Eat These 3 Fruits for Great Summer Skin
By RealAge

Slather on that SPF every chance you get this summer.
But for extra sun protection points, eat plenty of these fruits as well: cherries, nectarines, and watermelon.

These juicy treats not only cool your mouth in warm weather but may shield your skin from warm weather, too.
Compounds in the fruits may boost your skin’s natural resilience against wrinkles and sun damage, according to Allison Tannis, author of Feed Your Skin, Starve Your Wrinkles.

In-Season Skin Savers
What’s so special about this trio of fruits?
Check out their unique protective benefits.

Cherries:
Eat a daily handful and you may enjoy fresher, less puffy skin. It’s all thanks to the inflammation-fighting anthocyanins and melatonin in cherries, writes Tannis. Melatonin may boost UV protection and cell growth as well — two great ways to keep wrinkles at bay. Tart cherries tend to be highest in melatonin. (Find out how tart cherries help fight cancer, too.)

Nectarines:
These smooth-skinned sisters of the peach provide a mini-spa’s worth of nutrients that may help correct sun damage from the inside out, according to Tannis. They offer skin goodies like lycopene, lutein, niacin, copper, and vitamins A, C, and E. The A, C, and E trio also works to control inflammation and free radical damage in both the watery and the fatty layers of skin. (Add nectarines to dinner with this recipe: Tarragon-Rubbed Salmon with Nectarine Salsa.)

Watermelon:
Nibbling on watermelon wedges has the power to refresh your face as much as your palate, thanks to the high water and lycopene content. Lycopene helps protect and preserve connections between skin cells so skin is tighter, smoother, and better able to retain moisture. (Store your watermelon this way to get the most lycopene from it.)

5 Foods That Take Years off Your Skin
Perhaps the only food you associate with skin is a little whipped cream on Saturday night. But plenty of other foods (ones you can eat in public) can help protect your skin, so you look and stay younger:

1. Legumes, avocados, soybeans, nuts, and egg yolks:
These contain biotin, and a lack of this chemical can lead to dry skin and brittle hair and nails.

2. Salmon:
The carotenoid that gives this fish its pink color, astaxanthin, also improves your skin’s elasticity. And it’s full of the good fat — DHA-omega-3 — that makes your skin and hair look younger and healthier.

3. Green tea:
Its polyphenols act to protect you against sun damage and help thicken your epidermis, your body’s primary barrier to the outside world.

4. Pomegranates:
In addition to thickening your epidermis and helping to produce more collagen and elastin (the stuff that keeps your skin firm and springy), pomegranates contain antioxidants that seem to accelerate wound healing.

5. Tomatoes:
The nutrients in tomatoes reduce the chance you’ll get a sunburn (but you still have to use an SPF 50 and 4-star titanium dioxide or zinc oxide sunscreen!). It may be due to their lycopene content, but we really don’t know the active ingredient. So if there’s a choice between a lycopene supplement and the real tomato, choose the product from the vine.

There’s plenty more you can do to be more beautiful inside and out (in fact, we just wrote a whole book on it, called YOU: Being Beautiful). But these shifts give you a smart and easy start.

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I LOVE TOMATOES and I also like nectarines, cherries, and watermelon! Green tea is good sometimes but I’m more of a coffee drinker and I like iced tea in the summer. Especially raspberry tea.

Any July 4th plans, anyone? I can’t believe it will be here soon.

On Wednesday, I have some news to share about a new group I will officially become a member of on July 1st!

On Friday, July 2nd, author Stephanie Burkhart will be visiting to share a new release!

I was so excited to get started on my new story on Monday, and I wrote 1134 words. I haven’t worked on it since Monday. I wanted this to be a book that I actually wrote quickly. My friend, Shawna, wrote 10,000 words last week. I never have written that many words in one week, but a lot of writers write many words on a regular basis. I will probably be doing my scoring job in another month or two so wanted to get a lot done during February.

We put our house up for sale so another thing that took time this week. We are selling it ourselves so we spent time making up flyers for it. I want to take my husband out for lunch today for an early birthday celebration. They are saying that our area might get several inches of snow tomorrow plus freezing rain and sleet later today. I plan to write this morning as soon as I get my 30 minutes on the treadmill done and Amanda off to her program. Wish me luck.

Wear Red today for Women - it’s all about heart disease. I went to the doctor this week for a yearly checkup and received good news. She cut my dosage of high blood pressure medication to half the amount. My blood pressure was actually low. The number one killer of women isn’t cancer but heart disease.

Thanks for visiting on Wednesday - next guest author is Autumn Jordon. She will be here on February 10th!

Have a great Friday and weekend!

If you leave a comment today on this post or any post starting on February 1st thru the 16th, you’ll be entered for a chance to win Jennifer Shirk’s ebook! The drawing is February 16th! A new contest will start on February 17th!

