenji Maeji
Eat your colours: bright is best
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When you feel like FOR something sweet, GORGEOUS SKIN TEENS
© Kenji Maeji
take a sugar hit from nature
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN
* * * * * ** ** ** * * *
Rice cakes topped with mashed avocado, hummus or almond butter Make a mix of your favourite raw nuts (add some Brazil nuts or walnuts for extra crunch), shredded coconut, dates, sunflower seeds, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raisins, banana chips, dried cranberries, etc. Natural yoghurt with fruit and raw nuts Raw almonds/raw unsalted macadamia nuts/raw walnuts Fresh blueberries sprinkled with almond slivers Dry-roasted soybeans or chickpeas Hard-boiled egg Blueberry Smoothie* 2 dried figs with half a dozen almonds 1 cup cherries Corn or rice crispbreads spread with hummus 2 tablespoons tamari-roasted almonds Raw vegetable sticks dipped in hummus Soy yoghurt (add a few raw nuts or fruit)
* * * ** *
Edamame (whole green soybeans boiled in their skins for 10 minutes in salty water) 1 handful of almonds with 1 piece of fresh fruit, like an apple or a pear A few pieces of dark (bittersweet) chocolate (70 per cent cocoa or more) ½ cup frozen red grapes Low-GI fruit, like pear and apple Baked sweet potato
TIP Make sure you don’t eat rice cakes plain because they are high GI and will push up your blood-sugar levels.
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Start your day with a spinach omelette, packed with protein and fantastic phytos
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN Power bites Mixed raw nuts keep you energised throughout a long study session. The healthy fats found in nuts help suppress the hormone that makes you feel hungry. Just make sure you don’t overdo it: nuts are packed with healthy fats, but anything more than a handful will mean a lot of kilojoules (calories). Keep a bag of dry-roasted almonds in your school bag and snack on a handful rather than hitting the vending machine. You can also blend almond butter into smoothies or use it in place of peanut butter to make a yummy wholegrain sandwich.
Beauty drinks
* * ** *
Water with a squeeze or wedge of lemon, orange, lime or a mint leaf Sparkling mineral water with a splash of unsweetened apple, grapefruit, orange, cranberry or grape juice and a twist of lime Green tea Fresh juices diluted with water (not on an empty stomach) Herbal tea (organic if possible)
* **
Freshly juiced vegetable and low-GI fruit juices, like carrot, tomato, apple, pear, lemon, ginger, beetroot and celery Unsweetened chai tea Soy/rice milk smoothies
The Gorgeous Skin P lan Remember, when making any meal or snack you want to include the following: • Lean protein • Good fats • Good (low-GI) carbs It’s a simple as the ABC. We’ll call it the PFC (protein, fat and carbs) instead!
The daily do-gooders Perfect protein Deep-sea fish, such as salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines, free-range turkey and chicken, organic lean meat, organic eggs, whole unprocessed soy products, and organic yoghurt.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Fabulous fats
Follow the PFC rule
Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, macadamia nut oil, flaxseed oil and coconut oil; fresh raw nuts—almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts and walnuts; seeds— sunflower, linseeds (flaxseeds) and pepitas (pumpkin seeds), olives and avocados.
Check that every meal and snack has got a combination of good protein, low-GI carbs and fat so that there is a long and slow build-up of blood-sugar levels to sustain you for hours. If you’re wondering about basic proportions, there’s a great and relatively simple way to figure it out that was developed by Dr Barry Sears. It’s called The Zone. In the ideal Zone way of eating, each snack or meal should have approximately the following ratios: 40 per cent low-GI carbs, 30 per cent protein and 30 per cent fat. An easy way to ensure these ratios is to visualise that about one-third of your plate should be protein (about the size and thickness of your palm) and the remaining two-thirds should be carbs. Add a few nuts or a little olive oil for the fat content, and you have a meal that’s approximately in The Zone. The Zone way of eating helps control your insulin levels, which is great news for your skin, and also stabilises your body weight by helping you burn your body fat, balance out energy levels and keep you satisfied for longer.
Good carbs Rocket (arugula), spinach, cos lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, capsicums (peppers), cauliflower, carrots, zucchini (courgette), cherries, blueberries, plums, kiwifruit, peaches, pears, apples, rockmelon (cantaloupe), rolled oats, rye and other wholegrain breads, brown rice, quinoa, barley, chickpeas, lentils, millet, buckwheat, wild rice and wholegrain pasta.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 1: MONDAY Breakfast
*
Cavewoman Muesli* topped with your favourite fruit, like a handful of berries or half a grated apple. Serve with soy milk, almond milk, rice milk or coconut cream/milk
Lunch
* **
Wholegrain pita pocket stuffed with salmon or tuna, fresh vegies (grated carrot, beetroot, cucumber, red capsicum (pepper)) avocado and hummus Handful of dry-roasted almonds 1 piece of fresh fruit
Dinner
* ** Throughout the day ** *
Grilled salmon with Greek Salad* (save some salmon for your salad tomorrow) ½ cup cooked brown rice, couscous or quinoa Peaches with Macadamia Nuts and Almond Cream*
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Some form of exercise, e.g. running, swimming, tennis, netball Daily chilling (yoga, meditation or doing nothing)
TWO-WEEK PLAN Along with eating well, make sure you get enough shut-eye, relax daily and do some form of exercise. * An asterisk next to the menu item indicates that a recipe can be found in Chapter 10.
Focus on positive things like, ‘Wow, I’ll look and feel so great by kicking the junky carbs and sugars.’
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS DAY 2: TUESDAY
TIP Before school, jump rope for a few minutes to get your blood moving. You’ ll feel better and it will improve your ability to concentrate during the day.
Breakfast
* *Lunch * ** *Dinner ** ** *
2 poached or soft-boiled eggs with ½ avocado mashed on rye wholegrain toast, grilled tomatoes drizzled with olive oil 2 slices of rockmelon (cantaloupe) or a piece of fruit
Baby spinach, tomatoes, green and red capsicums (peppers), broccoli and grated carrot salad with grilled flaked salmon (from the night before) Handful of homemade trail mix Hard-boiled egg 1 piece of fresh fruit
Cajun Chicken with Avocado, Lime and Chilli Salsa* Mixed green salad with dark green leaves and olive oil Mash Sweet Potato* Couscous Fresh blackberries and raspberries or any other fruit in season served with natural yoghurt or soy cream and almond slivers
Smile! A smile creates instant beauty that radiates from the inside out.
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Some form of exercise, e.g. running, swimming, tennis, netball Daily chilling (yoga, meditation or doing nothing)
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 3: WEDNESDAY Breakfast
*
Slow-cooked (not instant) rolled oats with grated apple or mixed berries and ground cinnamon. Toss in the fruit during the last few minutes of cooking time to keep it fresh. Add some crushed walnuts and serve with soy milk, rice milk, almond milk or coconut cream/milk
Lunch
* ** Dinner ** ** *
Wholegrain sandwich with sliced turkey, cottage cheese and loads of your favourite vegies Yoghurt with honey and raw nuts Pear or an apple
Swordfish with Herbs* Steamed spinach drizzled with olive oil Small mixed green salad with avocado Couscous, quinoa or brown rice Dried figs, handful of raw or dry-roasted almonds
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
TIP After school, jump and dance on an exercise trampoline while listening to music. This is a great way to get the blood circulating to your brain so you can focus better on your homework.
Oats out toxins Rolled oats are packed with fibre, which helps stabilise your blood sugar and keep you regular. Both help prevent blemishes.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS De-puff If you wake up in the morning feeling perky but your eyes still look puffy, then pass on the salt-filled foods, like soy sauce and chips. Salt intake causes tissues around the eyes to retain fluid, so you’ll get puffy peepers. Also, sleep on your back and use a firm, elevated pillow. This will prevent fluids from pooling into your facial tissues at night too. In the morning you’ll wake up looking just as alert as you feel.
DAY 4: THURSDAY Breakfast
** Lunch * ** Dinner * ** Throughout the day ** *
Blueberry Smoothie* 1 piece of fresh fruit
Wholegrain pita pocket stuffed with tabouli, chopped lettuce, grated carrot and cucumber and hummus Handful dry-roasted almonds 1 piece of fresh fruit
Roast lamb with roast sweet potato, onions, garlic, carrots and pumpkin (squash) Green leafy salad with olive oil and lemon juice dressing Peaches and Strawberries with Honey Ricotta*
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Remember: your face mirrors what you eat. Choosing the right food can actually make you prettier.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 5: FRIDAY Breakfast
*
Cavewoman Muesli* with ½ grated apple or a handful of fresh or frozen berries, served with soy/almond/rice milk or coconut cream/milk
Lunch
* ** *Dinner ** **
Wholegrain pita pocket stuffed with canned salmon or tuna, grated carrot, beetroot, cucumber, chopped red capsicum (pepper), avocado and hummus Handful roasted macadamia nuts Hard-boiled egg 1 piece of fresh fruit
Sensational Salmon Burger* Spicy Sweet Potato Fries* Green leafy salad 2 slices of rockmelon (cantaloupe)
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Eat for whiter teeth When you have no time to brush between meals, munch on crunchy fruit and vegies, like carrot, celery or apple. They make you salivate, flushing away particles that can stain your pearly whites.
Think colour Try to eat as many bright and vibrantly coloured fruit and vegies as possible over the next twelve weeks.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS DAY 6: SATURDAY Breakfast
*
¾ cup natural yoghurt with fresh fruit (choose one or mix in rockmelon (cantaloupe), honeydew melon, berries, peaches, plums or pears). Sprinkle with slivered almonds or chopped walnuts and drizzle with a little raw honey to sweeten if needed. Add 2 tablespoons freshly ground linseeds (flaxseeds)
Lunch
* * Go green Green leafy vegies are the most potent acnefighting food on the planet because they contain loads of zit-zapping zinc and they pack in more nutrients than any other food.
Fresh spinach salad with thinly sliced free-range chicken or turkey. Add strips of red capsicum (pepper), mushroom and onion. Sprinkle sunflower seeds on top and toss with extra virgin olive oil, lemon and fresh herbs 2 slices of wholegrain rye or gluten-free bread spread with avocado or hummus
Dinner
** ** *
Spicy Carrot Soup* Moroccan Beef Salad* Green leafy salad Rice noodles Grilled Figs with Macadamia Nuts and Ricotta*
** *
Snacks mid-morning/afternoon (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Throughout the day
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 7: SUNDAY Breakfast
* ** Lunch ** *Dinner ** *Throughout the day ** *
Omelette or scrambled eggs with vegies, like spinach and mushrooms 2 pieces of wholegrain rye toast 1 piece of fresh fruit
Superfood Salad* Lentil and Vegetable Soup* Handful of raw almonds, pecans and raisins
Cajun Chicken with Avocado, Lime and Chilli Salsa* Steamed green beans and a salad of dark green leafy vegetables Cocoa Banana Frozen Dessert*
Snacks mid-morning/afternoon (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Beauty buster Sleeping in your make-up makes for a dull complexion come morning. Your skin needs that time to turn over cells, but if pores are blocked, that can’t happen. Leaving sweat on your skin is also an open invitation to pimples.
Go for lots of fibre-rich foods. Fibre stabilises blood sugar and prevents insulin spikes.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS DAY 8: MONDAY Breakfast
** *Lunch * ** Dinner ** ** *
Scrambled Tofu* 2 slices of wholegrain rye or gluten-free toast 1 piece of fresh fruit
Get moving Aim for an hour of exercise at least five times a week. And for those of you who aren’t too keen on exercise, don’t think of it as exercise. Think: making friends, feeling stronger, living longer and looking fantastic.
