New this month!

Eat Your Sunscreen: Sun Protection from the Inside Out

Do you have only a short time before a vacation? It takes as little as a few weeks of eating nutrient-rich foods to prepare your body for being in the sun. Are you naturally fair and burn easily? By eating the right foods and covering up after the right amount of sun exposure, you can shift your body’s propensity to tan rather than burn, build up the time you can be out in the sun, and finally get that sun-kissed color when you go outside.

How We Can Eat Our Sunscreen with Diet

Just as a poor diet has a negative effect on skin and overall health, a real food diet may offer protection from various health problems, including sun-related ones. Fortunately, the diet and lifestyle factors that are good for the skin have great benefits for general health as well.

Here’s how I start preparing my skin for safe sun exposure this summer:

Eat a Real Food Diet with Enough Good Fats

A large part of my natural sun protection is eating an anti-inflammatory diet. To make sure the body has the proper building blocks for healthy skin and to reduce inflammation, I consume enough healthy saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats while avoiding polyunsaturated fatty acids and high omega-6 vegetable oils.  

It is important to make sure your diet is high in micro-nutrients from vegetables, omega-3s, and fat-soluble vitamins from fish, and monounsaturated and saturated fats from plant and animal sources.

This type of diet will also be beneficial for many other health conditions:

Avoid:

• processed foods
• vegetable oils (this is the most important for sun exposure)
• grains
• sugars

Consume:

• healthy sources of saturated fats and monounsaturated fats
• foods rich in omega-3’s (fish,etc.)  
• lots of leafy greens
• 2+ tablespoons of  tomato paste daily (for the lycopene and skin protection)

Eat Antioxidants

Just by avoiding grains and omega-6 oils as well as focusing on proteins, fats, and vegetables instead, your diet will be higher in antioxidants than the standard American diet. Even real food “treats” like berries and dark chocolate  are packed with antioxidants.

Antioxidants help reduce inflammation and free radicals. Research has shown a strong protective effect of antioxidants against inflammation and skin damage.

Get Some Rays the Right Way

Avoid sunburn from the inside out and the outside in with nutritional support and a hat and sun-protective clothing. Take these measures a few weeks before beach season starts and condition your skin to love the sun. It’s good for your health anyway and saves money on sunscreen!