Any time you eat or drink a high carb snack, your sugar level will rise, temporarily – if this happens often enough, you’ll look old before your time
There are two things every women worries about….
- How fat she looks and
- How old she looks.
Weight worries can start early, thankfully age worries start later…………..but they happen to everyone.
I’ve had the “How old do I look worry” activated.
The moment of truth
For me, the wake up call surfaced, when I put on a swimming cap for my “Splash” class. As I tried to tuck all the wayward pieces of hair, under the plastic, I was horrified by what I saw. A collection of non-complaint hairs, were GREY.
The gym locker room, appears to have lighting designed to accentuate your flaws – I think it is deliberate, they want to scare you into paying your dues.
It seems under normal circumstances, my tuft of grey hairs is invisible, but in the gym, they scream for attention.
THEY ARE SCARY.
So, I’m now exploring some of the colour rinse shampoos. Luckily you can WASH THAT GREY right out of your hair.
But, you can’t “wash” away an old face ?
Old is in the face
So what exactly determines how “old” you look ?
We all know it when we see it, but explaining “looking old” is not easy.
Officially it is a combination of
- Skin wrinkles
- Skin colour homogeneity
- Lip size and
- Sag
What causes it ? Some would say, it’s because you didn’t take care of your skin, you sun tanned TOO MUCH and you didn’t apply a special moisturizing cream, on a regular basis, in your younger days ?
It’s more than skin deep
How old you look has a lot to do with your BODY CHEMISTRY.
This is what a group of researchers from Leiden University Medical Centre discovered when they asked 60 people, off the street, to “guess the age” of a group of 602 middle aged subjects, from 421 “special” families.
In case you’re wondering, getting random untrained strangers to guess someone’s age, is a very accurate way of doing this. Go figure !
Destined to live FOREVER
The families forming part of this study are special, very special, when it comes to aging, they have a genetic advantage.
Their advantage – they’re carrying LONGEVITY GENES.
Well half of them are.
The destined to live FOREVER people, were the kids of families with lots of seriously old, oldies.
If you’re curious, the age at which you are considered a seriously old, oldie is
- 89 years for men
- 91 years for ladies
Obviously, people who are going to live forever, are not going to look old before their time – so how does this help the rest of us ?
We’re represented by the other half of the “family” – in addition to the genetically gifted, the spouses of the genetically gifted, were also included, in…………….
The guessing game
All participants were told to come the lab – NAKED.
They wore clothes, the part of them that was NAKED was their face. MAKE UP and HAIR GEL were banned. There were no dietary restrictions placed on them.
On the big day,
- they posed for several photos,
- answered a quick questionnaire on lifestyle
- were weighed and measured and
- had their glucose levels checked
And then the FUN began – a group of strangers viewed their photos and guessed their age. And just to keep things a little professional, the pics were also viewed by a dermatologist.
Old before your time
In this study…………….
Perceived age, tracked non-fasting sugar levels – the higher a person’s sugar level, the older they looked. The pattern was seen across the board, in the forever young ones, in spouses, in diabetics (33 people), in non-diabetics.
Higher sugar levels, caused people to look OLDER than they really were.
Higher sugar levels PERIOD. The sugar levels did not need to be dangerously high, just on the high side of normal.
Ouch !
It’s easy to be on the high side of normal
Any time you eat a high carb meal or drink a sugar laden beverage, your sugar level will rise, temporarily – as the sugar arrives in your system.
If you’re metabolically healthy, it’s a blip, if you’re not so healthy, it will be a spike.
Blips are harmless. Spikes are TROUBLE in and of themselves, and a sign of trouble…………..spikes suggest you are insulin resistant.
Being insulin resistant, puts you at risk of the life style diseases…..
AND……………….it makes you LOOK OLD.
You need a SUGAR SHIFT
Not a face lift.
Fortunately, sugar shifts are relatively easy, if you know how.
Need some help, download our free report.
Further reading
Want to be the leader of the pack ? Looks count.
So what should a leader look like ? Being tall dark and handsome – will help. But, actually one of the biggest things people look for – is how healthy you look.
Old brains short circuit on high carbohydrate diet
Officially, the brain runs on carbohydrates, but in the elderly at least, too many carbohydrates, in the diet, hasten foggy thinking.
Discover the secret to a great passport picture
Passport pictures are invariably freaky, but a little beauty sleep increases the chances you won’t look like Frankenstein meets the wolfman.
Interested in learning more about the chemistry behind high sugar levels ?
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