Wrap with turkey, chicken, tofu or cheese and vegetables 1 apple or pear Handful of raw unsalted nuts
Grilled Miso Salmon* Broccolini Stir-fry* Large green salad Couscous, brown rice or rice noodles 2 slices of rockmelon (cantaloupe)
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 9: TUESDAY Breakfast
*
Natural Bircher Muesli* served with your favourite fruit and soy/rice milk, coconut cream or natural yoghurt
Lunch
* ** Dinner ** ** *
Wholegrain pita pocket stuffed with canned tuna, fresh vegies and hummus Handful dry-roasted almonds or macadamia nuts 1 piece of fresh fruit
Grilled Red Snapper with Tomato Salsa* Spicy Sweet Potato Fries* Green salad ½ cup brown rice or wild rice Small fruit salad of low-GI fruits with natural yoghurt
Hit the sack early How are you supposed to radiate good health and great skin if you are too tired to even hold your eyelids open? Being tired slows circulation, which diminishes your skin’s sheen and radiance. A good 9–10 hours of sleep will get you ready for the day ahead. Then you can conquer life with those peepers shining bright!
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Love your face the way it is If all you ever do is focus on the things that you don’t think are perfect, you can’t make peace with yourself and focus on your best features. When you have a vision of yourself as you are, rather than as you think you should be, you’ll recognise your unique beauty.
DAY 10: WEDNESDAY Breakfast
* ** Lunch * ** Dinner ** ** Throughout the day ** *
Scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms and chopped herbs Wholegrain toast or toasted pita pocket 1 piece of fresh fruit
Salmon and salad sandwich on pumpernickel or rye bread Handful of homemade trail mix 1 piece of fresh fruit
Nut-crusted Tuna* ½ cup steamed brown rice Salad of baby spinach, avocado and toasted pinenuts Mixed fresh berries with ginger sauce
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Hydrate. Water plumps up skin cells, which makes your skin soft and supple, your complexion clear and radiant. Water also flushes out toxins, which keeps your body from retaining excess fluid, so you won’t feel bloated.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 11: THURSDAY Breakfast
*
Cavewoman Muesli* served with soy/rice milk, coconut cream/milk or natural yoghurt and your favourite fruit
Lunch
* **
Sliced turkey breast on wholegrain rye bread with cos lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radish and green capsicum (pepper) 1 piece of fresh fruit Handful of raw nuts
Dinner
Walk tall Studies show that good posture can enhance your appearance and self-esteem. Keep your back straight, your chin up and your eyes forward. Standing up straight and not slouching shows confidence.
** * *Throughout the day ** *
Pumpkin Soup with Macadamia Nuts* Grilled fresh fish Rocket (arugula), sliced tomatoes, thickly sliced red onions and black olives. Toss salad with a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and a little finely chopped garlic Apple with Almond Cream*
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Go slow. Eating slowly gives your body the time it needs to register that it’s full, which curbs overeating.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Crunch all you want Carrots are bursting with beta carotene. Your body turns beta carotene into skin-smoothing vitamin A, a key to keeping dry, acne-prone and flaky skin at bay.
DAY 12: FRIDAY Breakfast
** Lunch * *Dinner ** *
2 poached eggs on wholegrain rye toast Baked tomato with olive oil and basil
Grilled chicken breast with ½ small avocado, cucumber, spring greens, tomatoes, spring onions (scallions) and lime juice salad 1 piece of fresh fruit
Vegetable and Tofu Stir-fry* ½ cup steamed brown rice Grilled Figs with Macadamia Nuts and Ricotta* or Almond Cream*
Throughout the day
** *
Snacks mid-morning/after school (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Want to banish bacne—breakouts on your back and shoulders? Keep your hair off your neck and back as much as possible. Oh, and steer clear of conditioners that contain panthenol: it’s a pore-clogger.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN DAY 13: SATURDAY Breakfast
**
½ ruby grapefruit Scrambled Tofu* served with wholegrain sourdough toast or toasted pita pocket
Lunch
** *Dinner ** *Throughout the day ** *
Superfood Salad* with Tomato Basil Dressing* 1 piece of fresh fruit Dried figs and 1 handful dry-roasted almonds
Chicken, Vegetable and Barley Soup* Spinach salad Cocoa Banana Frozen Dessert*
Snacks mid-morning/afternoon (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
Rosy lips Brush your lips. Do this whenever you brush your teeth. Brushing removes dead skin and gives your lips great natural colour.
Drink up. S leepiness and fatigue can be signs of dehydration, so drink plenty of water throughout the day. Add a splash of unsweetened cranberry or apple juice or zest it up with a twist of lemon or lime.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS DAY 14: SUNDAY Breakfast
* *Lunch **
2 poached or soft-boiled eggs, ½ avocado mashed on wholegrain rye toast, grilled tomatoes drizzled with olive oil 2 slices of honeydew melon or rockmelon (cantaloupe)
Salad Nicoise* 1 piece of fresh fruit
Dinner Get sweaty Sweating helps your skin flush out toxins, that make it look dull and blotchy, and brings fresh nutrients and oxygen to your skin.
** ** Throughout the day ** *
Grilled fish, free-range chicken or lean meat Barbecued Asparagus with Tomato Salsa* Small mixed green salad Dried figs and almonds
Snacks mid-morning/afternoon (from snack list) Exercise Daily chilling
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN Congratulations! You’re two weeks on your way to the best skin ever. You’ll be sparkling with vitality and feeling fantastic. Reward yourself. Take a long, luxurious bubble bath, paint your nails or buy a new lip-gloss, comic or a CD—whatever makes you feel good. Even the smallest indulgence can make a difference to how you look and feel. When you feel good on the inside, you look good on the outside. When asked to comment on the subject of beauty, the late actress Audrey Hepburn offered the following advice: ‘For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never have to walk alone.’ There will be all sorts of situations that can sidetrack you along the way, like parties, eating out with friends and family, or even studying for exams. Of course, you can’t avoid all potential danger zones, but here’s a few ways to help keep yourself on track.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Danger zone 1: eating out Don’t panic! It’s easy to stick to the basic guidelines when you’re eating out. In Australia, we’ve got lots of great seafood, fresh vegies and stacks of other super healthy foods. If you are going out with friends, steer them to places where you can opt for healthy choices. Modern Australian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian restaurants are your best bets when eating out. Go for fish, chicken and vegetables that are grilled, roasted, steamed, poached or lightly sautéed. Avoid anything battered (battered food soaks up lots of bad fats). Choose a salad with a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice or some low-GI vegies, such as mushrooms, asparagus or green beans. Steer clear of bread, potatoes, pizza, pastas, creamy sauces and, of course, anything fried. Just forgo the white rice (apart from long-grain white or basmati rice) and noodles as they are generally high GI. Also beware of sauces, like teriyaki, which are loaded with sugar. When in doubt, always ask. Beware of any dishes stir-fried in bad skin fats, and avoid MSG (monosodium glutamate). MSG is a man-made food additive that’s used to enhance the flavour of food. But it’s also known to cause all sorts of side effects like headaches, dizziness, chest pain, nausea and fatigue. MSG is an excitotoxin, which as the name suggests is a substance that can overexcite nerve cells, potentially causing damage. High levels of MSG have been shown in animal studies to damage certain areas of the brain. On top of that, research—in animals anyway— suggests that MSG may cause weight gain.
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THE GORGEOUS SKIN PLAN Before your meal enjoy a glass of water with a twist of lemon or lime. Remember soft drinks are a pure sugar rush and are a definite no-no if you want great skin.
Banish the bread basket The worst part of any restaurant meal is the bread basket. Typically you arrive and there it is: that crusty, tempting, yummy smelling bread that’s placed before your starving stomach. Bread, especially the refined white kind, is loaded with junky carbs which, remember, will spike your blood sugar, especially on an empty stomach. If you absolutely can’t resist, ask for a little wholegrain, rye or sourdough bread, and dip it in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which help slow the absorption of carbs.
Danger zone 2: parties It probably isn’t hard to guess that party food isn’t exactly great skin fare, so it’s important to plan ahead. Whatever you do, don’t arrive at a party starving. It’s just too easy to down a whole bowl of potato chips or Twisties without even thinking. Eat a small healthy snack or meal before going out, so you don’t obsess about not eating. And stick to healthier options when you are there, like olives, unsalted nuts, corn chips and salsa, and vegetable sticks with hummus. If you absolutely can’t resist, don’t deprive yourself, just limit your portion size. Forgoing the foods that you really love will only backfire, make you unhappy, and cause you to pig out even more. Eat a small amount of what you love, and really enjoy it.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS TIP A small amount of fat, like a dash of olive oil, a square of cheese or a handful of nuts, helps to slow the spike in blood sugar after a meal, so it kind of acts like a metabolic regulator.
Small amounts of anything are okay every now and then. In the long run it’s what you do every day that counts. But remember, if you have bad acne, try and steer clear of sugar and junky carbs. If you do indulge, don’t eat them on an empty stomach. A bagel and a soft drink is not a good choice: there’s no protein, fibre or good fats to hold back the great surge of sugar. You’ll be hungry again in a few hours and possibly irritable too—and it will do absolutely nothing to contribute towards your inner and outer glow. A better choice would be an apple and cinnamon bagel topped with low-fat ricotta, cottage or cream cheese, with a handful of raw almonds, and an unsweetened apple juice. Or a bagel with smoked salmon and low-fat cream cheese with a sparkling mineral water. Armed with all this information, you’ll find it easy to make smart food choices. And it will get easier as you go along. Remember: eating healthy isn’t about being perfect 100 per cent of the time; it’s about doing the best you can do every day.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Breakfast Cavewoman muesli Natural Bircher muesli Hot quinoa cereal Almond milk Blueberry smoothie Scrambled tofu
** ** ** * ** ** ** * ** ** ** * ** **
Snacks Almond, coconut and banana power muffins Bliss balls Banana oat bars Strawberry freeze Chocolate walnut shake The ultimate summer skin smoothie Yoghurt pops Edamame (boiled soybeans in their skin) Soups Lentil and vegetable soup Pumpkin soup with macadamia nuts Spicy carrot soup Chicken, vegetable and barley soup Salads Superfood salad Salad Nicoise Greek salad Salad dressings and sauces Salsa Avocado salsa Tomato basil dressing Flaxseed dressing
Fish Swordfish with herbs Grilled miso salmon Sensational salmon burgers Swordfish with mango salsa Grilled red snapper with tomato salsa Nut-crusted tuna
** ** ** *
Chicken Cajun chicken with avocado, lime and chilli salsa Red meat Moroccan beef salad
* ** ** *
Vegetable Vegetable and tofu stir-fry Sweet potato mash Spicy sweet potato fries Broccolini stir-fry Barbequed asparagus with tomato salsa Dips Creamy hummus Guacamole Baba ghanoush
** * ** * *
Desserts Cocoa banana frozen dessert Peaches and strawberries with honey ricotta Grilled figs with macadamia nuts and ricotta Peaches with macadamia nuts and almond cream
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BREAKFAST Cavewoman muesli This is yummy served with rice milk, soy milk, almond milk or coconut cream/milk and fruit such as grated apple, berries or sliced banana. Serves 4
* ** ** *
1 cup chopped raw almonds or almond meal 1 cup chopped raw cashews 1 cup hazelnut meal 1 cup sunflower seeds 1 cup shredded coconut 1 cup brown rice puffs or flakes, optional
Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F/gas 4). Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Spread thinly on a baking tray and bake in oven for 10 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. (Recipe courtesy of the Pro Health Clinic, Sydney)
Natural Bircher muesli Serves 4
** ** * * *
¾ cup rolled oats ¾ cup filtered or mineral water 2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons natural yoghurt, plus extra 2 Granny Smith or red Fuji apples, cored and grated 1–2 tablespoons raw or lightly toasted nuts (almonds, walnuts or pecans) raw honey, to taste
Soak rolled oats in water overnight. Next morning, add remaining ingredients and mix well. Serve immediately with extra yoghurt and freshly chopped fruit, like strawberries and pears.
