Skincare – by Caroline Hirons
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our skin is our largest organ, and it affects (and is affected by) most of what it contains. In other words, us.
So how do we look after this organ? Caroline Hirons lays it bare for us, in this very clear (and well-illustrated with many photos) book that gives a ground-upwards explanation of:
- Our skin’s layers and features and what they do
- The many ways our skin can be different from others
- What lifestyle factors to worry about (or not)
- What exactly the many kinds of skincare products do
- How to understand which ones are actually for our skin
- How to craft the ideal skincare routine for any individual
- What should go into a personalized skincare kit
Because, as it turns out, shockingly we can’t trust advertising. Not only is it advertising, but also, they don’t know us. What will be perfect for one person’s skin may ruin another’s, and labels can be very misleading.
A strength of this book is how Hirons demystifies all that, so we can ignore the claims and just know what a product will actually do, from its ingredients.
She also covers the changes that occur in various life processes, including puberty, pregnancy, menopause, and just plain aging. In other words, what to do when what’s been working suddenly doesn’t anymore.
Bottom line: this is a great book for anyone (though: especially those of us with female hormones) who wants to understand the skin you’re in and how to keep it well-nourished and glowingly healthy.
Click here to check out “Skincare” and take good care of yourself!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Three-Bean Chili & Cashew Cream
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
A hearty classic with a twist! Delicious and filling and full of protein, fiber, and powerful phytonutrients (including heavy-hitters ergothioneine and lycopene), this recipe is also quite flexible, so you can always add in extra seasonal vegetables if you like (to get you started: cherry tomatoes in summer and sweet potato in fall are fine options)!
You will need
- 1 cup low-sodium vegetable stock (ideally you made it yourself from vegetable offcuts you kept in the freezer for this purpose, but if not, you should be able to find low-sodium stock cubes)
- 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 cans chopped tomatoes
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, diced
- 2 celery sticks, chopped
- 4 oz mushrooms, chopped
- ½ bulb garlic, crushed
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 1 red chili pepper, finely chopped (multiply per your heat preferences)
- 1 tbsp ground paprika
- 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 2 tsp fresh rosemary (or 1 tbsp dried)
- 2 tsp fresh thyme (or 1 tbsp dried)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
For the cashew cream:
- 6 oz cashews, soaked in kettle-hot water for at least 15 minutes
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp lemon juice
To serve:
- Handful of chopped parsley
- Your carbohydrates of choice; we recommend our Tasty Versatile Rice recipe, and/or our Delicious Quinoa Avocado Bread recipe.
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat some olive oil in a skillet and fry the onion for about 5 minutes, stirring as necessary.
2) Add the garlic and chili and cook for a further 1 minute.
3) Add the celery, carrot, and mushrooms and continue cooking for 1–2 minutes.
4) Add everything else from the main section, taking care to stir well to distribute the seasonings evenly. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for around 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5) While you are waiting, drain the cashews, and add them to a high-speed blender with ½ cup (fresh) cold water, as well as the nutritional yeast and lemon juice. Blend on full power until smooth; this may take about 3 minutes, so we recommend doing it in 30-second bursts to avoid overheating the motor. You’ll also probably need to scrape it down the sides at least once. You can add a little more water if you want the cream to be thinner than it is appearing, but go slowly if you do.
6) Serve with rice, adding a dollop of the cream and garnishing with parsley, with bread on the side if you like.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
- Three Daily Servings of Beans?
- Kidney Beans or Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Best morning routine?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
You’ve Got Questions? We’ve Got Answers!
Q: Best morning routine?
A: The best morning routine is whatever makes you feel most ready to take on your day!
This one’s going to vary a lot—one person’s morning run could be another person’s morning coffee and newspaper, for example.
In a nutshell, though, ask yourself these questions:
- How long does it take me to fully wake up in the morning, and what helps or hinders that?
- When I get out of bed, what do I really need before I can take on my day?
- If I could have the perfect morning, what would it look like?
- What can evening me do, to look after morning me’s best interests? (Semi-prepare breakfast ready? Lay out clothes ready? Running shoes? To-Do list?)
Share This Post
-
Workout Advice For Busy People
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Hampton at Hybrid Calisthenics always has very sound advice in his uplifting videos, and this one’s no exception:
Key tips for optimizing workouts without burning out
“We all have the same 24 hours” is a folly when in fact, some of us have more responsibilities and/or other impediments to getting things done (e.g. disabilities).
A quick word on disabilities first: sometimes people are quick to point out Paralympian athletes, and “if they can do it, so can you!” and forget that these people are in the top percentile of the top percentile of the top percentile of human performance. If you wouldn’t disparagingly say “if Simone Biles/Hussein Bolt/Michael Phelps can do it, so can you”, then don’t for Paralympians either 😉
Now, as for Hampton’s advice, he recommends:
Enjoy short, intense workouts:
- You can get effective results in under 30 minutes (or even just a few minutes per day) with compound exercises (e.g., squats, pull-ups).
- Focus on full-body movements also saves time!
- Push closer to failure when possible to maximize efficiency. It’s the last rep where most of the strength gains are made! Same deal with cardiovascular fitness, too. Nevertheless, do take safety into account in both cases, of course.
Time your rest periods:
- Resting for 2–3 minutes between sets ensures optimal recovery.
- Avoid getting distracted during rest by setting a timer to stay focused.
- 10almonds tip: use this time to practice a mindfulness meditation. That will greatly reduce the chance of you becoming distracted.