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Today is Heart Day for a reminder to women to take care of themselves. As women we get so wrapped up in taking care of others that we forget about our own health! Take care of your heart! If you don’t exercise, the Heart Association suggests you start to just walk for 5 minutes a day and gradually increase it to 30 minutes a day. I’m trying to get on the treadmill daily. It’s easier to prevent problems instead of treating them.

It was interesting on the news this morning that the reporter mentioned how we used to have one bathroom in a house instead of one on each floor. That’s true. While growing up in a farmhouse, we only had one. I remember making trips from my upstairs bedroom to the first floor. It was also rough having only one bathroom with several in the family! I was the youngest, so was the last one to get to use it in the morning! We also don’t get out of our cars to walk into the bank or fast food restaurants. It’s just easier to sit in our vehicles and drive up to the windows. And we aren’t burning any calories with our power windows. We also sit in our comfy chairs and use the remote instead of getting up to change channels like we had to in the old days. We definitely need to fit more walking into our daily routine. Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now about the old days.

Also women experience different symptoms when having a heart attack. A woman might have back pain or jaw pain when an attack occurs.

The number one killer of women is actually heart disease!

Click here to go to the American Heart Association to read more!

I need to get off here and bake a carrot cake for hubby’s birthday. Have an awesome weekend! Next week I’ll have a hottie for you - you’ll going to love him.

Thank you for the get well wishes! Amanda is feeling better. On Saturday, the doctor said she had an ear infection so she prescribed antibiotics. The weather is beautiful here - we’re having Indian Summer. The temperature will go up to the 70s for the next few days, so my exercise will be bicycling. I’m motivated to fit exercise in my schedule after hearing a health tip today about cutting your risk of breast cancer by doing vigorous exercise.

Btw, I need to correct what I said about the movie, “The Accidental Husband”, starring my hottie, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It will be released in movie theatres on February 27, 2009. Click here to view the trailer. It looks like a fun romantic comedy.

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When I purchased Ceri’s prize for winning my blog contest, I bought Marianne’s novella, Kitchen Matches. I started reading it today. Marianne always thinks of refreshing stories to write. Kitchen Matches is romantic and funny. It’s only $3.50 at My BookStore and More. Ceri chose my inspirational romance, No Greater Loss!

BLURB FOR KITCHEN MATCHES:

A feisty auto mechanic and a hunky chef cook up chaos!

Cori Weathers is a wizard with a torque wrench, but the moment she lays eyes on her cooking teacher, Micah DePalma, her lessons turn into a klutzy symphony of flying poultry and burning aprons. It makes no sense. He couldn’t be less her type: tall, skinny, and born with a silver spoon in his mouth. So why is her heart sputtering like a badly tuned engine?

Despite family pressure to date only women of his own social class, something about the cooking-challenged spitfire lights all Micah’s burners. Cori’s a complex dish inside a deceptively simple coating, one he’s willing to risk tackle football and jealous ex-boyfriends to sample.

His every attempt to crack her stubborn heart strikes sparks. Will they ignite the flame of love—or explode into just another kitchen disaster?

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Must run - paying bills and cleaning house. Happy Monday!

Unfortunately, pictures are not from our garden produce.

This is the first summer we haven’t had enough tomatoes for me to can. In the winter I love having my own jars of juice, tomatoes and homemade salsa. It’s easy and fun to can your own tomatoes. There is great satisfaction in stirring up chili on a cold winter day with tomatoes from your summer garden. And if the taste of your grandmother’s spaghetti sauce recipe weren’t enough incentive, studies show that the yummy red stuff is a major cancer deterrent, too.

Your risk of developing certain cancers (like prostate, GI, skin, or breast cancer) decreases significantly when you eat 10 or more tablespoons of tomato sauce per week. Spaghetti, anyone?

Many scientists believe that the active ingredient responsible for the cancer protection is lycopene, a carotenoid known for its antioxidant properties. All tomato products contain lots of lycopene, but it’s more available to your body when it’s cooked.

While you’re at it, add some cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli and cauliflower, to your sauce. They contain chemicals that prevent cancer, too — so you get double protection. Tomatoes help keep your mind young. Thank goodness, I LOVE tomatoes.

Sigh. Maybe next year I’ll have tomatoes to can again.

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What I’m Reading: A Super Romance I bought at Wal-Mart - Matthew’s Children by C.J. Carmichael. I’m enjoying this romantic line with a mainstream appeal. This is a first time I’ve read a book by Carmichael. I plan on reading more books written by her.

WRITING PROGRESS: I’m getting to the end of “Marrying Mallory” - woohoo! I also got started on the discussion questions which are always at the end of inspirational/Christian romances, but need to write a few more.

Sara is on break this week so Tom and I took her out for breakfast yesterday to get her birthday off to a great start. Even though we already had a bigger family celebration for our two August birthdays, I decorated brownies for her special day. Sara and I shopped at Kohl’s for her present. We purchased two tops and a pair of capris on sale.

LINK: A friend told me about this site with book trailers. They produce the videos, then post them on their site.
http://www.trailertothestars.com/

Back tomorrow with writing workshop! Soon will announce new blog contest! Enjoy your day.