Hot quinoa cereal Serves 2
** ** *
1 cup quinoa 2 cups water ½ cup thinly sliced apple § cup raisins ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
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* **
soy milk, rice milk or coconut milk, to serve raw honey or agave syrup, to taste 1 tablespoon chopped almonds or walnuts
Rinse quinoa and add to water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add apple, raisins and cinnamon and simmer for 10 minutes or until water is absorbed. Serve with milk, sweeten with honey or agave syrup and scatter nuts on top.
Almond milk Makes 2 cups or 500 ml
**
1 cup raw almonds 2 cups filtered or mineral water
Place almonds in a blender and blend to make almond meal. Add water and blend for 1 minute. Strain through cheesecloth or a strainer and store in an airtight container. It will keep for 3–5 days. Reserve the almond pulp for muffins or a crumble topping.
Blueberry smoothie Serves 1
** ** ** * **
½ cup natural yoghurt ½ cup soy milk or rice milk handful of frozen or fresh blueberries ½ cup filtered water 1 tablespoon almonds or walnuts 2 ice cubes frozen or fresh peaches or other fruit of choice, optional 1 banana, optional 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil, optional
Combine all ingredients in a blender and whiz vigorously until smooth.
Scrambled tofu Serves 4
** * * *
1 tablespoon olive oil or coconut oil ½ onion, finely chopped ½ medium chopped green capsicum (pepper) ½ medium chopped red capsicum (pepper) 6 mushrooms, chopped or 1½ cups mixed mushrooms, shiitake, button or field mushrooms
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* * * * ** *
450 g (1 lb) firm tofu, drained and mashed with a fork 1 tablespoon mirin (Japanese rice wine) 1 tablespoon tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) 1 teaspoon dried or finely chopped fresh basil ½ teaspoon granulated garlic ½ teaspoon curry powder freshly ground black pepper
Heat oil in a saucepan, add onion, capsicums (peppers) and mushrooms and sauté for 3 minutes. Add tofu, mirin, tamari, basil, garlic and curry powder and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Adjust seasoning to taste and serve.
SNACKS Almond, coconut and banana power muffins Makes 12
** *
1 cup almond meal ½ cup sunflower seeds ½ cup whey protein
** ** ** ** *
½ cup shredded coconut 1 cup brown rice flour 1 teaspoon baking powder ¼ cup coconut oil 2 ripe bananas, mashed 2 eggs 1 cup soy milk 1–2 tablespoons xylitol, optional flaked almonds or shredded coconut, to decorate
Preheat a fan-forced oven to 170°C (325°F/gas 3) or a regular oven to 200°C (400°F/gas 6). Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Combine oil, bananas, eggs, milk and xylitol, if using, in a separate bowl and whisk well. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well. If batter is too dry, add more soy milk. Spoon into non-stick muffin tins or into paper-lined muffin moulds. Sprinkle top with almond flakes or shredded coconut. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack and keep in the fridge in an airtight container. They will keep for 5 days. To reheat, place them in the oven for a few minutes.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Bliss balls
Banana oat bars
Makes 15 balls
Makes 8
** * * ** *
** ** ** *
1 cup sunflower seeds ½ cup almonds § cup agave syrup or pitted, chopped dates 3–5 tablespoons carob or pure cacao powder pinch of sea salt pinch of ground nutmeg and/or ground cinnamon sesame seeds, shredded coconut or extra carob powder
Place sunflower seeds and almonds in a food processor and whiz until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix with agave syrup or dates, carob or cacao powder, salt and nutmeg and/or cinnamon. Get about 1–2 tablespoons of mixture and shape it into a nice round ball. At this point you may roll each ball in sesame seeds, shredded coconut or carob powder. Continue this process with remaining mixture. Place bliss balls in the fridge or freezer until ready to eat.
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2 cups rolled oats (not instant) ½ cup shredded coconut ½ cup raisins or pitted, chopped dates ¼ cup chopped walnuts 2 large ripe bananas, mashed ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce, optional 1 tablespoon date sugar, optional
Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F/gas 4). Lightly grease a 20 cm × 30 cm (8 inches × 12 inches) slice tin. Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Press dough into prepared slice tin and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. When completely cool, slice into squares or bars and serve.
Strawberry freeze Serves 2
** ** *
§ cup vanilla soy milk 2 frozen ripe bananas 1 cup frozen strawberries dash of vanilla extract, optional 1 tablespoon ground linseeds (flaxseeds), optional
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy.
Chocolate walnut shake Serves 2
** ** * *
¾ cup crushed ice 2 ripe bananas, mashed 1 cup unsweetened apple juice 1 cup soy milk 2 tablespoons pure unsweetened cocoa or carob powder 4 tablespoons walnuts
Throw all ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
Yoghurt pops Serves 2
**
1 cup natural yoghurt ½ cup blended fruit of choice like peach, strawberries or passionfruit
Pour natural yoghurt mixed with your favourite blended fruit into small disposable paper cups, cover the cups with plastic wrap, insert a craft stick through the plastic and into the yoghurt and freeze. Once frozen, remove the plastic wrap and peel away the paper cup. Enjoy! This works equally well substituting your favourite fruit juice for the yoghurt.
The ultimate summer skin smoothie
Edamame
Serves 1–2
** * *
** ** **
½ cup diced mango ½ cup diced papaya ¼ cup unsweetened apple juice 1 teaspoon lime juice 1 teaspoon raw honey or agave syrup ¼ cup crushed ice
Combine ingredients in a blender, puree until smooth and serve.
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Serves 2 5 cups water 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt 250 g (9 oz) soybeans in shells (edamame beans), rinsed sea salt, to serve
Bring water to the boil in a large saucepan. Add coarse salt and
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS soybeans and boil for 3–5 minutes or until tender. Drain, cool, and sprinkle with a little sea salt. Serve, squeezing beans out of shells.
SOUPS Lentil and vegetable soup This hearty soup is easy to prepare and is ready to eat in under an hour. It can be halved if desired or the whole recipe can be made and part put in the freezer to be available for another meal. Serves 8
** ** ** ** * **
2 tablespoons olive oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 3 carrots, finely chopped 1 sweet potato, finely chopped 2 celery stalks, finely chopped 3–4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 tablespoon dried basil 1 × 400 g (14 oz) can crushed tomatoes 2 cups dried lentils, rinsed 2 potatoes, diced
** **
½ tablespoon sea salt 8 cups water 1–2 cups shredded cabbage 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Heat olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat, add onion, carrots, sweet potato and celery and cook until onion is softened. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic begins to turn golden. Add cumin and dried basil. Stir in tomatoes and their liquid, lentils, potatoes, salt, water and cabbage. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar just before serving.
Pumpkin soup with macadamia nuts Serves 6
* * ** *
1 tablespoon macadamia nut oil or olive oil ½ cup roughly chopped unsalted macadamia nuts 1 small white onion, finely chopped 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger 3 cups diced pumpkin (squash)
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** **
1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped 3 cups chicken stock natural yoghurt whole or halved toasted unsalted macadamia nuts, to garnish
Heat oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat, add macadamia nuts, onion and ginger and sauté for 2–3 minutes or until onion is golden. Add pumpkin and apple and cook for 2–3 minutes. Add stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until pumpkin is soft. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth and creamy. Serve in large bowls with a swirl of yoghurt and a few toasted macadamia nuts tossed on top to garnish.
Spicy carrot soup Serves 6
** ** ** *
1 kg (2lb 4oz) carrots, sliced 5 cups chicken stock 1 dried red chilli 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 teaspoon curry powder 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* * *
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ¼ cup finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves natural yoghurt
Combine carrots, stock, chilli, ginger, garlic, curry powder, cumin and pepper in a large heavy-based saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until carrots are tender. Remove chilli and discard. Transfer 2–3 cups of mixture at a time to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Return to saucepan and reheat. Stir in coriander and a swirl of yoghurt just before serving.
Chicken, vegetable and barley soup Serves 4
** * **
2 teaspoons olive oil 4 spring onions (scallions), chopped, white and green parts separated 450 g (1 lb) chicken breast fillets, cut into 1-cm (½-in) pieces 1 teaspoon dried thyme 2 bay leaves
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* ** ** *
3 × 400 ml (14 fl oz) cans chicken broth ¶ cup quick-cooking barley ½ cup frozen corn ½ cup frozen peas 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat leaf parsley sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add white part of spring onions (scallions) and cook for 1 minute. Add chicken and cook, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes or until browned on all sides. Toss in thyme and bay leaves and stir to coat chicken and onion. Add broth and barley and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until barley is tender. Stir in corn and peas and simmer for 1 minute longer. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Season with salt and pepper, remove bay leaves, scatter over reserved spring onion (scallion) tops and serve.
SALADS Superfood salad Serves 2
** ** ** ** ** * *
1 cup baby spinach 1 cup chopped cos lettuce ¼ cup shredded red cabbage ½ cup grated carrot ½ cup sliced red capsicum (pepper) ½ tomato, chopped ¼ cup canned chickpeas, rinsed well ¼ avocado, diced 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar handful of your favourite chopped fresh herbs 2 tablespoons toasted seeds or nuts, such as pepitas (pumpkin seeds), walnuts or almonds
Combine spinach, cos lettuce, cabbage, carrot, capsicum (pepper), tomato, chickpeas and avocado in a large bowl. Whisk together olive oil and vinegar in a small bowl. Toss dressing with salad just before serving and sprinkle with herbs and seeds or nuts.
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES Salad Nicoise Serves 4
* ** ** * ** ** ** *
6 small red new potatoes, scrubbed and quartered or 3 small sweet potatoes, chopped 450 g (1 lb) green beans, trimmed ½ cup kalamata olives 3 hard-boiled eggs, halved 1 large ripe tomato, cut into 8 wedges 1 × 425 g (15 oz) can tuna packed in water, drained and flaked 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard ½ teaspoon sea salt freshly ground black pepper, to taste ½ cup extra virgin olive oil ¼ cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley 3 anchovy fillets, optional
Boil potatoes or sweet potatoes in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Add beans to water and boil for 7 minutes or until crisp tender. Drain and cool under cold running water. Arrange potatoes, beans, olives, eggs and tomato on a large platter. Place tuna in centre. Whisk vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper in a small bowl until blended.
Gradually pour in oil, whisking until mixed thoroughly. Whisk in parsley, then drizzle vinaigrette over salad. Top with anchovies, if desired.
Greek salad Serves 2–4
* ** ** * ** ** *
4 tomatoes, sliced or chopped into wedges 1 cucumber, seeded and sliced 1 red capsicum (pepper), sliced 1 small white onion, finely sliced 12 kalamata olives, pitted 100 g (3½ oz) firm feta cheese, crumbled ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil juice of 1 lemon 1 teaspoon dried oregano ¼ cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Combine tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum (pepper), onion, olives and feta cheese in a large bowl. Whisk oil, lemon juice, oregano, parsley and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Drizzle dressing over salad and serve.
