Health

SkinCareDiaries: 6 Essential Vitamins For Healthy Skin

September 28, 2016 By Lee-Anne Leave a Comment

This is a collaborative guest post with Sarah over at FixYoursSkin.com.

Is your skin prone to breakouts, acne or dryness?

Healthy skin comes from the inside out. The foods you put into your body will have a direct effect on your skin despite what doctors might tell you. By eating well and taking in essential vitamins for healthy skin you can reduce or even overcome minor issues like dryness, fine lines and breakouts and more serious ones like chronic inflammation, sores and stubborn age spots.

And the best part of a healthy diet is that you can easily find the essential vitamins you need for your skin in the foods around you.

It’s just common sense, isn’t it?

Diets containing processed foods and lacking in nutritional balance can make your skin look and feel dull, discoloured and oily which reflects the overall health of the internal body systems.

You CAN Get Rid of your Skin Issues

Our bodies are amazing machines and whip smart. A nourished and healthy body fueled by the required amount of vitamins will behave the way it should and lead to a healthy appearance.

So, what are the kind of vitamins you need to make your skin healthy and radiant?

To know more about what kind of foods have specific vitamins and overcome common deficiency problems present nowadays, check out the top six vitamins you need now and how to get them for healthy skin.

The Top Six Essential Vitamins for Healthy Skin

1 Vitamin A

Vitamin A helps in reducing and avoiding various skin problems like psoriasis, acne, and eczema. Without this vitamin, your skin will look flaky and dull. A diet filled with carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, dark leafy greens, tropical fruits, fish, liver, bell peppers, and lettuce can help you to get the required dosage of Vitamin A.

2 Vitamin B1

Deficiency of Vitamin B1 will lead to wrinkles and age spots. Also, some people can suffer from wet and dry beriberi due to the lack of vitamin B1. This vitamin is a strong anti-oxidant that is beneficial for the entire body.

The daily consumption of food items like whole-grain cereals, pork, sunflower seeds, spinach, lettuce, kidney beans, tomatoes and eggplant provides the required quantity of Vitamin B1.

3 Vitamin B2

This vitamin helps in avoiding dermatitis and cracks in the skin. Also, it fights carcinogens and helps in the metabolism of the body, thereby ensuring that the skin is soft and healthy. Eggs, dairy products, meat, liver, buckwheat, and spinach are some of the foodstuffs filled with vitamin B2.

4 Vitamin C

Vitamin C helps in preventing the aging and damage caused by UV rays. Also, it helps in avoiding hyper-pigmentation and maintaining supple and healthy skin. A diet containing peas, citrus fruits, papayas, tomatoes, bell peppers, kiwis, and dark leafy greens are the best source of vitamin C.

5 Vitamin D

Deficiency of vitamin D will lead to wrinkles, acne, and even itchy skin. Some researches and studies prove that vitamin D can help in regulating and dissemination of cancer cells. You can prevent the deficiency of vitamin D with mushrooms, oily fish, eggs, tofu, cod liver oil, and caviar.

6 Vitamin E

Vitamin E helps in avoiding skin cancer and even reduces the signs of aging and inflammation of the skin. Furthermore, it enhances regeneration and boosts the immunity of the skin. Broccoli, nuts, dark leafy greens and sunflower seeds are the best sources of vitamin E.

Protect your Skin

Vitamins are necessary for your body functions and health and a lack of the essentials can have adverse effects on your skin. All these vitamins are important however Vitamin E and C play major roles in protecting your skin from the harmful UV rays of the sun and even help in preventing skin cancer.

If you’re thinking about taking vitamin supplements check with your health care professional. Also, whenever you visit a skin care shop, make sure to check the ingredients of your products to see if they have the required vitamins.

Find out more about your skin

To know more about skin treatments and the best tips for your skin search this site using the keyword SkinCareDiaries or head over to the net and Fix Your Skin.com and check out the other EIGHT essential vitamins for healthy skin.

Would you like write a guest post for this site? Have a look HERE for the guidelines to get started!

