Your Skin and Exercising

Good morning everyone,

Exercise has so many benefits on the body and one of the immediately noticeable ones is having better skin and a clearer more glowing complexion. I think your skin reflects your general health and well being of a person. Exercising also offers so many other health benefits which I’ll mention soon but here’s some background information into my skin and exercise.

For those of you that don’t know, I have a cow’s milk allergy. In a nutshell, if I do consume cow’s milk then I come out in a terrible skin rash and suffer chronic fatigue. I only found out I had this allergy about three years ago and I suffered with it for around two years. Throughout that time, I made numerous visits to the doctors and kept a food diary. This diary helped me start cutting certain food groups out until my rash disappeared. I’ll never forget the week I started to cut out cow’s milk because it was like someone flicking a switch as my problem went away. I’ve seen my dietician since as I wanted to make sure I was still getting enough vitamins from other sources. It was difficult at first, trying to get my diet right. You don’t realise how many nice things contain cow’s milk! I now eat goat’s cheese instead of normal cheese and drink soy milk instead of cow’s milk. Soy milk or soya milk is packed with other health benefits and I will write another post soon explaining them. I’d say my diet at the moment is pretty good and with Total Warrior just around the corner, it will only get better.

Stress

Throughout my numerous visits to the doctor, I was disappointed to learn that they only offered me lotions and potions to try and make the problem go away. I actually made a switch away from those doctors as I wasn’t happy with their advice and it was my new doctor that suggested I try a food diary. My doctor also asked me if I was stressed at all? I didn’t think so but I might have been. Health experts agree that stress levels are significantly reduced and stress can even be beaten if you exercise.

People who are prone to stress related spots and pimples will find that when they adopt an exercise program, you will gain a clearer complexion as the pores become unclogged due to the increase in sweat produced. This will also help to control acne flare-ups, which affect many young people today.

Circulation

When you exercise you are increasing your bodies circulation which in turn delivers essential nutrients to your body. This could mean you get a good nights sleep for a change, giving your skin a chance to recover. Did you know that your skin actually re-grows every 24 hours? Did you also know that your skin is your bodies largest organ? Well now you do! Your skin is rewarded more than any other organ when you exercise, it creates the right environment for your skin to build collagen. Collagen are fibres that support your skin and help wrinkles from appearing.

You will also know that when you exercise your face turns redder and redder. This is caused by the heart rate rising and the circulation increasing. This draws the blood to the surface of the body taking nutrients to the skin cells and helping to rid the body of toxins.

Hydration

Exercise also helps in hydrating our body, since we normally increase our intake of fluids following an exercise routine. Drinking lots of water helps prevent the skin from drying out, particularly during cold winter months. Deano wrote a cracking article on water and hydration levels, if you haven’t read it yet then you should!

Oxygen

Exercise can helps to increase the number of red blood cells and also enhances the quantity of oxygen which is sent to your muscles. People who exercise daily are liable to sleep better and feel more energetic. So why wouldn’t you want to sleep better and feel more energetic? Beats me, get exercising folks.

Thanks,