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SALAD DRESSINGS AND SAUCES
Avocado salsa
Salsa
** * ** * ** ** *
This fresh salsa makes a tasty topping for freshly cooked fish or chicken. You can also use it as a topping for an omelette. Serves 6
** ** * **
3–4 ripe tomatoes, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 small red onion, finely chopped 1 jalapeño chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (wear plastic gloves when handling) ½ cup finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) juice of 1 lime sea salt, to taste
Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Serves 2 ½ avocado, diced 1 large ripe tomato, diced 8–10 kalamata olives, pitted and finely chopped 1 garlic clove, finely chopped 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil 1 tablespoon finely snipped fresh chives 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon drained capers 1 tablespoon lemon juice sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1 jalapeño chilli, deseeded and finely chopped, optional
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, mix well and refrigerate until ready to serve.
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© Kenji Maeji
The muesli you can go nuts over!
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Feast on the fabulous face fats found in fish
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Balance out your blood-sugar levels with a yummy Moroccan beef salad. See recipe on page 235–6
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Satisfy a snack craving with spicy sweet potato fries. See recipe on page 237–8
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES Tomato basil dressing
FISH
Serve this light dressing over the freshest green salad. Serves 4–6
Swordfish with herbs
** * ** *
** * * * ** ** *
¼ cup fresh basil leaves 1 medium tomato 2–4 tablespoons balsamic or red wine vinegar ½ cup extra virgin olive oil ½ garlic clove, finely chopped sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until creamy. Taste and adjust flavours if necessary.
Flaxseed dressing Serves 4–6
Serves 2 2 × 200 g (7 oz) swordfish steaks sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 ripe tomatoes, halved, juice and seeds removed, and chopped 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint 2 sprigs of fresh thyme leaves 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves ½ garlic clove, finely chopped juice of ½ lemon extra virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F/gas 4).
** ** **
¶ cup flaxseed oil ¼ cup balsamic vinegar or lemon juice 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1 garlic clove, finely chopped fresh herbs freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Combine ingredients in a jar and shake vigorously. Store in the fridge.
Season swordfish with salt and pepper and place in an ovenproof dish. Combine tomatoes, herbs and garlic in a bowl, mix well then sprinkle over swordfish. Add lemon juice and a good drizzle of olive oil. Place in oven and bake for 12–15 minutes or until
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS swordfish is just cooked through. Serve immediately.
Grilled miso salmon Serves 4
** * ** ** * *
½ cup mirin (sweet rice cooking wine) 1 tablespoon yellow miso 1 tablespoon tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) 1 teaspoon tahini (sesame seed paste) 2 tablespoons finely snipped fresh chives or spring onion (scallion) tops 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger 4 × 150 g (5½ oz) skinless salmon fillets 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted
Whisk mirin, miso, tamari, tahini, chives or spring onion (scallion) tops and ginger in a shallow baking dish. Add salmon and turn to coat in marinade. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 1–2 hours, turning salmon occasionally. Remove salmon from marinade and pat dry with paper towel. Discard marinade.
Place a chargrill pan over high heat. When pan is very hot, add salmon and cook, turning carefully with a spatula, for 4 minutes on each side or until firm to the touch and opaque in the centre. Transfer salmon to individual serving plates. Garnish with coriander (cilantro) and sesame seeds and serve immediately.
Sensational salmon burgers Serves 4
* ** ** ** ** ** **
450 g (1 lb) skinless salmon fillet, pin-boned 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon reduced-fat mayonnaise 1 tablespoon finely snipped fresh chives 1 tablespoon tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) 1 teaspoon sesame oil ¼ teaspoon sea salt 1⁄8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper § cup sesame seeds 2 teaspoons olive oil 4 wholemeal (wholewheat) buns, split in half 4 tomato slices 1½ cups baby salad greens
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Chop salmon into 2.5-cm (1-in) pieces. Transfer to a food processor and pulse until salmon is finely chopped (do not over-process). Transfer salmon to a medium bowl, add mustard, mayonnaise, chives, tamari, sesame oil and salt and pepper and stir to combine. Form mixture into four 8-cm (3¼-in) burgers. Generously sprinkle one side of each burger with sesame seeds. Brush olive oil over base of a large nonstick frying pan and place pan over medium-high heat. Place burgers, seed-side down, in pan and cook for 2–3 minutes or until sesame seeds brown lightly. Reduce heat slightly if necessary. Gently turn burgers with a spatula and cook for 3 minutes or until just opaque in the centre. Transfer salmon burgers to buns, and top each with a tomato slice and salad greens.
Swordfish with mango salsa Serves 4
* **
1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped grated zest and juice of 1 lime splash of olive oil
* ** ** * ** * *
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 × 150 g (5½ oz) swordfish steaks 100 g of rocket (arugula)
Salsa 1 large mango, diced 1 red onion, finely chopped 1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped grated zest and juice of 1 lime 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 cup roughly chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Place chilli, lime zest and juice, and olive oil in a shallow dish and season with salt and pepper. Add swordfish and turn to coat in marinade. Cover and place in the fridge until ready to use. To make salsa, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Heat a chargrill pan or fire up the barbecue until hot. Remove swordfish from marinade, pat dry with paper towel and cook for 2–3 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Serve with mango salsa and rocket (arugula) leaves.
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES Grilled red snapper with tomato salsa Serves 4
* ** ** * * ** ** *
¾ cup finely chopped ripe roma (plum) tomatoes ¼ cup finely chopped onion ¼ cup pitted and sliced kalamata olives 1 garlic clove, finely chopped 1½ tablespoons finely snipped fresh chives 1½ tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil ½ tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon drained capers 1½ teaspoons lemon juice sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 × 150 g (5½ oz) red snapper fillets
In a medium bowl combine tomatoes, onion, olives, garlic, chives, basil, rosemary, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, capers and lemon juice. Cover and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Heat a chargrill pan or barbecue to high. Brush fillets with remaining 1
tablespoon of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Grill fillets for 3–4 minutes on each side. Place snapper on individual plates and top with salsa.
Nut- crusted tuna
This is a great way to cook fish steaks, like salmon or tuna. You can use almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts or pecans. If you have a coffee grinder, you can chop the nuts in that. Serves 1
* * **
120 g (4¼ oz) finely chopped nuts of choice sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons coconut oil 150 g (5½ oz) tuna steaks
Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F/gas 7). Lightly grease a baking tray. Mix chopped nuts with salt and pepper and place on a plate. Melt oil in a heavy-based frying pan and remove from heat. Dip fish in oil and coat with nut mixture, pressing down to make sure nuts hold. Place
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES nutted fish steaks on baking tray and transfer to oven for 8–10 minutes or until cooked through. Serve immediately.
Cut each chicken breast into three thin slices, then toss in combined paprika and cayenne pepper to lightly coat. Set aside.
CHICKEN
To make salsa, place avocado, lime juice, chilli and chives in a bowl. Season and stir gently to combine. Set aside.
Cajun chicken with avocado, lime and chilli salsa Serves 4
** ** ** * ** * * *
4 × 125 g (4½ oz) chicken breast fillets 1 tablespoon ground paprika pinch of cayenne pepper olive oil spray 250 g (9 oz) steamed green beans 1 cup peas 1 cup finely chopped carrot
Salsa 1 small avocado, diced 2 tablespoons lime juice 1 long green chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced lengthways 2 tablespoons finely snipped fresh chives sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat a large heavy-based frying pan over high heat and spray with oil. Cook chicken, in two batches, for 2 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Stand for 3 minutes, then slice each piece in half on an angle. Place chicken on beans and salsa, drizzle with any remaining juice, and serve with peas and carrot.
RED MEAT Moroccan beef salad Serves 4
** *
650 g (1 lb 7 oz) beef eye fillet ½ teaspoon sea salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
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** * ** *
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 3 cups mixed salad leaves ½ cup finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) 6 small ripe tomatoes, quartered 2 small red onions, cut into thin wedges grated zest of 1 orange
** ** * **
¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice 1 teaspoon ground paprika 1 tablespoon ground coriander 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped ½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
(cilantro), tomatoes, onions and orange zest in a bowl and place beef on top. To make dressing, combine ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Drizzle dressing over salad and serve. (Recipe courtesy of the Pro Health clinic, Sydney)
Dressing
Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F/gas 7). Season beef with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large heavy-based frying pan over high heat, add beef and sear until brown all over. Transfer beef to a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes (22 minutes if you want rare). Remove from oven and allow to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes. Thinly slice beef. Combine salad leaves, coriander
VEGETABLES Vegetable and tofu stir- fry
Try this dish using some or all of the following vegies: onions, carrots, capsicums (peppers), mushrooms, celery, broccoli, asparagus, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots. Serves 4
** **
450 g (1 lb) firm tofu 8 cups sliced vegetables 1 tablespoon sesame oil 2 cups cooked basmati rice or brown rice
Sauce
** *
¼ cup tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 teaspoons raw honey
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** *
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 teaspoon arrowroot powder or cornflour (cornstarch)
Slice tofu into 1-cm (½-in) slices. Press between layered paper towels to remove excess moisture. Cut slices into 1-cm (½-in) dice. Arrange on a plate with prepared vegetables, separated by variety. To make sauce, combine tamari, garlic, honey, ginger and sesame oil in a small bowl and mix well. Place arrowroot powder or cornflour and a little cold water (less than 2 teaspoons) in a teacup and stir to dissolve. Add to sauce, stir well and set aside. Preheat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat, add sesame oil and vegetables (adding sturdier vegetables first and more tender ones, like mung bean sprouts, later) and stir-fry until tender crisp. Add tofu and toss gently until tofu is warmed through. Stir sauce and pour around edge of wok. Toss vegetables in sauce. Remove from heat as soon as sauce is thickened and serve over rice.
Sweet potato mash Serves 6
* ** *
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) or 2 medium sweet potatoes, chopped pinch of sea salt ½ cup soy milk or natural yoghurt ½ tablespoon finely snipped fresh chives
Place sweet potatoes in a large heavybased saucepan, cover with salted water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until sweet potato is tender. Drain well. Return sweet potatoes to saucepan, add soy milk or yoghurt and chives and mash thoroughly.
Spicy sweet potato fries A yummy snack! Serves 4
** ** *
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled 1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil ¼ teaspoon ground paprika pinch of cayenne pepper ½ teaspoon sea salt
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Adjust oven racks to divide oven into thirds. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F/ gas 8). Cut sweet potatoes into 1-cm (½-in) thick wedges and place in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with paprika, cayenne pepper and salt. Using your hands, toss sweet potatoes to coat evenly. Arrange sweet potatoes in single layers in two non-stick baking trays. Place in oven and bake, turning potatoes and rotating baking trays halfway through cooking time, for 25 minutes or until browned and tender. Serve immediately.
Broccolini stir- fry
Goes well with fish or grilled chicken. Serves 2
** ** ** *
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 4 garlic cloves, finely sliced 1 × 2 cm piece of fresh ginger, chopped ½ cup unsalted cashews, optional 2 celery stalks, thinly sliced ½ bunch of broccolini or ½ head of broccoli
** *
½ cup finely chopped fresh basil 3 spring onions (scallions) sea salt, to taste
Heat olive oil in a wok, add onion, garlic, ginger and cashews and gently fry until onion is transparent. Increase heat, add celery and broccolini or broccoli and stir-fry until broccolini is tender crisp. Stir in basil, spring onions (scallions) and salt immediately before serving. (Recipe courtesy of the Pro Health Clinic, Sydney)
Microwave and you lose out big on antioxidants Research shows that microwaved vegies lose huge amounts of antioxidants. Microwaved broccoli loses between 74 and 97 per cent of its key antioxidant compounds. This is because most of the compounds are water-soluble and during heating they leach into the cooking water. Steamed broccoli, however, loses between 0 and 11 per cent of the same antioxidants. So cook vegies in the minimum amount of water (as in steaming), in order to retain their nutritional benefits.
