Pinch Yourself - With These Expert Health and Beauty Tips

Dr Terry: Beyond Botox

Go on pinch yourself. Truly, I’m not trying to engage you in some form of self torture. Pinching yourself can actually help to keep your skin more plumped and youthful.

That’s according to Dr Terry Loong, a skin energy doctor, speaking at last weekend’s Anti-Ageing Health & Beauty Show event at Olympia, London. She said pinching yourself was a form of lipo stimulation: “You’re stimulating the fat cells to keep skin firm. Pinching is something you can do yourself easily at home.”

Dr Terry was presenting  the show’s opening conference, Beyond Botox. It was 1 of 2 sessions  I attended, both of which packed in a heap of anti-ageing  tips that I wanted to share on my blog, here in a second  show report (first report link) .

Dr Terry was speaking on the ageing ‘crisis’ that modern women are facing, and of the solutions available both at home and in clinic  to help us stay looking and feeling more youthful.  “Modern women work a lot more, they travel a lot more. They’re juggling hats. My mother was a modern woman, she worked and she had 5 children. She passed away aged 46 [from sudden illness]. Her skin affected her confidence,” said Dr Terry, referring to the family tragedy that inspired her career path.

Dr Terry explained that premature ageing was down to intrinsic  factors (including UV radiation, wrong skincare, free radicals ), as well as genetics and hormones. She explained in detail the role that hormones play, how hormonal imbalances can have a devastating effect on our self-confidence and mood. Checking that our oestrogen (“the diva  hormone”), progesterone, testosterone and cortisol (stress hormone) levels are in balance is crucial to a feeling of well being.

Dr Terry spoke of “harmonising our looks” to portray ourselves in the way that WE want to. “I tell my patients that everyone is beautiful. I don’t say ‘you have lines and so you need to do this’. I say do something because you want to. Do it for the right reason.”

Skin problems such as scars, pigmentation, lines and wrinkles, can be treated today via:
-    Skincare
-    chemical  or laser resurfacing (pigmentation and scars)
-    medical/surgical intervention (to lift, define and volumise skin)

Kim Kardashian, Fan of  'Dracula' Therapy,  pic credit: David Shankbone

Particularly exciting, Dr Terry said, is PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) or the so-called ‘Dracula Facelift’, beloved by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and demonstrated elsewhere live on stage by Dr Daniel Sister, a pioneer of the treatment in the UK. “It’s where your blood is taken, has growth factors put in it and then the blood put back. It’s bio stimulation - where your own blood cells are used to re-stimulate your skin,” explained Dr Terry.

The session finished with this thought from Dr Terry:  “We can’t stop the ageing process but we can correct the past and prevent for the future.”

Later that day I sat in on a session presented by Geraldine McCulgan, a lecturer at the College of Naturopathic  Medicine. Her speech, Natural Choices for Anti-Ageing, was (pun alert) jam packed with advice on what foods to eat, and what to avoid.

Geraldine McCulgan: Natural Choices for Anti Ageing 

“What you eat today is what you wear tomorrow. I love this phrase as it’s so true. What we eat directly affects how we look,” she said. Oh dear, I confess my diet includes a tad too much refined sugar!

“Sugar isn’t our friend at all,” noted Geraldine. “Beware of anything white. White food is refined. Foods like white rice and white bread give us a much higher sugar rush to the body. Milk is generally high in sugar as well, so sugar can be hidden.”

She suggests eating at least 5 portions of vegetables a day and 2 of fruit, as well as taking protein with every meal. She said spices are good, noting that they score highly on the ORAC scale, which measures the value of anti-oxidants in our foods.

Geraldine’s closing advice was this: “Avoid sugar, avoid processed food, eat more whole foods, and eat a rainbow spectrum in your diet. Do that and you will look much younger.”   
If only life was that simple, eh?...