“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.”  – Coco Chanel 

Years ago I attended a couple of American Association for Anti Aging (A4M) symposiums.

I knew that anti-aging would become a huge thing, and it is slowly getting there, much more slowly than I anticipated. We speak a lot about anti-aging in our level one workshop, and for good reason. By elevating fat loss pathways, you also tend to increase anti-aging pathways in relationship to mitochondrial health. And who wouldn’t want that?

I became discontent with the A4M after attending and passing a certification for anti-aging personal training, but not being allowed my certificate because I didn’t complete the necessary qualifications, such as having a medical degree.  The kicker is that I was the only person in the class answering the questions and participating. Doctors back then, and even nowadays, aren’t taught training and nutrition, and there are very few doctors (like Spencer and Kasey Naldosky) that treat AND lift.

Back to the original topic – how nutrition and training can have a positive influence on skin health and anti-aging, a far greater influence than the creams and lotions you pile on your mug.

First, we have to understand that the skin takes roughly 6 weeks to develop from the bottom layer to the top.  By the time you’re massaging vitamin C, E, and ALA enriched cream on your face, you’re treating already damaged tissue.  It makes far more sense to start treating your skin from the inside-out. To do that we need some strategies:

1.  Increase regenerative pathways

In order to increase cellular cleanout of waste material, we need to make sure we are either in a fasting pathway (such as SIRT1) or we need to add in nutrients that increase these pathways.

The cheapest (free) way of driving these pathways is through caloric, not nutritive, restriction, and exercise.

As you can see, caloric restriction and exercise can drive pathways for collagen synthesis, which is what we’re after.  We want to increase collagen pathways (there are more than 30 of them!) pgc1, and AMP-K.

What kind of exercise is great for increasing anti-aging pathways? We know that resistance training is, if you have a properly designed training program that you can recover from and you enjoy doing.  However, did you know that moderate aerobic and cardiovascular work will also help increase these pathways?  By increasing slow-twitch fiber size, you increase the number of mitochondria, which allows for more energy production with decreased levels of free radical production. Pretty cool, right?

Not only will increasing the activity of these genes make your skin more vibrant, it will also help you shed a few pounds for summer beach season.

2.  Increase nutrients crucial to collagen synthesis

• Glycine
• Proline
• (Gelatin)
• Microcrystalline silica
• Glutamine
• Protein

Without the proper ingredients, you can stimulate collagen synthesis all you want, but nothing will happen.

If you were going to build your dream house, you would buy land, concrete, studs, tiles, roofing material, drywall, insulation, and your land. You would draw up a plan and then you would drop the materials on your new plot of land.

Now stare at the materials and say “Ok, build the house.” Keep staring at your materials. Nothing happens. Of course not, knucklehead, you didn’t hire any builders. And without builders, your material can’t be used.

Now reverse the situation.  You’ve contracted builders, but you haven’t given them any supplies.  What’s going to happen?  Nothing.  You need the raw materials.

So make sure you have the raw materials you need through food and supplementation.

3.  Control free radical damage

It’s well documented that out of control free radicals will cause increased aging.  How do we control free radicals?  Well, increasing your metabolism is a great start.

We can also help neutralize free radicals by increasing our consumption of fruits and vegetables, and by adding in a high-grade multivitamin and mineral, as well as a small amount of vitamins C and E, which many people are deficient in.  500mg of vitamin C twice a day and an additional 400IU of vitamin E are great places to start.

4.  Control stress

Stress will be a resounding theme throughout our articles, as it’s the number ONE reason you aren’t getting results – regardless of what your goal is.

What we are talking about is chronic stress. Chronic stress puts the breaks on everything unrelated to instant (not long-term) survival.  If you want to see the effects on a human and their health and ageing, look at American presidents the first year of their term, and then at the end, especially if they make it two terms.  Have a good look at how quickly they age. Amazing, isn’t it? One of the most stressful positions in the world.  It’s incredible how anyone can survive that kind of pressure.

How do we control stress when you can’t always control your environment?  We learn to control and manage our response to it. We recommend things like daily meditation (Headspace app), stretching (Gymnasticbodies.com), dry/wet sauna, infrared sauna, aerobic conditioning, and reducing the volume of your anaerobic training.

We recommend 15-20 min of Headspace at least once a day.  I typically do mine before bed as I find it helps me sleep deeper. Adding in a few sessions of moderate aerobic work 30-60 min per week can be a big help.  If you find you don’t have time for that, then a couple of sessions of aerobic power intervals would be good too.  You can try a few rounds of two minutes of running to four minutes of walking.

Hopefully you find some of these recommendations to be of value to you. If you are looking for guidance, or would like to attend one of our seminars, please email [email protected] and we will be glad to help.