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GORGEOUS SKIN RECIPES Barbecued asparagus with tomato salsa Serves 4
** ** **
2 large ripe tomatoes, diced 1 tablespoon finely chopped lemon thyme 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 bunches of asparagus, woody ends trimmed
Combine tomatoes, thyme, balsamic vinegar and oil in a bowl and season well. Heat a chargrill pan or barbecue to medium-hot and grill asparagus for 5 minutes. Serve asparagus on a large platter and top with tomato salsa. Enjoy hot or warm.
DIPS Creamy hummus Hummus makes a delicious and nutritious dip for fresh vegetables. Serves 4
* * ** ** * * * *
1 × 400 g (14 oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained 2 spring onions (scallions), chopped into large pieces 4 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tablespoon tahini (sesame seed paste) ¾ teaspoon ground cumin juice of ½ lemon 2 teaspoons tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) ½ cup roasted red capsicum (pepper), optional 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro), optional 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Place chickpeas, spring onions, garlic, tahini, cumin, lemon juice, tamari and capsicum or coriander (cilantro) (if using) in a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. Spoon into a serving bowl, drizzle over olive oil and serve.
Guacamole Serves 8
** **
6 avocados ½ teaspoon extra virgin olive oil 1½ teaspoons lime juice 8–10 dashes of Tabasco sauce
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** **
2½ tablespoons finely chopped onion ¼–½ cup finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) ½ teaspoon sea salt 3 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
Scoop avocado flesh into a bowl and add remaining ingredients, one at a time in the order given, mixing with a fork after each addition. Do not overmix. You want the guacamole to remain chunky.
Baba ghanoush Serves 4
** ** ** * **
650 g (1 lb 7 oz) eggplant (aubergine) lemon juice, to taste sea salt, to taste 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic 3 tablespoons sesame seeds 2 tablespoons natural yoghurt ¼ cup finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley ¼ cup toasted pinenuts 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F/gas 6). Prick eggplant (aubergine) all over with a fork and place on a baking tray. Place
in oven and bake whole for 30 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven, cut in half and scoop out flesh. Place flesh in a food processor, add lemon juice and blend until smooth. Crush salt and garlic in a mortar and pestle and mix in with eggplant. Add sesame seeds and yoghurt. Set aside to cool. Stir in parsley and pinenuts. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with triangles of wholegrain pita bread.
DESSERTS Cocoa banana frozen dessert Serves 4
** **
4 very ripe bananas 2 tablespoons pure unsweetened cocoa powder 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pour into individual cups or small bowls and freeze until just frozen.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Peaches and strawberries with honey ricotta
Peaches with macadamia nuts and almond cream
Serves 2
Serves 4
* ** *
** * ** **
150 g (5½ oz) peaches, diced (fresh or tinned) 100 g (3½ oz) strawberries, hulled § cup low-fat ricotta cheese 1 teaspoon raw honey
Mix peaches with strawberries in a bowl. Serve with ricotta drizzled with honey.
Grilled figs with macadamia nuts and ricotta Serves 2
** **
4 fresh figs 2 tablespoons finely chopped unsalted macadamia nuts § cup low-fat ricotta cheese 1 tablespoon raw honey, optional
Cut a cross in the top of each fig and fill with macadamia nuts. Grill under a hot grill for 5 minutes. Serve with ricotta sweetened with a little honey if desired.
¼ cup unsalted macadamia nuts 4 peaches 1 tablespoon brown rice syrup
Almond cream 1½ cups almond meal ¾ cup filtered or mineral water 1 tablespoon raw honey 95 g (3¼ oz) natural yoghurt or soy yoghurt
Spread nuts on an oven tray and toast at 180°C (350°F/gas 4) for 5 minutes or until golden. Cool for 10 minutes then chop coarsely. To make almond cream, combine almond meal, water, honey and yoghurt in a blender and blend until consistency of double (thick) cream. Slice peaches and arrange on plates. Drizzle brown rice syrup on top and sprinkle with nuts. Serve with almond cream.
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NOTES
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Preface p. 9, paragraph 2: Schaefer, O., 1971, ‘When the Eskimo comes to town’, Nutrition Today, vol. 6, pp. 8–16 p. 9, paragraph 2: Steiner, P.E., 1946, ‘Necropsies on Okinawans: anatomic and pathologic observations’, Archives Pathology, vol. 42, pp. 359–80 p. 9, paragraph 3: Cordain, L. et al., 2002, ‘Acne vulgaris: a disease of Western civilization’, Archives of Dermatology, vol. 138, no. 12, pp. 1584–90 p. 10, paragraph 4: Smith, R. et al., 2007, ‘A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 86, no. 1, pp. 107–15 p. 5, paragraph 1: Smith, R. et al., 2007, ‘The effect of a high-protein, lowglycemic-load diet versus a conventional, high-glycemic-load diet on biochemical parameters associated with acne vulgaris: A randomized, investigator-masked, controlled trial’, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 247–56
Introduction p. 12, paragraph 3: Yankelovich et al., 2000, ‘The 21st century teen: public perception and teen reality’, Partners for the American Counseling Association
Chapter 2 p. 48, paragraph 4: Dreno, B. et al., 2005, ‘Effect of zinc gluconate on propionibacterium acne’s resistance to erythromycin in patients with inflammatory acne: in vitro and in vivo study’, European Journal of Dermatology, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 152–5 p. 49, paragraph 1: Michaelsson, G., 1990, ‘Decreased concentration of selenium in whole blood and plasma in acne vulgaris’, Acta Derm Venerol, vol. 70, no. 1, p. 92 p. 52, paragraph 2: Stanner, S., 2002, ‘Food, nutrition and the prevention of cancer: getting the message across’, Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 27. no. 3, pp. 199–202
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NOTES Chapter 3 p. 58, paragraph 3: Cordain, L., 2005, ‘Implications for the role of diet in acne’, Seminars in Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 84–91 p. 61, paragraph 2: Smith, R. et al., 2007, ‘A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 86, no. 1, pp. 107–15 p. 62, paragraph 3: Mang, B. et al., 2006, ‘Effects of a cinnamon extract on plasma glucose, HbA1c, and serum lipids in diabetes mellitus type 2’, European Journal of Clinical Investigation, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 340–4 p. 64, paragraph 1: Cordain, L. et al., 2005, ‘Dissociation of the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses to whole and skimmed milk’, British Journal of Nutrition, vol. 93, pp. 175–7 p. 64, paragraph 2: Ostman, E.M. et al., 2001, ‘Inconsistency between glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented milk products’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 96–100 p. 64, paragraph 4: Hoppe, C. et al., 2005, ‘High intakes of milk, but not meat, increase s-insulin and insulin resistance in 8-year-old boys’, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 393–8 p. 65, paragraph 2: Elmståhl, L.H. et al., 2001, ‘Milk as a supplement to mixed meals may elevate postprandial insulinaemia’, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 55, no. 11, pp. 994–9 p. 66, paragraph 2: 29 April 1966, ‘Acne, hormones & milk’, Time Magazine, published at: www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,835434,00.html p. 66, paragraph 4: Adebamowo, C.A. et al., 2005, ‘High school dietary dairy intake and teenage acne’, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 207–14 p. 71, paragraph 1: Adebamowo, C.A. et al., 2006, ‘Milk consumption and acne in adolescent girls’, Dermatology Online Journal, vol. 12, no. 4 p. 71, paragraph 1: Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘National nutrition survey: foods eaten, Australia, 1995’, Canberra: ABS, 1999 (Catalogue No. 4804.0.) p. 80, paragraph 1: Burke, K., 31 October 2006, ‘Iced not so nice: some bottled tea drinks found to be sweeter than Coke’, The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 3
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS p. 71, paragraph 1: Nagata, C. et al., 2005, ‘Fat intake is associated with serum estrogen and androgen concentrations in postmenopausal Japanese women’, Journal of Nutrition, vol. 135, no. 12, pp. 2862–5 p. 71, paragraph 1: Butterer, K., 2001, ‘The clear skin diet’, Self Magazine, March, p. 175
Chapter 4 p. 80, paragraph 1: Prior, R.L. et al., 2004, ‘Lipophilic and hydrophilic antioxidant capacities of common foods in the United States’, Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, vol. 52, no. 12, pp. 4026–37 p. 82, paragraph 1: Food News from the Environmental Working Group in the US published at: www.foodnews.org/walletguide.php, viewed 11 April 2008 p. 82, paragraph 2: Wang, C. et al., 2005, ‘Low-fat high-fiber diet decreased serum and urine androgens in men’, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 90, no. 6, pp. 3550–9 p. 82, paragraph 3: Stanner, S., 2002, ‘Food, nutrition and the prevention of cancer: getting the message across’, Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 199–202 p. 84, paragraph 2: Wahlqvist, M., et al., 2001, ‘Skin wrinkling: can food make a difference?’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 71–80 p. 89, paragraph 1: Worthington, V., 2001, ‘Nutritional quality of organic versus conventional fruits, vegetables, and grains’, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 161–73 p. 92, paragraph 4: Mitchell, A.E. et al., 2003, ‘Comparison of the total phenolic and ascorbic acid content of freeze-dried and air-dried marionberry, strawberry, and corn grown using conventional, organic, and sustainable agricultural practices’, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 1237–41 p. 93, paragraph 1: Wahlqvist, M. et al., 2001, ‘Skin wrinkling: can food make a difference?’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 71–80 p. 94, paragraph 3: Schwartz, S.J. et al., 2004, ‘Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full fat than with fat-reduced salad
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NOTES dressings as measured with electrochemical detection’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 396–403 p. 94, paragraph 3: Douglas, K. et al., 2005, ‘11 steps to a better brain’, New Scientist, vol. 2501, 28 May 2005, p. 28 p. 95, paragraph 3: Araujo, J.A. et al., 2005, ‘Assessment of nutritional interventions for modification of age-associated cognitive decline using a canine model of human aging’, AGE, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 27–37 p. 95, paragraph 3: Delarue, J. et al., 2003, ‘Fish oil prevents the adrenal activation elicited by mental stress in healthy men’, Diabetes and Metabolism, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 289–95 p. 96, paragraph 1: Nagata, C. et al., 2000, ‘Relationships between types of fats consumed and serum estrogen and androgen concentrations in Japanese men’, Nutrition and Cancer, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 163–7 p. 97, paragraph 1: Logan, A.C., 2003, ‘Omega-3 fatty acids and acne’, Archives of Dermatology, vol. 139, no. 7, pp. 941–2 p. 98, paragraph 3: Mozaffarian, D. et al., 2006, ‘Fish intake, contaminants, and human health: evaluating the risks and the benefits’, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 296, no. 15, pp. 1885–99 p. 99, paragraph 3: Robinson, J., 2004, Pasture Perfect: The Far-reaching Benefits of Choosing Meat, Eggs, and Dairy Products from Grass-fed Animals, Vashon Island Press, Vashon, WA p. 103, paragraph 1: Habito, R.C. et al., 2000, ‘Effects of replacing meat with soyabean in the diet on sex hormone concentrations in healthy adult males’, British Journal of Nutrition, vol. 84, no. 4, pp. 557–63 p. 103, paragraph 1: Jenkins, D.J.A. et al., 2006, ‘Almonds decrease postprandial glycemia, insulinemia, and oxidative damage in healthy individuals’, Journal of Nutrition, vol. 136, no. 12, pp. 2987–92 p. 103, paragraph 2: Josse, A.R. et al., 2007, ‘Almonds and postprandial glycemia: a dose–response study’, Metabolism, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 400–4 p. 104, paragraph 5: Reiter, R. et al., 2005, ‘Melatonin in walnuts: influence on levels of melatonin and total antioxidant capacity of blood’, Nutrition, vol. 21, no. 9, pp. 920–4 p. 105, paragraph 4: Hamdaoui, M.H. et al., 2005, ‘Effect of green tea decoction on long-term iron, zinc and selenium status of rats’, Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 118–24
