Keto and physical appearance

(Karim Wassef) #61

YMMV

I didn’t have jowls… just chubby cheeks that turned into jowls… that are now dissipating slowly. :slight_smile:

(charlie3) #62

I look better because I feel better and have 10 pounds of new muscle. I’m 70, looking 50. I got loose skin around my middle losing 40 pounds. It took may be 9+ months for that to mostly go away. There’s no magic food. The best results come from an artful combination of feasting, fasting, and fitness. There are benefits to each one independent of the others. Used together they are multipliers.

#63

Aww :hugs:

(KCKO, KCFO) #64

Check out the progress thread here to see how others look after reaching goal or even are just making good progress. Most look years younger.

When I was a WW member, a lot of people complained they looked haggard after losing the weight. But after a couple of months or so things started to fill in more and the haggard look disappeared for just about everyone.

Since being keto and fasting will cause autophagy to kick in, I think that would help a lot.

Do I have wrinkles, sure, I had them before keto as well. But I am so much healthier and happier doing keto than I was before. Wearing smaller clothes make me look better too. Things fit me correctly now. That really helps a lot.

Do you do any swimming? My DH who is T2D and a TOFI, tends to have a little extra around the waist area, if he starts swimming, it firms up quickly.

Good luck sorting it all out.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #65

I’m not so sure your skin actually gets older as you age. I think that as your skin is replaced if the proper nutrients aren’t available your skin structure cannot rebuild to it’s last version so we start to look older. It’s possible to fight back by giving yourself the proper nutrients. It’s my understanding that your skin is completely renewed every three months. So if you do IF with an 18 hour non eating period you will trigger autophagy daily. You’re skin shouldn’t show as much sagging if this is part of the weight loss process. At least it won’t take as long for your skin to catch up with your newer physique. During this period of replacement and rebuilding eat lots of collagen rich foods. I believe that lysine is a key amino acid that forms the basic structure that collagen adheres to in your skin structure. It’s inexpensive to supplement. There may be other healthy nutritional building blocks for skin structure that you can focus on as well. This is why there’s a lag between rapid weight loss and saggy skin. But it is possible to accelerate the process and get significant results faster. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Boston_guy) #66

Not sure what “look like crap” means, in concrete terms? One thing I notice for sure is you don’t have the red faced / rosy cheeks (inflamed) look on keto. Maybe that’s “abnormal”, who knows? :man_shrugging:

I think with taking a good amount of glycine that skin elasticity is good. Friends who I see rarely say I look younger every time they see me :thinking: For sure a tan will help… I’m not afraid to go out in the sun because I don’t burn without omega-6’s.

(Karim Wassef) #67

Unfortunately, our skin ages with every other cell in the body. Cell division is imperfect and with each successive duplication, there will be deficiencies that accumulate with time. Eating collagen doesn’t stop this. Nutrition is important but it’s not enough.

You need new stem cells rather than replication of existing cells. That can come from fasting. You also need to trigger epigenetic markers - methylation groups. That is also fasting and nutrition driven.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #68

This is exactly where you belong, keep reading. Keto isn’t hard. I found it quite easy once I got through the first five days which I wasn’t supplementing with extra salt so I felt ill. It was before I got on this forum but I found the solution with google. It got easier still as weeks passed. I was a huge white flour and sugar addict. Not so much candy but flavored coffee mate, a morning muffin , sandwich and crackers with cheese at lunch, potatoes, rice or pasta with dinner and late night snacking with more crackers or toast because if I was going into a carb slump I wasn’t able to sleep. I almost always was waking up in the middle of the night tossing and getting muscle cramps so I would get up and move around, wash the dishes and have a carbbsnack like a bagel, toast or crackers. Then I would be able to sleep a few more hours. About five total hours of sleep for years due to this disordered eating pattern. Giving up carbs and sugar cold turkey I started seeing positive results in just a couple of weeks and I knew I was on the right track. I started dropping meds, sleeping tranqs, restless limb medication and more. I eliminated 6 prescriptions in a couple of months. I’m a kidney transplant recipient and my doctors have told me that I am on less meds than 98% of their other transplant patients. This came directly from keto. It has saved my life. Give it a shot, I really don’t think you’ll be disappointed when you’re body starts working optimally. :cowboy_hat_face:

#69

Interesting. I am the complete opposite. Fasting -either extended or intermittent on a schedule every few days- really improves my skins appearance People comment on it.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #70

I sort of agree but I also think it’s possible to slow down the toll aging takes on your skin. I think it’s erroneous to think your skin is aging though, it’s just not rebuilding to it’s former glory through each replacement phase. Of course you’re never going to have a glowing baby face again. But many people don’t seem to show the aging effect as much as others. I often see people who are ten years or more younger than I am who look like my mother. I don’t believe this kind of degeneration is unrelated to the building blocks of proper skin structure. I always thought this but I saw a Ken Barry vid last weekend that reinforced my thinking on this.

You are what you eat is a truth. Eating a bad diet with nutritional deficiencies without the proper nutrients leads to a more aged appearance. Tobacco, alcohol and amphetamine users show aging rapidly because those habits lead to poor eating and inadequate nutrients. These things tend to replace adequate food in people’s lives and lead to that haggard beat looking face. I definitely agree about good fats helping to correct skin structure as well.

(Karim Wassef) #71

All those variables impact cell replication. It’s the DNA that ages and that ages the cells. It’s both genetic predisposition and epigenetic modification.

Many environmental modifiers hurt. We can use diet and other environmental modifiers to fix it.

(Doug) #72

Sun exposure is a big thing. I like being tanned and think a tan looks good, but my father, sister, and one brother have already had skin cancer (all caught early, so just small removals of stuff and all’s well).

I remember my grandfather’s feet - he was born in 1903 and always wore shoes outside, big, heavy, old-fashioned clunky looking things. Even at age 97, the tops of his feet were smooth and unblemished, while a life of often working outside had definitely aged the more exposed skin.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #73

Absolutely @OldDoug maybe some of my comparisons to myself have been influenced by the fact that I avoid the mid day sun, (mad dogs and Englishmen :grin:).
I was a night owl for years staying up till
3-4am often or even a skipping night of sleep completely. Good and bad aspects to that I guess. I worked graveyard shifts when I was young. :cowboy_hat_face:

('Jackie P') #74

…off to the lycine shop😀

(Karim Wassef) #75

Oxidative damage by free radicals = aging

https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dujs/2013/01/28/why-does-your-skin-age/

(Wendy) #76

Another factor I’ve been hearing about lately is the affect of seed oils on the skin or maybe more accurately on the fat structures. I am really avoiding those as much as I can.
Hydration seems to be a noticable cause of a more haggard look on me, or the lack of it. :grin:
My worst wrinkles are on my stomach though and I am hoping it is just a matter of time for that to improve. Maybe I need to just exercise those muscles. I’m pretty lazy and don’t work out per sey. I just have an active job and garden.

(JJ) #77

Interesting.
I am at goal, actually a bit below . Really struggling to maintain and not continue to lose.
I loved IF for the last 6 months,it was awesome to get me here,I didnt struggle with it- such a revelation for someone who was always hu gry before keto. However, am starting to feel unwell at times when fasting now. Like you, my keto glow can shift toward a keto grey.

(Ashley) #78

@Diygurl19 I also think the same thing! Definitely your getting smaller!

(traci simpson) #79

Thanks! that makes me want to keep on keeping on!

(Full Metal KETO AF) #80

Unfortunately (but maybe to your liking since you don’t like exercise) you can’t target fat loss or where autophagy will occur with exercise. It’s going to happen where your body thinks it needs to and I believe internal needs are prioritized. So it might happen in other parts of your body first and more slowly on excess skin. I do notice that my face has gotten a little tighter than before.

I totally agree about seed oils, omega 6 minimization will make your skin much less susceptible to sun damages, if you really keep them out your skin will be healthier on the next regeneration and you won’t sunburn as easily letting your body produce higher levels of Vitamin D. You should have better skin tone as a result. All the sunscreen that we are told we need to use is a result of diets high in omega 6. People used to work all day in the sun for eons without all the modern skin cancer issues, which scientists are quick to blame on depleted ozone layers in the atmosphere rather than poor diet. We’re supposed to be able to be in the sun naked for more than 1/2 an hour or we would have never survived as a species. :cowboy_hat_face: