For more information about Facial Fitness Vancouver products or services, call 604-731-0044, or visit 3-1874 West 1st Avenue in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Video: Work those abs!

Have you exercised your abs today? How about giving yourself an “instant facelift”? The video above will get you started! If you laugh aloud 100 times, you’ll equal 10 minutes exercise on a rowing machine, or 15 minutes on an exercise bike!

Don’t believe me? Well, it’s true! Laughing can be a “total body workout.”

Laughing lowers blood pressure, increases vascular flood flow and oxygenation of blood. Laughter exercises your diaphragm, your abdominal, leg, back, respiratory AND FACIAL muscles. That’s why hysterical laughter can leave you exhausted, but a healthy, regular dose leaves you stress-free and relaxed.

So, laugh it up! Your body AND face will thank you!

The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick by Gene Stone

Think what “never getting sick” could do for your face! Continuous health is not only possible but a fact of life for many people, many self-disciplined people!

I have a client at Facial Fitness Vancouver who hasn’t been to a doctor in more than thirty-years, or had any reason to go. Probably “why” is covered in the new book by Gene Stone (New York Times best seller, and justifiably so), The Secrets of People who Never Get Sick. Many of the techniques described in the book she practices regularly.

Stone’s book delivers on “The Secrets of People who Never Get Sick” by interviewing twenty-five different people with twenty-five different reasons that each believes is their “secret” to health. The video above “samples” a few of the twenty-five different “secrets” for year round health.

Here’s a list of a few others included in the book: caloric reduction, plant-based diet, cold showers, detoxification, friends, garlic, good genes, herbal remedies, positive attitude, running, yoga, and spirituality. That’s just half the list.

But, the real kicker is “consistency.” These secrets are not just used now and then but incorporated into daily routine. Says author Stone, “That’s the secret to any secret–doing it.”

Photographer: Getty Images/Creatas RF

Could you give up mirrors for a year, or even for a week? That would mean NO looking at your reflection in store windows as you pass. That would mean angling your computer screen to NEVER trap your image looking back. Of course, you’d have to avoid staring too closely into any friend’s eyes, in case you might glimpse yourself reflected there. No mirrors for a year! That’s a challenge for sure.

This is precisely the challenge grad student Kjerstin Gruys has set for herself as a school project, NO mirrors for a year. If you’d like know first hand how that’s going, check out Gruys’ blog, “Mirror, Mirror, Off the Wall.”

According to Ariana Barton in the Globe and Mail:

“Ms. Gruys, a PhD candidate at UCLA, conducts research on how physical appearance relates to social inequality. She got the idea for a mirror-free year after reading a book about nuns who vowed not to “look on human flesh, neither their own nor anyone else’s.”

But the self-described “feminist bride-to-be” draws the line at banishing makeup and other beauty essentials…. Ms. Gruys, a former fashion-industry worker, hasn’t let go of her “security blanket” of foundation and concealer, she writes on her blog. “I’ve even felt pride in my mirror-free makeup application skills.” [Source: Toronto Globe and Mail]

So, do you think you could live without mirrors? I’m not sure I could!

[To read FULL ARTICLE, see “Woman gives up mirrors for a year. Could you?” ]

Illustration from Real Age

Is your skin older than it should be? How can you tell? Take the Real Age Skin Test. This test works for those–men and women–between the ages of 27 and 81. According to Real Age, if you are younger than 27 you won’t have “enough visible aging to measure yet. Older than 81? The gap between your skin age and your calendar age won’t be significant.” For those of us “bewixt and between,” here’s how to prepare for the Skin Test:

1–Wash your face or shower.
2–Dry off, then add some moisturizer (this won’t affect your visual exam).
3–Take a good look in the mirror as you answer the test’s questions. Try not to cheat! (This is your “truth or dare” challenge!)

AND, when you’re done…congratulate yourself on how good facial toning keeps you looking, AND how much younger than your “real age.”

Book cover for Feed Your Skin, Starve Your Wrinkles by Allison Tannis, M.S., R.H.N.

Food! Of all the “supplements” available, food is the best anti-aging, skin-wrinkle-preventer out there. Why? Because food provides NUTRIENTS, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, proteins, carbohydrates AND natural (UNbottled or processed) hydration! Food (preferrably organic!) is the best energizer and skin restorer you can buy!

Nutritional scientist Allison Tannis tells you which foods do exactly what for your skin (and your health) in her illustrated and recipe-rich book, Feed Your Skin, Starve Your Wrinkles.