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS p. 105, paragraph 5: Vinson, J.A. et al., 2005, ‘Dried fruits: excellent in vitro and in vivo antioxidants’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 45–50 p. 105, paragraph 6: Heinrich, U. et al., 2006, ‘Long-term ingestion of high flavanol cocoa provides photoprotection against UV-induced erythema and improves skin condition in women’, Journal of Nutrition, vol. 136, no. 6, pp. 1565–9 p. 106, paragraph 1: Grassi, D. et al., 2005, ‘Short-term administration of dark chocolate is followed by a significant increase in insulin sensitivity and a decrease in blood pressure in healthy persons’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 611–14
Chapter 5 p. 112, paragraph 2: Fairey, A.S. et al., 2003, ‘Effects of exercise training on fasting insulin, insulin resistance, insulin-like growth factors, and insulin-like growth factor binding proteins in postmenopausal breast cancer survivors’, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 721–7 p. 113, paragraph 1: Conney, A. et al., 2006, ‘Inhibitory effects of voluntary running wheel exercise on UVB-induced skin carcinogenesis in SKH-1 mice’, Carcinogenesis, vol. 27, no. 10, pp. 2108–15 p. 113, paragraph 2: Douglas, K. et al., 2005, ‘11 steps to a better brain’, New Scientist, vol. 2501, 28 May 2005, p. 28 p. 118, paragraph 2: Edwards, H., 5 February 2006, ‘SMS teens losing precious sleep’, The Age, p. 9 p. 118, paragraph 2: 27 August 2007, ‘Junk sleep “damaging teen health”’, BBC News, published at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ health/6962085.stm p. 118, paragraph 3: Hung, C.S. et al., 2007, ‘Mobile phone “talk-mode” signal delays EEG-determined sleep onset’, Neuroscience Letters, vol. 421, no. 1, pp. 82–6 p. 126, paragraph 1: Toyoda, M. et al., 2003, ‘New aspects in acne inflammation’, Dermatology, vol. 206, pp. 17–23 p. 126, paragraph 1: Zouboulis, C.C. et al., 2004, ‘Neuroendocrine regulation of sebocytes, a pathogentic link between stress and acne’, Experimental Dermatology, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 31–5
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NOTES p. 126, paragraph 2: Park, J.S., September 2007, ‘Pressure point: could stress be making you break out’, Teen Vogue (US), pp. 316 p. 126, paragraph 4: Park, J.S., September 2007, ‘Pressure point: could stress be making you break out’, Teen Vogue (US), pp. 316 p. 126, paragraph 5: Chiu, A. et al., 2003, ‘The response of skin disease to stress: changes in the severity of acne vulgaris as affected by examination stress’, Archives of Dermatology, vol. 139, no. 7, pp. 897–900 p. 132, paragraph 1: West, J. et al., 2004, ‘Effects of Hatha yoga and African dance on perceived stress, affect, and salivary cortisol’, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 114–18
Chapter 6 p. 143, paragraph 6: Berwick, M. et al., 2005, ‘Sun exposure and mortality from melanoma’, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, vol. 97, no. 3, pp. 195–9 p. 144, paragraph 1: Sigmundsdottir, H. et al., January 2007, ‘DCs metabolize sunlight-induced vitamin D3 to “program” T cell attraction to the epidermal chemokine CCL27’, Nature Immunology, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 285–93 p. 144, paragraph 5: Schäfer, T. et al., 2001, ‘Epidemiology of acne in the general population: the risk of smoking’, British Journal of Dermatology, vol. 145, no. 1, pp. 100–4
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Preface p. 1, paragraph 1: Schaefer, O., 1971, ‘When the Eskimo comes to town’, Nutrition Today, vol. 6, pp. 8–16 p. 2, paragraph 1: Steiner, P.E., 1946, ‘Necropsies on Okinawans: anatomic and pathologic observations’, Archives Pathology, vol. 42, pp. 359–80 p. 3, paragraph 1: Cordain, L. et al., 2002, ‘Acne vulgaris: a disease of western civilization’, Archives of Dermatology, vol. 138, no. 12, pp. 1584–90 p. 4, paragraph 1: Smith, R. et al., 2007, ‘A lowglycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial,’ American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 86, no. 1, pp. 107–15 p. 5, paragraph 1: Smith, R. et al., 2007, ‘The effect of a high-protein, low glycemic–load diet versus a conventional, high glycemic–load diet on biochemical parameters associated with acne vulgaris: A randomized, investigator-masked, controlled trial’, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 57, pp. 247–56
APPENDIX Introduction p. 1, paragraph 1: Yankelovich et al., 2000, ‘The 21st century teen: public perception and teen reality’, Partners for the American Counseling Association
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APPENDIX Nutrition: the nuts and bolts Protein power Shortcut: About 28 g (1 oz) of meat or fish = approx 7 g (¼ oz) of protein. Chicken Chicken breast Chicken thigh Drumstick Wing Cooked chicken meat, 115 g (4 oz)
Amount of protein 30 g (1 oz) 10 g (¼ oz) 11 g (¼ oz) 6 g (1⁄8 oz) 35 g (1 ¼ oz)
Fish Most fish fillets, 100 g (3 ½ oz) Most fish, 28 g (1 oz) Tuna, 170 g (6 oz) can
22 g (¾ oz) 6 g (1⁄8 oz) 40 g (1½ oz)
Beef Hamburger patty Steak, average size Beef, most cuts, 28 g (1 oz)
28 g (1 oz) 42 g (1½ oz) 7 g (¼ oz)
Pork Pork chop, average Pork loin or tenderloin, 115 g (4 oz)
22 g (¾ oz) 29 g (1 oz)
Eggs and Dairy Egg, large Milk, 1 cup Cottage cheese, ½ cup Yoghurt, 1 cup Soft cheeses (mozzarella, camembert), 28 g (1 oz) Medium cheeses (cheddar, Swiss), 28 g (1 oz) Hard cheeses (parmesan), 28 g (1 oz)
6 g (1⁄8 oz) 8 g (¼ oz) 15 g (½ oz) 8–12 g (¼ oz) 6 g (1⁄8 oz) 7–8 g (¼ oz) 10 g (¼ oz)
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Beans (including soy) Tofu, ½ cup Soy milk, 1 cup Most beans (black, pinto, lentils), ½ cup Soy beans, cooked, ½ cup Split peas, cooked, ½ cup
9 g (¼ oz) 10 g (¼ oz) 7–10 g (¼ oz) 14 g (½ oz) 8 g (¼ oz)
Nuts and Seeds Peanut butter, 2 tablespoons Almonds, ¼ cup Peanuts, ¼ cup Cashews, ¼ cup Pecans, ¼ cup Sunflower seeds, ¼ cup Pepitas (pumpkin seeds), ¼ cup Flaxseeds, ¼ cup
8 g (¼ oz) 8 g (¼ oz) 9 g (¼ oz) 5 g (1⁄8 oz) 2.5 g (1⁄16 oz) 6 g (1⁄8 oz) 19 g (¾ oz) 8 g (¼ oz)
Fibre power Aim for at least 25 g (1 oz) of fibre a day
How to get your fibre fill Vegetables Artichoke, cooked, 1 cup Peas, 1 cup Brussels sprouts, 1 cup Corn, 1 cup
10 g (¼ oz) 8.8 g (¼ oz) 6.4 g (1⁄8 oz) 4.2 g (1⁄16 oz)
Fruit Pear, 1 Blueberries, 1 cup Apple, with skin, 1 Strawberries, 1 cup Figs, dried, 2
5.1 g (1⁄8 oz) 3.5 g (1⁄16 oz) 3.3 g (1⁄16 oz) 3.3 g (1⁄16 oz) 3.7 g (1⁄16 oz)
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APPENDIX Legumes Lentils, 1 cup Black beans, 1 cup Lima Beans, 1 cup Baked beans, canned, 1 cup Soybeans, ½ cup
15.6 g (½ oz) 15 g (½ oz) 13.2 g (½ oz) 10.4 g (¼ oz) 10 g (¼ oz)
Cereals and grains Buckwheat cereal, 1 cup Rolled oats, 1 cup Spaghetti, wholemeal (wholewheat), 1 cup
10 g (¼ oz) 4 g (1⁄8 oz) 6.3 g (1⁄8 oz)
Nuts Almonds, 24 Peanuts, 27
3.3 g (1⁄16 oz) 2.3 g (1⁄16 oz)
Vitamin power Now, let’s look more closely at vitamins—from A to K. Vitamin A Vitamin A is important for healthy skin, bones, hair and it helps you grow properly too. It also plays a really big part in eyesight. Vitamin A helps you see in colour, from the brightest yellow to the darkest purple. You’ll find vitamin A in: • Milk • Butter • Eggs • Liver • Carrots • Apricots • Rockmelon (cantaloupe) • Sweet potatoes • Dark green leafy vegetables
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Vitamin B There’s more than one B vitamin. Here’s the list: B1, B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6, B9 (folic acid), B12 and biotin. Whew, that’s quite a group. The vitamin B group helps keep your nervous system, muscles and heart working well. And they are super important for your energy. These guys assist in making energy and set it free when your body needs it. So the next time you’re running to third base, thank those B vitamins. This group of vitamins is also involved in making red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout your body. Every part of your body needs oxygen to work properly, so B vitamins have a big job. Foods rich in the Bs: • Whole grains • Fish and seafood • Poultry and meat • Eggs • Dairy products, like milk and yoghurt • Leafy green vegetables, like spinach • Legumes, beans and peas • Fruit, like bananas and citrus fruit, such as oranges Vitamin C Vitamin C is vital for your immune system to keep you strong and healthy; it helps heal wounds, and is important for healthy teeth, gums, brain function and for great skin. Foods rich in vitamin C: • Citrus fruit, like oranges, lemons and grapefruit • Rockmelon (cantaloupe) • Strawberries • Kiwifruit • Spinach • Tomatoes • Broccoli • Cabbage • Capsicums (peppers)
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APPENDIX Vitamin D You can’t have strong bones and teeth and a healthy immune system without vitamin D. A small amount of sunlight is by far the best source of vitamin D (it’s called the sunshine vitamin after all). Foods rich in Vitamin D: • Egg yolks • Fish (sardines, salmon, tuna) • Milk and other dairy products fortified with vitamin D Vitamin E Vitamin E keeps your immune system and nervous system running smoothly and it maintains a lot of your body’s tissues, especially your skin. Plus it also helps make healthy red blood cells. Foods rich in vitamin E: • Nuts • Avocados • Wheat germ • Vegetable oils • Sardines • Egg yolks Vitamin K Remember the last time you got a cut? Your blood did something special called clotting. This is when certain cells in your blood act like glue and stick together at the surface of the cut. Vitamin K is key for blood clotting. Foods rich in Vitamin K: • Vegetables, like broccoli, cabbage, spinach • Liver • Dairy products, like milk, cheese, yoghurt • Eggs
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Mineral power Here are some of the top minerals needed for good health: Calcium Calcium is the top mineral when it comes to your bones. Your bones are your body’s foundation and 45 per cent of your total bone growth takes place in the teenage years. Lots of calcium now, means strong bones in later life. And strong bones mean you can do everything from standing up straight, to scoring that winning goal. Calcium is also super important because it prevents osteoporosis (a disease that weakens your bones) when you’re older. Calcium assists you to grow taller during a growth spurt, and it helps build strong, healthy teeth, for chowing down on tasty food. We also need calcium for our nervous system, and for our muscles to contract. Top sources of calcium: • Dairy products, such as milk, cheese and yoghurt • Canned salmon and sardines with bones • Leafy green vegetables, such as kale, bok choy and broccoli • Nuts and sesame seeds. The recommended dietary intake (RDI) for calcium for teenage Australian girls is between 1000–1300 mg (1⁄32 oz) per day. Great non-dairy forms of calcium Approximate milligrams (mg) of calcium per 1 cup Vegetables Bok choy, cooked Bean sprouts Spinach Collard greens, cooked Mustard greens, cooked Turnip greens, cooked
330 mg 320 mg 250 mg 260 mg 450 mg 450 mg
Seafood Prawns Raw oysters
130 mg 300 mg
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APPENDIX Salmon with bones Mackerel, canned with bones Sardines, canned with bones
490 mg 680 mg 1000 mg
Nuts Almonds Chestnuts Hazelnuts Walnuts Sesame seeds Sunflower seeds
660 mg 600 mg 450 mg 280 mg 900 mg 260 mg
Beans Chickpeas (cooked) Soybeans (cooked) Tofu
340 mg 450 mg 400 mg
Magnesium Every single cell in your body needs this important mineral and it’s required for about 300 plus different enzyme reactions in our bodies. Including energy, muscle relaxation, making protein and building strong bones. Top sources of magnesium: • Brown rice and other whole grains • Almonds • Peanuts • Tofu • Spinach • Dried figs • Prunes. Iron Your entire body needs oxygen to stay alive and iron helps because it’s important in the formation of haemoglobin, which is the part of your blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. Iron needs are high for both girls and guys during the teenage years. Guys need more iron because the build-up of muscle mass is accompanied by greater blood volume. And girls need more iron because of menstrual losses.
