Intrinsic Aging can be thought of as aging from within
As we mentioned before, everything naturally ages with time. You can see that as Intrinsic Aging. This might look like the loss of your baby fat in your face or the shrinking of your bones (including your facial bones). This part is the hardest to combat as it is in your genes. Your body will slowly have more difficulty in repairing damage and will begin to make mistakes. The best way to slow this down is to give your body the absolute best tools it can in order to work in an optimum manner, for example, a high quality and nutrient dense diet. What the ideal diet consists of is often up for debate. I will discuss this in another article but for a quick takeaway: eat the plant rainbow! Each color of a fruit or vegetable actually relates to a certain benefit. The more variety, the better. For this post I will stay away from the dairy, meat, and bread discussion. If you just make one change, have 60% of your diet become the plant rainbow and you will see a difference.
Extrinsic Aging is aging from external factors
Extrinsic Aging is easy to remember as it is derived from external sources. This includes sun damage, and also can air pollution, facial expressions, heat/cold damage, etc. The factors of extrinsic aging will essentially speed up your genetic clock. Sun damage is often discussed because it is one of the most impactful aging factors and also one of the easiest to avoid. Using sunblock is key but with the recommendation being to re apply every 2 hours, it is easy to forget or miss a spot. In the next article, I will discuss many methods to prevent sun damage so that even if you forget to apply your sunblock, you will have your backup plan!