Remember holistic fitness:
- Fitness isn’t just about exercise; diet, sleep, and stress management are equally important for your fitness as much as for the rest of your health.
- Better sleep and reduced stress will help you exercise more consistently and avoid junk food.
Address burnout:
- If feeling too exhausted to apply these tips, focus on getting better rest and reducing stress first.
- Taking a short break to reset can help in the long run.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- How To Do High Intensity Interval Training (Without Wrecking Your Body)
- How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Radical Remission – by Dr. Kelly Turner
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
First, what this is not:an autobiographical account of the “I beat cancer and you can too” pep-talk style.
What it is: a very readable pop-science book based on the author’s own PhD research into radical remission.
She knew that a very small percentage of people experience spontaneous radical remission (or quasi-spontaneous, if the remission is attributed to lifestyle changes, and/or some alternative therapy), but a small percentage of people means a large number worldwide, so she travelled the world studying over 1,000 cases of people with late-stage cancer who had either not gone for conventional anticancer drugs, or had and then stopped, and lived to tell the tale.
While she doesn’t advocate for any particular alternative therapy, she does report on what things came to her attention. She does advocate for some lifestyle changes.
Perhaps the biggest value this book offers is in its promised “9 key factors that can make a real difference”, which are essentially her conclusions from her PhD dissertation.
There isn’t room to talk about them here in a way that wouldn’t be misleading/unhelpful for a paucity of space, so perhaps we’ll do a main feature one of these days.
Bottom line: if you have (or a loved one has) cancer, this is an incredibly sensible book to read. If you don’t, then it’s an interesting and thought-provoking book to read.
Click here to check out Radical Remission, and learn about the factors at hand!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Do Probiotics Work For Weight Loss?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Can you talk about using probiotics for weight loss? Thanks❞
Great question! First, a quick catch-up:
How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make, Really?
Our above-linked article covers a number of important benefits of probiotic supplements, but we didn’t talk about weight loss at all. So let’s examine whether probiotics are useful for weight loss.
Up-front summary: the science is unclear
This 2021 systematic review found that they are indeed very effective:
❝The intake of probiotics or synbiotics could lead to significant weight reductions, either maintaining habitual lifestyle habits or in combination with energy restriction and/or increased physical activity for an average of 12 weeks.
Specific strains belonging to the genus Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were the most used and those that showed the best results in reducing body weight.
Both probiotics and synbiotics have the potential to help in weight loss in overweight and obese populations.❞
This slightly older (2015) systematic review and meta-analysis found the opposite:
❝Collectively, the RCTs examined in this meta-analysis indicated that probiotics have limited efficacy in terms of decreasing body weight and BMI and were not effective for weight loss.❞
Source: Probiotics for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis
And in case that’s not balanced enough, this 2020 randomized controlled trial got mixed results:
❝Regression analysis performed to correlate abundance of species following supplementation with body composition parameters and biomarkers of obesity found an association between a decrease over time in blood glucose and an increase in Lactobacillus abundance, particularly in the synbiotic group.
However, the decrease over time in body mass, BMI, waist circumstance, and body fat mass was associated with a decrease in Bifidobacterium abundance.❞
Source: Effects of Synbiotic Supplement on Human Gut Microbiota, Body Composition and Weight Loss in Obesity
Summary
Probiotics may or may not work for weight loss.
In all likelihood, it depends on the blend of cultures contained in the supplement. It’s possible that Lactobacillus is more beneficial for weight loss than Bifidobacterium, which latter may actually reduce weight loss.
Or it might not, because that was just one study and correlation ≠ causation!
We’d love to give you a hard-and-fast answer, but if the data doesn’t support a hard-and-fast answer, we’re not going to lie to you.
What we can say for sure though is that probiotics come with very many health benefits, so whether or not weight loss is one of them, they’re a good thing to have for most people.
Some further articles that may interest you:
- How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make, Really? ← the aforementioned article
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later) ← gut health 101
- Burn! How To Boost Your Metabolism ← these things can help change your metabolic base rate, which is highly relevant to weight loss
- How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ←unlike most forms of exercise, which cause the body to slow the metabolism afterwards to compensate, high-intensity interval training results in an increased metabolic rate (so generally: fat-burning) for several hours after training.
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Feeding You Lies – by Vani Hari
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
When it comes to advertising, we know that companies will often be as misleading as they can get away with. But just how misleading is it?
Vani Hari, of “Food Babe” fame, is here to unravel it all.
The book covers many areas of food and drink advertising and marketing, and gives particular attention to:
- Sodas (with and without sugar), and how deleterious they are to the health—as well as not even helping people lose weight, but actively hindering
- Nutritionally fortified foods, and what we may or may not actually get from them by the time the processing is done
- Organic food, and what that may or may not mean
She also covers a lot of what happens outside of supermarkets, way back in universities and corporate boardrooms. In short, who is crossing whose palms with silver for a seal of approval… And what that means for us as consumers.
A strength of this book that sets it apart from many of its genre, by the way, is that while being deeply critical of certain institutions’ practices, it doesn‘t digress into tinfoil-hat pseudoscientific scaremongering, either. Here at 10almonds we love actual science, so that was good to see too.
Bottom line: is you’d like to know “can they say that and get away with it if it’s not true?” and make decisions based on the actual nutritional value of things, this is a great book for you.
Click here to check out “Feeding You Lies” on Amazon and make your shopping healthier!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