I was not compensated for this post. I just wanted to share it with you!

Follow Mom Paradigm on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtag #SkinCareDiaries.

We’re a Dairy Family: Yogurt’s Surprising Health Benefits

June 18, 2015 By Lee-Anne Leave a Comment

We are a dairy family and always will be. And while it’s true that our stomachs are not the best equipped to deal with dairy, there are more and more options for lactose-free choices that keep us coming back for more. My favourite dairy product is yogurt these days so that is why I am sharing this article with you. Enjoy!

Dairy Farmers of Canada created a unique way to show how yogurt is part of a balanced diet

When Dairy Farmers of Canada attended The Health, Sports & Lifestyle Expo in Vancouver, they created a powerful and captivating performance to highlight the surprising benefits of yogurt, which aids in the prevention of high blood pressure.

The performance, and the film of it, were made to promote the free Get Enough Helper App, which helps people track what they eat based on recommendations from Canada’s Food Guide.

In the video, we see a gymnast stacking and balancing a series of chairs in front of conference attendees. The gymnast then climbs, twists and contorts his body at seemingly impossible angles on top of the chairs, to show how far we each stretch to find balance in our day.

The performance is intensely physical and dangerous – much like high blood pressure – and encourages the audience to use the Get Enough Helper App to help the fight against high blood pressure. Each day someone uses the App, Dairy Farmers of Canada donates $1 on their behalf to the Heart & Stroke Foundation to support the fight against high blood pressure.

The performance is spellbinding, engaging and stunning, and the video shows conference attendees watching in rapt attention while enjoying complimentary yogurt parfaits and savouring the surprising health benefits of yogurt.

Have a look!

For more information go to GetEnough.ca.

I was compensated for this post but the opinions are entirely my own, as usual.

Top 5 Things to Prepare for Kindergarten

May 29, 2015 By Lee-Anne Leave a Comment

“How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss

Our Little Monkey is going to be FIVE in August. FIVE! Can you believe it?

Our life has already been turned upside down having started a family so late in life and just as I was getting into the groove as in comfortable and less sleep deprived, change will come again this September.

Kindergarten looms ahead and I’m not ready. I’m not nervous exactly, just not prepared for the daily grind and the inevitable weariness that comes along with. Long gone will be the days of lingering and lollygagging about without a real schedule. No more attempts at sleeping in and making breakfast when we feel like eating. Will we succumb to boxed cereal in the mornings to get our daily dose of carbohydrates and nutrient-free soul-less nourishment? I hope not. Cereal in this house is best enjoyed at night, after OLM is in bed.

I suppose having a set routine will be good for us but at this moment I am not convinced. So I’ve made an attempt at a list to get ourselves ready. I’m sure that more will be added along the way, but for now please have a look at the 5 most important ways we will prepare for kindergarten.

Counting Down the Top 5 Ways to Prepare for Kindergarten

5. Summer Camps~ We’ve enrolled OLM in a few summer camps that will prepare him and us for the shift in routine and get used to having something to go to at a specific time every day. He’s going to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels at Pedalheads, do Gymnastics and take a Performing Arts workshop.

4. Sleep Routine ~ I need to wear the boy out so he goes to sleep earlier and having a daily routine just might be the trick. No more naps during the week, unless he manages one in kindergarten. I am hoping that will be enough but we’ve got to stick to a more strict bedtime. Forget this 8.30pm nonsense!

3. Clothes ~ I’ll make sure he has clothes and shoes that fit and are to his Majesty’s liking. He rarely likes what I get for him so we’ll be hitting the consignments stores and malls together. Fun!

2. Lunch Box ~ OLM always complains that he never has enough things in his lunchbox. For kindergarten then, I’ll get him a Bento box style lunch box that I can put little treats in in separate sections to brighten his day. (His daycare doesn’t allow things like raisins, granola bars or God forbid a cookie, even if they are homemade, nut-free and healthy.)

