The Anti Aging Diet: 10 Anti Aging Foods Women over 40 Should Know

Daisy McFadden of Bronx, N.Y., who will turn 100 this November, believes that her eating habits and everything that goes to her plate has a lot to do with her fulfilling, long life. So the age long question comes to mind, does an anti aging diet really exist?

I look at many products at our market and think how including an anti aging label can help sales. My husband thinks that such strategy will make products fly off the shelves. I am a firm believer of natural anti aging methods, which makes believing in anti aging diet come automatically. With centenarians like McFadden sharing their stories and highlighting the role played by what seemed to the anti aging diet plus the growing number of experts believing that the key to looking young and staying young lies in the food we eat, women over 40 are reconsidering their shopping list.

The Food We Eat

McFadden’s diet resembles that of those who live in Okinawa, Japan, whose community boasts of the world’s largest concentration of healthy centenarians. For years, McFadden wakes up with a bowl of oatmeal, banana, and a glass of cranberry juice. By midday, she prefers a salad of fresh cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, and a serving of white meat. For dinner, McFadden dines with a plate of lean meat and steamed vegetables. Dessert is reserved for a bowl of fresh fruit.

The best anti aging diet follows McFadden’s lead. Dietician Susan Moores of the American Diabetic Association says women over 40 who make healthy dietary choices have the advantage over those who delay this much welcome and even necessary change.

So what food should you load up on? Moores recommend dedicating a shopping cart with these foods and beverages:

1. Fish. Centenarians of Okinawa, Japan know that when it comes to protein the best source ever there is fish -- even better than egg. Cold-water fishes are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease and promotes brain function. The American Heart Association encourages women over 40 to eat fish, particularly fatty varieties like lake trout, salmon, and mackerel, at least twice a week.

2. Fruits and vegetables. No anti aging diet is complete without fruits and vegetables. Aiming for variety is one good rule to follow if you want to load up on antioxidants. The more color your fruit and veggies basket has the better. For starters, you want to serve generous servings of broccoli, banana, carrots, oranges, white potatoes,

3. Legumes. We just love this super low-cal and hands-down nutritious treat that comes cheap in spite of its tremendous benefits. For variety, strive to use some of the common legumes you can find in the market: kidney beans, black-eyed peas, navy beans, black beans, pinto beans, and mung beans.

4. Nuts. One of the best snack treats there is, ever, nuts are our favorite source of B vitamins that is undeniably good for your brain and heart. The healthy fats contained in these small wonders aid collagen and elastin in the skin, both of which are keys to a younger looking skin resilient against threats posed by pollution and harmful UV rays.

5. Water. Enjoying three to four glasses of water in addition to other watery foods and liquids not only prevents dehydration but also keeps your body at tip top shape, functioning at its best. For example, water is essential for hydration of muscles, circulation and other organs, and, of course, skin. Essentially, every system in our body depends on water. So drink up for better health.

6. Whole grains. Centenarians of Okinawa, Japan are known for loading up on whole grains than refined grains. At least 3 servings of whole grains everyday provides your body various minerals and vitamins that you can’t have when you go for refined grains like white rice or white bread. Switching to these complex carbohydrates like brown rice and oatmeal provides your body immune system-enhancing phytonutrients and soluble fibers that have been proven to lower blood cholesterol levels.

7. Yogurt. For $3.19 for every 32 ounces, yogurt is definitely a great buy. An 8-ounce of plain, low-fat yogurt delivers a quarter of the daily recommended serving of protein of women over 40. Yogurt has all the benefits of a healthy dairy item minus the fat but plus million of healthy probiotics that promotes good digestion. I know how difficult it is to really enjoy plain yogurt, but it is really better than sweetened ones since the latter contains up to 25 grams of unnecessary sugar per serving.

For Younger-looking Skin

If you are aiming for a smooth, supple, younger-looking skin, here is a list of on-target grocery items that can do wonders for the face and body.

8. Soy. Ever wonder why Asians have great, time-defying skin? A soy-based diet. Women over 40 who include soy in their diet shower their body with super beneficial isoflavone aglycone, which contains estrogen-like and antioxidant effects when it comes to fighting fine lines and wrinkles.

9. Dark chocolate. What a better, more pleasurable way to have a younger-looking skin than eating cocoa made of dark chocolate? In one study, women who drink half a cup of coffee showed a positively glowing skin that lasted for 2 hours. The reason: a better circulation. Research shows that women who drink 1/2 cup of cocoa made from dark chocolate every day for twelve weeks showed better hydrated, supple, smoother, and significantly softer skin.

10. Romaine lettuce. Also known as cos lettuce, adding six leaves of romaine lettuce to your diet provides your body more than 100 percent of DV of vitamin A, which revitalizes the skin by promoting better cell turnover. Unlocking the potassium in this super nutritious veggie also gives your skin a refreshing and much needed boost of oxygen and nutrients.

