Grow Your Glow, Part 2: Digestion

In this 4-part series you’ll learn to amp up your baseline glow, taking your skin to the next level of healthy and gorgeous…

Your gorgeous glow: you know it’s there, but there are some days (weeks even…) when it feels like it’s playing hard to get. A stressful time, a few too many indulgences, a stretch of weather that leaves you feeling blah — these routine life situations influence the way your skin behaves, and in turn what you see in the mirror.

If you missed week 1 on nutrition that will grow your glow, check it out here. This week, we look beyond your meals into the way your body receives food.

Digest to Grow Your Glow

It’s simply not enough to eat for your beauty — if you’re serious about skin glow, you also need to support your body in digesting your food well. The population of bacteria residing in your digestive system (which outnumbers your cells 10 to 1!) has major influence over how well you can utilize the beautifying nutrients in your diet. Cultivating a healthy balance of bacteria in your digestive system is step number one toward great digestion; adding a probiotic supplement and fermented foods to your daily diet will help you do that. But there’s even more that you can do to make sure mealtime — and its after-effects — run smoothly.

First, get in the habit of sipping water about 15 minutes before you begin a meal. If you’re at a restaurant, this could simply mean drinking the water on your table while you peruse the menu. But elsewhere it could require a bit more planning and thought before diving in with your fork. A pre-meal drink of water hydrates your digestive tract and prepares your body for food, improving your assimilation without diluting the digestive acids in your stomach that work hard while you’re eating.

Next, adopt a relaxed mealtime mindset and aim to be present at mealtime. No one sets out to eat a meal under stress, but it happens often — most often as a result of multitasking at mealtime. Shut off the TV, put your phone across the room, and savor your food, alone or with company you enjoy. Take a few deep breaths before you eat, or say a mealtime mantra, like those found in Eat Pretty Every Day. Besides loving your food more (and preventing overeating), this practice gives your body the chance to enter a parasympathetic ‘rest and digest’ state where it can devote the proper energy and resources to fully breaking down each bite you take.

Ready to feel and see greater glow? Incorporate these two powerful strategies into your diet, and you’ll be amazed at their glow-boosting effects. Check back next week for two more key ways to grow your glow!

BIO:

Jolene Hart, CHC, AADP is a Philadelphia-based health coach and founder of Beauty Is Wellness, a natural beauty and health coaching practice. Her coaching and Eat Pretty book series teaches women to use nutrition and lifestyle choices to look and feel their best from the inside out.