And the number 1 way I will prepare OLM for kindergarten is…

1. Booster Shots ~ I will make sure he gets his booster shots this summer at the local clinic. Getting your children’s booster shots BEFORE they go to kindergarten prepares them for what may be an onslaught of germs and illnesses they’ve not been exposed to before.

About Immunizations and Kids at School

There are some kids that can’t be immunized due to compromised immune systems, like Andrew in North Vancouver. I can do my part to protect him and other children by immunizing my own child. It doesn’t matter that my child and Andrew will probably never meet as germs and disease spread quickly and know no barriers or borders.

So please take a minute to read Andrew’s story and make sure that your child’s immunizations are up-to-date.

[Tweet “A #NorthVan teen shouldn’t have to be afraid of going to school. You can help. #HelpAndrew”]

To join the conversation please connect to Vancouver Coastal Health using the hashtag #HelpAndrew on Facebook and Twitter.

Why Immunize?

Starting at age four all children should get two shots, in total, to protect against:

• measles

• mumps

• rubella

• chicken pox

• polio

• tetanus

• diphtheria

• whooping cough.

While serious childhood diseases such as polio and diphtheria are becoming rarer due to routine childhood vaccination programs, according to VCH Medical Health Officer Dr. Meena Dawar, there’s still cause for concern.

“As we saw with the recent measles cases in the Lower Mainland and across the U.S., these diseases are highly infectious and can spread quickly among those who aren’t – 2 – vaccinated. It’s critical that parents have their kids immunized before they start kindergarten in the fall,” Dr Dawar says.

Vaccines can be obtained for free from family doctors or from public health nurses at VCH community health centres. A map of clinic dates and times is available at www.vch.ca/kindergarten-vaccines.

[Tweet “Kids heading to kindergarten this fall? Keep them healthy by doing this. #HelpAndrew #bchc”]

I was not compensated for this post in any way. I just feel it is very important for my family and a good reminder to get our immunizations up to date.

10 Tips to Make Room for Play

May 2, 2015 By Lee-Anne Leave a Comment

We all do it don’t we?

I admit, I do. In fact in a recent post I told you what I did to get more sleep even though it was a gorgeous Spring day. And while I admit plugging our son in isn’t ideal, it’s certainly not the worst thing I could do. Still, there’s a certain amount of mom guilt that comes with putting my needs first.

The thing is, when this mom is tired I’m no good to anyone. So, catching a few more zzz’s meant we could enjoy the rest of the day. As it turns out however, OLM was fighting a cold and he was quite content to stay inside while mama slept.

Having said all that, when we have days like this I make sure to make up for it with lots of outside play. And if you’ve been reading this blog you know that making room for play is high priority for me especially because it is so easy to get distracted working from home like I do. And being as tired as I am. Almost ALL. THE. TIME.

So we go out on plenty of adventures. We’ve recently walked 11,000 steps together to go find a book I’ve been wanting to read. We are also blessed with a pretty awesome playground right in our courtyard that all the kids in the building gather at and play together for hours. I’d love to play basketball together one day but right now he wants me to pick him up to put the ball in the basket. I need to work on my biceps more for that as he’s getting so big!

I’ve caught a few of these ads on TV from Participaction.com and I have to say they really made an impact. This is surprising considering I usually ignore most ads on TV. Have a look for yourself and tell me what you think. (video is unavailable at this time.)

Make Room for Play

Tips to balance screen time with active play time

Avoid making television watching part of your regular daily routine. We only watch TV at night, after our son goes to bed. And sports! Go Canucks! Go Jays!
Make family rules that limit how much screen time your kids are allowed each day. CHECK!
Eliminate background TV as it’s likely to draw your child’s attention. Instead, turn on music. CHECK!
Kids naturally play more actively when they’re outdoors, so head outside with them every day. CHECK!
Set a good example and limit your own screen time.
Unplug for a day. Designate one day a week or month as a screen-free day for the whole family.
For younger children, avoid using screens as an “electronic babysitter”. MOSTLY CHECK!
For older children, after-school is a key timeslot for activities, so register them in active after-school programs in the community. We will be doing this in September when OLM goes to kindergarten.
For older children, don’t allow a TV, computer, or cell phone in your child’s bedroom. CHECK!
For older children, explain to them that decreased screen time is not a punishment, but a healthy choice. CHECK!