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS • • • • • • • • • •
Great sources of iron: Meat, especially red meat, such as beef and liver Tuna and salmon Eggs Beans Baked potato with skins Spinach Dried fruit, like raisins and prunes Leafy green vegetables, such as broccoli Whole grains Sesame seeds and almonds
Zinc Zinc is essential for growth and sexual maturation, so it is particularly important during teenage years. Zinc helps your immune system fight off illnesses and infections and it helps with cell growth and healing wounds, like cuts. Zinc helps to prevent your oil producing glands from overproducing gunk, so stock up on zinc-rich foods. Zinc rich foods include: • Beef • Pork • Lamb • Legumes, such as beans, peas, lentils and peanuts • Oysters • Pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
Fruit and vegetable power What counts as a serving? Fruit, like apples, oranges, bananas and pears Raw leafy vegies, like spinach or cos lettuce Cooked or raw vegies Chopped fruit Dried fruit, like raisins and apricots
1 serving 1 medium fruit 1 cup ½ cup ½ cup ½ cup
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APPENDIX GI power Food
Glycaemic index (GI)
Cereals Rice Bubbles, 50 g Cornflakes, 30 g Puffed wheat cereal, 30 g Cocoa Pops, 30 g WeetBix, 30 g Muesli, natural, 30 g
85 84 80 77 74 40
Breads, grains and biscuits Baguette, white, 60 g Rice cakes, 50 g Doughnuts, 47 g White bread, 30 g Corn chips, 50 g Bagel, 70 g Crumpet, 50 g Croissant, 57 g Dark rye bread, 30 g Pumpernickel, 30 g White rice, 150 g Basmati rice, 150 g Brown rice, 150 g Vanilla wafer biscuits, 25 g Milk Arrowroot biscuits, 25 g Shortbread biscuits, 25 g
95 82 76 73 73 72 69 67 55 41 69 58 55 77 69 64
Sweets Jelly beans, 30 g Life savers, 30 g Mars Bar, 60 g
80 70 68
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Vegetables Mashed potatoes, Pontiac, 150 g Baked potato, 150 g Sweet potato, 150 g Broccoli, 150 g Tomatoes, 150 g Soybeans, boiled, 150 g Lentils, 150 g Kidney beans, 150 g
91 85 48 15 15 16 29 27
Fruit Cherries, 120 g Apples, 120 g Pears, 120 g Peaches, 120 g Bananas, 120 g Kiwifruit, 120 g
22 38 36 42 53 52
Drinks and sweeteners Honey, 25 g Xylitol, 25 g Agave syrup/nectar, 10 g Glucose, 50 g Soy milk, 250 ml Apple juice, cloudy, unsweetened, 262 g Orange juice, unsweetened, 263 g Fanta, 262 g Cordial, orange, reconstituted, 259 g
55 7 10 100 30 37 53 68 66
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APPENDIX Technical stuff The lowdown on hormones Q. What’s insulin? A. Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas. Among other things it controls the amount of sugar in the blood (also called blood glucose) by moving it into your cells, where it can be used for energy by your body. You’ve probably heard of insulin in relation to diabetes, especially if any of your friends have the disease. With diabetes the body doesn’t make enough insulin, so it needs to be injected regularly. Insulin is like a master hormone, because it has a direct and an indirect effect on many other hormones in your body. Q. What are hormones? A. Hormones are chemical messengers that tell your organs and cells what to do. For example, the hormone melatonin regulates your 24-hour body clock and helps you sleep well at night. Growth hormone stimulates the growth of bone and other body tissues, and the thyroid hormones regulate your metabolism. We absolutely need insulin, but when you have too much of it floating around your bloodstream, it can set off a series of reactions that leads to breakouts. When you eat lots of food with a high GI—like Rice Bubbles, white bread, and bagels—this spikes blood-sugar levels, and this in turn causes your insulin levels to surge. The big problem is that this surge in insulin stimulates a number of growth factors and hormones, including a small protein that is essential for growth to occur called insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). Now this can lead to an excess of male hormones called androgens (which girls, and not just guys, secrete). These androgens encourage pores in your skin to ooze out large amounts of oil (sebum), the greasy goop that acne-promoting bacteria love, and that makes your skin cells stick together. This process blocks pores and contributes to the development of acne. On top of that, IGF-1 can cause your outer skin cells (called keratinocytes) to multiply abnormally. Faster regeneration of skin cells sounds great, but it means that this build up of dead skin cells may also block your pores. Also when insulin levels stay high, this interferes with the production of a good hormone (insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3 or IGFBP-3) that
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS assists with the natural shedding of your skin, and as a result, your pores tend to become blocked. So to sum it up simply, fluctuations in blood sugar cause acne by: Increasing oil (sebum) production Causing skin cells to regenerate faster Causing dead skin cells to stick together. Q. So why can some adults eat all the sugar, refined carbs and processed foods they like, and never seem to get a single spot? A. The key difference is metabolism and hormone output. During puberty and throughout most of your teen years, the hormones that are running sky-high actually step up production of sebum, which results in skin that gets clogged more often than normal. Also rapid growth spurts during this time naturally require your body to produce extra growth hormone (GH) to drive this fast growth, but this extra GH bumps up insulin levels. Insulin is an anabolic hormone—it helps the growth of all your tissues, and it’s absolutely necessary for this time of development, growth and transformation. But this also means that teens have more insulin in their bloodstream. As a result, teens become resistant to insulin—almost like in Type II diabetes—their cells can’t absorb the sugar as well as they should, so it remains in the blood. In healthy teens, this insulin resistance disappears after puberty ends. And this is why acne magically seems to disappear, as we get older. Q. What is insulin resistance? A. Insulin resistance basically means that the cells in your body are less responsive to the hormone insulin. It’s as if insulin knocks on the door, but no one answers. As a result, the pancreas tries to compensate by pumping out even more insulin. These sky-high levels of insulin can lead to all sorts of skin problems. So actually, you can think of teenage acne almost as a sign of rebellion against a diet high in sugar and refined carbs. And the thing is, most teenagers seem to eat nothing but refined carbs, sugars and processed foods! The lowdown on glycaemic load (GL) You might have seen something called the ‘GL’ and confused it with the GI. The GL is actually the Glycaemic Load, and it’s a slightly different index to the GI.
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APPENDIX The GL of a specific portion of food indicates how much impact or oomph the food will have on affecting your blood-sugar levels. The GI indicates the extent to which a food will raise blood-sugar levels, whereas the GL is the power behind the GI. For example, some fruit and vegies may have higher GI values and you may think of them as “bad”. But considering the quantity of carbohydrate per portion, their GL is low. This means that their effect on your blood sugar levels is also minimal. Let’s look at a few examples: The GI of apples is 38 and the GL of one medium apple is only 5. This means that eating one apple will hardly have any effect on your blood sugar levels. But if you eat a whole packet of 500 g of dried apples (which is probably at least 10 apples), its GL would be 50, meaning that it has a big effect on your blood sugar levels, even though it’s fairly low GI. Another example is watermelon. The GI of watermelon is sky high for a fruit at 72, but its GL is fairly low at 7, because the quantity of carbohydrate in a serving of watermelon (150 g or a 5 mm thick slice) is minimal and it contains lots of water, so it’s okay. But watermelon juice is different story, as the quantity of carbs in a cup of watermelon juice (250ml) is much higher, and fruit juice is a more concentrated source of carbohydrate. Remember: The GI indicates the extent to which a food will raise blood sugar levels, whereas the GL is the “power” or “push” behind the GI. Low GL = 10 or less Medium GL = 11–19 High GL = 20 plus You can also go to this website to find the GL of almost any food: http:// www.glycemicindex.com. So high GI and high GL mean double trouble, and guarantee that your blood-sugar levels and insulin will really shoot up. Lower and slower is the key.
