One Secret To A Youthful Appearance: Antioxidants by Robert D. Franklin

By now you’ve probably seen and heard about the wonderful health benefits of antioxidant rich foods in your diet. Not only do they help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they can also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and so many other degenerative diseases.

Antioxidants also help you to recover better from exercise… and that means you can build more muscle and burn more body fat in the long term!

And although we all want to be healthy and feel youthful... most of us also want to look good! Any time you workout, free radicals are produced in the body that can create inflammation. Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout can greatly reduce the damage caused by free radicals, hence, improving your muscular recovery from exercise.

Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, white tea, black tea, yerba mate, oolong tea, chammomile tea, red tea - a.k.a. rooibos tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, nuts and seeds, coffee, dark chocolate or cocoa, and just so many other fruits and vegetables.

Many spices are also extremely potent as antioxidants, like cinnamon, turmeric, oregano, basil, black pepper, and most other herbs and spices.

A favorite pre-workout antioxidant-loaded snack is a piece of whole grain toast with almond butter, a small amount of blackberry jam, and topped with a pile of fresh blueberries or sliced strawberries. You could swallow that down with a glass of iced green tea or rooibos tea sweetened with just a teaspoon of raw honey. This is truly a dynamic array of potent anti-oxidants!

The almond butter, blackberries, blueberries, raw honey, and the green or rooibos tea are all loaded with different varieties of muscle protecting, youth promoting antioxidants. Give it a try for yourself or you could be creative and come up with your own antioxidant-rich snack depending on your tastebuds.

Our bodies are continually hoarded daily by free radicals (creating oxidative stress) from exercise, air pollution, smoke, sun exposure, junk food, exposure to chemicals, and the like. To reap the full benefits of antioxidants, try to make sure that every meal and snack you eat has at least one or two sources of antioxidant rich foods. This will give you a continuous supply of antioxidants throughout every day to prevent the damage and aging that result from the free radicals you are constantly exposed to.