Did you know that beets, pumpkin seeds, and mangoes are SUPERFOODS? All three are powerful antioxidants which neutralize free radicals that form in skin as a result of environmental toxins, excessive sun exposure, or inadequate diet. These are just three power-packed foods for your skin. In her book Tannis describes these and ninety-seven more which “can do more for your skin and overall beauty than any expensive night cream, facelift, or Botox injuection.”

[For more information, see "Feed Your Skin, Starve Your Wrinkles" on Amazon.]

A glass of drinking water

If you’re looking for instant wrinkle reduction for your face (and hands), try this: Hydrate! Drink water, lots of water! Be sure, though, your water is clean and healthful. What’s GENUINELY CLEAN and HEALTHFUL drinking water? The author, health-guru Dr. Mercola, says this:

“Most people believe they can obtain their water requirements from sodas, coffee, highly processed fruit juices, and superficially healthy options like Gatorade. While drinking these fluids will clearly keep you alive, there is a huge gap in what they will do to your or your family’s health. Replacing these junk fluids with pure water is simply one of the most powerful lifestyle changes you can make to start improving health. Pure water is your BEST choice!”

But there’s more, once you do what’s suggested above. Getting enough WATER at the right times is also IMPORTANT. Many of us who are “health and fitness nuts” (and observers of how quickly water plumps up skin) regularly do “The AMAZING WATER THERAPY.”

What’s “The AMAZING WATER THERAPY”? Answer: BEFORE you do anything else (after you wake up) in the morning, drink ONE (or even better, one and a half) LITRES of water (on an empty stomach). NEXT, do NOT eat anything for ONE HOUR following. What this does is completely saturate your body with water (which your body has been deprived of while you sleep) AND, most importantly, this water FLUSHES all the toxins that have accummulated in your body from your system.

[For more information, see "The Amazing Water Therapy."]

LeWhif Chocolate Inhaler! Yes, really!

Ever heard of chocolate skin care? Well, apparently it’s popular in salons these days. We used to be told chocolate causes acne. But, that’s not true. Chocolate is GOOD for your skin!

Chocolate is a skin softener, due probably to the cocoa butter. It can smooth out wrinkles, due to its anti-oxidant properties. (This prevents free radicals from causing damage to the skin’s elastin, other protein and collagen). Chocolate can be a good moisturizer. [For more reasons, see “10 Benefits of Chocolate.” ]

AND, thanks to Harvard researchers you no longer even have to eat chocolate or spread it on your face to get the benefit. With the new LeWhif Cocoa Puffer, you now have the option to INHALE CHOCOLATE!

“Until recently, food particles could not be made small enough to get airborne and not offer the risk of choking….But [Harvard researchers] claim to have found a way to offer super-tiny particles of chocolate through an inhaler….But the technology means that Le Whif doesn’t come cheap. A pack of 24 Whifs is currently available for about $52 and is available through online orders only.”

Now chocolate lovers can celebrate chocolate on their face! [For more information, visit LeWhif.]

Cover for The Face Reader by Patrician McCarthy

How about a face reading demonstration? Here’s a short video showing what an expert can see in a face at a glance: “TVs Barbara Roberts.”

The book illustrated above shows “how to” read faces. This 3,000 year-old Taoist practice (art as much as science!) can tell you all about anyone in minutes. You can tell the character, inclinations, passions, talents, compatability, and even “dark side” indications, of any person simply by looking at the shape of the head, the position of the ears, the shape of the eyes, the size of the mouth, and set of the eyebrows.

The book is filled with hundreds of photographs and anecdotes. Learning the “how” of face reading is complicated, but certainly fascinating. Like any art form or science, “face reading” in depth is not a skill you’ll learn overnight. But, I couldn’t help thinking while reading the book, “What a lot of time and aggravation we could all save ourselves if we were better at reading each other!”

Have you heard of the “Vampire Facelift”? This is NO joke, really–even though Halloween is just around the corner! This latest anti-aging “filler” technologyIS called the “Vampire Facelift.”

Forget injectible toxins like Botox! The client’s own blood is used for the procedure. The blood is centrifuged to separate out “platelets,” which are then injected under the skin. The face is “tricked” into believing “injury” has occurred, and begins “repair” in the deeper layers of the skin. More collagen, blood vessels and tissue are produced. [The procedure is done in an hour, lasts a year or more, and costs $800-$1400.]

The problem with this technology is it’s “only skin deep.” Like many of the so-called “latest technologies” for facial rejuvenation, collagen production is all that’s considered. There’s no reference to the underlying facial support, the muscles that cover the bones. Whatever might be done to skin superficially will not equal the results of “facial toning” for restoring a face to its original “tone” or look. Only Facial Toning does that.

Of course, in honor of the Halloween season, you could do both!