GBG Vitality- Viva Vitality: Undo Your Past Health Mistakes

Learn more about your Body, Mind and Spirit with Viva Vitality brought to you GBG Vitality.

Been careless with your health in the past?

You’ve all committed to your fair share of muck-ups in life. While poor choice in men and clothing is something you can chalk up to growing up experiences, health faux pas are an entirely different matter altogether. How you treated your body a few years ago can make all the difference to your health as you grow older. If your habits were reckless years back, odds are your past will come back to haunt you. From smoking because you thought it looked sexy, to spending long hours under the sun without sunscreen for a great tan, yesterday’s health vices could actually have an unfortunate effect on you. You can actually do some damage control as long as you do it right now.

For instance, did you have too much sun back then?

Sun damage is cumulative. So, even if you have stopped spending several hours in the sun like you did in the previous years, any new damage to your skin will keep adding to the old harm you’ve already collected. The scary bit: sun exposure is the number one cause of aging skin because it leads to cell death, causing wrinkles, age spots, and uneven skin tone.

Luckily, you can do something about fried skin. It’s never too late to undo some previous damage and skirt new harm entirely. Use anti-aging cream; avoid the sun between its peak hours of ten in the morning and one in the afternoon; and never leave home without slathering on some sunscreen. Since sunlight leads to the formation of free radicals, which cause premature cell death, stocking up on foods that contain fiver and antioxidants (like salads and nuts) is always a good idea.

You could also ask your doctor for oral antioxidants containing amino acids like alanine and lycopene, to neutralize free radicals. As long as you take these steps before you hit the age of 40, your skin should do okay. This is said to be the case because 40 is the age when your body’s hormonal changes might not let your skin’s repair mechanism work optimally.

The same care also goes to your diet.

Repeatedly losing then regaining the same five pounds affects your body’s metabolic rate and calorie-burning power. The first time you crash diet, you may lose ten pounds. The second time you do it, you may no longer lose as much. This is because of your body’s decreased capacity to burn calories quickly. This may also decrease your body’s long-term immune function.

In many cases, the damage done by yo-yo dieting is reversible. They key is to aim for permanent weight loss instead of bouncing back and forth with the pounds. First, figure out why your weight loss attempts failed in the past. Was intense stress making you binge? Were your friends not being supportive? Were you not committed or motivated enough to achieving your goal? Pinpointing where you went wrong in the past will help you avoid doing the same.

If you can see a nutritionist, then do so because they can put you on a sustainable diet.