What are antioxidants? Antioxidants are basically molecules or substances that help protect against cell damage from free radicals and oxidation. So antioxidants guard the body from the damaging effects of free radicals. Feed your face with the following foods that are loaded with good-foryour-skin nutrients and antioxidants:
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Green light list Almonds Almond butter Anchovies Apples Artichokes Asparagus Avocados Avocado oil Barley Beans (dried and fresh) Bean sprouts Beef Beetroot Berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.) Bok choy Brazil nuts Broccoli and broccolini Brussels sprouts Cabbage Canola oil (cold-pressed) Carrots and carrot juice Cashews Cauliflower Celery Cherries Chicken (free-range and organic, if possible) Chickpeas Chinese cabbage Cinnamon Cocoa/dark (bittersweet) chocolate—more than 70 per cent cocoa Coconut oil/coconut milk/shredded coconut Cod liver oil Cos lettuce Crab
Curry powder Cucumber Duck Eggplant (aubergine) Eggs (free-range and organic, if possible) Endives Figs (fresh and dried) Fish and shellfish Garlic Ginger (fresh or ground) Grapefruit Green capsicums (peppers) Green tea Hazelnuts Honeydew melon Kale Kidney Beans Kiwifruit Lamb Leafy greens Legumes Lemons Lentils (green, red and brown) Lettuce Linseeds (flaxseeds) Macadamia nuts Mackerel Miso Muesli (natural, no sugar) Mushrooms (all varieties) Mussels Nectarines Nuts Oats Octopus Olive oil Onions
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APPENDIX Oysters Parmesan cheese Parsley Parsnips Peaches Pears Pecan nuts Pepitas (pumpkin seeds) Pinenuts Pinto beans Pistachio nuts Plums Porridge Pomegranates Pumpkin (squash) Prawns Prunes Quinoa Radishes Red capsicums (peppers) Rocket (arugula) Rockmelon (cantaloupe) Salmon Sardines Scallops Silverbeet Snapper Snow peas (mange tout) Soy products (whole, unprocessed) Spinach Spring onions (scallions) Sunflower seeds Sweet potato Swordfish Tofu Tomatoes Turkey
Turnips Veal Walnuts Watermelon Whole grains Yoghurt Zucchini (courgette)
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INDEX Acne anti-acne products, 31–2, 76, 140 blackheads, 29, 138 cause, 28–9 contributing factors diet, 13, 32, 56–73 hormones, 13, 28, 30–1, 63 silent inflammation, 78–9 sleep deprivation, 119 stress, 110, 111–12, 125–6 cysts, 29–30 definition, 28 diet, 7–11 see also Diet; Nutrition cause of acne, as, 13, 32, 56–73 treatment for acne, as, 14, 32, 76–108 exercise, 14–15, 110–12 hormones, 13, 28, 30–1, 63 hygiene, 139 nodules, 29–30 normal in teenagers, whether, 6–11 statistics, 8, 12, 28 pimples, 29 popping or squeezing, 139 polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), symptom of, 31 relaxation, 14–15, 110, 127–32 shaving, 140 silent inflammation, 78–9 sleep, 14–15, 110, 116– 17, 119
smoking, 144–5 stress, 110, 111–12, 125–6 sun exposure, 141 treatment, 12–15, 32 anti-acne products, 31–2, 76, 140 diet, 14, 32, 76–108 exercise, 14–15, 110–12 relaxation, 14–15, 110, 127–32 sleep, 14–15, 110, 116–17, 119 whiteheads, 29 zits, 29 popping or squeezing, 139 Alcohol brain function and performance, effect on, 145 effect on skin, 145–6 Allergies food allergies, 73 skin type associated with, 26 Beans, 102 Blood-sugar cinnamon, reduction of level with, 62 functions, 38 insulin production, effect on, 38, 40, 41, 58, 59, 61 Body image acceptance of body shape, 154–60 puberty, during and after, 151–2
negative body image, 150–1 peer group, influence of, 151 unreal ideals and images, 148, 149 influence on teenagers, 150–1 Carbohydrates, 37–42 complex carbohydrates, 41 fibre, 41–2, 81–2, 252–3 glucose, broken down into, 38 simple or refined carbohydrates, 40 Chocolate, 105–6 Cinnamon, 62 Collagen, 23 Dairy, 64–5 calcium substitutes, 65 milk, 64–5, 134–5 Dermis, 23–5 capillaries, 23 hair follicles, 24, 25 sebaceous (oil) glands, 23, 25, 28, 30 sweat glands, 24 Diet see also Nutrition effect on skin, 7–11 negative effect, 13, 32, 56–73 positive effect, 14, 32, 76–108 guidelines for healthy skin, 73–4, 107–8 gorgeous skin plan, 172–212 recipes see Recipes
preparation and shopping, 162–70 recipes see Recipes Eggs, 98, 138 Elastin, 23 Epidermis, 21–3 horny layer (stratum corneum), 22 Langerhans cells, 22 melanocytes, 26 Exercise amount recommended for teenagers, 115 benefits, 110–16 brain function and performance, improving, 113 energising effects, 115–16 guidelines for healthy skin, 132 moderate-intensity activities, 115 protection from acne and other skin problems, 14–15, 110–13 circulation, increasing, 111 insulin levels, reducing, 111, 112 skin cancer, 113 stress, reducing, 111– 12, 126 sweat, increasing, 112 vigorous activities, 115 weight-gain, method of, 37 weight-loss, method of, 113–15
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GORGEOUS SKIN FOR TEENS Fair skin dry skin, 25 freckles, 27 melanin production, 26 freckles, 27 sensitive skin, 26 skin types associated with, 25, 26 sun protection, 26, 27 Fast food, 71 Fats, 43–4, 67–71, 86–97, 169 artificial, 43 avocado oil, 90 coconut oil, 89–90 cold-pressed oils, 44 fat-free diets, 72 flaxseed oil, 89 macadamia nut oil, 90 monounsaturated fats, 42 natural, 42–3 olive oil, 89 omega-3, 95–7 polyunsaturated fats, 43, 95–6 refined vegetable oils, 44, 70 saturated fats, 42, 71 trans fats, 43, 44, 68–70, 93 Fibre, 41–2, 81–2, 252–3 Fish, 95–7 fish oil supplements, 96 mercury, 96–7 recipes, 229–35 salmon, 97 Freckles definition, 27 fair skin, where, 27 sun damage, sign of, 27 Fruit, 77–83, 166, 258
organic, 84 pesticides, 82, 164 tomatoes, 82–3 variety of different coloured fruit, 53, 79–81, 164 Glycaemic index (GI), 40, 60–2, 259–60 high GI foods, 40, 60–1 lemon juice or vinegar, effect on GI score, 62 low GI foods, 41, 61–2 Glycaemic load (GL), 262–3 Grains, 99–102, 167 quinoa, 100–2 Hormones definition, 261–2 effect on skin, 13 menstruation, prior to, 63 sebum production, increasing, 28, 30–1 skin cell production, increasing, 31 Hypodermis, 25 Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), 30–1 sebum production, increasing, 30–1 skin cell production, increasing, 31 Juice, 67, 105, 170 Legumes, 167
Melanin, 26 freckles, 27 Milk, 64–5, 134–5, 170 calcium substitutes, 65 Minerals, 48–9, 256–8 calcium, 49 iron, 49 macro minerals, 48 magnesium, 49 selenium, 49 sulphur, 48 trace minerals, 48 zinc, 48 Myths, 134–46 Nutrition see also Diet key nutrients, 35 Nuts, 102–3, 169 Oils and salad dressings avocado oil, 90 coconut oil, 89–90 cold-pressed oils, 44 flaxseed oil, 89 macadamia nut oil, 90 olive oil, 89 recipes, 224–9 refined vegetable oils, 44, 70 Organic food, 84 Phytonutrients, 50–3 anthocyanins, 53 antioxidants, as, 77–8, 83 beta carotene, 51, 105 flavonoids, 52 lycopene, 50–1, 52, 82–3 polyphenols, 52 Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) acne as symptom of, 31
Poultry, 98 recipes, 235 Processed food, 9–10, 72 Protein, 35–7, 167, 251–2 eggs, 98 high-protein diets, 36, 37 poultry, 98 Quinoa, 100–2 Recipes breakfast, 215–17 chicken, 235 desserts, 240–2 dips, 239–40 fish, 229–35 red meat, 235–6 salad, 222–3 salad dressings and sauces, 224–9 sauces and salad dressings, 224–9 snacks, 217–20 soups, 220–2 vegetables, 236–9 Red meat, 98–9 recipes, 235–6 Relaxation see also Stress guidelines for healthy skin, 132 protection from acne and other skin problems, 14–15, 110, 127–32 stress, reducing, 111–12, 119, 126, 127–32 techniques, 127–32 exercise, 111–12, 126 laughing, 129 positive thinking, 127–8 sleep, 119, 127
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INDEX Sebum, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28 production increased by certain hormones, 28, 30–1 Skin acne see Acne cancer see Skin cancer colour, 26 see also Fair skin composition, 21–5 dermis, 23–5 epidermis, 21–3 hypodermis, 25 fair skin see Fair skin functions, 19 importance of organ, 19, 27 myths, 138–46 types see Skin types Skin cancer increased risk of, 141, 143 melanoma, 143 non-melanoma, 143 protection against, 113, 143 exercise, 113 types, 143 Skin types combination skin, 25–6 dry skin, 25 normal skin, 26 oily skin, 25 sensitive skin, 26 Sleep amount required by teenagers, 117 benefits, 116–17, 119, 122 brain function and performance, effect on, 120–2
deprivation, 118, 119, 120 guidelines for healthy skin, 132 junk sleep, 118 melatonin, 119–20 protection from acne and other skin problems, 14–15, 110, 116–17, 119 cell renewal and nourishment, 119 stress, reducing, 119, 127 strategies, 122–5 technology, detrimental influence of, 118, 120 Smoking effect on skin, 144–5 Soft drinks, 66–7 diet soft drinks, 135 Soy, 99 Spices and seasoning, 169, 170 Sugar and simple carbohydrates, 58–63 artificial sweeteners, 63, 135 chocolate, 105–6 fruit juice, 67 names for sugar, 60 natural sugar, 63, 105, 163, 169 soft drinks, 66–7, 135 Stress see also Relaxation aggravation of acne and other skin problems, 110, 111–12, 125–6 cortisol, increasing, 126
reduction through relaxation techniques, 127–32 exercise, 111–12, 126 laughing, 129 positive thinking, 127–8 sleep, 119, 127 statistics in regards to teenagers, 125 triggers, identification of, 127, 129 Sun exposure acne medications, whilst using, 141 ageing effects, 141, 142 amount required, 144 fair skin, 26, 27 skin cancer, increased risk of, 141, 143 vitamin D, 142–3, 144
sun exposure, 141–4 weight, 36–7, 113–15 Testosterone, 30 sebum production, increasing, 30
Tea, 104–5, 170 green tea, 104 Teenagers acne see Acne body image see Body image brain function and performance, 93–5, 113, 120–2, 145 drinking, 145–6 exercise see Exercise growth, 34, 134 hormones see Hormones nutrition see Diet; Nutrition sleep see Sleep smoking, 144–5 stress see Relaxation; Stress
Water, 53–4, 104, 136, 170 Weight-gain, 36–7 Weight-loss, 113–15
Vegetables, 77–83, 166, 258 organic, 84 pesticides, 82, 164 recipes, 236–9 variety of different coloured fruit, 53, 79–81, 164 Vitamins, 45–7, 253–5 B vitamins, 47 fat-soluble, 45 vitamin A, 47 vitamin C, 47, 83 vitamin E, 47 water-soluble, 45
Yoghurt, 65
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I am deeply grateful to everyone who has made this book possible: especially my publisher Allen & Unwin and in particular the wonderful Jude McGee and Siobhán Cantrill for their passionate enthusiasm and expert guidance. Megan Johnston for her excellent editing, and Justine O’Donnell for the gorgeous design. To the whole sales and marketing team, thank you! I feel incredibly lucky to have such talented people around me.
ACKNOWLE Special thanks to my fabulous agent Tara Wynne and also to Pippa Masson from Curtis Brown.
Thank you to Kenji Maeji for his great photos and to Pip McConnel Oats for her wonderful initial proposal designs. Many thanks to Chef Josef Budde, along with chefs Shaun Keenan and Yausuhiro Toshida from the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, for preparing many of the wonderful dishes; to Jayne Edmondson for many yummy recipes, and to chef Tony Scimonello for the fine-tuning. I am grateful to many other friends and family who have so generously given me great feedback, valuable suggestions and support: Caitlyn Read, Jessica Hollander, Ines Ligron, Mike Merrill, Morgan Merrill,
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Monica Levy, Suzie Donkin, Bianca, Camille and Brendan Parnell, Peter and Libby Parnell, Barbara Chappell, Candace Barron, Paul Lanthois, Lizzy Murray, Sylvia Deitch, Pia Budde, and a big thank you to Kate Herman. I’m especially indebted to pioneering researchers, scientists, and medical professionals who continue to think outside the box, shape the future of nutrition, and who strengthen the diet-skin connection. Most of
EDGEMENTS all Dr Loren Cordain, Dr Neil Mann, Dr George Varigos, Dr Barry Sears,
Dr Mark Roizen, Dr Jennie Brand-Miller, Dr Nicholas Perricone, Dr Alan Logan, Dr Jeannette Graf and countless others.
A big thank you to my wonderful husband Wolfgang who dedicated
countless weekends to proofread and edit, and made great suggestions. And to my four-legged writing partners Senya and Baci, who hung out on my desk and kept me company!
Finally I would like to dedicate this book to all the teenage readers who inspired this book, most of all to the amazingly talented Caitlyn Read, who undoubtedly will make her mark on this great new generation. Thank you, Caitlyn!
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