Demystifying the Best Anti Aging Plan: Seven Pillars of Looking Young, Feeling Young

The best anti aging plan should do wonders for your body, and not only your skin. Here are the seven pillars of the best anti aging plan women over 40 should know.

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Our generation, the women over 40, is just determined to look young and feel young. Instead of feeling guilty about it, I even encourage my friends to do whatever anti aging plan that comes into their mind. Why? Simply because we can’t afford to be timid and shun away from anti aging solutions offering ways to brighten our day just by looking at the mirror. Our generation of women over 40 deserves nothing but the truth and the best.

Aside from anti aging creams, it is important that you employ other anti aging solutions so you can truly achieve what you want. Your concept of what anti aging should go beyond a jar; we have seen a big change, if not a paradigm shift, in the idea of what anti aging is. It is time that you change yours.

Natural Anti Aging Plan

You really don’t have to go to an anti aging center so you can reclaim what time stole from you. The best anti aging plan shouldn’t be difficult, yet it should challenge you. No matter how cliched it may be, I still stand by my belief that the best anti aging plan should encourage you to ditch old ways and misconceptions about looking young and feeling young.

Our thoughts count, and it also affect the quality of our life and well-being. What more if you translate these thoughts into action. Making a small difference in how you live your life, like switching to green tea or doing strength training at least twice a week, will not only improve the quality of your life but may also increase lifespan as well. We all know that eating an apple may, well, keep the doctor away. But do you know that adding apple to your diet can also add at least two years to your life? These small, simple things, when done regularly, translate to wonders.

Forget about deprivation. The best anti aging plan, something that you can really create on your own, will teach you how you can enjoy a healthy, long, and fun life. It shouldn’t require you to do daunting things; instead, a natural anti aging plan, when “planned” right, should come to you, well, naturally. Eastern medicine, particularly traditional Chinese medicine, treats our body as one of the wisest elements there is. Listen to it, and it will tell you how you can look and feel your best.

The Best Anti Aging Plan: Seven Pillars

Your anti aging plan should have the seven anti aging secrets as its pillars: Right diet, soy, anti aging supplements, proper hydration, maintaining a healthy weight, cardio exercise, and strength training. So where does the anti-aging cream come in? Experts do agree that the power of putting on anti-aging cream doesn’t even come close to what any of these anti aging secrets can do for you and your body.

Anti aging foods

I remember reading what Pablo Picasso said on looking young and feeling young, “It takes a long time to become young.” And I certainly couldn’t agree more. And one of the most important anti aging secrets all women over 40 should realize is that there is a lot of eating that needs to be done when one wants to look young. Forget about specially formulated diet plans; when it comes to true anti aging foods nothing can even come close to what Mother Nature has blessed us with.

Eating anti aging foods is really all about eating foods closest to its natural state. Think freshness in all its glory. The goal of anti aging foods is to give you the freshest, tastiest dishes while showering your body with all the nutrients that it needs -- everything from protective plant substances to youth-preserving antioxidants.

Soy

If there is one thing I love about Asian food it is soy. Ever wonder why the Japanese look so young with their ever smooth and luminescent skin? Or how the Chinese manage to maintain their lean physique? Think about the vitality, longevity, and the robust health of people in Asian countries? After years of research, more and more experts are starting to believe that maybe soy is the wonder and even youth food women over 40 are looking for.

An excellent source of protein and dietary fiber, soy is said to ward off age-related conditions, including, but not limited to, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and, of course, menopausal symptoms. But the magic of soy essentially lies in isoflavones, or a group of plant substances linked to a number of health benefits like lowering LDL or “bad” cholesterol, slowing down the growth of cancer cells, and even repairing and building stronger bones.

Soy is a great alternative for meat; containing virtually saturated fat and cholesterol, soy is an excellent source of high-quality and low-calorie protein. It is also rich in essential nutrients like calcium, B vitamins, and iron.

Anti aging supplements

With a healthy diet and an overall nourishing lifestyle, many women over 40 ask, “Do I really need to take supplements?” When we say natural anti aging plan, we don’t mean anything superficial; we advocate natural eating, but we certainly are not after ditching anything that has been produced by machines. A natural anti aging plan should include taking supplements for one reason: Because your body is not as efficient as it used to be. While our body produces youth-preserving antioxidants like alphalipoic acid and coenzyme Q10, experts do agree that once women hit the big 4-0, the body starts to slow down its production levels, thereby, leaving us with insufficient amount of these antioxidants.

Anti aging supplements essentially contain larger doses of plant compounds and nutrients than what your diet -- no matter how healthy it is -- can actually deliver. Aside from taking multis, women over 40 need their regular doses of anti aging supplements to aid the body in warding off age-related conditions and free radical damage. When shopping for anti aging supplements, your list needs to have coenzyme Q10, alphalipoic acid, bioflavonoids, flaxseed oil, gingko, vitamin E, vitamin C, pycnogenol, and phosphatidyl serine.