Looking at this list it is clear that there are improvements to be made. So we’ll work on it. Because we do need to make room for play and if this weather holds up it will be so much easier!

[Tweet “Yes! Today I will turn off the TV and #MakeRoomForPlay”]

Did you know?

In a recent survey commissioned by ParticipACTION, almost three quarters (74%) of parents with children aged 12 and under agree that they have used a screen to occupy their children when they are busy, trying to get things done or want some quiet time.

In a recent survey commissioned by ParticipACTION, 87% of parents of children aged 12 and under plan to make physical activity a priority for their children in the new year.

Visit www.participACTION.com for downloadable tools and resources to enable others to reduce screen time and make room for active play at home, at school, or in the community.

Make Room for Play

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #MakeRoomForPlay

UPDATED! Food Allergies are a Frightening Thing

April 29, 2015 By Lee-Anne Leave a Comment

The other day I got a call from my son’s daycare that Freaked. Me. Out!

I was asked to bring all my son’s clothes home to be washed as there had been a severe allergy scare that had the whole community up in arms. One of OLM’s classmates has a severe nut allergy as unbeknownst to the rest of us, one of the other kids had brought a peanut butter sandwich in his lunch. When it was discovered it practically shut the whole place down.

The entire cubby area was immediately scrubbed and all the kid’s clothes were individually bagged to avoid the spread of any allergens. Thankfully his classmate was saved from a trip to the emergency as the sandwich was spotted right away and immediate action was taken to protect the child.

It’s got me thinking how important it is that our son understand how severe food allergies can affect his friends and it should never be taken lightly. Our son is pretty healthy, thankfully. He has mild to moderate digestive issues (another lovely trait he can thank me for later) and reacts sometimes to citrus fruits and strawberries, but it’s nothing compared to the frightening reality of living with life threatening allergies.
And even though he is only four years old, I think he understands to some degree that some people can’t have certain foods because their bodies just don’t like them.

In light of what has happened we are going to attend an event at VanDusen Botanical Gardens for a fun, and informative session on how to safely manage food allergies.

And we get to meet Alex Tagliani NASCAR driver *swoon* who deals with food allergies in his own life and as a new father. There will also be a local Pediatric Allergist, Dr. Chan discussing the latest in allergy research and will be uncovering the myths and truths about anaphylaxis to promote allergy awareness.

Please join us!

UPDATE!

Starting today, kids under the age of 18 can enter the Allergy Hero Contest by telling us who their Allergy Hero is and what he/she has done to help manage your allergies! It’s easy to enter-just go to www.summeroftag.com starting today May 1st until August 31st. An IPad is up for grabs AND Alex Tagliani will visit their daycare or school! AND your Allergy Hero will win a $500 gift card!

Summer of TAG Vancouver Education Tour

When: May 7th 10am-11.15am

Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden, 5251 Oak Street in Vancouver (If you are in Edmonton, check out the graphic below)

**Free Parking and children are welcome!

Please RSVP by May 4th to reserve your spot

Contact: cailin.collett@porternovelli.com

For more information visit their website, follow them on Facebook or Twitter @AnaphylaxisCAN.

Week 1 UPDATE: Being Hungry Terrifies Me #PoloWeightLoss

January 23, 2015 By Lee-Anne 4 Comments

This post is the second in the series I am writing in my quest to lose the baby weight with the help of Dr. Allana Polo and the hCG Pound a Day Program. It also marks the second week of my journey and Day 13 into what is holding me back from letting the weight go.

As I said last week, I felt like I needed a swift kick to get this show that is shedding the baby weight on the road. My mind has been playing tricks on me and fear is big in my world when it comes to getting to the heart of why I am holding onto the weight. I’m not sure why but what I am realizing is that feeling hungry terrifies me. It probably stems from using food to comfort my feelings as I was growing up. That’s a no brainer of course, but it gets better. Hold on.

This past week was going pretty well up until Wednesday when I started feeling a ravenous hunger and a headache that settled in behind my eyes. In my follow up visit with Dr. Polo that day I was reassured that what I was feeling was normal and that I was having a delayed reaction to the detoxifying effect that this plan was having. I have to admit I was skeptical and wondered if perhaps the low-calorie aspect wasn’t working for me.

I was hungry and I wasn’t supposed to be! How can 500-600 calories a day be enough?

The hCG hormone that I am taking is supposed to curb hunger but I felt like I was going to go cave woman and start breaking things. Ok, I exaggerate slightly. But man was I HUNGRY!

Being hungry is not something I am used to. I know it sounds crazy but when I am hungry I panic. And when I let it go too long my blood sugar drops and I get sweaty and my heart pounds.

So I eat.

And when I get to this sorry point of no return I often choose the wrong foods. It’s not that I am going for chocolate or pastries, it’s that I am not paying attention to how my body feels when I eat certain foods. I go for flavour, who doesn’t? But sadly I don’t know how to decipher my body’s signals. It turns out I’ve been reading it wrong for many years.

What I’ve discovered on the hCG Pound a Day plan is that this hunger feels different. It is real there is no doubt, but it is different. My heart doesn’t race, I don’t sweat and I don’t feel light-headed. When I eat the hunger goes away. Whaaat??

I know that sounds ridiculously basic but the difference is that I believe that what I was eating before was irritating my gut and I was confusing that feeling for hunger. So I would eat to make that feeling go away. The crazy thing is, I would feel that way very soon after eating a meal and think,

“How can I still be hungry? I just ate.”

But I would eat anyway. And it goes without saying that this happened pretty much every day.

To think that I can finally get a handle on my weight issue is pretty monumental for me. And if I can get to the heart of what is in my head when it comes to covering up the emotional side of eating chocolate or ice cream or just too much food in general, I will be a happy woman.

Having said all that, I was feeling much better the following day. The headache hasn’t come back and I have more energy today as well. The Vitamin B-12 injection helped and I feel like I’ve come out of the detox on top. And now the moment you’ve been waiting for!

Week ONE results

I have lost the equivalent of a very large-sized newborn so far on the plan! Woot! Now I just need to work on the preschooler that I’ve been packing around for more years than I care to divulge here. Okay FIVE. FIVE years!

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “Why aren’t you telling me how much you lost? I want details!”

Ahhh…what fun would there be in that? Don’t you just love surprises? And I already said that I’ve lost some weight, right? Over the next few weeks I’ll reveal more details, don’t you worry. I’ll be taking measurements and photos so you will eventually see for yourself.

For now I will tell you this.

My body feels calmer, less tired and less hungry.
Now that I am over the ‘detox-hump’ my mood is lighter.
When I feel hungry, I eat. And when I eat the hunger goes away. I don’t feel that familiar acidic sensation in my stomach that I have confused with hunger in the past.
I think less about food. This is a huge win!
The aches and pains I was having in my joints are subsiding. This was something I didn’t expect!
I don’t crave anything. Of course I still think that it would be nice to have chocolate or something decadent but I am determined to stay the course. These thoughts are fleeting however which is amazing considering how obsessive I can get when there are sweets around.
I feel empowered and confident that I can do this.
For the first time in my life I feel I have control over what I eat.
For the first time in a long time I have hope that the clothes in my closet will soon fit. I am looking forward to a summer of feeling comfortable in my skin which hasn’t been the case for many years.

If you’re curious about this program and want to find out more, let me know in the comments!

[Tweet “RT I’m following Lee-Anne’s progress to lose a pound a day in 40 days! Cheer her on! #PoloWeightLoss”]

Use the hashtag #PoloWeightLoss on Twitter and visit their website and Facebook page.

Check out how the other bloggers participating in this challenge are doing with the #PoloWeightLoss Challenge.

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