Hydration

Considered by many as Mother Nature’s anti aging tonic, water is needed by our body every second, making us alive, allowing us to breathe. Hydration is essentially the key to almost everything, good things, that happens to our body -- from fending off headaches to keeping our skin smooth and supple. Water also boosts our body’s energy level, helps us focus, and clears our system from harmful toxins that block our body’s energy (or qi to traditional Chinese medicine) channel.

Your healthy weight

We are all different. Our body is carefully created, shaped to become unique, setting us apart from others. No matter how difficult it can be, I always make sure that I look at the scale and not at the TV when checking on my body. I gained a lot of weight when I reached the big 4-0. Well, the truth is, I have accumulated fat over the years and it started when I gave birth to my eldest. I really had difficulty losing my baby pouch, one, because I have to raise my kids and work at least ten hours a day, and, two, because I thought that my body will just naturally take care of it. I guess it didn’t.

Whether it’s a rude joke or simply an evolution blunder, a woman’s weight will always grow parallel her age. Our weight gain is not only an issue of us being too tired to hit the gym or a too good chocolate cake you can’t resist eating but of myriad of things that seem to naturally happen to and within our body. Our metabolism slows down, our muscle mass decreases as we age, and we become, or chose to be, less active.

One of the very first things that you should check is your BMI. A BMI of 25 to 30 is essentially considered as overweight while any reading that goes beyond 30 is categorized as obese. But you shouldn’t stop with BMI. Make sure that you check where the fat has accumulated. Weight circumference, alongside BMI, is used by many health experts in gauging how healthy a woman is. The larger your waist, the higher risk for weight-related disorders like heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.

Find what works for you. We all know that we wouldn’t find this when we look at magazines and TV. Back in my 20s, I have a waist line of 18. Today, I shop for ensembles that will fit my waist of 29 inches. While managing a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, writing online, and running a life insurance agency, I walk everyday and attend yoga classes. I know it wouldn’t be long before I can whittle the extras in my tummy and the number in the scale.

Cardio exercise 

I am guilty of not doing enough cardio exercise to work my lungs and heart. Though I do eight reps of sun salutation (with variations) and do power walk, I know I need to do more to make sure both my lungs and heart are working at its best. But it’s not only the heart and lungs that get happy when I move; aerobics is essentially a low-risk investment that provides tremendous benefits.

The puffing and the huffing can do more good than the sudden shot of pain we loathe when we stretch our body. It boosts metabolism, reduces stress, eases perimenopause symptoms, rewinds your sex drive, gives you energy, and really makes the seemingly difficult task of falling asleep easy. And it only gets better. Cardio exercises have been linked to a number of health benefits, including lowering the probability of weight- and age-related diseases like heart disease, osteoporosis, and arthritis, among others.

Our body is made and created for moving -- even though our lifestyle has creatively engineered beneficial activities out of it. I know I am guilty of this, but when I think of cardio I immediately picture aero classes and treadmills. But it is important for us (and I really mean also me) to realize that we don’t really have to hit the gym to get some heart-pumping action done. I am proposing incorporating cardio exercise to our routine; and by this I mean increasing our level of physical activity. Think about what you do the next day, and simply make those mundane tasks more physical. I enjoy gardening, and every morning I start on a new plot, garden plot, that is, and start to cultivate and prepare the soil for new seeds. I get at least 20 minutes of hoeing (not what you’re thinking, silly) before eight in the morning, and that, for me, is already a good start.

Strength training

I love yoga simply because it engages the whole body and everything I have in me. I consider a power Vinsaya practice (lots of sun salutations with variations) because it’s like doing cardio cycling. I also love yoga for the simple reason that it stretches every inch of me, and since we do a lot of incredibly challenging poses, I thought yoga can substitute for strength training sessions. And I thought wrong.

Yoga maybe an excellent toning tool, but building muscle cannot be accomplished with doing asanas (lesson learned). Strength training is really one thing we, women over 40, can’t afford to miss. The benefits of resistance training really go beyond whittling excess fats. If you’re planning to shape up and finally achieve that leaner physique you’ve always wanted, building muscle is a routine you can’t skip. In fact, it is the key that holds the door for a leaner you.

Aside from trimming excess fats, strength training revs up your metabolism by increasing the amount of muscle in your body. Resistance training also increases your muscle strength, delivers more energy, improves your balance, and even kicks depression.

A natural anti aging plan should have all of these. It should allow you to be and feel your best by doing what the body is naturally created to do. I believe the best anti aging plan should inspire you to listen to your body and learn about its ways. Women over 40 should believe that they have all they need to really look young and feel young. We just need to trust ourselves, get up, and keep moving.